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Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 11:01:48 GMT -6
Creature:NoneCharacter sheet: linkInventory: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When the courier shows up for the quest board, there’s a sense of expectation followed by immediate resignation - last month he spent a good deal of time drudging through dirt and soil to plant some things, now it seems he has to drudge through mud and dirt to un-plant other things. Wonderful. He’ll need to wash the entire outfit again.
There was no sense bringing the bear this time around, as like as not the beast would have likely caused more trouble than fix it. That rambunctious energy could benefit a number of things, but fixing a messy garden was decidedly not one such. And it was honest work. Dirty, muddy, stain-your-nice-freshly-cleaned-attire work, but honest. Better bit of job than what the courier was (supposedly) doing as was.
With the address in hand, he sets out to locate the shop in question. If nothing else, there’s at least some physical aspect to the job, meaning he can stretch the muscles here and there, work out in the process.
. 1 .
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Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 11:02:18 GMT -6
It doesn’t take long after arriving at the stop to confer the fair bit of irony in the situation - a merchant of rain prevention devices getting caught off guard by the rain. A short discussion with the owner is followed by him being guided to the back lot of the shop where the problem in question is inhabiting, then, largely left to his own devices. One would think an umbrella maker had the foresight to create some covers for their garden (or at least be able to predict the weather better).
Regardless, when the note said the place was a mess, it was not at all exaggerating. The ground was mostly boggy, anything and everything on the tables had been thrown off (though this part was likely to be more the wind than the rain), what plants stood anywhere in pots were absolutely flooded with water and the rare few tarps had fallen in. Beyond that a number of tools stood scattered around along with a scattering of leaves covering everything in a thin layer (most likely left over from autumn).
. 2 .
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Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 11:02:52 GMT -6
The man takes it all in and stretches his back. The shoulders roll, the neck is cracked and he breathes out. Right, time to get to work.
He begins with the more obvious case of litter - the leaves. It isn’t that he has an extensive knowledge of gardening in general (though he does recall one mask having been a gardener once) and yet even he could tell that the leaves should have been thrown out long before winter had a chance to set in. Briefly (subtly), he checks to ensure he has been left alone and there are no curious eyes prying from the street nor from side plots over the fence, before he focused back on the ground. A raised hand and a snap of finger sends a piece of arcane force into the world, the leave rising from their mud-sticky bedding to float over towards the compost pile and gathering back into a heap.
He passed through the plot, snapping twice more to send them flying from even the further corners.
. 3 .
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Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 11:03:24 GMT -6
With that sorted, he takes a look at the tables and surfaces. Most of them are speckled in mud or sun-dried dirt from where the rain had splashed them, ground or pots. He finds the hose thankfully coiled up at the side of the house, rather than scattered in the middle of the mud field (small favours), and uncoils it to the tables. One by one, he lifts the various tools and pots off the wooden table, spraying away the mud underneath, and occasionally from the items themselves. It’s not exactly the prettiest job, but given the general weathered state of any outdoor garden surface, it’s as good as it’s ever going to get, short of the shopkeeper just replacing it.
What tools he can find scattered around in the mud he collects and sprays down as well, swinging the excess water off and then finding some place for them on the table. A more tedious process largely because parts of the ground are still under pools of water.
. 4 .
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Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 11:03:50 GMT -6
Finding tools there is like playing ‘needle in a haystack’, except the needle might stab you if you accidentally step on it. Given the nature of the job, he is lucky to have a pair of rubber boots to drudge around in, making the mud less of a problem than with regular shoes, but all the same they were created for fishing, to resist sharp rocks, not to be impervious to piercing from sharp garden implements.
He goes around, carefully stepping between the pools (and despite this, still managing to splash water and mud on himself here and there), dragging the hose behind. The smaller pots and flowers are dug up from the mud, cleaned up with the hose and placed to an elevated surface. Most of them need to be carefully turned in order to pour out the water pooling in the pot itself first, but not so much as to take all the soil with it.
Gods, gardening requires far more patience than he is generally willing to put in.
. 5 .
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Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 11:04:19 GMT -6
He goes around and washes down mud splatters from most of the surfaces he can find, even a few of the tarps (though he’s sure the shopkeeper wouldn’t even really notice, extra credit for a job well done can go a long way in future). Finally, he drags the hose back, cleans up the length of it with the water and coils it up onto the wall again.
The surfaces are about as clean as they’re going to be, but the process also created more water due to the hosing. A calculated risk (an easier way through the mess). Mud squelches underfoot as he steps around, growing all the more annoying by the second. Did this shopkeeper not build in a drainage system? Gods, he doesn’t know much, but he knows at least that. Well, about a week too late for that now, even if he dug in shallow drenches to guide the water off the plot of land, there’s far too much of it trapped in the soil itself.
. 6 .
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Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 11:04:45 GMT -6
The sun will have to sort that one out in time, seeing as he didn’t even have a magical solution for that one (though he was sure the gardeners of the City could make quite a profit off of such ‘skills’. Makes one wonder if the heavy rain was even at all so ‘unseasonal’ to begin with. Wouldn’t be all too difficult for someone to coax the weather just a ‘little bit more’ than usual, then reap the rewards of clean-up).
But what he can do is deal with the pools themselves. He finds a long rod among the tools, usually for prying any bigger rocks out of the soil when tilling, and goes around, feeling the softness of the soil in different parts. Where it’s a little firmer, but still underwater, he pushes the rod into the ground as deep as it goes. A great bit of effort, given the unstable nature of the ground he’s bracing on, but when it’s a couple of feet deep, he pulls the rod back out (again, no easy feat given the sticky nature of the mud).
. 7 .
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Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 11:05:19 GMT -6
As soon as the hole is vacated, the water begin to drain away, deeper into the soil. Rainwater might have drenched the top soil into a sludge, but the soil deeper down could be retaining less water. And, if nothing else, there’s a nice hole for it to flow away into. He goes around and finds a couple more places to jam the rod deep into the soil, letting the standing water drain away little by little. An arduous job, to be sure, and by far the uncleanest aspect so far (So much for that nice white shirt. Now it’s all speckled and streaked in dirt and mud, ugh.)
Perhaps he could leave a note to the shopkeeper to put up more tarps in future (or just build a drainage system in general, it’s not exactly difficult), perhaps he wont (after all, if nothing else it’s still an honest job not without rewards..). Perhaps next year he’ll have figure out how to dry the soil with a snap of the finger as well.
. 8 .
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Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 11:05:46 GMT -6
With the water drained, he scours the muddy field, finding any loose tools left behind, cleaning them up at the hose and putting them away. As far as the field itself goes, a bit of reverse-sided raking helps even it out and he even happens to find a few stepping stones previously covered in the process. He cleans those up, making for a stable (finally) ground to walk along, at least when one aims to walk to the back of the garden, but its a start.
Another snap of the finger loosens remaining tools from the dirt, arcane force lifting them free to land on their positions on the table. Of course, he needs to clean those (and the spot they landed on) again, before anything else, but in so far as the eye can tell, that should be the last of them.
The plants themselves and the damage from the heavy rains isn’t something he can deal with, but the tarp is another matter.
. 9 .
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Post by Èdan on Apr 26, 2020 11:06:27 GMT -6
Firstly, he rights the pole that keeps it up, jamming it deeper into the ground so it isn’t as likely to be jostled free with the next heavy rain. He also considers the angle of the tarp, realizing the rather flat nature of it was more likely to retain water than diver it. Pushing the back poles a little deeper leaves the whole thing at an angle, bottom edge facing the fence. There.. It’s no beauty (it wasn’t likely to be before) but at least its functional. There’s a final last look over of the garden, checking to see if any other tools or plants were misplaced in the mud, checking to see that all the pools have properly drained and then covering up the holes with a bootful of dirt.
Right.. In so far as he is humanly(-ish) possible to fix it, the yard is as good as it’s going to get. The shopkeeper better hope for several days of sunny weather for the mod to clear up, however.
. 10 .
(added)
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Post by Renathan on Apr 26, 2020 23:02:17 GMT -6
You have rolled a success! Your QP will be added to the bank and your prize will be sent shortly. You may continue roleplaying if you wish!
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