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Post by Kadin on Oct 7, 2020 17:04:54 GMT -6
"Great job, Lux." He said, pleased, offering him another treat. He held yet another one over his legs again, encouraging Lux to "Leap!" This time Lux handily leapt over Kadin's legs, tail wagging while he accepted his treat and praised, "Good boy, Lux, good job." He had the houluh repeat the same thing several times more, wanting to make sure he was comfortable with just leaping over his legs for now. The next step would be trying to leap over something else, he wasn't quite sure what that would be yet. But he kept Lux practicing jumping over his legs until Lux seemed perfectly comfort with it, leaping back and forth for his treats and praise, no longer hesitant or, you know, trying to walk around him instead of actually jumping.
After brooding on its own bad luck for a little while, it figured it might as well send its finds over the the human. Finally it wandered back to Kadin, sweeping up to the human once he reached a break in all of the training he was doing. He sent the gems on with the human, watching carefully as he deposited them all into the bags he'd brought to keep the gems in.
Leap over me: 4
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Post by Kadin on Oct 7, 2020 17:16:43 GMT -6
Kadin stood up and brushed himself off. Now that Lux was used to jumping over his legs, he could try out maybe having him jump over him. He thought about it for a second, then moved away from the wall and sat down in the middle of the canyon. He called Lux over again and leaned over, feeling really fucking stupid while he held a treat over his back and called out, "Leap!"
Lux whined for a moment, hesitating. It had been easy to jump over Kadin's legs, but he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with this one. He placed his paws on Kadin's back and sniffed at the treat he was holding. "Go on, good Lux. Leap!" He encouraged, hoping Lux would get it without him having to break it down even further.
Once it was satisfied that its gems were safe, it wandered back out into the darkness, searching around for more gems. It was so disappointing when it couldn't sense anything nearby. It started searching in every nook and cranny it could find, venturing through the shadows and rocks and rubbles and all the other things it kept finding instead of gems. Still nothing. It was getting tired of this.
Leap over me: 5
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Post by Kadin on Oct 7, 2020 17:19:31 GMT -6
Lux whined a bit, but then he fell back down onto his four paws. Thinking for a moment, he jumped right up onto Kadin's back! Kadin laughed, saying, "Good, but now you've gotta get off, buddy." He held out his arm further, "Leap!" and held it there until Lux leapt down. Kadin straightened back up. "Good job, Lux, good leap."
He pat Lux on the head and scratched behind his ears, pleased. It had been kinda rough, but he was improving. "Let's do that again." Kadin leaned over again, holding up another treat and saying, "Leap!" To try and get Lux to leap over him again. Lux yipping and jumped up onto Kadin's back and down again. It wasn't quite what he wanted, but it was getting closer! "Good, Lux, good boy."
All it could find was rocks. Just rocks. Grumbling silently to itself, it gathered up some of the rocks around itself, sorting through them to see if any of them were anything worth keeping. But nothing. Just rocks after rocks after rocks. Annoying, it started throwing the rocks around, displeased by the lack of gems in this part of the mines. It KNEW better than to search for gems here.
Leap over me: 6
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Post by Kadin on Oct 7, 2020 17:21:57 GMT -6
He gave the pup the treat then tried again. "Leap!" This time Lux finally seemed to get the memo. He leapt over Kadin, no scrambling at his back with his sharp puppy nails, and landed with a slight stumble on the other side. "Good boy! Great job, Lux!" He said, pleased, giving him extra treats just so he knew that that was what he wanted.
Kadin continued to practice the same thing with Lux a few more times. He was small now, so Kadin didn't want to try having him leap over him while he was standing up, but once Lux was bigger he was feeling more and more confident that he'd be able to handle it. They practiced until Kadin was confident that Lux got the trick down.
It had wanted to go deeper! It had kept trying to communicate to the human to go deeper into the mines! Yet he stubbornly stayed in these shallow chambers, finding little to nothing. It grabbed a rock out of pure petulance and tossed it on the pile with all the games Kadin had been keeping for it, figuring that if it could find literally nothing else it might as well just toss rocks around. That was all it could find, anyway!
Leap over me: 7
145 *level up
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Post by Nadia on Oct 8, 2020 10:36:50 GMT -6
A spot of copper.
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Post by Kadin on Oct 8, 2020 18:13:24 GMT -6
Time for something new. Kadin felt like he wanted to do something fun next, too. There had been so much leaping around for Lux, it was about time that they go back to just running around and having fun. Kadin crouched down, hands on his knees, and looked at Lux. "Hey! Lux! Dash!"
Kadin took off running. Lux barked, alarmed, and stood stock still, not sure what to do. Kadin jogged around him a bit, calling out again, "Dash!" And moved off into the darkness. Since he was the one with the light, of COURSE Lux had to run after him! With a yip, he darted after Kadin, trying to stick near him in the darkness. He sure didn't know why they were running around, but he quickly got into it! This was another fun game!
Kunzite grumbled to itself a bit more, sinking into the shadows with disappointment. There were too many rocks here and so many of them were rocks it didn't even care about. It wanted to go deeper in the mines! Little did it know, Kadin seemed to have a similar idea. The mining familiar watched silently as he ran around with the houluh, looking absolutely crazy.
Dash: 1
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Post by Kadin on Oct 8, 2020 18:15:55 GMT -6
"Good boy, Lux!" Kadin said, pleased. He stopped and pet the houluh after he'd gotten him running a bit, offering him a treat. He gave Lux a short break before trying again. "Lux! Dash!" Kadin said again, running off once he'd said the word. Lux knew this game now! He ran after Kadin, nipping at his heels, delighted to be running around. He liked running almost as much as he liked jumping! So he ran after Kadin. They went a little further this time before Kadin stopped. "Good boy, Lux!" And gave him some treats and pets. Lux wagged his tail, hard, pleased that he'd done something right and that they were having fun! Running around together was a LOT of fun! Once Lux had resting a bit again, Kadin started them back up again. "Lux! Dash!" And he was off.
Well, at least it was an excuse to go further into the mines. It slinked along behind them, still mostly in the shadows, watching to see where they were going and keeping its senses spread wide to try and find more treasures in the darkness. It wasn't picky. It would settled for geodes, their sparkles hidden by their plain outer shell.
Dash: 2
147
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Post by Kadin on Oct 8, 2020 18:18:13 GMT -6
Kadin shot through the mines, more slowly than he could actually run since he was still carrying all of the mining equipment, of course, but fast enough. Lux chased after him, tongue hanging out and barking in joy, enjoying the chance to run around! He really liked jumping, too, but running was so easy and fun! He ran with Kadin a bit further than last time still before the boy stopped them both. "Good job, Lux!" Kadin praised, offering him another treat. "Good boy. No, Dash!" And off they were again. Kadin had them continue this a while longer, him running with Lux after saying 'dash'. He was getting him used to the word and relying on the houluh's natural instinct to run with his companions. They kept practicing it several more times.
It would be happy with ore, not quite as shiny as gems, but still good and pleasing to hold. It would even be happy to find fossils, as useless as they were to it. That would at least making the human happy, surely, to have more useless things to add to its useless things collection. As Kunzite followed the human and houluh and brooded, it slowly noticed something.
Dash: 3
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Post by Kadin on Oct 8, 2020 18:26:12 GMT -6
Now was time for the tricky part. Lux clearly had the running down, but Kadin had to make sure that he did it on command. This time, when he said, "Dash!" He only ran forward a few steps with Lux before stopping. Lux stopped, too, confused and looking back at Kadin, wondering why he wasn't running with him. Kadin called out for him to "Dash!" again and ran forward a couple steps more. Lux took off a couple steps then stopped again, looking back at Kadin in confusion. "Good boy, Lux! Dash!" Kadin encouraged some more, running forward a step. With a bark Lux started running again, running around the human in circles with his tail wagging. "Good! Great job, good boy, Lux!" Kadin praised, offering him a tread before he stopped running on his own again. He wanted to make sure Lux knew to Keep Running when he told him to dash.
It could feel something. There was something calling to it, out in the dark, something that might actually hold interest to it. It moved through the shadows, more and more eagerly, no longer keeping track of where the human and houluh were. It could SENSE something! It wasn't a gem, it could already tell that, but at this point it could hardly care less.
Dash: 4
149
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Post by Kadin on Oct 8, 2020 18:28:43 GMT -6
And now it was time to repeat the same thing a bit more. "Dash!" Kadin encouraged, running forward a couple of steps. Lux was less hesitant this time, dashing forward with a bark. "Good, good boy, Lux!" Kadin called out after Lux had run a few feet away and back at him. He praised him as he was still running, to make sure he knew to keep up the dash, tossing him a treat. "Dash!" He called again after Lux had eaten his treat, only leaning forward this time was enough to encourage Lux to take off, running around in circles around Kadin, barking happily. "Good boy, Lux! Good!" Kadin praised, giving him another treat. He practiced this with him several more times, until Lux was reliably dashing around on command. Then they could be satisfied.
It searched and searched until there was a shine in the dark, one that it knew and recognized. Copper! It swirled around it, sweeping it up into its shaodws and circling around, pleased to finally find something after so very long. It held the copper in its shadows, moving along with it to look for the human and the houluh again, pleased to actually have something to show for its troubles.
Dash: 5
150 *level up
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Post by Jack on Oct 9, 2020 23:09:31 GMT -6
You hit a nice little fossil bank!
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Post by Kadin on Oct 12, 2020 15:09:41 GMT -6
After finishing up with Lux's training, Kadin decided to call it. He brought the houluh home and, for a while, he didn't come back to the mines. But, of course, Kunzite wouldn't be kept away for too long. Eventually, they found their way back. This time Kadin was bringing a different houluh with him. One he'd had for a while, at that. It felt like it bad both been only yesterday and also years ago when he was here with Chiara and Aodh. Now he'd brought Elk, a houluh that seemed to be happy with literally everything that was happening. Always.
Kunzite still did not approve of the houluh. It watched it, disdainful as it plodded along with the human. It was calm, for a houluh, at least. It hadn't bitten or scratched or tried to hurt the human or distract it from its important work finding gems. Tried, being the main word. It was too happy and too prone to barking at shadows for Kunzite to ever approve of it. Kunzite did not care for it, but it had long come to learn that the human would not listen to it in such matters. Ah well. At least it was back to find gems.
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Post by Kadin on Oct 23, 2020 12:32:32 GMT -6
It was a nice change of pace, to be honest. After working with sarane so much, Kadin found himself talking something of a break with houluh. He had quite the number of pups, too, after all, and he was entertaining himself by training them all different things. They seemed to take to training so quickly. too, which made it a delight to work with them. It sort of made Kadin wonder if he should work on more training with Kunzite, too, but some time withe familiar usually dissolved that notion for him. It only seemed interested in looking for gems and it would do so naturally, even. There was no need for him to distract it with things it wouldn't care about.
It tolerated the human and houluh with it only as much as it had to. Kunzite was determined this time. It was going to go deeper into the mines than ever before. The human wouldn't be able to distract it with staying here, close to the entrance tunnels, close to the surface. It wanted to find hidden treasures, buried deep in the earth, and it was convinced that the only reason it hadn't yet was because they stayed so close to the surface.
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Post by Kadin on Oct 23, 2020 12:34:49 GMT -6
Even if some training on manners wouldn't go remiss for a familiar like him. Kadin had been noticing that Kunzite had been getting more and more impatient with the other creatures he'd brought into the mines. He'd have thought it was jealously, if he didn't know better. The familiar really didn't give a crap about other creatures. Even now, it acted as if Elk didn't exist entirely. All it really wanted, all it really seemed to care about, was searching for gems in the mines. Even now, it only paid attention to him and the houluh to give them dirty looks when they weren't following it. It seemed to have some idea of where it was going or where it wanted to go. He wondered how long he'd have to follow his familiar in order to satisfy it.
It probably wasn't wrong, was the thing. Kadin had been keeping them closer to the surface. He usually had a pet he needed to leave with soon that only needed a little bit of training in the mines before they'd move on to what they were doing next. Elk, however, needed a lot of work. He didn't predict leaving any time soon. But Kunzite didn't have any way of knowing that.
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Post by Kadin on Oct 23, 2020 12:37:08 GMT -6
Hopefully not forever. Even if there wasn't some big rush to work on training for Elk, he'd still like to get some done sooner rather than later. The houluh had been with him as long as Miles. Longer than Dodge! And longer than most of the other houluh he had at home. He should really get to training him something sooner rather than later. It wasn't fair to him to keep giving his training a back seat to all the other puppies that seemed to make their ways into Kadin's kennels one way or another. Elk was a sweet boy, too, so he'd probably be easy to train. Unless it was difficult because he was too busy seeking out affection instead of listening. Hm. Yeah. That could actually be a danger that Kadin hadn't thought about.
The familiar moved through the mines, almost desperate to keep going. The human kept following along, which was goo. The houluh was with him, which was less good, but Kunzite could ignore that in favor of getting deeper. It passed by one of the side tunnels they had taken before, choosing instead to move down the main tunnel. It wanted to keep going until it became narrower.
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