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Post by Nadia on Sept 22, 2020 21:03:25 GMT -6
That big ol' worm is beyond happy with its treats to hoover up. It munches away as it is fed, having lost interest in fighting with the wyrm. The wyrm itself stares at Sarabi for a moment, but... it seems satisfied, with this offering.
[Congratulations, you have successfully tamed the creatures!]
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Post by Renathan on Sept 22, 2020 21:15:50 GMT -6
As much as Renathan hated to admit it, it was probably time to go home. The two creatures that he had tamed would need to be gotten home somehow- and look at that, Sarabi had helped! The russet mammalian was quite surprised by her helpful nature, though it would seem that they were quite close by this point. That was probably a good thing for the long run. "Alright Sarabi, we're going to go home. But I promise that we will be back tomorrow okay?" Truth was, he was specifically searching for a specific set of things down here, so he was going to try to be down here as much as he could. Sarabi looks exasperated, but follows him anyway, with the wyrm and the worm in tow. What a strange group they must have seemed like!
They all left the mines, so that Renathan could bring the new prizes home.
[43] - [Leaving momentarily to bring the critters home]
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Post by Renathan on Sept 22, 2020 21:22:04 GMT -6
They were back the next day, though Renathan decided to take them to a different area this time. They hadn't found anything last time but hoards from various mining familiars (well, really just two) so he was really hoping to find a different new set of stuff here, if at all possible. He turned to look at Sarabi just as they went underground (it was a rather shallow spot in the ground here, but it did go deeper down. "See, I told you I would bring you back." He said to her. Sarabi looked pretty pleased. For a long time there, they didn't go down to the mines. It was a horrendous dry spell. However, they were going down today, and that was all that mattered to her. She beamed up at him, and then reached up, patting his hand. Yes. This is good. She tried to get across.
[44] - [Returned!]
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Post by Renathan on Sept 22, 2020 21:29:52 GMT -6
They went underground. The area was shallow here. A long time ago, Renathan had come here with various young critters, because it was basically a donut shaped hole in the ground, with a literal donut-hole like stalagmite (or stalactite? It was more like a pillar, it met in the middle) in the middle of the relatively round 'room'. Sarabi impatiently looked around the room, as if she had found something, but what could it have been? Renathan takes their mining cart down and then makes sure to put it in a relatively flat spot of the floor so that they didn't have to deal with it rolling. Sarabi was too busy digging at one of the walls. "Did you already find something, Sarabi?" Maybe they should have come down to this hole last time, he thought. A wind was coming from somewhere down the tunnel. That wasn't like that last time.
[45]
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Post by Nadia on Sept 23, 2020 10:27:12 GMT -6
Your companion has found something, indeed.
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Post by Renathan on Sept 23, 2020 11:27:51 GMT -6
Sarabi was anything if not an incredible gem finder- so whenever she began clawing away at the wall, removing bits of the soft shale. The russet mammalian was suddenly struck with an idea- what if he took advantage of the fact that Sarabi could dig, and taught her to dig on command? He wondered why he had not thought of that before now. It would be an excellent way to get her to be more helpful in the future (because sometimes she was bad about having 'off' days, and he didn't really have a lot of time to come down here to begin with). So Renathan walks over to her, and then points at the wall. "Dig, Sarabi, Dig!" Immediately Sarabi stops, and looks at him, with a frustrated expression.
'I am Digging!' She thought.
Of course, Renathan did not know that. Renathan would not have known that gargoyles began to understand words naturally- but slowly.
[46] - [Start 'Dig']
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Post by Renathan on Sept 23, 2020 11:33:48 GMT -6
Sarabi was not always happy to 'learn' something. For her, she already felt like she knew this mess, and Renathan was simply getting into the way. She huffed at him, even flapping her wings a bit. 'Let me do what I am doing!' she practically screamed in her head. But he wasn't listening, of course, he couldn't, of course. She squints her eyes at him instead, trying to mimic the way his eyes squinted behind that hard face covering whenever he was upset. It didn't have the desired effect.
"Dig, Sarabi!" He said. She felt a bit rebellious, and didn't want to do it, but she understood what he wanted her to do, and it occurred to her that if she did what he wanted quicker, that this would end quicker. "Dig, Sarabi!" He said again.
Sarabi turns around, huffs in Renathan's direction again, and then digs into the wall.
[47]
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Post by Renathan on Sept 23, 2020 11:41:41 GMT -6
Renathan was always so surprised when a creature picked up something quick. He'd consider Auburn smart, for an animal anyway. She really, really wanted to do what he said, and it showed. She tried everything until she found what he wanted, and then she repeated that. She also loved seeds. She loved praise. She loved to be petted. Working with actually intelligent creatures was both incredibly hard. It was also incredibly rewarding. They were smart enough to get things almost the first time, if it was something they already did. They were smart enough to pick up words, if they had been around you for long enough, even if they couldn't speak it. They were clever enough to triangulate meaning in regular conversation, if they cared to do so and worked at it. However, it wasn't like he could just... Treat her, like a dog would. It was a difficult thing.
[48]
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Post by Renathan on Sept 23, 2020 11:53:48 GMT -6
"Good job!" Renathan said. "Sarabi, you are digging!" He continued going- "Sarabi, good dig!" He finally stopped whenever Sarabi turned and huffed at him, stopping digging for the moment. She narrowed her eyes at him again, trying to get him to understand that he didn't have to talk weird. However, she was completely unable to get him to understand that. She turns, huffs, since that seems to get some kind of reaction out of him, and there he went again, hollering "Sarabi, dig!" She huffs. 'I WAS GOING TO DIG!' she practically screamed in her head.
She dug anyway at the wall. The gem was in there, very close, she knew. She could feel it. She could tell that it wasn't too far inside, and if her humanoid would stop stopping her, she would be able to get to it incredibly quickly.
[49]
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Post by Renathan on Sept 23, 2020 11:56:45 GMT -6
Sarabi digs at the wall, her little claws surprisingly adept at shearing this sort of thing away. Her people lived here, of course, not that there were many. They liked to be able to leave the mines to go on adventures. She wouldn't want to live here again, of course, but she liked to come back. It was enjoyable. That was the good thing about having a humanoid. They made it easier to leave, somehow. "Sarabi, good dig! Good job!" He says, excitedly, behind her. She could practically have clawed off her hearing patches, could she have done so, just to avoid it.
This happens off and on for the next thirty minutes. Renathan would make her stop digging, and then command her to dig, and she would dig. She was sure that he was just making sure that she knew how to do it. Of course she did! She dug the hole, until finally, she removed the mineral prize she had been after.
"Good job, Sarabi- you've got it! You can dig!" Renathan praised, patting her on the shoulder.
[50] - [End of Dig]
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Post by Renathan on Sept 23, 2020 11:59:49 GMT -6
Of course she could dig! Sarabi was very, very annoyed at the turn of events. However, she did sort of understand, in her own way, why he was doing this. He wanted to test her proficiency, and apparently, teach her that certain words meant certain actions. This would be useful in some way, though she couldn't really fathom how. He was really lucky that she was willing to learn from him, because honestly he could be SO annoying, sometimes. She proceeds to drop the rock at his feet. It wasn't one of the ones that would be tasty, sadly enough. She squints at him, before turning around and sniffing at the walls. She was trying to sense where the rock changed, so that she could find another mineral or two. That was what they were here for, really. Not to teach her to do things she already knew how to do.
[51]
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Post by Renathan on Sept 23, 2020 13:31:25 GMT -6
Renathan had a few more ideas for things to work with her on. They'd been considering it since yesterday, but the first thing that they thought of was... Why did Sarabi have wings? Her wings were strangely built, bumpy and such, and he wasn't sure if they could work. However, he knew that the mines were big enough for her to learn to fly in if she could, because he'd seen Karzik flying around a lot in the mines, and they were roughly the same size that she was (a lot smaller than he thought that they would be, before he met Sarabi). "Fly?" He asks, a bit out of context. Sarabi tries to ignore him, looking for gems. "Sarabi-" He says, catching her attention. "Can you fly?" He reaches out, gently touches one of her wings, moving it up and down a bit, but not too hard.
[52] - [Start 'Fly']
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Post by Renathan on Sept 23, 2020 13:43:14 GMT -6
Sarabi wasn't sure what Renathan was babbling about. Fly? What was Fly? She turned, huffed, and searched his face for meaning (of course, finding none in the way the muscles in his neck moved or the squintiness of his eyes, but finding a bit of confusion in his own stance in his rabbit-like ears. He gently grabs both of her wings, and it forces her to turn over and look at them- really look at them. "Fly?" He asks again. Sarabi looks at both, and then flaps them, just once. Fly... Like, move them? She was trying to figure it out herself. She hadn't really... Oh- Like Karzik? They had caught a Karzik together, but the moment that Renathan said, "Fly, like Karzik?" She understood what he was talking about.
That being said, she had no idea. She hadn't had to fly before, so could she really do it?
[53]
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Post by Renathan on Sept 23, 2020 13:52:25 GMT -6
After a bit of back and forth, it occurs to Renathan that maybe Sarabi has finally gotten the understanding of the word 'fly'. That was probably not the difficult part in this situation. Most of the time, creatures learned things at a rapid pace, and it was the actual command that gave them trouble. For something as smart as Sarabi, it was probably going to be the actual flying part of that. Still, the room had really high ceilings, and the way to get 'out' of the mines and into the sky above was nearby, so Renathan was not at all worried about teaching her when it came to their current surroundings. No, the main concern was more about whether or not she actually could. It didn't seem like she knew up to this point, it was almost as if her wings seemed like an afterthought to her.
"Let me help." He offers.
[54]
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Post by Renathan on Sept 23, 2020 13:55:07 GMT -6
Sarabi momentarily forgets looking for anything in particular. Now this... If it was something she could do anyway, would be something useful to her. Had any of her kind learned to do this before? She didn't know, couldn't know, it wasn't like they... Well, stayed around one another much. She lets the mammalian grab both of her wings without any fuss, but she finds herself very nervous about it. She watches him as he takes both of her wings and then 'flaps' them, moving them up and down. She feels a sort of... Well, maybe it was an itchy feeling? As he does so. It was like an itch, an urge of some kind. She gains control of her wings (she'd only ever thought about moving them out of the way from banging on things before today) and flaps them a couple of times. That seemed to scratch the itch, so to speak.
[55]
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