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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2024 15:13:52 GMT -6
The wyrm fell upon the stones with the grace of a rockslide, clacking and grinding them all together as it coiled around them. Or perhaps the grinding sound was the equivalent of a purr from its throat, the rock beast happy to have a hoard given to it, without a thought as to whether said hoard was familiar.
With it stashed away, Alma slipped the magic rock in a pouch and buried it with her supplies, the twitching, hair-raising feeling dying away to ignorable levels as she stepped away from it, after fishing out a waterskin, and over to Jeff. The worm showed no inclination to flee from her as she squatted beside it, pointing the flashlight just near enough to make him wiggle a token amount in protest. She twisted open the waterskin as she crouched down next to him, trying to make out what she could under the dirt and fading red. 26
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2024 15:14:06 GMT -6
A glance under him showed no gradually expanding pool of blood, so Alma reached out to grab the underside of his head, eyes and gnashing teeth carefully avoided as she caught him and held him down. There was no need to force him to stay at first, and Alma considered loosening her grip as she upended the water skin with her other hand, a stream of perfectly clear drinking water sent tumbling onto the worm.
Then Jeff chose to fight, thrashing and flexing his teeth at the open air in front of him, Alma tightening her grip to ensure all his teeth found was air and unyielding stone. She rand the water over his body the best she could, the dirt flowing away to reveal pale flesh and rough, browning scabs. The latter were much fewer than she had expected, and, after a just single pour, Alma could make out the marks with ease. 27
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2024 15:14:17 GMT -6
The water skin was leaned against her leg, mouth folded over in hopes that whatever remained would not also be wasted in washing a worm, and Alma reached for the worm to hold him still. His writhing panic had splattered her legs and top with water and mud, and she did not want him to just recover his wounds with mud before she could get a better look at one of the larger ones.
His thrashing had lessened once the water had stopped, thankfully, and it was an easy task to grab an injured segment for look. Ignoring his complaints in the form of clicking his teeth and still more thrashing, she ran a gloved thumb along the border of the scab, noting that it flaked away from unblemished skin. Towards the center of the shape she could make out a deeper red, a pinprick of a wound compared to the brown spot. 28
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2024 15:14:27 GMT -6
But that center was as dry as the rest of it, well, besides the drops of water clinging to him. A quick check of a few nearby spots revealed more of the same, the wounds relatively tiny and already scabbed over, with Alma only once mistaking an eye for a possible mark.
Alma released the worm, leaning back onto her heels as he clicked and struck at empty air. “Looks like it was just tryin’ to scare yah off. No real harm done, Jeff.” The worm seemed to calm at those words, turning so that Alma could see the eyes peppering his head. She scratched at the scar on her head, and Jeff flopped back down to the ground, slithering back to the open pit. ”Now, wait a minute,” Alma said, resealing the water skin before standing up. The worm did not listen, dropping back down into the pit. She sighed, flipping the cart lid shut in case the wyrm changed its mind about staying, then walked over to the pit. 29
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2024 15:14:37 GMT -6
Alma dropped back into the pit with a bit more grace than she expected Jeff to have done, her boots striking the stone floor instead of her face. She had the tools she hoped she would need in her arms, and took a moment to put them to the side before stepping over to the worm. Jeff twisted away from her as she neared him, his teeth click-clacking against something that was thankfully not screeching.
With a groan of annoyance, she bent down and grabbed him, the worm’s mouth still frantically trying to push down the bit of bone he held. Had the thing not been perpendicular to his mouth, Alma bet he might have actually swallowed it before she had even grabbed him. Instead, she gripped the edge free of gnawing teeth and yanked it away from him.
It had a few gouges from his teeth, but it felt more like stone than bone, and so Alma pocketed it as she dropped him to the ground. “Good job, Jeff.” she said, deciding to ignore that he had been in the middle of eating the find, “Now find me a few more.” [Jeff-6.0] 30
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Post by NPC on Jul 1, 2024 20:06:49 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2024 19:45:28 GMT -6
When he failed to produce another fossil or any rare stone instantly, Alma turned her attention back to the pit wall. There could still be gems and other rare bits hidden in the wall if a wyrm had thought it worthwhile to stay here, on a mound of gems it had been barely able to move no less, and Alma intended to find a few more after having spent so many in trade. It had been a fair trade, as fair as any in the labs were to trade what would otherwise be priceless gems and metals for creatures nearly impossible to obtain, but she had felt the loss all the same. There was also the small matter of needing to be sure she would have enough to trade for other beasts and supplies. There were only a few traders in the city that wanted them more than credits, but it was not as if there was a single other weaponsmith in the city who would accept the tiny coins over shiny stones.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2024 19:45:43 GMT -6
Alma took a moment to reposition the flashlight so that she did not cast a massive shadow against her current wall of interest, then ran her hands over the wall to brush away any dirt that could be covering something that shone in the light. She found one that barely stood out in the gray stone of the wall, a brownish topaz that refused to break free with a few taps. Her gloves could not find any more purchase on them than her bare hands were able to do, fingers slipping free each time she tried. Alma settled for using the smallest of her tools, angling the chisel near the gem and tapping the gem with the mallet.
Jeff, on the other hand that he did not have, had little interest in stone. He watched her for a time, waiting to see if a small mouthful of something would fall down to him, for why else would something be interested in anything?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2024 19:45:58 GMT -6
All that fell were stone chips, little bits of rock that had him slither to the other side of her, then back again as more fell on his eyes, the tunnel worm sliding back and forth as he tried to stay clear without losing sight of his possible treat. That he could attack her, that she was made of meat, was a thought discarded hours ago, as was the knowledge that he was not hungry. In the tunnel, there was always a need for more food, and so the big thing that he was not supposed to attack had to be after a meal.
But the picking were slim. He waited patiently as she pulled something free of the wall, rearing back with his mouth open wide, but it disappeared into a pocket in her skin. There was no food or scraps to be found by watching, so he dropped to the ground and investigated the bits of rubble. 33
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2024 19:46:10 GMT -6
There was no food on the first sweep, nor the second, and the third had the big one shout at him as it shoved him away. The fourth attempt was met with a louder noise and a harder shove, and the fifth saw him roll out of the painful beam of light. Jeff clicked his teeth together, eyes glaring at the light, then turned away to investigate the nice, no painful darkness for something that breathed and could be eaten.
He found it quickly, something hiding beneath the rubble and dirt, something breathing quick and shallow. He lunged for it, burying his head into the dirt, chewing his way downward to the thing. It made noise, shrill squeaks that told him he was on the right path to a tasty meal, one that would not bite or be made of inedible stone. He was hungry even if he was not, and he would sate that hunger for as long as it took to gulp down the meat-prey. 34
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2024 19:46:38 GMT -6
Alma had been swinging her pickax for a while at the wall, glad to finally have Jeff not underfoot. She was not sure what had been so interesting about the dirt at her boots that he had kept slithering underfoot, nearly tripping her as she swung the pickax at the wall. There hadn’t been anything she had seen, no gem nor bit of metal, and so she had shoved him away until the worm finally got the hint and went to play in the darkness.
She could hear him now, and she set her pickax down with a grunt of annoyance. “What’re you getting into, Jeff?” she said, walking around the flashlight to get a better look at the pale grub. When she realized he was tunneling down, more than half of his body in the hole, Alma swore and grabbed his tail. She slowly pulled him free, dirt and rocks sliding out of his mouth as his head popped out. [Jeff-7.0] 35
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2024 20:58:14 GMT -6
She could not make out if any of the rocks had a shine in the feeble backwash of light she had available, but she could feel the worm swinging and straining to go back into the hole he had been digging. “Yah don’t- Jeff, cut it out- Jeff!” The worm, as well trained as he was to not turn and try to dig through her for holding him, ignored her words as they devolved into curses, wiggling madly as she stepped back from the hole.
Jeff did not attack the thing grabbing him. There were certain rules that he knew instinctively, that felt as natural to him as the need to eat. That the rule was one imposed fairly recently did not cross what little he had for a mind, and he instead focused his efforts on wiggling free from the grasp that held him. He would not dare attack her, but he needed that food. 36
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2024 20:58:30 GMT -6
The prey scurried through escape tunnels, darting through holes bored by wyrms and worms and any number of the mines’ burrowing residents. Some, sensing the weakness of the stone and earth above, clawed their way through the collapsed ceiling of their burrow, climbing straight up in their panic of being buried alive.
Alma did not see the twitching snouts of these few, did not hear their squeaks and hisses as they climbed upwards as she cursed and struggled with the worm. Jeff did, his eyes overlaying multiple images of the hole and the surroundings, all of his attention focused on the pink ears poking out through the hole like tiny flowers erupting through the earth by magic. That was food. There was no need to feel hesitant as when confronted with the winged ones, the inedible stone ones, the flappy ones that screamed and hurt his insides. The things in the hole were just meat, and he was hungry. 37
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2024 20:58:43 GMT -6
With fresh, still squeaking meat so close, Jeff’s thrashing only grew wilder. Before, there had been noise that promised meat, but now he could see the prey, knew they would flee to the dark corners of the mines before he would be able to eat them all. He threw himself upward, smacking against Alma’s arms with a squelch that made her body flinch away from the sensation of worm against flesh. Her grip, strong enough to easily hold the worm for a trip up to the mines, loosened for only a second as mindless instinct drove her to recoil.
A second later and her grip would have been redoubled, squeezing Jeff between her fingers as she dragged him up to the cart to trade him for the newer wyrm. That second was all he needed to thrust himself free of her hands, splatting against the ground a few feet from the hole and the meat waiting inside of it. 38
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Post by Deleted on Jul 3, 2024 20:58:54 GMT -6
The soft critters inside could have fled. Jeff’s fight with Alma, although noisy, had presented no threat to the fat tunnel-dwellers hiding inside. Even as he struck the ground there had been time, for he was dazed for the second or two it would have taken for the three left in the nearly vertical tunnel to scurry out and split apart as they fled. The noise had scared them almost as much as the digging, the latter a constant threat in the tunnel, and so they had paused and hoped whatever was responsible would pass them by.
Jeff, no longer stunned and free of the human who was brushing muddy slime off of her arms, fit into the hole as only the one who made it could have. And, though the things in the tunnel would not thank him for it, he was quick. When Alma pulled him out a few seconds later by his happily wriggling tail, the only sign of the tunnel’s former residents was the red staining his teeth. 39
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