Darky
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Veritas et Aequitas
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Post by Darky on Jul 2, 2019 8:36:28 GMT -6
Ras Dashen
Wandering along the tunnels was a bit of an unfamiliar sight - a mammalian with tools and packs in front, a ribboned gargoyle close behind and a clattering, trundling barrel-like wagon being pulled behind him. The strangeness came less from the factor of each of them being here, but rather the combination. For all the time the sphinx had had the buggy she had rarely come to use it. All too often she'd been trailblazing through the outer tunnels, both deeper and higher, trying to broaden her little scratched-up map, which often enough made for terrain quite unsuitable for something on wheels. But, after the last excursion that left her nearly exhausted for days from the heat and effort chasing after Garnea, it was time to go back to some basics.
Annoying. Basics which included the gargoyle, seeing as he was the only one able to effectively pull the buggy along, and who was likewise less than thrilled about it. Ever since he had been ribboned, to bridge that gap of understanding they had been struggling with for so long, the gargoyle was becoming ever more vocal about Opinions and Feelings.
Truth be told he had always been that, but now he could actually make them clear.
(1) Darky: 1
Ras Dashen: 77 (1/5) / 77 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 2, 2019 8:40:51 GMT -6
Still, despite the complaining, he was relatively happy to be back, especially when he realized they weren't about to head down some random deep dark tunnel again like always, and instead seemed to keep to the main, worn-down path that countless people have already paved a line in with their feet alone. 'Back to basics' was simply the mammalian's idea of looking to do some digging without putting them in any sort of particular hazard or danger. For once.
Admittedly it went hand-in-hand with the counter-point she'd realized early in in the Mines, that looking for things in areas where so many had already been through meant the finds were likely to be few and far between. But that was a factor she was willing to accept that day. Ideally it was going to be a nice day out doing some work without the world suddenly throwing you a ball of stress in the process.
At least. In theory. Things often turned up to prove her plans wrong.
(2) Darky: 2 Ras Dashen: 77 (2/5) / 77 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 2, 2019 8:44:42 GMT -6
But you had to start somewhere and for them it was going to be one of the side caverns off of the main entrance tunnel. A little more ways further in than the initial dozen or so branches that went off left and right (she wanted to give themselves at least some chance of finding anything), but one where, even upon merely entering, they could see marks on the walls, floor and even ceiling where previous digging work had been done. Pockets and small holes here and there seemed to indicated places where something was found and removed, but no further looking happening.
As good a place to start as any. After all, even if this particular cavern was fully dry, there were plenty others where people had tried, failed and succeeded in.
Rolling the buggy into the cavern, the floor was quite smooth and almost chiselled in parts, whether from people digging, creatures digging or simply the natural wear and tear of frequent use.
(3) Darky: 3 Ras Dashen: 77 (3/5) / 77 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 2, 2019 8:50:51 GMT -6
For the most part it was made up of a jagged lining of walls, a fairly high ceiling and a plethora of stalagmite and stalactites scattering their respective surfaces, a few of them old enough to have fused together. The buggy was placed in the middle, the better to have its carry-on light reach as many a corner as possible, its belly-barreled hold flipped open to reveal some of the longer and heavier tools and Ras finally relieved of the harness. Darky set her bag into the barrel and retried the pickaxe in its stead, before tying off the buggy's ropes to a nearby smaller stalagmites. Not for fear of theft, but rather in case any seismic activity might shake it loose and cause it to roll away.
That sorted, it was time to get to work.
Come Ras, she motioned, heading to a larger collection of stalagmites, Let's start over here. The prickly columns were surrounded by a whole shelf of flowstone. Some of it was old, older than perhaps even the Labs, but in places she could already see spots where the calcite was overflowing old holes and digging places, smooting them out with a layer of brown-ish yellow, shiny glaze.
(4) Darky: 4 Ras Dashen: 77 (4/5) / 77 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 2, 2019 8:55:15 GMT -6
Briefly she paused to pull the topaz goggles down, looking around the stony shelf for any spots of irregularity. Sometimes in places with this much flowstone present there were natural occurrences the cause more condensation to build - pockets of heat - and one really did not want to strike open a vein of one only to have hot air scald their face. But the goggles showed little to nothing, save the small spots where she had been walking, the heat from her pads dissipating quickly on the ground.
Goggles up again, she motioned for Ras to take one end and went to the other herself, crouching down to begin chipping away at the flowstone with the pickaxe. The stone gave way easily, as most sediment rocks usually did, but the shelf was still pretty broad and almost as thick as she was tall at its closest point to the wall, so there was going to be a lot of work to do to get through the top layer.
She wasn't even about to consider how long it would take to simply dismantled the entire thing. One thing was for sure, though, they certainly didn't have that time.
(5) Darky: 5 Ras Dashen: 78 (0/5) / 78 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 2, 2019 9:07:57 GMT -6
Chips flew as the first couple of layers were torn free from the pickaxe's swings, revealing even more and even older layered stone beneath. The way she figured the flowstone was, in a sense, the perfect stone to begin their luck with. In ages past it would have swept all sorts of things down here when the mountains still flooded regularly. And anyone who had been here before would have tried their luck at different places of it, rarely bothering to go all too deep (at least, she assumed). So the deeper she went the higher the chances of whatever was trapped in the rock was still there, passed over by precious people.
Soft. Soft. For Ras it was.. strange.. to dig a stone that yielded to his claws so easily. Usually the sphinx seemed to have higher aspirations for their work of the day, but this was like digging sand. No-one was ever sure quite what kind of stone the gargoyles were made out of. Their differing colours certainly seemed to hint at differing make-ups, but in all cases Ras had yet to meet a stone he couldn't crack.
He'd met plenty of stone that took more than one try to crack it, but eventually it none the less did.
(6) Darky: 6 Ras Dashen: 78 (1/5) / 78 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 2, 2019 9:12:08 GMT -6
Only a short while into scraping his claws along the surface and coming away with layered chips the gargoyle changed tactics. If this stone really was that soft, then any simple kind of hit could loosen it, right? Lowering his head, he tilted it one way and the other at first, taking in the colour differences between the surface layers, before rearing back and smacking the beak into it. There was a much more resonant crack, enough to cause the sphinx to look up from her side, verify all was still alright, and resume, as Ras moved his head to another place and did the same motion again. It wasn't unlike pecking, except the beak was much more flatter and the impact that much more broader.
When the pieces became too much he simply wiped them away with his claws, still uttering to himself, Soft. Soft. Soft.
Those little repeating mantras had become commonplace, and it took the sphinx a few days to adjust to, though she eventually did. At least they weren't as loud and harsh as Cathàn's unfiltered raw thinking.
(7) Darky: 7 Ras Dashen: 78 (2/5) / 78 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 2, 2019 9:16:38 GMT -6
In truth there wasn't exactly much space to complain about it either - while Ras did carry a ribbon now, the ribbon's other side was only worn by the mammalian when they went mining. The three-way network of thoughts between the two 'lung and one equillion was at times difficult enough to endure as was, though each of the three were a vital link, so she tended to keep the general number of ribbons down to a minimum. With Ras it could have meant little difference if nothing happened, but if something disastrous came to pass while down here it could mean the difference between life and death.
For now, it was mostly a neat fashion accessory, faintly glowing in the darkness, helping her get at least some sense of where he was when the lights were low or distant.
Chipping at the rocks, the duo spent a good chunk of time in silence, with only one side sending off some inaudible piece of conversation every now and again, as if just wishing to keep in contact.
(8) Darky: 8 Ras Dashen: 78 (3/5) / 78 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 2, 2019 9:22:48 GMT -6
It was entirely possible he didn't even realize he was doing it.
Some time passed as the axe and beak fell and chips flew, but initially there was little to show for it. At one point the mammalian had managed to hit something harder in the stone, a sense of excitement rising when she carefully chiselled her way to it, only to dig it out and realize it was an old smooth boulderstone. One small enough you could skip across a lake, but otherwise not much different to every other stone in the mines. Still, Darky got up and walked over to the buggy, plopping the little stone into the barrel's hold all the same. Sometimes it was nice to have little keep-sakes, even if they weren't of particular market value.
Returning to the flowstone shelf, she hopped up the steps back to her previous position, crouched down, and resumed digging. If nothing else it showed there were still things trapped in here, even if it wasn't exactly something most people looked for.
(9) Darky: 9 Ras Dashen: 78 (4/5) / 78 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 2, 2019 9:28:08 GMT -6
Things were not much better on Ras' side, except unlike the mammalian, the gargoyle was feeling a lot more frustrated about it. The beginning stages of that were usually his continuing to move and pace along the area, finding new spots to slam his beak into to crack the soft stone or rake across it with his claws to loosen entire sheet pieces. What started as a single hole quickly became a pock-marked area of varying sizes. It wasn't exactly ideal in a sense of being thorough, but at least it let him cover a bigger area, even if it increased the randomness factor by a fair amount too.
If nothing else, the sphinx may have had to end up hiding something under some chips sooner or later, just to have him feel fulfilled. And if not that then he was sure to tire himself out eventually, able to go back to the buggy and rest to start anew. Soft. Soft. Soft, he kept repeating, wandering the broader length of the shelf now, head whacking down into the stone every few steps.
Darky wasn't entirely sure whether that particular intonation of 'soft' was now a good or a bad thing.
(10) Darky: 10 Ras Dashen: 79 (0/5) / 79 (0/5)
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Post by Jack on Jul 2, 2019 10:50:44 GMT -6
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 26, 2019 3:54:26 GMT -6
On her own side the chipping was more a meditative thing (or, well, as meditative as it could get when a part of your consciousness had to be always alert for dangers. Even in the topmost levels, so close to the entrance, cave-ins and other such were not so uncommon as to be unheard of). The upper crust of the flowstone shelf had been chipped free from a good two-by-two meter area, so now she focused on the next layer. This one was more tougher against the chisel, but then, it was also so much more order. The deeper the layer, the more it has been pressed down by all the others above it, compacting it into harder and harder flowstone.
At least, so she had read once. All things considered, the book had fortunately been easy enough to digest even to a foreigner of the Labs that it had made a strange kind of sense.
Ras had no such conceptions about physics or geology, his gut feeling was very much instinctual and, as it happened, also very much all over the place at the time.
(11) Darky: 11 Ras Dashen: 79 (1/5) / 79 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 26, 2019 4:00:19 GMT -6
Pock mark after pock mark lined the upper crust of his side of the shelf, none of them with any discernible pattern of distance to them. Some seemed clustered so close together as if to say he had been onto something. Others so far apart as to make one wonder if they were even in the right area. Usually his senses were quite accurate to any stone energies nearby. After all, they were (presumably) related to what he consumed for sustenance. She hadn't ever really.. seen him eat the stones, but with the voracity that he sometimes sought them it made sense there was some sort of natural relation there.
In present sight, she could almost wonder if perhaps the magical energies of the ribbon were throwing him off. In hindsight, it was safe to say there were no such concerns.
Soft.. Soft.. he continued to repeat, hitting his beak into the yielding stone, sending shards and flakes flying every which way. Soft, clack, Soft, clack, Soft, clack, Soft, clunk.
Ras Dashen paused, head craning back from his most recent hole. A simple yet determined mind deliberated for a few seconds, before he bent down again, beginning to claw at the spot, pulling aside flakes and crumbling a few more in the process.
(12) Darky: 12 Ras Dashen: 79 (2/5) / 79 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 26, 2019 4:05:23 GMT -6
Something different glinted back from the dim light, reflecting more the faint greenish glow of his ribbon than the crystal torch near the mammalian's side. He dug more, this time around the edges of it, loosening stone in eager chunks like a hound would unearth a bone, until the distinct gleam of a purple crystalline stone became visible beneath all the dust and rubble. Well, purple to humanoids. For Ras it was a Stone and it had an Energy but colour was kind of secondary when you didn't exactly have physical eyes to begin with. Clamping his beak around it, he yanked and the stone easily came loose, much hardier in its structure than the soft flowstone around it.
Like an eager puppy, he then turned and began to skip towards the mammalian, stone in beak.
She hadn't heard the initial commotion, largely because it seemed so commonplace for a frustrated Ras, but when she began to feel his pangs of excitement, she realized something was up. Raising her head from her own hole, the flashlight drew out the distinct outline of the gargoyle, as he trotted on back, stopping near her and placing down the purple stone, beaming proud. Hard! he harked.
(13) Darky: 13 Ras Dashen: 79 (3/5) / 79 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 26, 2019 4:12:44 GMT -6
The ribbon had not been on Ras for all that long, but Darky had none the less quite quickly learned that Ras had a particular habit of division in his mind when it came to stones - soft, as in useless, and hard, as in Good. Why that was, she didn't quite know, personal limited theories aside, but it certainly helped explain a fair many of his antics about them in the past. "Good job!" she beamed back at the gargoyle, making sure the send the sentiment along the telepathic lines as well. It still needed some getting used to, having another brain in your mental network of all other brains. The impulse to just keep talking vocally was still quite strong with the gargoyle.
"Now, go, keep digging, find more," and again, a moment's pause when the same thing was also relayed in thoughts, her hand pointing back to his moon's landscape of a digging area. The gargoyle didn't require a second asking, turning around on his heels and trotting on back, leaving the mammalian to her peace and the stone he found. Picking it up, she examined it up and down, in light and out of it, even against it. It was an unusual one, almost colour-shifting, but then that little factor also gave it away - tanzanite. Not a bad find, all-in-all, and it also went to show the cavern was not nearly as depleted as many would think.
(14) Darky: 14 Ras Dashen: 79 (4/5) / 79 (4/5)
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