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Post by Renathan on Oct 8, 2019 7:46:57 GMT -6
A single smallish vein of silver could be found nearby, revealed only to an astute miner's eye.
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Darky
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Veritas et Aequitas
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Post by Darky on Oct 20, 2019 6:47:08 GMT -6
A fair bit of this was backbreaking labour, if both the gargoyle and familiar had not been accustomed to it by now. For the gargoyle his back was already made entirely out of stone, so breaking it would have required a fair bit more effort even by more literal standards. For the mammalian, she was forced to stand up straight every now and again to stretch out the muscles, before hunching back down to chisel away at the hole. It was soreness, but it was also a work-out - for a warrior mostly specializing in close quarters combat, the training of one’s arms and legs was paramount. One didn’t want their arms to tired in the heat of the battle after all.
All the same, it was a good half hour of meticulous chiseling later that the mammalian sat up, stretched out a few kinks in the shoulders and sighed. She had assumed progress to be slow, but not quite that slow.
(51) Darky: 51 Ras Dashen: 87 (1/5) / 87 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 20, 2019 6:47:54 GMT -6
Well, with the chisel taking too long and the pickaxe still a potential explosion hazard, there weren’t many other options left. There was Ras, of course, but the gargoyle could potentially be no different in his ferociousness to attack an arcane knot than regular stone. His senses tended to gravitate towards rocks in general, it was the mammalian who seemed more sensitive to the arcane ones’ presence.
Not that it was always helpful. Sometimes you came to realize energies were nearby just as the pickaxe came swinging down upon them.
But they could hardly stay in the mountain for several days and she would have liked to explore the gravel floor of the hole before they headed home. Give it a day or three and who knew who else could have come down to fill up their self-made hole or even just completely exhaust it? No, time was a little bit of the essence, there.
(52) Darky: 52 Ras Dashen: 87 (2/5) / 87 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 20, 2019 6:48:27 GMT -6
To expedite the process a little, without having to resort to complete hacking of the stone, the mammalian climbed from the hole and walked over to the buggy. The resent top-side jaunt had also brought them a new tool that they hadn’t had a chance to test yet. In principle she understood it - it was a length of metal rod with a chiselled end to one side and a blunt one to the other. It could be hammered deeper into stone much like its smaller, more traditional chisel, though it certainly lacked the finesse of one.
But the problem was also it was a good two meters in length. In effect, should she have wished it, she could have very easily utilized it as a spear. Spearing rocks, though, wasn’t the tool’s exact purposes, she suspected. Even Ras seemed to pause and observe her return with it, head slightly tilting to one side.
(53) Darky: 53 Ras Dashen: 87 (3/5) / 87 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 20, 2019 6:48:51 GMT -6
Spike he rumbled. Big.
Darky lightly spun the rod around hand over hand. The weight and balance of it prompted a temptation to use it as a spear which rang something deeper and far more ingrained than she perhaps would admit, but the object stopped when she gripped the middle tight. Spears were the tradition, back home, but she couldn’t quite figure them out. Swords became more her thing, though few knew how to teach her how to use one. A part of her decision to journey away from home had been in hopes of finding a teacher in the other lands. By no means an exhaustive part, but it played a certain role.
And now she was here, in the ‘other lands’, knowing sword and bow and feeling nostalgic over a simple tool she didn’t even know yet.
Not quite, she spoke after a while, a small distant smile on her face. But close enough.
(54) Darky: 54 Ras Dashen: 87 (4/5) / 87 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
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Post by Darky on Oct 20, 2019 6:49:22 GMT -6
The gargoyle had no capacity to blink, but the blank look he returned seemed to suggest some primal part of him would have liked to if only to prove a particular point. ..Spike, he said again, more stubbornly this time. Rock. Spike. It was the only other thing he could compare it to, having no notion about such fanciful things as spears and tools. It was too long to be a claw and too thin to be a horn, so.. it was a ‘spike’. Like the stalagmites growing up from the ground, but sharper up top.
The stubbornness was palpable and the sphinx had to smirk, shaking her head, Alright, alright. It’s a Spike now. She could have continued to argue, but it would have done little good without needing to teach Ras a whole new geometric concept in the process. And that in itself would have taken most of the next hour.
Instead, they were here to dig.
(55) Darky: 55 Ras Dashen: 88 (0/5) / 88 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 20, 2019 6:49:46 GMT -6
The chiselwork had been slow but none the less set a foundation for the work ahead, creating crevices and divets in the stone to comfortably fit the rod’s chisel end. The sphinx found one such deeper crack and lodged the rod upwards into it. A few good taps of the mallet ensured it had a good enough hold and then, finally she grabbed the other end and breathed out. “Well, here goes nothing..”
She yanked the rod towards herself, adding in the weight of her body to the push with the legs. The rod strained, metal cracking the rock around the crevice edge, but a louder crack suddenly loosened a chunk of it. The sphinx stumbled, almost losing balance from the sudden shift, causing the gargoyle to jump to his feet before settling again. Recovering, she adjusted her grip, pushing the rod back and forth a little before yanking again, to the tune of breaking rock.
(56) Darky: 56 Ras Dashen: 88 (1/5) / 88 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
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Post by Darky on Oct 20, 2019 6:50:19 GMT -6
A hefty slab broke loose, sliding towards her as the sphinx quickly back up. With a softer thud than anticipated it landed in the gravel of the pit, a good foot across both directions. Darky considered it a moment, trying to roll it over only to just as quickly realize this wasn’t going to quite work, the slab was simply too heavy. Investigating it close it seemed to have broken off on a horizontal fault line in the rock, a thin layer of softer mineral than the rest around it. But, being flowstone, it was still soft enough on its own, so a few quick jabs of the rod down the middle cracked the slab into three irregular, smaller pieces.
As each piece was lifted out of the pit, she pointed to each one and looked at Ras directly, “Dig, Ras.” The pieces were larger than the rest of the debris, but doubtful they were large enough to host anything all too dangerous.
When the gargoyle got to work on those, the mammalian focused on the newly unearthed layer.
(57) Darky: 57 Ras Dashen: 88 (2/5) / 88 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 20, 2019 6:50:42 GMT -6
A glint in the flashlight’s ray made her kneel down and take a close look at its surface. Normally it would not be out of place for some flowstone shelves to have different layers based on different periods of flooding in the caverns. Some layers would be thicker in mineral and thus sturdier, some thinner, thus breaking apart more easily.
None of them quite gleamed, though. Taking the chisel and the brush, she scraped off some more of the stone and proceeded to clean up the surface from the rubble and dust, revealing a silvery surface beneath. It wasn’t very thick, as pockets of stone shone through parts of it, but it was expansive. First gold and now silver? The mountains were being quite generous in the ore department that day.
Meanwhile the gargoyle had cracked both stones to rubble, pausing at the last one of the three as he scraped his beak with a claw.
(58) Darky: 58 Ras Dashen: 88 (3/5) / 88 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 20, 2019 6:51:14 GMT -6
The flowstone was like packed sand to his beak, his own composite rock much hardier than all that, but something struck against it in the last hit. The gargoyle gnashed his jaws together in annoyance, Ow. Discontent rising, he gnashed at the stone next, rather than simply bashing it with his beak and broke off more of the surrounding soft rock to reveal something pink. When enough of the rocky ‘peel’ had been pulled away, he grabbed the stone in beak and waddled over to the mammalian.. ..who was deep into a bit of excavation of her own. The other ores had come in more solid and consistent lumps, but the silver was like a pancake that needed scraping out of the rock. The chisel certainly helped, but to try and spot all the disconnected spots of the ore in dim conditions was trying. Eventually, though, she managed to get a big enough lump free to provide enough material for at least an ingot.
(59) Darky: 59 Ras Dashen: 88 (4/5) / 88 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Oct 20, 2019 6:51:38 GMT -6
As she was about to jump out of the digging pit something clattered off to her side. She turned to find the gargoyle sitting on the pit’s edge, pink-ish stone slowly rolling around at his feet between them. “You found something?” Darky carefully picked up the stone, examining it. Of all the colours, pink was probably the most common type of gemstone and it didn’t help that a lot of stones came in various variants of similar shades. In all likelihood it was a quartz, though the exact type would have to be determined once they were home. “Good job, Ras. Now, keep digging,” and she pointed towards the rest of the debris pile where larger lumps still existed.
Walking to the cart, the silver and quartz were carefully deposited, one wrapped in linen just in case it scraped some of the softer stones, the other placed to one end towards more of its kind. Darky considered their pile in the barrel’s belly. For a day’s work, the mineral harvest so far had not been bad at all.
(60) Darky: 60 - (added) Ras Dashen: 89 (0/5) / 89 (0/5)
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Post by Renathan on Oct 20, 2019 7:53:09 GMT -6
A tunnel worm, one of the smallest ones, is desperately trying to get this green stone out of it's position of the wall whenever it feels a tremor. Turning about, it seems to sense that something is there, in it's strange tunnel-wormy fashion. Usually one to slip away unnoticed, the thing is completely preoccupied with the green stone. It refuses to leave the stone there, and goes back to trying to cut it out. It hoped that the thing had not seen it first, but it tried to stay aware of the surroundings anyway. Just in case.
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Darky
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Post by Darky on Oct 24, 2019 5:17:30 GMT -6
The sphinx closed the lid of the cart with a soft thud, turning to walk away from it when the cart made a sound again. Pausing, she glanced back towards it, brows drawing to a confused furrow. There was another sound, this time more distinct and she realized it wasn't the cart - it was something beyond the cart. With a quick motion of the arm she beckoned Ras to her side and began to wander towards the noise. As far as they knew, there had not been anybody - or anything - else with them in this cavern (the familiars notwithstanding, as they were in a small side passage). Rounding the edge of a thicker stalagmite, however, she spotted a hollow in the flowstone shelf, and within it something pale and.. moving.
Now, most people would see something pale and wriggling and decide to simply turn around and walk the direct other direction, considering it the smart thing to do. The sphinx, however, was far too curious for her own good and also thought to recognise the shape of the thing, to simply walk away. Slowly, she crouched down and inched herself further around the pillar to get a better look, flashlight gradually shining onto.. a tunnel worm?
(61) Darky: 61 Ras Dashen: 89 (1/5) / 89 (1/5)
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Post by Renathan on Oct 24, 2019 7:50:05 GMT -6
It was indeed a tunnel worm, though the tunnel worm didn't know what was looking upon it yet, or even that it was being watched specifically. The grotesque thing wriggled a bit, trying to get into the crevice to remove that green stone and take it to the nest it used often enough. However, it couldn't quite get there! Frustrated, it backs up a little, but continues to attempt to get at it during this time period. It doesn't seem to have much forethought, since it could easily get to the stone if the overhang was moved a bit. Then again, tunnel worms don't have legs to do such things with anyway.
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Darky
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Post by Darky on Oct 24, 2019 11:22:43 GMT -6
The gargoyle sauntered up beside the mammalian, shoulders squared to appear extra spikey just in case it was more familiars with territorial confusion (by which anything that assumed this cavern here and now didn't belong to the gargoyle was clearly confused), but instead saw the pale wiggling thing and immediately deflated. It wasn't more squabbling familiars.. it was worse. It was an organic. The gargoyle gnashed his jaw in annoyance, chiding to the mammalian, Leave. Leave.
Darky placed a hand on his back, smiling slightly, No, we can't just leave it like this. Its having some trouble. We should try to help.
No. The answer was stone cold.
You don't have to if you don't want to, but I will, and the mammalian quietly slipped away, back to the mining buggy to retrieve the digging rod. Not for the first time that day would have the gargoyle wished it had the ability to roll his eyes, but despite the incapacity, he resolved to stay. The only things worse than gem familiars were the organics of the underground. No least because they sometimes came in people-eating sizes and someone had to make sure his own organic had limbs attached. When the mammalian returned, she laid the rod flat against the ground and ever so slowly began to push it forward. The idea was to get the end past the worm and under the overhang, so she could push it upwards from afar.
(62) Darky: 62 Ras Dashen: 89 (2/5) / 89 (2/5)
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