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Post by Noa on Jul 4, 2020 18:45:15 GMT -6
He hoped it wasn't hubris to think so, but he was sure he would find out in short order. Nevertheless, he returned to where the gargoyle had been prospecting a short distance away. "Any luck?" he said. The gargoyle had already begun digging, apparently not needing Aster's help after all, but it did look up at his approach, and pointed out a different spot. "You want me to help dig over there?" Aster said.
The gargoyle gave him a single nod.
"Alright, which tool?"
The gargoyle's instructions tended to be more specific, down to the method he wanted Aster to use, so Aster figured he would just ask. No sense in messing things up and possibly missing out on an interesting gem. The gargoyle seemed to have already thought the question through, and made a gesture in the air with its claw, drawing out a rough cross shape. "Oh, the pick then," Aster said. The gargoyle nodded again, seeming pleased that Aster had caught on so quickly. "Alright, just give me a second to get it," he said, and returned to the buggy.
Aster used to carry all his tools with him in a pack and with a belt for the smaller ones, but that had been a huge hassle. The weight alone made it a cumbersome arrangement for long treks involving lots of spelunking, which the trips did sometimes turn into. Now they were kept in a bag on the buggy, on which Velvet was currently taking a nap, actually.
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Post by Noa on Jul 4, 2020 18:50:09 GMT -6
She had picked it probably because the pack itself was softer than the surface of the buggy's floor, but Aster had to wonder at how comfortable it really was. The bag, which contained mostly tools, looked to be pretty lumpy. And it was kind of amazing that she had managed to fall back asleep so quickly after having woken the once, especially in a foreign place like this, but maybe he was just underestimating Velvet's resilience this whole time.
Regardless, he was going to have to move her to get to his stuff.
"Alright, over here we go," he said, lifting her as gently as he could and depositing her onto an empty space beside the bag. She stirred a little when he picked her up, but drifted back off when he didn't jostle her too much. Havoc had, Aster was glad to see, stayed more or less where he was, though he perked up and came over to have a look at what was going on when he saw Aster rummaging around in the bag.
"This isn't for you," Aster told the whelp. Belatedly he kind of wished he had brought a chew toy or something for them to occupy themselves with. It did seem a little bit boring to just have them here riding around in the cart while he dug for shiny rocks with the gargoyle. But now that they were here, he wanted to do at least a little digging before they had to take their leave.
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Post by Nadia on Jul 4, 2020 18:53:16 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on Jul 4, 2020 19:03:55 GMT -6
He didn't think it was going to be a super fruitful trip, but at least he wanted to find something nice to take back before they left for the day. He felt like the gargoyle probably had similar sentiments. Grabbing the pick, Aster went back to where the gargoyle was waiting, and began digging where the gargoyle had indicated to him a little earlier. The gargoyle paused in its own work again to monitor what he was doing, presumably to make sure that Aster was using proper technique. But the gargoyle didn't seem very concerned, and with good reason. Aster had been digging for long enough that he knew more or less what he was doing. The gargoyle had been able to impart some tips to him to refine his technique since they had begun working together, but it certainly didn't have to teach Aster from scratch on how to best use a pick or a hammer to cut through rocks and the like.
Aster struck the rock a few times, then looked up to see if the noise had startled the whelps much. They hadn't heard this kind of thing before, and they were in an unfamiliar environment, so it was possible that something like this would freak them out. Fortunately neither of them looked particularly frightened. Velvet, somehow, was still asleep despite all the noise, so maybe he really hadn't been giving her enough credit. Havoc merely looked startled, though he had also crept forward in the buggy.
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Post by Noa on Jul 4, 2020 19:07:15 GMT -6
It was as if he was curious to see what was going on, which as far as reactions went, wasn't a bad way to be. Aster waited and watched for a moment to see if Havoc would try to crawl out of the buggy again, but this time he stayed put, especially after he caught Aster's eye. Good, he realized that Aster was still watching him. Hopefully that would be enough to deter him from doing anything rash. And curiosity was well and good, but Aster didn't want him trying to see the action up close. Rock shards went flying pretty regularly when he was doing things like this, and he didn't want a stray piece to hit one of the whelps when they were still so small. An adult Sarane could probably handle it, but an adult Sarane was too big to be bringing with him down here.
Having ascertained that the whelps weren't in a bad way, Aster resumed digging. It didn't take him too long to find what the gargoyle was presumably hoping for him to get to. He spotted the glimmer in the rock face, different colors in several places, after having cut away some of the surface rock, and stood back a moment to take stock of all of it. "Is this what you were looking for?" he said to the gargoyle, who looked to be finishing up whatever it had been working on on its side of things. It straightened, and glanced over at him.
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Post by Noa on Jul 4, 2020 19:10:59 GMT -6
Aster was curious to see what the gargoyle had found in its own digging. He had a hunch that it was probably more valuable than whatever it had him digging around for, but maybe that wasn't the case. Aster had noticed that sometimes the gargoyle seemed kind of contemptuous of the more common, less valuable stones, and occasionally Aster had to ask him if he really didn't notice anything in the area for the gargoyle to produce something like a piece of marble or a mind crystal. It was a shame too, since the mind crystals were still useful for making nodes if they were the right shape.
Whatever it was, though, he was sure he could look at it later. Right now the gargoyle was bustling over to take a look at Aster's work. Once more, it seemed to be pleased with his progress, and gave him what Aster thought was probably an approving look. From there, it moved in to take care of the more precise digging. Aster could have done it with the chisel, and even the brush and tweezer set if need be, but it really was more efficient for the gargoyle to do it. Its claws offered it a unique degree of flexibility and precision that Aster lacked, and anyway, it took much less time because it knew exactly what to do to get the rock to yield the way it wanted. It didn't take the gargoyle long at all to free the first gem chunk.
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Post by Noa on Jul 4, 2020 19:14:33 GMT -6
Aster stood back to let it work, and wandered over to where it had been digging instead, to look through and see if he could find what had caught the gargoyle's attention here. He didn't need to look very hard. The gargoyle had deposited its finds in a neat little pile on the ground. Aster crouched down to have a look, and came away with a chunk of what looked to be shadow iron ore. The distinctive black color, lustrous in places even in such an unrefined form, was pleasing to the eye, if difficult to notice among dark rocks in a dark cave.
There were also a couple of other rough, unpolished chunks of gem, in different colors. One he identified immediately as an amethyst, while the other took him a little longer to place as an aquamarine. He tucked those away in a pouch for safekeeping.
By that time, the gargoyle had wrapped up whatever it had been digging for, and brought the whole lot back to Aster. Aster didn't bother inspecting these too closely, and placed them all in the pouch. If the gargoyle thought they were valuable enough to dig out, Aster trusted its judgement on that, and of course he didn't doubt its ability to dig something out without causing undue damage to it.
But having done that, it was time for them to pack up and go. Aster could hear rustling, and when he looked over, sure enough, there was Havoc, making another escape attempt.
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Post by Noa on Jul 4, 2020 19:18:30 GMT -6
Aster sighed. It was a bit of a shame that they had to cut things short so soon, but it hadn't exactly been a great idea to bring the whelps along without something to entertain them with, at least. Velvet was still sleeping, but Havoc was definitely getting more restless, and it was probably only a matter of time before he started getting into actual trouble, or at least becoming enough of a nuisance that he slowed them down by a lot.
"Sorry, looks like we might have to call it here today and start heading back," Aster said to the gargoyle. The gargoyle seemed disappointed, but not surprised, and looked pointedly at the whelps and then back at Aster. "Yeah, that was my bad. I'll get something to keep them occupied and out of the way next time."
The gargoyle nodded, having accepted this proposition, and the lot of them turned around and began the walk out of the cavern tunnels. Once the buggy started moving, Havoc settled down again. The motion really was kind of soothing, apparently, and the changing scenery gave him something to look at, which helped occupy him. Or maybe he just wasn't brave enough to attempt to escape from the buggy while it was still in motion, which was a fair sentiment, if that was indeed what it was.
Regardless, the four of them had an uneventful time as they made their way back to the entrance. They would just have to come back another time.
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Post by Nadia on Jul 4, 2020 19:21:49 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on Mar 12, 2021 22:08:05 GMT -6
It had been a while since Aster had last been to the mines. If he was being honest, the only reason he had come today was because there was a rumor of a flush of luck here lately, with regards to people finding elemental crystals. And he would be lying if he said he didn't want to see some of that luck. The Curious Collections dealt in them on a monthly basis, but it was hard to get enough crystals together for a node only relying on them. The gargoyle was with him, but they didn't have any other companions this time. Aster wasn't actively working with anyone who was small enough to come down here with them anyway, and the last time, when he had had to manage a Sarane whelp while trying to work, had been annoying enough that he didn't really want to make a second go of it. 1
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Post by Noa on Mar 12, 2021 22:10:15 GMT -6
But then, Sarane whelps were kind of a nuisance in a general sense. He made a career in raising the damn things, but he wasn't going to back down on that front. Sure, some of them were milder in temperament, and when you were new to them, you might even think they were cute, but... After a while, especially working with a lot of them at once, you got a little tired of their antics.
Of course, the whelps were nothing compared to the tantrums thrown when they finally hit sexual maturity, but... The adults also didn't have the same degree of restless energy that the babies did, and most of them developed a little more common sense.
"Bet you're glad not to see one too, aren't you?" he said to the gargoyle. It inclined its head at him, but Aster didn't think it understood what he was saying just now.
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Post by Noa on Mar 12, 2021 22:14:20 GMT -6
It wasn't because the gargoyle wasn't smart enough, that much Aster knew. But he had also never actively worked with trying to teach Common to it, and picking up a foreign language was a tough job even when you were actively being taught.
Maybe they would change that this trip. It would give them something to do while traipsing through the caverns looking for things. Sometimes, when the search was particularly fruitless, you really did need those distractions.
The cavern entrance certainly didn't hold anything of note. Aster wondered if there was ever anything interesting right at the entrance of these places. It often felt like he passed right through them without ever finding anything, which seemed to be the case on this occasion too. The gargoyle didn't so much as pause, which it would have done if it had sensed something noteworthy, which it could do and Aster couldn't.
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Post by Noa on Mar 12, 2021 22:16:36 GMT -6
That was the general basis behind their relationship, and indeed, the relationship Aster had had with all his mining companions. They were here because they could sense valuables where he couldn't, and he was here as... grunt labor, when you came right down to it. Sometimes not even that much, since they could dig with their own bodies, and he had to rely on tools, which were much more unwieldy for detail work.
But when you needed to clear out a lot of stone at once, Aster found that he was generally better suited to that than they were. Or at least, that had been the case before he had become acquainted with the gargoyle, at least. The gargoyle was smart enough to exploit weaknesses and faults in the rock face to dig efficiently to bring down a lot of rubble at once. Aster had seen it do this before.
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Post by Noa on Mar 12, 2021 22:19:03 GMT -6
So with that in mind, maybe he really was completely irrelevant to the situation after all.
But this gargoyle didn't seem to mind accompanying him, and if it was making its own excursions into the mines on its own time, Aster certainly didn't know about it. So the partnership persisted, especially since the gargoyle seemed content to let Aster have whatever they found that wasn't a prismatic crystal. It had made things clear to Aster, on their first trip here, that that was what it was really looking for.
They had been on enough trips now that they had fallen into more or less a comfortable pattern. Right now, Aster was simply following behind the gargoyle, waiting for it to take an interest in some spot that might be hiding something valuable. Once they reached such a location, they would decide what to do about it, and who best to let dig it up.
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Post by Jack on Mar 12, 2021 22:19:49 GMT -6
Some metal hid something... shiny.
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