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Post by Noa on Jun 3, 2021 18:23:30 GMT -6
“I know you want to touch the ceiling of the cavern or whatever by the time we leave today, but you might as well rest your wings before you make that attempt. You’ll be able to do it better if you’ve had a chance to catch your breath.”
The gargoyle had the gall to sigh at him, but waved off any protests Noa might have had with a hand. Noa blinked, for a moment trying to decide whether he ought to be annoyed at the dismissive gesture or not. But Rhys seemed amused. {I think he picked that one up from you,} the Faeron said, and once that had been pointed out, Noa realized that it was in fact a gesture that he performed fairly often.
He sighed too. “Well, I do need to find some gems before we leave,” he said. “I didn’t come here just for flight practice.”
The gargoyle was already shuffling off in a particular direction, presumably knowing just where in this cavern the goodies were already. Noa, who was the one who needed those goodies, followed in his wake.
They spent some time digging around the cavern for rocks of value, but the gargoyle wouldn’t stop looking up or flexing his wings from time to time. At length, Noa gave in. “Fine,” he said. “If you want to that much, go for it. Fly.”
The gargoyle needed no more encouragement than that to take off, and Noa watched as he launched himself to new heights.
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Post by Noa on Jun 3, 2021 18:24:00 GMT -6
A frown pulled at the corners of his mouth, but he didn’t stop the gargoyle this time either. They had practiced landing enough times with those low, short flights that by this point it wasn’t an entirely reckless thing to try for height.
“See if you can land from that height first,” Noa said, when the gargoyle had been aloft for a few moments. He could fly as high and as long as he liked, so long as he made sure he knew how to land first. The gargoyle drifted down, still a little wobbly but definitely mostly in control, and made a reasonable landing on the cavern floor.
“Okay,” Noa said. “Do whatever you want.”
Now the gargoyle had an expression of downright glee as he shot into the air. He wasn’t fast exactly, and his flight was still a little labored, but it was real, true flight now. He went higher and higher, until he reached a point where he finally began to lose his nerve, and then he tried to go forward in the air, with some limited success. “If you don’t want to come down, then keep those wings beating,” Noa said. “Just push the air down and back, instead of just down.”
Between Noa’s coaching and his own experiments, the gargoyle slowly started to get the hang of moving around in the air as well. He took several longer flights, practicing what he knew and trying some new maneuvers here and there.
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Post by Noa on Jun 3, 2021 18:26:47 GMT -6
When he got a little tired, he would down for another rest and continue with the mining portion of the mining trip. From there, they alternated doing work on digging and on the gargoyle’s flight. He had most of the basic principles behind flying down, and it was really just a matter of practice to get better at them now. By the end of the trip, he was flying passably enough that Noa felt his own involvement was no longer necessary. The gargoyle would be able to fly as he pleased from place to place, and the finesse would just come with practice and experience.
Noa could understand the gargoyle's eagerness for this to a point, since flying really was something he enjoyed himself... Though he also wondered why the gargoyle hadn't managed to figure it out before this point, if he was going to be so gung-ho about it. But so long as the mining trip they were on was profitable, and so long as the gargoyle was satisfied with his own progress, then it wasn't any of his business.
They had spent long enough in the tunnels that day, so Noa was just as glad to be done with it, so they could start making their way back home. It wasn't the most efficient trip, but now that the gargoyle could fly, maybe he would be more helpful on future trips. Noa would just think of all this as an investment, and content himself with that idea.
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Post by Ashe on Jun 4, 2021 4:25:31 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on Jun 8, 2021 17:34:22 GMT -6
On the next occasion that Noa had to return to the mines, he brought the same creatures with him, though this time he meant to do some training with the little feathered creature, if he could. It was probably just as well; he presumed that the gargoyle had had just about as much of training with Noa as he could stand. And given the fact that the gargoyle wasn't a creature that Noa intended on training for combat, Noa was content to let him do that. So long as he kept up his end of their deal and helped Noa with the mining, Noa didn't mind if he didn't contribute much towards anything else.
The little feathered creature... Well, truth be told, Noa also didn't have high hopes for its prospects as anything terribly useful. But the one case that had been recorded thus far of one of these revived creatures being grown was of a very large and powerful individual, and so maybe there was something to this whole endeavor of trying to raise the one he had after all. And if there was, then it would be nice to get a head start on that if he could.
The last member of the mining party was Rhys, who pretty much always came along these days. He hadn't had his fill of looking at shiny rocks yet, and if he wanted to come, then so be it. Actually, considering the fact that his presence made a lot of things more convenient, it was actually better if he did show up than if he didn't.
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Post by Noa on Jun 24, 2021 13:28:54 GMT -6
It would, Noa thought, have been nice to be doing this somewhere else besides the cold and damp confines of the mountain caverns. Almost anywhere else would be nicer, come to that, than where they were. Unfortunately, the necessity of these trips only grew more urgent as the months turned. It wouldn't be long until he had to return to that shop in town, and make his trade for another magic crystal; and he wanted to find as many valuable stones as he could before that point. And if they exceeded what he needed in value? Well, it wasn't as if he would stop needing magic crystals anytime soon. Much the opposite, in fact. He already had an inkling as to where he ought to be concentrating his efforts. One light node, even a powerful one, was not going to be enough, if his research was to be believed.
For a change of pace, if nothing else, Noa allowed Rhys to be the one to choose the cavern that they ventured into this time around. At this point he wondered if it even made any difference, which one they chose. As long as it had enough room for Noa himself, and wasn't damp or containing tunnels that were excessively steep, they were sure to find something of value if only they ventured in deep enough. Well, even if the cavern was objectionable, they were sure to find valuables eventually then too, but Noa would have lost his patience long before that point.
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Post by Noa on Jun 24, 2021 13:29:25 GMT -6
Rhys was well aware of this fact, however, and dutifully chose a tunnel that wouldn't move Noa to regret the decision to allow him the choice. Fortunately Rhys was not built to take any pleasure in Noa's unhappiness.
The gargoyle also knew his work full well by this point, so it was an easy rhythm for them to fall into. The gargoyle led the way as they progressed deeper and deeper into the cavern, and if he sensed anything particularly interesting, he would stop and dig a bit. In this manner, he managed to turn up a couple of stones of reasonable value, if Noa remembered their types correctly. Once upon a time, he had taken an interest in jeweling, and he had a better, more intimate knowledge of the various types of stone then... But ironically even then, he had never memorized how much they were all generally worth. Maybe he ought to make a more concentrated effort to do that now.
After a while, however, it became necessary to take a break. And once they stopped, Noa brought the little feathered creature out of its usual resting place in his pocket, and began to consider how to best teach it what he wanted it to do.
Well, modeling the sound generally worked well enough for his other creatures, so he figured he may as well start there. Usually Noa achieved this through the use of a recording device, but on this occasion he hadn’t felt like lugging one with him.
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Post by Noa on Jun 24, 2021 13:30:16 GMT -6
On the other hand, it wasn’t as if he had a lot of magical experimentation planned for the day, so he didn't necessarily need to be so skimpy with his reserves. He called on the smallest possible thread of magic to do his bidding, and made the requisite sound himself.
That immediately got the little creature’s attention. It got Rhys’s attention too, though Rhys at least knew it was coming. It wasn’t particularly pleasant, but it was just noise; Noa was sure Rhys would be able to survive the disturbance. As for the gargoyle, he had already been through this sort of thing before, when Noa had been teaching one of his drakes how to roar. It might have been Dustdevil, actually; Noa didn’t really keep careful track of these things. Anyway, the gargoyle was inured to it, and simply went about his business, though he did seem rather more resigned than he had looked at the outset of the trip.
But none of those things mattered as much as the reaction of the little feathered creature himself. All of it would be for naught if this didn’t elicit the behavior that Noa was looking for. So he watched the reaction of the little feathered creature carefully.
Nothing happened, but maybe it was just thinking things over. Maybe all Noa needed to do was to make the noise again. Making the noise again was done easily enough, so he went ahead and did it, because it was something he could do.
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Post by Noa on Jun 24, 2021 13:30:42 GMT -6
It was becoming apparent that just waiting for something to happen wasn't going to be the answer. And then the little feathered creature rewarded his efforts with a responding screech, which was what he had been looking for. Noa smiled. This was more like it.
"Yes," he said, "there you have it." He rewarded the little feathered creature with a treat, which it gobbled down with the enthusiasm of a man who had been starved for weeks on end. Dramatic as always, but typical for the little creature that Noa knew, if he was being honest. He sort of hoped the appetite thing would die down with age and size. He wanted the creature to grow, because it was hard to imagine it becoming any use if it stayed this small, but if its rate of food consumption relative to its body size didn't slow down, it would simply become too expensive to maintain it on Noa's property. Not that he couldn't afford it, but the costs relative to the benefits had to be considered, and in the meantime he had plenty of Wiurn who served him just as well.
But that was a bridge he could cross when he came to it. Right now he was trying to teach the creature to be a little noise maker. In the interest of facilitating that, he made the screeching noise again, then spoke the verbal command. "Screech." The little feathered creature made a cry in response, sharp and unpleasant, and Noa rewarded it with more food.
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Post by Noa on Jun 24, 2021 13:49:19 GMT -6
Then Noa made the noise again, and said the command word, and this time the little creature almost cut him off in its hurry to make an answering screech. Noa couldn't tell if it was quick on the uptake or just impatient, or maybe if it was about to start screeching of its own accord without even waiting for any kind of signal from Noa. It would be kind of annoying if the latter was the case, so he decided to wait it out and see.
Unfortunately, his suspicions were answered when the creature soon began screeching of its own accord, and looking at him expectantly for a reward. The first time this happened was bad enough, but then, when it realized said reward was not forthcoming, it seemed to attribute this to the fact that Noa had, perhaps, simply not heard it. And so it screeched again. And again. And again.
Noa was, needless to say, quite eager to break it of this habit. For that matter, so was Rhys, and even though the gargoyle had been made used to the noise sent up by the creatures that Noa was training, he too looked their way, with an expression that was half annoyance, half concern.
“Yeah, yeah,” Noa said. It would have been easy enough to punish the little creature, but Noa didn’t want to make it fearful of him, if only because it would be a bad basis upon which to build a working relationship later on.
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Post by Noa on Jun 24, 2021 13:49:33 GMT -6
Instead, he had to wait for the little creature to realize on its own that screeching without hearing the command word first didn’t get it any rewards.
To that end, Noa did use the command word again a few times, and if the little creature followed it up with a screech, Noa rewarded it. Outside of those times, he didn’t bother giving it any food, no matter how much it squalled. It didn’t say the best things about the creature’s intelligence that it took longer than Noa had hoped for this to correct the behavior… Though someone more optimistic might have said that it demonstrated a certain kind of persistence, at least. Or maybe the creature was more intelligent than Noa was giving it credit for, and knew that this was annoying to everyone else here, and was simply banking on being able to annoy them into giving it what it wanted.
But Noa had a stubborn streak too, and in the end his won out. It took a long time, but eventually the little creature did in fact get the memo. If it heard the word, it was to screech, and if it did so, it would be rewarded. Outside of that, screeching did nothing for it, alas.
By that point they had also practiced repetitions enough of the command itself that Noa felt confident the little creature knew it. This was probably the only positive aspect of this stretch of their training -- that once it was done, they were done with the command in a general sense.
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Post by Noa on Jun 24, 2021 13:50:13 GMT -6
They were, all of them, glad for it to be over by the end. Training these moves was never terribly pleasant an experience, but this one in particular had been uncomfortable. Noa sighed, tucking the little creature away in the pocket in which it usually rode. He hoped that this all had been exertion enough for it to simply fall asleep. He didn’t know if he wanted to deal with it any more after all that… No, that was a lie; he knew perfectly well that he had absolutely no desire to if given the choice. But the little creature did seem to be getting older if not bigger, and it slept less and less these days -- in hours that were more and more similar to those kept by the average adult creature, species notwithstanding. Not that Noa had any baseline to compare this to, since adults of this specific kind of revived fossil beast didn’t yet exist as far as he knew.
It was so small that for the most part this didn’t pose any major issues, but it was also small enough to make it difficult to keep track of. Once it became more active, Noa might be forced to reevaluate whether raising it would still be worth the hassle, if it never did get any bigger than this.
That time of reckoning hadn’t yet come, but it also wouldn’t stay at bay forever. It was anyone's guess how long they had left until that point.
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Post by Noa on Jun 24, 2021 13:50:33 GMT -6
For now, however, he turned his focus back to the mining portion of their venture, with perhaps more enthusiasm than he usually mustered for such a thing.
The gargoyle had dutifully been taking care of it while Noa busied himself with acquiring more hearing damage -- nothing Rhys couldn’t fix, but still unpleasant while it was happening. Maybe he ought to have Rhys take a look at himself and the gargoyle too, come to think of it. But neither of them were deaf yet, so he simply walked over to the gargoyle and surveyed the gargoyle’s work. Said gargoyle had been digging around at a specific spot for some time now, but Noa didn’t see any rock pile that looked as if it had been set aside as valuable. Considering how many trips they had been on together over the last year or so, Noa had gotten pretty good at figuring out which pile was the pile of actual gems.
“No luck?” he said to the gargoyle.
The gargoyle couldn’t exactly offer him a verbal reply, but he did seem frustrated by how his own work was going. His claws dug into the rock with more force than was strictly necessary. Noa didn’t have a sense for gems and valuables the way the gargoyle did, but he did know some stonework. It had been necessary to learn it, so as not to ruin his body as well as his hands when he began digging around here.
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Post by Noa on Jun 24, 2021 13:54:40 GMT -6
Stonework was hard work no matter how you looked at it, but it was at least possible to be more precise and efficient with it than just swinging a pickaxe haphazardly about, and Noa had less leeway than most people on the matter.
Something that Noa understood intimately, however, was the value of cutting his losses. The sunk cost fallacy, and all that. It was a bitter thing to have to acknowledge, but the alternative was to foolishly keep throwing more resources at something that was, objectively speaking, fruitless.
This seemed like one of those cases. "Leave it," he said with a shrug. "We'll find something else next time."
The gargoyle stared at him, reluctance showing on his face. But Noa shook his head. "We're almost out of time anyway. If nothing's turned up by now, it'll have to wait until the next time, at the very soonest. How valuable do you think this thing is, anyway?"
In the face of such steady questioning, the reluctance on the gargoyle's face gave way to doubt, and then to resignation. It didn't take long after that for the gargoyle to concede the point.
From there, there was nothing more to do but to pack up any equipment they had taken out, and prepare for the trip back to the estate. The little feathered creature had fallen asleep in the meantime, and Rhys was hitching a ride on Noa's shoulder still. With their equipment in tow, Noa and the gargoyle -- and Noa's hitchhikers -- took their leave.
25 (exit)
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Post by Nadia on Jun 25, 2021 5:11:35 GMT -6
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