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Post by Noa on Aug 7, 2021 18:26:09 GMT -6
To that end, Noa had to teach the drake at least one fighting move. And the easiest thing to learn would be to rip into his opponents with his claws. Sarane had nice, long claws, perfect for ripping and tearing, and he'd seen the move used countless times, by his beasts and by others, in the Pit.
Noa had raised Alioth from a hatchling, so the drake didn't protest too much when Noa lifted one of his claws. Noa didn't move too quickly or suddenly, so it was a momentary inconvenience more than anything. Noa had put a few pieces of wood with some padding on them in the buggy for exactly this purpose, and he took one out now and dragged the drake's claws across it. "Rend," Noa said, and then fed Alioth a treat. He wasn't quite as food motivated as he had been as a growing hatchling, but he did still like to eat well enough, so it worked okay. It wasn't as if Noa was asking him to do an especially difficult behavior. Alioth clawed things of his own accord all the time, and Noa was really only teaching him to do it on command right now anyway.
Once Alioth had finished eating, Noa wasted no time in trying again. This time he picked up the drake's other forelimb, just so Alioth didn't get to favoring one side. Noa repeated the process, saying the command word first this time, then dragging the claws across the target surface.
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Post by Nadia on Aug 7, 2021 19:38:59 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on Aug 7, 2021 20:15:32 GMT -6
Once that was done, he fed Alioth a treat. That was the pattern established.
It was so simple, and something that Noa had done so many times, that he felt that the drake really ought to understand it immediately. That didn't happen, of course, because all of this was new to Alioth, and anyway training a creature just didn't work like that. Alioth didn't have a lot of experience with commands training in general, so they were probably going to have to repeat this a lot.
No time like the present to get to that, he supposed. He grabbed one of Alioth's foreclaws again, said, "Rend," and raked them across the padded wood surface. Then he gave Alioth a treat, and when Alioth was done eating, he repeated the process with the other claw, with all the same steps.
This went on a few more times before Noa took a break to do some more mining. Rhys pointed out another likely looking spot for him to start digging around, though Rhys was a little distracted with trying to manage the little feathered creature. Now that it wasn't being actively cowed, and also wasn't stowed away safely in Noa's pocket, apparently it was getting into some mischief. But that was Rhys's problem to deal with for the moment, and Noa busied himself digging for another stone.
It was an easier and faster process this time, the thing that he was looking for being closer to the surface, and he had it out in no time.
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Post by Noa on Aug 7, 2021 20:43:46 GMT -6
Noa inspected it just long enough to ascertain that he had picked up something worth taking home -- he trusted Rhys, but Rhys didn't spend all his time being able to detect gems, after all -- before stowing it away and returning to the task of training Alioth.
This time Noa said, "Rend," before picking up Alioth's claw, and saw Alioth move slightly before he picked up the claws and raked them across the surface of the padded piece of wood. That was a good sign; maybe he wouldn't need to handle Alioth's limbs much after this. Noa gave him a treat, then waited for him to finish eating before trying again. This time, he said, "Rend," held up the plank, and waited.
Alioth picked up a claw, but didn't quite rake it across the wood; he put it down then picked up the other, and looked at Noa. Noa sighed, and picked up the claw that Alioth still had in the air, raked it across the wood, and gave him a treat. So close, but not quite. Maybe he would get it the next time.
No time like the present to try again, Noa supposed. When Alioth was finished eating, Noa held up the wood and tried again. "Rend." This time he waited, and again, Alioth picked up a claw. This time Noa simply prompted him with the command word again, to see if that would give him the confidence he needed to actually go through with making the proper move himself.
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Post by Noa on Aug 7, 2021 22:15:24 GMT -6
Luck was with him this time, fortunately, and Alioth did finally slash at the wood on his own with his claws. Noa gave him a treat and some scratches for his trouble. The wood was taking a real beating by this point, and looking pretty rough, so Noa discarded it and swapped it for another. This one had somewhat different material on it, but hopefully the drake would recognize it as being similar enough to make the right connection.
Noa gave the command again, and Alioth slashed at the wood with more confidence this time. Noa gave him another treat, then repeated the process a few more times to reinforce the command before he was satisfied. By that point the second piece of wood had gotten pretty beat up too, so it was just as well. Now he could get back on with the business of his mining.
They'd been doing other things for long enough, though granted the desensitizing of the little feathered creature had been pretty non-negotiable.
"Okay, that's done," Noa said. "Rhys, I can take over from here." He wondered if this was how parents felt when they took over from their partners for their children -- though in his family, things were a little different. Oh well, it wasn't an important thought or anything.
{Thank goodness,} Rhys said, looking and sounding visibly relieved to be, well, relieved of looking after the little feathered creature for the moment. {I think you've really go to be bigger to manage this.}
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Post by Noa on Aug 8, 2021 0:08:37 GMT -6
Noa scooped up the little feathered creature and deposited it into his pocket. It would cause them no more trouble there, hopefully. It was generally content to stay there when it was in it, possibly because being surrounded by soft things like that made it feel safe. Whatever it was, it was pretty convenient for Noa's purposes.
"Well, now that you've been freed from the shackles of babysitting," Noa said, "where are the goods?"
Rhys gave a little sigh. {I haven't had a chance to scan around really... Give me a second.} With those words, he closed his eyes, and his whiskers began waving around again. Noa wondered whether closing his eyes really helped him concentrate in a situation like this, where it was so hard to see anyway... but then he remembered that Rhys had been trained to see in the dark, so maybe it really did. He wouldn't know, since his human eyes weren't capable of seeing any more than they did now without the help of either gadgets or magic spells, and he didn't have the right element yet to be able to cast those spells.
He waited while Rhys scanned, not really thinking about much. He was surprised, therefore, when Rhys perked up -- or rather, went tense all at once as if he had been stung. {Oh! Wow, that's a strong reading. This way, I think.} He indicated a direction with a wave of his tail. Noa blinked, then began making his way in that direction.
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Post by Noa on Aug 8, 2021 0:12:26 GMT -6
Whatever it was, if it could make Rhys exclaim like that, then it had to be good, probably. "Come on," he said to Alioth, who followed along after a little encouragement. The drake did want to stick together, especially in this unfamiliar setting. As a hatchling he had been the sort that would shove you to see if you would shove back, and as an adult that hadn't really diminished -- though being shoved by Alioth now would be a good deal more difficult to deal with, so it was a good thing he was broken and reasonably well bonded to Noa. But he didn't have his sister's confidence either, and she had been the real leader even when they were young. So in times of insecurity, he still fell into that old habit of looking to someone else for directions. But this worked out for Noa, so he wasn't complaining.
Under Rhys's guidance, they made their way deeper into the caverns. They had to stop often for Rhys to re-orient himself in their new location. {Sorry,} Rhys said, after about the third time he aske them to stop. {It's kind of hard to get a sense of how far it is, though the direction is pretty clear.. I've just never felt something this... acute before.} He seemed as baffled as anything, and Noa generally didn't suspect Rhys of deliberately trying to be annoying anyway, so he didn't remark on it. His curiosity as to what this was grew by the minute though.
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Post by Nadia on Aug 8, 2021 8:12:13 GMT -6
Is it darker than usual in here...? No, it can't be. You can hear the rumbling of rocks shifting further in the caverns. Nothing to be alarmed about, but it might be safe to watch out...
[Nothing happens.]
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Post by Noa on Aug 9, 2021 22:56:50 GMT -6
That wasn't really making him more patient, but with all this build up it was hard not to be curious about what this thing was. There was nothing he could do to rush Rhys though, so he had to content himself with finding ways to pass the time while Rhys did his start and stop, casting about for clues as to the direction he needed them to go in.
Eventually they closed in on it, and Rhys actually began to wince from the... what, the force? Noa had never seen the gargoyle wince before, so maybe the sensation was different for creatures who weren't naturally denizens of the mines. Or maybe he just hadn't got the spell quite right. Noa had thought he had become proficient at casting it, but maybe the reality was that it could still use some tweaking, and it was just on the recipient side of things, so he didn't detect it, as he wasn't the one upon whom the spell was acting.
It was an avenue worth exploring, and he made a mental note to go over the particulars a little more closely with Rhys at some point. Not right this minute though, since they were almost at the location of the thing that Rhys was sensing. "What is it that you've found anyway?" Noa said. "Can you tell?"
{I think if it feels like this, it must be one of those magic crystals,} Rhys grit out. Noa's brows raised sharply at the words 'magic crystals'.
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Post by Noa on Aug 9, 2021 23:01:07 GMT -6
It was, after all, the exact sort of thing Noa was looking for. He was a mage -- by practice as well as trade now, since he had made his name in magic, though he had hidden somewhat the extent of his power reserves and skill, so as not to be bogged down by requests or, heavens forbid, attempts to put some sort of sanctions or restraints on what he did with his own magic. And any mage in pursuit of the arts naturally wanted for more magic, and you needed a steady supply of crystals to create new nodes, since he'd never heard of anyone selling a node that was already made and ready for use.
{It's here,} said Rhys. {I'm going to... fly a little further away. Tell me when you've dug it out.}
"The spell's almost worn off anyway," Noa said. It would make things harder if Rhys couldn't be near Noa while he was handling crystals with the spell active. He really should look into experimenting with fine tuning the effect. His research into the spell never revealed anything about it inducing pain in the creatures it affected, so this was more likely a result of his own oversight. But there was no way to correct it right this second, and anyway he was more interested in seeing exactly what sort of crystal was in store for him here. All of them were good, but he was more interested in some of the elements than others, of course.
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Post by Noa on Aug 9, 2021 23:04:45 GMT -6
Given his plight and his condition, it was perhaps no surprise that the element he was most interested in was light. He had recently acquired a light node himself, after years of trying to get enough crystals together to manage it. But he was already finding that a single light node was not sufficient to power the sorts of spells and experiments he wanted to do. So it was back to the drawing board -- and he didn't have years upon years left to wait anymore, so if he didn't get something together soon...
... Well, maybe this would help that along. He set to work with the hammer and chisel only, wary of damaging the crystal even a little bit if he used the pick. They seemed resilient enough, but you never knew. And maybe striking them incorrectly wouldn't be so much a danger to them as it was to him, but that wasn't a good outcome either. Noa rather liked having all his limbs intact, and he was carrying the little feathered creature. Alioth was still following them at a fairly close distance too, so if there really was an explosion, he would likely be caught up in the blast radius too.
After a long period of painstaking work, however, he began to see a first glimmer of something beneath the stone. He studied it more closely, then sighed, leaning back. "Fire," he said. Not what he had hoped for, and an element he already had a node of to boot.
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Post by Noa on Aug 9, 2021 23:08:38 GMT -6
Still, crystals were always better than no crystals, and perhaps someday he'd want a second fire node too. He certainly wasn't going to just leave it there. Noa picked up his tools again and began working in earnest, and before long he had the crystal out of the surrounding rock... only to be surprised when he saw more glimmering beneath it. He frowned. It couldn't be possible, could it? But he dug a little more, and sure enough, there was another fire crystal. Two, side by side, and of the same element too. How had that happened?
He wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth though. One crystal was a rare find; two was an embarrassment of riches, at least as far as luck was concerned. "There's two," he called out to Rhys, just in case the Faeron was interested in the outcome as well. He received no reply, but that didn't matter. Presumably Rhys was simply recovering. Their bond was such that Noa would be able to feel it if Rhys was in acute distress, though the two of them generally kept it dampened so as not to discomfort each other too much.
Noa busied himself with digging out the second crystal, and then cleaning them both. The little feathered creature had poked its head out at some point, and was now admiring the gleaming objects in Noa's hands. "This isn't for you," he warned it. "And if you try to make off with them, I'll turn you into a mantlepiece decoration."
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Post by Noa on Aug 9, 2021 23:12:11 GMT -6
It was, perhaps, not the nicest thing one could say to a creature, but it wasn't as if the little feathered creature could understand what he was saying. And a stolen crystal could in fact be gotten back, but if any of his creatures actually managed to destroy any of his crystals... Well, he might spare Avander and Azalea, on account of their being so well trained and time consuming to replace, not to mention expensive. And there was nothing he could do about Rhys, of course, since Rhys was his familiar. But any other creature, and he might make good on that threat.
Fortunately, however, it had never come to that, and with any luck it never will. Not one to tempt fate with the treatment of his crystals, he quickly stowed them away in a safe compartment. With this, he was done with the trip; it was about time for the lot of them to head back anyway.
Rhys seemed to be feeling better too, though he still didn't get too close to Noa. The spell hadn't quite worn off yet, though it might on their walk home, which was some consolation to the Faeron. And Noa was sure that Alioth would be glad to get out of the caverns too. He'd been kept calm, sometimes artificially so by way of Rhys, but that didn't mean he liked the place any better.
The four of them made their way out of the caverns, and started tohead for home.
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Post by Jack on Aug 9, 2021 23:13:00 GMT -6
A piece of ore and a fossil greet you on your way out.
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Post by Noa on Feb 28, 2022 22:04:15 GMT -6
Noa breathed hard as he crested a hill, cursing the lay of the land in his heart. He knew that the rocks within these mountains were the richest, and that there were minerals here that had been pushed up by the movement of the earth thousands of years before -- that, in short, there was nothing nearly so valuable to be found digging like an idiot into flat ground. But still, he wished that the journey didn’t need to be so strenuous. He had never been in the best of physical shape, and lately he had had to conserve his magical energies for research… and, in today’s case, for defense. The trouble with a trip out to the mines was that it wasn’t particularly practical to bring his usual guardians with him, all of them being as large as they were, and two of them being fliers who disliked being underground.
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