|
Post by Morgan on Apr 6, 2020 19:46:20 GMT -6
The fact that the dragonoak didn't try to snap at Morgan was a very good sign though, and Morgan was willing to take what they could get when it came to progress. They didn't have as much time as Morgan wanted to be able to actually get the creature to a point to where she would be willing to learn. Not all creatures started off from second one with the desire to learn like Nico had. Meteora probably would not be one of those. Plants tended to be a little less reactive to most stimuli than animals, after all, and though she looked dragon-like, she was all plant in there. Morgan wondered vaguely if custom plant creatures produced the same items during their time of the year to do so as regular versions. Morgan figured that they had heard of someone out there's creatures producing during the times that they were supposed to.
[42]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 6, 2020 19:52:25 GMT -6
After petting the dragonoak for a little while, the human withdrew their hand and stepped back a little to look at their surroundings. It didn't seem to dangerous quite yet, as there didn't seem to be any huge gurgling turkey monster trying to get them like there was last time (it had sort of looked like a chiryma, now that they thought of it, but different all the same- chiryma don't have waddles). Morgan wasn't sure why that had stuck with them so much like it had, was it just being chased by a giant terror bird that freaked them out, or was it the exploding into confetti after glaring them down menacingly that was the ticket to true memorization? Morgan still wasn't sure if that was caused by that creature, last time (the one with the weird neck trick) or if it was simply a quirk of the mansion. Or maybe a hallucination.
[43]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 6, 2020 19:54:55 GMT -6
No one really wants to believe that they may have 'seen' or otherwise sensed something that was not real, and not there. Almost all beings that could gather sensory information and really 'think' about what that meant understood the world only through their senses. In fact, people deprived of their senses that are not otherwise given stimuli do not develop properly- so understandably it is EVERYTHING to a person to feel like they have a grip on their world. Morgan was no different. The idea that the giant terror bird might have been a hallucination was an unpleasant one that was probably best shoved down and suppressed, though Morgan was no the kind of person to be able to do that sort of defensive mechanism easily. They considered the strange fact that the dragonoak had not reacted to the thing like Morgan had, yet had been scared of the creature with the strange neck trick.
[44]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 6, 2020 19:57:56 GMT -6
That made Morgan have to face that uncomfortable thought that the mansion wasn't just causing mild hallucinations, but reality-altering ones, and selectively at that. Or at least that was the idea that Morgan came to, mind settling on tentatively, light as bird wings. Now that they had managed to frighten the heck out of theirself and otherwise distract theirself from the thought, they pushed forward across the grass that seemed entirely too bouncy somehow to be real grass. It was a strange, fey-like garden that they found theirself leading the dragonoak through by the lead. They kept a stronger eye than usual on their surroundings and on the dragonoak, perhaps a little paranoid-ly, because they wanted to make sure somehow that what they were seeing was real. If two beings saw it, then it had to be real, right? Relying on a non-sentient creature to back up one's ability to understand the world is probably not the best thing Morgan could have done.
[45]
|
|
|
Post by Lethalia on Apr 6, 2020 21:04:45 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 7, 2020 18:26:57 GMT -6
Morgan was usually an incredibly watchful person, but they didn't really notice that there were items around them until the dragonaok seemed to notice something. They looked down and saw the first of what would prove to be several items; a little bottle. Overcome with a bit of a strange need to grab the item, the human reached down and took the smooth glass vial in their hand. It felt cold to the touch, but not freezing. Just cold due to the air, about room temperature. Human bodies were much more warm than this, and it caused the sensation. The overwhelming urge that Morgan had to open it had disappeared the moment they wrapped their palm around it. The Dragonaok was peering down at that as well, and it snapped Morgan out of the hyper-sensitive state that the cold glass had caused in their hand. It was very odd, but then again, the mansion was odd this month.
[46]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 7, 2020 18:30:46 GMT -6
The human didn't really have any kind of an understanding of what Tiken Tekai was even celebrated for. Some kind of foolish day or something? Long ago the labs even made a pet for it, some kind of strange living puppet thing. Morgan always wondered how the Labs managed that kind of thing- with seemingly puppet-y thing. The human was silent as they turned the vial over in their palm. They tilted it upside down, and noticed beyond the colorful sheen that there was some kind of a rolled up slip of paper inside. The top of it was covered with a cloth- or at least the top of the vial was. The human ran their thumb over it and wasn't quite sure what to think about the possibility of opening it. That was when they looked up slightly and saw that there was another of the vials sitting in the soft grass nearby.
[47]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 7, 2020 18:35:47 GMT -6
The human was quietly staring down at the next vial, feeling the current vial in their hand. What were these supposed to be, anyway? Morgan figured that they should take one home and try to figure out what these things were and what was inside of them. They made no kind of sense at all. What was Tiken Tekai celebrating again? Chaos, and luck, they knew. Foolishness, perhaps. However, it looked like it might just have a dream sort of theme as well. Then again, what was as foolish as dreams, right? Morgan wasn't sure. However, they did bend down and pick up the next vial, as well as picking up another vial from the soft rubbery not-quite-grass. However, the human stood back up and placed them into their backpack immediately. They would hopefully find more for further study as well, they thought. They continued to search around in the taller, sort of clover-like grass nearby.
[48]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 7, 2020 18:43:28 GMT -6
It was ever so strange, Morgan thought, that these mansion months could be so very varied. However, the human quietly continued their search even while pondering it. the Dragonoak stood watch, ever calm and ever bombproof. Perhaps the dragonoak was expecting another creature to show up and threaten them, or perhaps it was mostly more interested in the thought that there were strange things afoot. She didn't really understand why the human kept dragging her out here or what was out here, but they must be looking for something, right? Was the human hunting for food or something? None of this stuff that the human had been interested in at this point was anything that seemed even remotely edible. Humans were weird.
Morgan quietly looked over to where they had just found the glass vials, and then back just at their feet again. There was another one! They had just looked at their feet, how did they miss it.
[49]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 7, 2020 18:47:59 GMT -6
Morgan was never quite so sure that the mansion wasn't doing stuff like this specifically to annoy them. However, they quietly bent down to pick up the item they must have glossed over a bit ago. It would seem that these glass vials were most likely the mansion's 'well' item for this month, judging by the whole fact that they had just found a whole bunch of them in a row. It was not uncommon for the human to find large groups of certain items, and it was a kind of tradition to throw those types of items into the well and hopefully get some kind of gift. Morgan had not believed in it at first, but heck, it worked every single time that they tried it, and each month they got something completely different. The human stood back up, and patted the dragonoak on the shoulder. "Well, we sure are f-findin' stuff."
[50]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 7, 2020 21:45:40 GMT -6
Mostly those little glass vials, specifically, Morgan thought. There were several of them. They spent some time picking them up... Well, it looks like they would need to make their Wishing Well run a little earlier this month than they typically did. It would be easier, that way, they thought. They stood there, looking down at the grass around them. They had to make sure that they found all the vials that were in the area, since there were so many and Morgan was figuring that they were beginning to pop in and out of the surroundings, like the Mansion was playing tricks on them. It was just the way that the mansion seemed to work. The human couldn't find anymore in the area around them, so they went back to patting the dragonoak on the skull dome, to make sure that she didn't completely feel left out due to Morgan looking at other things.
[51]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 7, 2020 22:31:24 GMT -6
The Dragonoak did not feel left out, of course. She was a little bit used to being by herself. She enjoyed being by herself. That didn't mean that she didn't like Morgan, in fact it was the exact opposite of that- she enjoyed having the bespectacled human around. However, she just didn't need to be touched all the time to feel okay and liked and all of that nonsense. The human quietly removed their hand, not noticing any of that of course, and then continued looking at the ground. What even WAS the human looking for, anyway? The dragonoak sort of wanted to help, mostly so that they could get home in the garden again and back out of this crazy dangerous place, but how was she supposed to know what the human was searching for enough to help? The human quietly murmured to theirself, or maybe to Meteora, the dragonoak had no idea which.
[52]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 7, 2020 23:17:48 GMT -6
Though the dragonoak was having plenty of a thoughtful time, Morgan wasn't really paying much attention to her other than to make sure that she was following and to gently pat her every now and again. Morgan was much more worried about looking for items to study for later when they went home, they didn't really have a lot of time to be worrying about the dragonoak. There wasn't really anything she needed to be trained that Morgan thought they could safely train out here. So it would be to the park for Meteora as soon as possible. For now though, they were hanging out at the mansion so that she would hopefully be more pliable to train due to the cementing of the psycho-social bond, which Morgan hoped would happen soon enough because time was closing in on them as fast as it ever could.
The mansion, of course, wasn't concerned with all of that.
[53]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 7, 2020 23:28:17 GMT -6
Morgan had no idea what made the mansion do what it does, but it was something they intended to figure out eventually. The human quietly examined the last of the little vials that they found and then stuffed it away into the backpack. The vials are quite cold in there, Morgan noted, and then they shut the backpack. What kind of person puts a ton of what looked to be little rolled up scraplets of paper into a bunch of bottles with some kind of rainbow foggy stuff in it? The human did note that they were taken care of incredibly well, they were made to look quite fancy. Someone had to have spent a lot of time on these, but who was it? Morgan had never met the owner of the eccentric's mansion. Maybe they should be calling them the 'Eccentric'? They were quiet for a moment, patting the dragonoak's side absentmindedly.
[54]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Apr 7, 2020 23:34:48 GMT -6
The dragonoak was frustrated with all of this sudden extra attention and butted Morgan in the knee again, to catch their attention. Hey! Stop doing that! She tried to convey. Morgan went down to one knee with the force of it, and then turned to look at her with their head tilted. "What didja do that for?" The human mumbled, unsure of what was going on. Why did they feel so foggy all of a sudden? It was like a mist had rolled in through their head. They shook with it. Something about the mansion was doing this, right? The human would never have noticed if not for the Dragonoak butting them in the leg. They stood up, and tried to move from the spot. They were finding it difficult to figure out how to properly think right now, and that had to be the mansion's doing. This month was so weird!
[55]
|
|