Mini Event Nature Red in Thorn and Claw
Libbs Walzek
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#15
Libbs was also on the same page with Quanil, as she waved her hand. "Yeah! What does happen if a book gets destroyed with someone inside? Does that mean the person inside is destroyed too?" she asked. "And do you guys check to see if anyone got trapped inside? Because if you know what's in each book, and you KNOW that you're in the book, what's not to stop you from just jumping off a skyscraper or something like that?"

Ah Libbs, using the pre-Caido lingo. Still, she did make a good point. On some level, it sounded like these sentient books could be manipulated, and she's surprised on some level that no one had thought of that yet. "Also; how do you keep them trapped up without getting sucked in? Did you bind them? Do they.. ever have a period of.. not sucking up people and eating them?"

Very important questions after all!
Maea Valair
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#16
Maea
Big dreamers shoot for open skies
Maea nodded and copied down the reply to her question. It would be a lie to say she wasn't keen to test that theory, to go find one of those sentient tomes and see what kind of adventure might rise to claim her. If it would be possible to live it more than once... But that would be a touch reckless, even for her.

Listening to the questions asked by others, she made sure to get their answers down as well, but did not raise her hand again; all the topics she had come to think of were voiced already, so she was content to wait and listen. For now.

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Jigano Silversmith
the Sage
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#17
Quanil was a sponge of information, and Jigano nodded at their questions. ”I don’t know where they’d go,” he admitted. ”They might be able to survive in the Woodlands, using leaves and bark instead of pages and books, but that’s just a guess. We haven’t seen them infect a Sentient Book before, but given that the books can move and potentially crush or draw the wasps into their stories they’re far from helpless against them. And if a Sentient Book is damaged or destroyed, anyone inside it is returned unharmed to wherever the book is,” he tried to soothe Quanil’s and Libbs’s concerns with the assurance he had read in Safrin’s book on Hollowed Grounds Flora and Fauna.

Libbs’s other question earned a rueful chuckle and a slight shrug. ”That’s the key, though, and one of the reasons for this class. If you get sucked into a Sentient Book and you don’t know what one is or what’s happened to you, you don’t know what the safeguards are. Yes, if you know what’s happened and are certain it’s a Sentient Book that’s at fault, you should be able to kill yourself in the book and it will spit you back out. Once they’ve ‘eaten’ a reader they seem to have a recovery time afterwards that varies from book to book, during which they don’t try to capture anyone else. We’ve bound the few we’ve found so far closed so that they don’t grab people at random, but we can still ‘read’ them in more controlled conditions.”

A glance around showed no other hands going up, so he pulled up one of the papers to set on the easel. A large blind rat was depicted on it, with sharp teeth and a long, whiskered nose. ”Next we’ll cover one of the Underground’s dangers, should you ever find yourself beneath the Ruins. ROUSes are bigger than your usual rat, up to the size of a large raccoon at times. They’re blind, but make up for it with particularly sensitive noses. Those long teeth,” he pointed to the picture, ”are particularly dangerous, and if you get a scratch from one you should see the Medical College immediately because the chance is high that it will fester. They usually survive off garbage, but they’re pack-hunting predators and will chase down and eat whatever meat wanders down into those tunnels – pets, companions, and people. They’re not picky.” His expression was grim as he looked around, nodding to Sam. ”A hunting expedition to clear out a particularly large and vicious pack last year ended with Emmett Palmer’s death when part of a tunnel collapsed on him during a fight with them. A reminder that the rats are dangerous enough, but the tunnels can be just as deadly. A single rat is simple enough to dispatch, but keep in mind that there’s never just one ROUS down there in the dark.” A grim enough topic, and he wasn’t done yet.

”Above ground, in the ruins and domiciles, you should watch out for Stone Golems hiding in basements or buildings that provide shelter from the sun. They’re large and made entirely of rock, no soft tissue in them. This makes them very hard to hurt and kill, and they’re very aggressive. If you should accidentally disturb one, retreat is a good option. They’re strong and durable, but also clumsy and rather slow, so they’re easy to outrun. If you need the building, though, the easiest way to deal with them is to trick them into a sunlit area. Sunlight seems to destroy whatever magic holds them together, and they’ll fall to dust if exposed to it.” He held up a hand to silence the first question he could already hear forming, giving a rueful smile. ”And no, I don’t know how long an exposure is required, but from how the references are written, it doesn’t seem to be long.” Again he paused to see if there would be questions before they moved on.


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#18
Write, write, write. Their hand was starting to cramp. They'd never written this much down this quickly; it had always just been orders for merchants or notes to someone else (or a quick list for themselves). They shook their writing hand out a little, careful not to drop the pencil.

There was a cold little core forming in Quanil that promised death to any paper wasps they should happen to encounter. But the lecture moved on, and so Quanil shelved that promise away for later. Now was for learning. They did wonder, idly, if they could volunteer for controlled testing of Sentient Book adventures. But that was yet another thing for the mental shelves.

ROUSes both looked and sounded horrifying. Dirty, nasty things. They had the Ruins high on their list of "places to look for Freina" and they made a side note to maybe not go down there alone. And definitely not unarmed.

They might have had more questions about the Stone Golems if they knew more about magic. Their parents had had a hard enough time with their voracious intellectual appetite as it was; if they'd been caught learning about magic, there would have a been a row like no other. So Quanil wasn't really up on all the various magic "schools" or whatever they were called. But a couple of questions did present themselves, so they raised their hand again.

"Do Stone Golems need to eat? Do they seem to want anything other than to be left alone in a dark place?"
Libbs Walzek
Lockpick

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#19
Libbs of course had questions. She'd raise her hands again, taking just a moment to scribble some stuff hastily into her book, a combination of Chinese, English, and doodles. Because doodles were a language. Oddly enough, the concept of a stone golem made a lot of sense to her. On some level, it was almost similar to the automatons and robots that they had in her own world, which, of course..

"So, the stone golems: Do you know if they're sentient? Or are they like.. programmed to do things? Does anyone know where they came from, or how they are made?" she asked.

"And the Rouses.. do you know if there's anything they're particularly.. drawn to? Like cheese and such? I hope I don't have to go down there, but I don't exactly want to look like next dinner to a hoard of giant rats." she commented, looking to the others for some sort of agreement.
Jigano Silversmith
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#20
”I’ve never seen or heard of them eating anything,” Jigano replied thoughtfully to Quanil’s question. ”They seem to be fairly solid all the way through, so I’m not sure they physical can. They don’t seem to roam much, either. All of the encounters I’ve heard about or experienced have been when entering their territory. If they lived in caves or places humans didn’t, they wouldn’t be much of a problem… but for some reason they seem to prefer human buildings to lair in.” He nodded at Libbs as she spoke up too, but again he wasn’t able to offer much more insight. ”Sentient enough to respond to stimulus, but no record has ever been made of anyone successfully communicating with one. They don’t seem to be, ah, ‘programmed’ – if I’m understanding your use of the word? They’re like other aggressively territorial animals, like wolverines or badgers, they just happen to be made of stone rather than flesh.” He shrugged helplessly at the next questions, which he probably should have expected. ”They seem to be rather magical rather than purely natural, but whether they were made by the gods or something else, no, we have no idea where they came from or how – or if – they reproduce.” Maybe they were the leftovers of some mad mage’s army, or perhaps some experiment of Rae’s or Frey’s.

”ROUSes are drawn to anything they can eat,” he answered the last question wryly. ”Animal or vegetable, meat or plant, moving or unmoving. Things that smell strongly or things that move and make noise are more likely to get their attention faster, though,” he warned.

He paused to catch his breath and let those writing catch up, then moved on to the next subject. ”Many of you have already been to the Labyrinth,” he said wryly, nodding towards the naturals in the room. ”There are three things to watch out for in there. First, the Speaking Squirrels that will lure you in and try to get you lost within the maze. They’re a bit bigger than the average squirrel, but they have the ability to say a few simple words. ‘Yes,’ ‘No,’ and ‘Follow me!’ is the limit of their vocabulary, but it’s enough to trick anyone who doesn’t know them into following them. No, they aren’t particularly smart or able to truly communicate,” he said with a grin for Libbs. ”It’s more like they can mimic those sounds without really understanding them. But if you try to leave the maze they get aggressive and will throw stones and thorns at you. A few are an annoyance, but being continually pelted by them for hours as you try to escape? Death from a thousand small cuts is still death, eventually.” He stopped to take a drink, holding his hand up for patience while he wet his throat.

”The reason it would take you so long to leave is that the Labyrinth itself seems to move. I’ve tried to map it several times, even used the old ball of string trick, but the hedges seem able to shift when you aren’t looking at them – and if you try to harm them, they’ll fight back with thorny branches. Between that and the squirrels it’s very difficult to find the center, and even more difficult to leave without wings or a winged guide above you to scout out the correct path before it can shift.” He paused then shrugged wryly. ”Though at least, so far, there’s always been a path out again, even if it’s hard to find. The Labyrinth doesn’t seem conscious or intelligent, necessarily, but it certainly is able to react to those inside it.”

His humor faded to sober lines at that point as he looked out over the small gathering. ”The real danger in there, though, are the boggarts. They’re shapeshifters and, to some extent, mindreaders. They take the forms of people or things you might love or fear – or some amalgamation of them both – to scare you back towards their partner-hunter. They usually hunt in pairs like that, though sometimes you might find a single boggart, or its partner might retreat if you don’t react by running towards it and instead turn and fight the first. So. To make a long story short, Speaking Squirrels lure you in and get you lost, the Labyrinth shifts to prevent you from leaving, and eventually a boggart pair may try to kill and eat you. Any questions?”
Maea Valair
Hollowed Grounds Ambassador / Loreseeker

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#21
Maea
Big dreamers shoot for open skies
She knew it would be worth it to attend this session. Maea's notes were quickly piling up, and there was a contented gleam about her as she scribbled on, recording what Jigano said as well as the questions and responses from the other participants. She was impressed by the apt questions from both Quanil and Libbs, and looked up from time to time to offer them appreciative smiles. It could have been an awkward affair of deafening silences between Jigano's monologues, but not this time.

"Are there any ways to repel the boggarts?" Maea eventually asked.

She recalled her own encounter with the squirrels, and the labyrinth, and realized how lucky she had been to be accompanied by Loren. Had she gone in there alone, things might have ended poorly indeed.

"I should also like to add that there is some benefit to braving the dangers of the Labyrinth. I went in with Loren some time ago, and we were able to find Efa's Herb at the center of the maze. I'm told its a potent medicinal plant." Her eyes went to Jigano for confirmation, and to see if he had anything more to add on the subject of the plant.

♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦


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#22
Quanil had always wanted to explore the Labyrinth. It... it almost called to them, like it was somehow a shrine to the God/dess of Curiosity Itself and they were that deity's high priest who must worship. The Labyrinth was also, however, the proof that their parents were right to worry about curiosity gone amok, and so Quanil had, regretfully, stayed out of it. They'd looked at it occasionally, but never actually gone in.

They'd seen - and heard - the squirrels, too. Hadn't realized they weren't really saying, "Follow Me!", but had resisted doing so by sheer force of will (and terror of the lecture they were likely to get afterwards). Ohhh, they wanted to explore that Labyrinth So. Badly.

So they took down everything their provost was saying, making sure they got it all correct. They were definitely going to write down Every Single Answer Jigano provided to everyone's questions on the subject. They had only one of their own, but... well, it was a very Quanil question.

"So you can't attack the hedges to stop them moving, but what if you brought in some sort of pre-made structure, like just a square of wooden planks set to the current width of the path and you set it down in the path, maybe anchor it with stones, wouldn't that keep the hedges from shifting, because the structure's in the way?"
Jigano Silversmith
the Sage
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#23
He grinned ruefully at Maea’s excellent question, giving an apologetic shake of his head. ”Not that I know of, but thankfully they’re very rare, and have never been encountered outside the Labyrinth.” Which wasn’t to say that they couldn’t get out… just that they didn’t advertise if and when they did. Quanil’s rather… odd… follow-up had him tilting his chin thoughtfully, then shrugging. ”I’ve never tried it. I suspect it wouldn’t matter much – as soon as you were out of sight of it the hedges could just shift to sequester the foreign object until it rotted or was broken down, but they’re big enough that they can also just grow right over the top of it and break it, I think.” Even if one somehow tried to build a giant cube or something the hedges might be able to just crush it unless it was made of metal.

Maea’s comment on the Efas Herb was exactly what he’d been hoping would happen during the lesson – other tidbits being brought up by those who encountered them – and he nodded eagerly, giving her a broad smile. ”An excellent point! Efas Herb is a minor panacea with potential magical properties, given the wide range of ailments it cures or alleviates. It can decrease pain, swelling, and inflammation, as well as helping with stomachaches and speed the healing of bruises. It looks almost like grass, but with small, brown clusters protruding from it. It’s found towards the center of the maze, though, so Attuned with wings may have an easier time getting in and getting out again with a small harvest of it.”

They were moving right along, with only a few more areas within the Hollowed Grounds to cover. The Spire Demon had been destroyed, so he glossed over the Spire for the nearby Oasis, and one of the lovelier dangers of the area. This time he had a picture to share, setting the large drawing of the next plant up on the stand so everyone could see the colored depiction of a lily with curving white petals dappled with black spots. ”The Gilded Lilies in the Oasis are beautiful, but deadly,” he cautioned his audience. ”They’re poisonous to touch as well as to eat. Picking them releases a scent that is supposedly lovely, but is in fact quite toxic. First you lose the ability to move and then, eventually to breath as your body shuts down from within. If someone with Healing magic doesn’t find you before then, you may not survive.”

A grim note to leave off on, so he paused to think of a somewhat cheerier denizen before he opened the floor to questions again. ”I’ve never seen a Dream Fish myself, but they live within the Oasis and are rarely seen or caught. It’s said that touching one can enable a lucid dream that can help someone who is conflicted work through some of their internal troubles. They’re pearly white in color… and to be honest, I’d expect most of us to run into them eventually,” he added with a dash of dry humor, considering the inner conflict Caido tended to cultivate in anyone who was here for long.


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#24
Quanil's dreams were as crushed as the hypothetical structure they'd proposed.

Well, okay, that was perhaps too much, but it was a nice sentence, and they were quite proud of themselves for the thought as they jotted down the information.

They didn't understand why anyone would want to eat a lily, but they wrote down the information regardless. For a change, they had no questions on the topics presented, but they couldn't help a snort at the Dream Fish comment.
Jigano Silversmith
the Sage
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#25
There were no questions or comments forthcoming on the Oasis, so Jigano decided to keep moving right along, not wanting the silence to sit for too long. Once he saw the pencils pause and eyes return to the front he took a breath, launching into the next segment. "The Woodlands have several curious and interesting inhabitants, such as snow moss and hanging snakes, but these are generally harmless - or even helpful, in the case of snow moss and peppermint bark. What you want to watch out for are the Banshees and the Wicker Women." He put up another board, this one more an artist's rendition of a banshee from Safrin's book and reports from the Monster Hunter's Guild. "The Banshees might look like women wrapped in rags from behind, but they're reported to have a skeletal appearance, usually found either singing or weeping. They don't appear to be sentient in a way that we can communicate with. Attempting to disturb them will only anger them and result in their chasing you until they catch you and strangle you to death." He looked grimly out at those gathered. "And since they're some sort of lost soul or undead, they don't get tired or need to rest, so they can chase you until you tire. Though there haven't been reports of them outside the Woodland, I wouldn't rely on that to mean safety if you can reach the Fields or town. There's still more we need to learn about them, but as dangerous as they are it's a difficult prospect." And he wasn't going to ask his Loreseekers to go poke one to find out what their limits were!

"The other dread ladies of the Woods are the Wicker Women, though they're more common across the border in the Greatwood, I think," he said, with a nod to Tarasha. "These are trees which won't chase you, thankfully, but their branches move and they're carnivorous. Look for gnarled branches twisted around nearby trees and bushes, and piles of bones at the trunks. If you brush against them one of their branches will move - faster than you might expect - to curl around you and pull you in, trapping you there until you starve to death and your body goes to feed its roots. Beware of damaging it in your attempts to escape; their sap is a potent hallucinogen, and once you get it on you may not regain your senses enough to even try to escape further."

While he was on the subject... "Not in the Woodlands but in the Outskirts there is a similar plantimal," Jigano explained, pulling up another board, this one with a sphere of jumbled sticks drawn on it. "Tangleweeds are like tumbleweeds, if you've ever seen those before; dry-seeming collections of sticks that blow across the landscape. It's unclear if they move on their own or only when blown by the wind, but they're mobile and tend to travel in packs. Like the Wicker Women, they respond to touch by lashing out with a limb to wrap around whatever they bumped into. Rather than a hallucinogen their sap is a numbing agent, and if they can wrap around a creature and numb it so it can't move they can slowly digest it." Not a good way to go, especially if, unlike the Wicker Woman, the prey was aware of what was happening the entire time, just unable to feel it.


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#26
Quanil had heard stories of Banshees before. Their parents were quite fond of warning their children of what might happen if they wandered too far afield. Still, there was something about hearing the provost's calm, steady voice say, "catch you and strangle you to death," that made it much more real and terrifying. Not that they'd ever thought the Banshees weren't real, but there was real and there was REAL.

Still, as they wrote down the provost's words, they couldn't help wondering if there wasn't a good way to test just how far they'd go to catch their prey. A new question presented itself, but they wrote it down to ask at the end of the Woodlands part.

They wrote down about the Wicker Women and the Tangleweeds though. They knew of them both, but had never known their proper names. And now... NOW IT WAS QUESTION TIME.

"How well do Banshees know their prey? What if you had a relay system set up, three people who were dressed up to look like each other, especially from behind, and they could just hide behind certain trees along the way through, swapping out in order to keep one person from getting too tired?

"Oh, and if the Tangleweeds have a numbing agent, is there a way to catch one and extract that numbing agent for use in surgeries?"
Maea Valair
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#27
Maea
Big dreamers shoot for open skies
Again, most of this was common knowledge to them who had grown up in the Hollowed Ground. Maea still noted down the information, thinking it might be an interesting project to make a compendium of information like this to new arrivals. Simple bits of information, neatly stacked up and kept short, with references for where to go in case more in depth knowledge was required... It brought a smile to her face, and the hand that held the pencil grew a little steadier.

Quanil was a fount of curiosity, it seemed, and far more unapologetic about not knowing things than she. The suggestion that the Tangleweed sap might be used for medicinal pratice made her eyebrows rise, an impressed look on her face as she turned to look at the youngster.

"Good thinking," she said. "Perhaps we should try to catch one, and bring a sample to the College for testing? There are other interesting things in tangleweed anyway, I've always been curious to see exactly what they pick up as they go along. Living things aren't the only thing they latch on to." The idea of a little adventure like that made her eyes sparkle.

♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
Jigano Silversmith
the Sage
Provost of the Loreseekers Soul Shepherd
Portal Guardian
Age: 36 | Height: 6'2" | Race: Attuned x Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#28
Quanil’s questions poured out in a renewed flood, their previous silence merely a pause in the endless machinations of their agile mind. Jigano tilted his head at the young Loreseeker, a wry smile on his lips. ”As for that, we don’t know, and it’s dangerous to test such a hypothesis in case the banshee hunts by some sense other than sight. If she is following one person specifically then the additional people won’t interest her and the first person will get tired eventually.” He wasn’t really sure what the point of such a test would even be, in truth, but Quanil had lit upon a much better idea, one that Maea expanded on and he nodded enthusiastically to them both.

”I was hoping we could try a joint exercise with the Medical College in the near future,” he agreed. ”I don’t know if it’s been done before, but it’s worth trying, and as Maea said, learning more about their ecology and seeing what they’ve picked up may prove interesting.”

All that left only two areas left to explore, and he lifted another picture board up, though this one was far more stylized and clearly an artist’s rendition rather than a first-hand account. ”The Bone Bridge,” he began, expression sobering again, ”crosses a chasm shrouded in mist. The bottom of the gorge is fairly barren and rocky but there is one creature that lives there that is almost never seen. The Kappa is said to have the head of a scaled bird, a turtle’s body and shell, and frog-like legs, and that it somehow flies, but all we have is a written description of it. The account said that it was generally passive as long as it wasn’t startled, but when we were down there,” he nodded at Sam, ”we found a cave of bones that seemed to indicate that it might well be carnivorous – and quite large enough to consider humans as prey. Crossing the Bridge is safe, but be careful if you venture into the mists beneath.”

Given that the Bridge was far less traveled, and that the Kappa stayed in its gorge, it wasn’t really a threat unless people went looking for trouble. The final beast on the agenda, though…

”Many of you have likely heard of the Landshark,” he continued, nodding to the Naturals in the room. ”Perhaps even lost livestock or friends to it. It’s perhaps the most dangerous denizen of the Hollowed Grounds because it’s the hardest to predict or defend against. I’ve seen it surface twice… and I still can’t tell you much about what it looks like, aside from the vast red maw and large, sharp teeth that fill it.” Teeth that swiftly closed on their prey before it vanished beneath the ground again. ”The good news is that it’s only active once every few months; once it feeds it seems to hibernate while digesting its meal. Given its size, it’s no surprise that it hunts larger animals and people, but its coming is so swift and the time between its meals so difficult to measure that defending against it has proven almost impossible. Unfortunately I have little to offer for suggestions to you, aside from being wary when you walk in the fields.” An unfortunate note to end on, though he had a final surprise for those who had stayed with him through the long lecture. He looked around the room, his smile coming back as he noted those who looked drowsy as well as those who had been taking such furious notes.

”Any last questions before I wrap this up?”


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