Gathering Materials (Kaeson, Nai'shee)

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on May 26th, 2012, 2:34 am

When Kaeson said the words, 'we're not clear,' Tock advanced on him, and if he hadn't been backing away at the same time, she would have slugged him one. She didn't notice James watching her from the corner of his eye, considering whether to try to hold her back. It wouldn't be the first time he'd had to pull her off someone when her temper exploded.

"S'take more an' a couple minutes," Tock growled at Kaeson. "We don't even knows what's a matter wit' 'im! Ya got some new magic trick ta figure 'er out, aye?" she held her hands out to the side, giving him a questioning look. Then she thrust a finger at him and said, "Ya might be better an' me at makin' 'em, but 'at don't mean ya know the first thing 'bout fixin' 'em! We done gots ta look 'at 'is soul an' 'is mind an' find out why 'e's not feelin' good. Can ya do 'at? Huh?" She had learned enough in her Animation class to know that Animation itself simply couldn't do that sort of thing. She was already planning on studying Auristics next semester. That was the only way to diagnose a problem like this.

"An' even if'n ya wanted ta 'elp make 'im better, 'ow's we gonna do it out 'ere, aye?" she gestured around to the grassy hillside. "Gonna make a circle in the dirt? Ya think it'll 'old up right? Ye'd end up corruptin' my baby if'n the circle 'ad a gap cause we didn't do 'er on a proper lab. An' I AIN'T lettin' ya make my baby worse!" she jabbed her finger at him again, glaring at him with a fire in her eyes.

She stepped over to Cutty and petted him, running her hands gingerly along the dull back edge of the saw blade. "'E's gonna be fine, my baby is," she said. "But ain't done nothin' ta do out 'ere in the 'ills. I ain't lettin' ya mess wit' 'im an' make 'im worse. 'Is Mommy will make 'im all better soon as we get 'ome, ain't 'at right baby?" she leaned down and kissed the saw blade, then guided Cutty (with some difficulty and more sporadic freezes) to start the next cut. She knew he could do the job... he just needed Mommy to stay by his side. As long as she kept a close eye on him, he'd be fine.

It wasn't like he was going to accidentally cut someone's foot off...

by **Kaeson Dakano** on May 26th, 2012, 3:22 am

"No...no, it wouldn't take more the a few minutes, I mean we would only be redo -- uh, healing one part right?" Kaeson countered, though he said it with arguably less conviction than he had used before. Tock was right, no matter which way he looked at it. Kaeson had the experience needed to give life to a basic animation, but he was in no way prepared to actually correct or fix one -- no matter how small the problem. "No, I don't have any 'new magics' to help," Kaeson replied to Tock, perhaps a little too curtly considering her current emotional state. Looking at Cutty, Kaeson sighed. "Auristics would be the easiest and quickest way...' Kaeson thought, trying to figure someway around the problem. "I guess I could just ask Tock how she animated Cutty, it --," Kaeson eyes widened as an idea popped into his head.

Hearing Tock's complaints against not having a proper lab, Kaeson interrupted saying, "Who needs a lab?" Kaeson asked, gesturing towards the wagon, "The wagon we came here on should be -- no, definitly is big enough. I mean, didn't it fit all of your --,"Kaeson paused, struggling to find the right words, "babies as well as me and Nai'shee? Plus, the wagon's sides are long enough to block the wind from disturbing the circles during the animation process. Besides, we didn't use a lab for Anne if I remember correctly." Kaeson said.

"Look, Tock...in the end it's up too you. If you walk me through your process on Cutty, what you did exactly when you animated him -- I honestly think I could find the problem, but it's up too you...and Cutty." Kaeson said, deciding to stop bothering Tock about it if she decided against his help. Although he hadn't known Tock for very long, Kaeson saw her as a friend and didn't think it was worth losing her over a stupid argument. Even if Cutty could end up cutting off one of his legs...

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on May 26th, 2012, 4:26 am

"I ain't know what I done wrong!" Tock snapped, glaring at Kaeson over her shoulder. "Don'tcha done think I thought 'bout 'at? I did everythin' like normal... I gave 'im a soul, an' directives, an' feelin's an' programmin' an' everythin', just like every other time! I don't know why 'e's sick!" She was sobbing now, clinging to her baby. "It WEREN'T my fault!" she screamed at Kaeson. "Ya don't gotta talk ta me like it were my fault! I's a good Mommy ta 'im!!" Her heart ached with guilt. The way Kaeson was talking, the way he wanted to know 'what she did exactly', made it seem like he was blaming her. Like she had done something wrong in the animation process.

She collapsed to her knees, burying her face in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably. It was her fault... her baby was sick and it was all her fault! Her body shook as she was wracked with tears, and she was filled with the desperation to make it better. But she didn't know what to do. Despite what Kaeson was suggesting, she knew they couldn't fix Cutty right here and now. They needed to diagnose the problem before they put Cutty in the Animation circles to fix him. And she had no idea what the problem was. So how could they fix it?

She knew they couldn't. It required research, and analysis of what was wrong. Reprogramming Cutty was useless if they didn't know what kind of programming he needed. She felt so helpless... so she knelt there and cried.

James finally grew brave enough to step closer, kneeling by her and laying his hands on her back. Uncertain what to say, he just offered silent comfort. She turned and buried her face into his shoulder, still sobbing for her poor baby.

by **Kaeson Dakano** on May 26th, 2012, 9:20 pm

"What? No, no, I didn't mean to say -- It's not your fault, Tock!" Kaeson yelled, trying to get Tock to hear him through her sobs. Kaeson frowned, eyes stormy grey and full of sympathy. He felt horribly guilty that Tock had taken offense to his offer -- something he should've known would set her off, Kaeson had been in similar situations before and couldn't blame Tock for acting the way he had in numerous situations. He hadn't meant to say Tock was to blame, and she should know it wasn't her fault. "Of course, you're a good mother! You see how they act towards you, don't you? They love you!" Kaeson cried desperately, trying to reinstall a sense of confidence in Tock. By now, Kaeson face burnt red with embarrassment. He couldn't believe he had made Tock cry, and Kaeson felt completely horrible to find himself the cause of someone else's pain

"Look, Tock, I'm sorry...," he mumbled from a distance. Tock was hanging on to Cutty as of he would disappear is she let the automaton go, and no matter how guilty Kaeson felt, he had seen more then his fair share of corrupted and broken animations. Kaeson was more then aware of the dangers they posed, and was extremely wary of Cutty -- with him being a walking saw and all.

Seeing James go over to comfort Tock, Kaeson slowly approached the two in a way that kept them behind Cutty and in front of him. Kaeson silently scolded himself for being such a coward, and that Cutty had not once given him a reason to be scared. Kaeson was within a normal speaking range when he bent down to talk to Tock. If Tock had her eyes open she would see Kaeson's eyes a swirl of costant changing colors. From yellow to ice blue to a soft purple, the colors flashed and danced in his iris to reflect his conflicting emotions. Kaeson spoke softly, "Tock, I'm really really sorry I said anything. I should've," -- Kaeson paused, struggling to get the words out of his mouth. "I should've just kept my mouth shut, it wasn't any of my business." Kaeson seemed to say the words with serenity, but Kaeson knew he didn't believe them. It was his business because Cutty posed a dangerous problem to him, and the people on this trip, but he thought it better that Tock didn't know this. "Cutty will be alright soon enough, it's just a small problem. I'm sure if we take him to the university, we can --," Kaeson stopped himself from finishing his sentence. Why hadn't Tock taken Cutty to the university yet, he asked himself. "These problems couldn't have just started today," Kaeson thought to himself, briefly wondering if he should ask why Tock hadn't taken Cutty to be treated.

Looking Tock right in the eye, completely sincere in what he was about to say, "I just wanted to help, Tock. I didn't mean anything by it. I promise," Kaeson finished.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on May 26th, 2012, 11:17 pm

Tock calmed a bit when Kaeson reassured her that she was a good mother. She wiped her nose on James's shirt, which he begrudgingly tolerated since he knew she was upset. When she finally pulled away he brought her some water and said, "Everything's gonna be fine..." There wasn't much conviction in his voice, considering he didn't know the first thing about how all this magic stuff worked. But it was clear he was trying to help Tock feel better.

After she calmed down, Tock got up and looked at Kaeson. "Ya ain't gonna tell nobody at the Uni 'bout 'is..." she said, a bit of that wild look creeping back into her eyes. She wasn't going to let her Professors take her baby away and deactivate him. "Ya ain't gonna tell nobody at all!" The threat behind her eyes was clear. She'd do anything to protect her baby, even if it meant taking Kaeson down to do so. "I's 'is Mommy, and I's gonna make 'im better, aye? So ya don't say NOTHIN'!" She glared at him until she was quite sure he knew she was dead serious, then got back to work.

While there was currently no way to find the cause of he problem, the symptoms were already clear. Cutty wasn't doing anything he wasn't supposed to be doing, he simply wasn't 'hearing' some of her commands. He sometimes didn't start when she told him to, or didn't stop when commanded. But he wasn't doing anything unpredictable. Tock just needed to find a way to work around the problem, until she could get her baby home and make him better.

She decided the best bet was to simply limit the number of commands she gave him. Since the problem was in whether or not he would obey any given command, the fewer commands she gave him, the less chance there was of problems. She limited herself only to start and stop commands for the rest of the day. Sometimes he still started cutting or stopped right when she told him to. Sometimes he didn't, and she had to lovingly badger and plead with him until he listened. But as long as no one was stupid enough to get in the path of the blade while he was active, there was no direct danger.

To limit the potential problems, she moved Cutty manually after each cut. That way there wouldn't be problems with him freezing up while she was commanding him to move. Choppy she still gave verbal commands to get him to reposition, but when Cutty was done cutting, she lifted him manually and placed him in a new position for the next cut. This slowed things down a little, but this seemed to be the safest solution.

Each segment of tree Cutty sliced through was carefully lifted with teamwork (and a little extra boost from Nai's Flux ability), and carefully placed into the wagon. It took awhile, but even with the problems Cutty was still faster than slicing the tree up by hand. Though it was getting dark by the time the work was finished and the wood was loaded and ready to go.

by **Nai'shee** on June 2nd, 2012, 1:12 pm

Is this even possible? Nai'shee was watching little Animatons run around the wagon and appear everywhere all of the sudden. Little hammer, obviously named Naily, was really cute by her opinion. However, she liked Bitey the most. It intrigued her how he acted so much like a real animal. Kaeson couldn't hold his questions, and he had dozens. It confused Nai'shee even more, since she didn't understand a single thing. She observed the whole situation, few times opening mouth to ask something, but giving up. She felt almost like dreaming, with objects moving around her on their own free will.

Nai'shee didn't notice how much have passed, but soon enough they were on their destination. Tock got to work before she could even exit wagon. She let Naily go first and followed tools rolling to Tock. Kaeson did the same thing, but he seemed like admiring her work with those. James was the only person who didn't stick around cheerful tools, trying to be on 'safe distance'. Tock commanded them what to do and within few moments tools were doing their job. "And what do we do than?", Nai'shee asked. They only have to pack things up and drive them back. She prayed to Laviku, or whoever was listening, for James to drive back, since it will be interesting with all that wood with them.

They got to search for food. She had some of food she brought left, but she ate most by now. However, she added it into supplies too. She followed Kaeson, listening to his mumbling. While they were searching, Nai'shee couldn't stop asking questions. Kaeson told her names of few plants she asked about, but they obviously weren't edible. He told her about the rule, "Leaves of three, let it be". It should be useful to know at least that much, but she was sure it couldn't be applied to every plant. However, better without risking. They found some onion and nuts. Nai'shee wanted to pick few berries, but Kaeson just looked at them and decided to pass. When she asked about it he said berries tend to be poisonous and look like one another, so you can't tell them apart. Soon enough they were finished with their search and sadly looked at supplies. Tock found a way to cook them, which was too slow by Nai'shee's opinion, but it was still cooking. She remembered the time when she made a stove out of stones to fry some eggs long ago and this primitive method was close enough. She carefully observed what she was doing, counting the time needed for stones to warm up and how much times she had to repeat it to boil water. It was cooling down every time it had to wait a bit for the next stone, so it was slow process. But after a while, it was over. At least until Kaeson dropped everything and ruined it. "Shyke", they said at the same time.

"Hey, that was supposed to be our lunch!", she yelled, quickly standing up and moving before she gets burnt from hot water. Only than did she notice that Kaeson's hand was burnt too. She felt embarrassed for yelling at him and she slowly approached. "Sorry, I didn't realize... Let me take a look." She couldn't say she was skilled in medicine, but she always had to take care of herself, so she had basic experience with scratches, wounds and burns. She especially learned a lot about burns from her recent injury. Of course, this wasn't even close to it, it was minor burn. She didn't dare to touch it and cause him pain. She didn't know anything about treating burns, but Kaeson did and he soon enough created mud to apply to his injury. He explained Nai'shee that he learned about it on herbalism classes. She helped him create mud by adding some water using Reimancy, she didn't want him to spend all the water they had supplied. While they were on it, Tock collected food from the ground and tried to mix up something again.

When they finally had lunch, Nai'shee could only think about dinner. Food didn't taste too good, but it wasn't problem for her. But she used some of her Djed today and she knew she will probably use more while they're working with this and she needed something but boiled plants mixed up without any soup left. Her part disappeared rather quickly and she decided to risk. Again. She helped a bit more again, before she offered: "I can go and try hunt down some small animal, so we could get proper dinner?" She sounded pretty convincing, so nobody even thought she wasn't experienced hunter. She left as soon as job of carrying the first tree into wagon was done.

OOCI tried to move her away, because she would interact in argument and I guess it would change your characters' reactions and it's too complicated to change it now... And we need dinner, anyways.

She took a way opposite of the road they came by. She assumed animals, especially small ones, the ones she was looking for, would run away from road, used by humans who can hurt them. She was proud of that conclusion, so she assumed hunting will be an easy job for her. She was moving only forward, so she wouldn't get lost, occasionally leaving herself some trace of way back. After a long while she realized she wasn't going anywhere, and she stopped and sat to rest and thing what was she doing wrong. She thought she should find some rabbit or something and hunt it down using her Flux skill, but there was no sign of life around her, except annoying insects and occasional bird's tweet. She had no weapons, so anything that could fly was dangerous to hunt. She could climb a tree and catch it by Flux-jump, but she would probably fall and break something. The silence was soon enough interrupted by the sound on the tree above her. She didn't recognize the sound, so she looked up, facing a huge snake. She was immediately feet away from the tree, looking at confused snake. The animal was fast, but she knew it couldn't catch up with her, so she calmed down a bit. She looked around, searching for more foes, but it seems like this snake was alone. Do they usually move alone? It was huge and black and white, with entertaining pattern. Nai'shee tried lifting a sssss sound, but, normally, nothing happened. After a while snake stopped chasing her in circles. Nai'shee had no idea why she didn't run away. It was fun to her. Snake now looked disappointed in itself and decided to give up. They both just stood in silence looking at each other. Quiet a some time passed in that game of theirs and now perfect silence fell on forest. Nai'shee suddenly felt sleepy and shaken her head, reminding herself what she was doing. It was already early evening by that time.

Suddenly, a rabbit appeared in close bush. Both Nai'shee and snake rushed to it, but, as mentioned, Nai'shee was faster. However, she now allowed snake to approach, which was the only thing it wanted. It tried to bite, but Nai'shee dodged, putting a rabbit in her place. Snake's huge fangs, invisible up until now, bit the rabbit in full strength. She cowered, thinking it was supposed to happen to her. Dark red blood flew over snake's white skin. Nai'shee held a rabbit in air, not sure what to do. Snake couldn't let go because it would fall, so Nai'shee raised them a bit more, to make sure it won't risk it. She couldn't let go either, because snake would be free to attack after that. They stood like that for a moment, before Nai'shee foolishly swung a rabbit until snake couldn't hold it anymore. She sent her Djed into her legs and used more than she should for escape. She didn't dare to look back, but snake was probably far far away, stunned from hitting whatever it hit. After a while she calmed down and stopped using Flux. She remembered the blood and she was happy seeing that she didn't leave trace behind her. It seemed that little rabbit didn't have too much in it. She didn't even want to look at cute animal. She was happy that snake was the one who killed it.

She stopped a bit further from their camping place, on a little stream to wash her hands and rabbit. It was pure white and it took her a while to put it back into that state. However, she was certain that she didn't want James to see blood all over her and animal, so she washed both carefully. Her clothes had few stains as well, but she couldn't wash them now, it was already getting pretty dark and they were probably worried. She filled a bottle in her bag with water and finally returned to camp, happy, proud, prepared to tell them about her victory.

But she found Tock yelling at Kaeson and with traces of crying on her face. She just stood there, confused. When situation calmed down James explained her what happened, which didn't help too much, since he didn't understand himself. She just left rabbit besides Tock's campfire and got to work. Tock and Kaeson didn't even notice it in the beginning and they were too occupied with their own thoughts to ask how did it go with hunting. However, she didn't care. She tried to calm Tock down while she helped her, without mentioning the whole situation, just trying to get her thoughts to work. She wasn't sure if it was going all that well.

by **Kaeson Dakano** on June 2nd, 2012, 10:18 pm

Kaeson eyes narrowed slightly as he realized Tock was threatening him. Opening his mouth, Kaeson thought about a few choice words he could say in retort before deciding against it. Part of him really wanted to say something back, ask exactly why she hadn't asked for help at the university. Kaeson also sympathized with Tock, as an animator he understood how it felt to see something he had created fail -- it hurt, but Kaeson was known fully aware of Tock's temper and pissing off a girl who had a walking axe, hammer, and an animated spider under her control probably wasn't the smartest or safest thing to do. Instead, Kaeson smiled insincerely and muttered a curt reply, "I gotcha, crystal clear," and quickly put himself back to work collecting fallen branches.

Soon enough, Tock and Cutty had cut the tree into more manageable segments and the group then worked together to carry each segment to wagon. Kaeson, not used to manually labor, clearly struggled with this part of the work. It was difficult to grasp the large tree segments without splitting some skin, and very painful to have to continually grasp his hands on the rough bark of the elm. He watched Nai'shee closely as she managed to carry some of the segments alone, which impressed Kaeson very much. Nai'shee had mentioned to him before that she was a flux user. Her impressive use of the magic just made him that much more curious.

Work that would have normally taken bells was made that much quicker by Nai'shee and her flux which allowed them to finish just as Syna set, allowing Leth access to the sky.

The hard work had replaced of all Kaeson's worries of Tock and Cutty far behind him, and all he wanted to do was get home and rest.

Quickly Kaeson jumped into the wagon, and helped strapped down the wood so as to keep it from falling out of the wagon during their return trip. Yawning, Kaeson laid down uncomfortably upon the lumber quietly watching the sky darken as night approached. The gentle rocking of the wagon resulted in him falling asleep, only waking up once they had reached Zeltiva.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on June 3rd, 2012, 2:31 am

Tock was mostly quiet the rest of the trip. She was in a bad mood, and worried for her baby. She also belatedly realized that she was taking it out on her friends, which wasn't fair. But for most of the ride back she just didn't give a damn. She let James drive, since he was far more experienced than she, and running the wagon off the road would be a horrible idea.

When they dropped Nai'shee off at her house, Tock hopped down from the wagon and hobbled over on her good foot to walk her to the door. She wanted the chance to (begrudgingly) apologize. "Oy, Conch," she said, keeping her voice low enough that the boys in the wagon couldn't hear them. "I's..." she paused, clearing her throat. She wasn't so good at this 'apology' stuff. "I's sorry I done made a fuss, aye? I's jus' worried fer my baby. But thanks fer all yer 'elp. Couldn't o' done 'er wit'out ya, aye?" She gave the girl a hug, then added, "I's get ta work on 'at boat fer ya soon as ya want, aye? I done owes ya one."

When they got to Kaeson's place, Tock was thinking a bit more hard about the prospect of apologizing. She was still somewhat mad at him for implying she was at fault. The stubborn side of her didn't think she needed to apologize, but the side of her that considered him a friend thought she should anyway.

Stubbornness won out. One apology a night was all she could handle right now. So all she said when they dropped him off was, "I's see ya soon, mate."

Once her and James were alone they went back to Tock's house to talk for awhile. He ended up comforting her quite a bit, which only made her feel more guilty for the way she'd treated Kaeson. By the end of the night, after promising to take James out for some drinks soon as thanks for his help, Tock ended up huddled alone with her babies in her home, forced to sort out all of her messed up problems on her own.

The next day she'd deliver Jacques his promised load of wood, and sell part of the rest of the load to trade for metal. She used the money from the sale for a supply of iron and copper that she and Kaeson could use in their projects. Assuming he still wanted to work with her after the way she'd treated him.

Grading Note :

by **Cascade** on June 15th, 2012, 4:32 pm

Adventurer's Loot

Kaeson's Loot :

Nai'shee's Loot :

Tock's Loot :

Additional Consequence: The wagon somehow did not remain unscathed due to someone's wild driving. Jacques will adamantly refuse to lend the wagon again until persuaded in a 'competent' manner.

Woah, well doing the math for that last note made my hurt head a bit, but Tock is lovely so it's all good.

For the record, the cost of all the items Tock and Kaeson received will be roughly 35 gm each. That's a tad lot in my opinion, but since Nai'shee is giving up her share and because I see the effort you put in, I'll let you run off with your items.

Thank you for a wonderful thread, my little minions... *cackles*! A... Ahem. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to PM me!