Plant Problems (Syrah)

[Petpapaysa]

Third Day of Summer, AV 512
One Bell After Sunrise

LocationLocated en route to wherever Syrah was headed.

Riverfall was a beautiful city, of that there was no doubt; nearly all of the akalak city was expertly crafted, covered in beautiful greenery, or some combination thereof. Archways with flowering vines hanging from them were common enough to not be worth a second glance for most residents of the city, which is why few people took notice of the small Chaktawe woman hanging from one such arch.

"What are you doing up there?" One young Akalak, shouted up to her. Petpapaysa didn't answer, holding a razor in her mouth, hanging from the bottom of the arch by clinging with her legs and delicately sorting through leaves with her hands. "Or at least, how did you get up there?" It was a perfectly valid question, the arch itself was a good twelve feet off the ground and there weren't any ladders in site - while it might have been an easy leap for an Akalak, at not even five feet tall Petpapaysa certainly couldn't have reached the decorative arch alone. "You could hurt yourself up there, are you sure your endeavor is wise?"

Finding an appropriate sample leaf, Petpapaysa took the razor from her mouth and began cutting it very carefully, explaining herself just before the blue juvenile could query further, "Do you see how some of the leaves have yellow spots on them?" The young man didn't have time to answer, "That's not normal. You get up close, you realize they're basically little yellow blisters. Some kind of oil on the inside, so I want to find out what the oil does. So I'm up here collecting samples."

"How do you know it does anything?" Another valid question from the blue young man, though the upside-down chaktawe didn't appear to be in the mood to answer it. "Why don't you just pluck the whole leaves?"

"You are really starting to give me a headache." There was a clear level of frustration in her voice, but she managed to stay calm enough to use a razor while hanging upside down without cutting herself.

"The headache is probably from being upside down. Why don't you just pluck a leaf or two instead of cutting them all up?"

"They are not my vines. I just take pieces, corners, sides. The leaves still work, the plant stays happy, the city stays pretty." She carefully loaded her samples into what appeared to be a waterskin, closed it, and went back to looking for another leaf to take samples from safely. "Well, probably happy and pretty. The plant might be dying. But maybe I can fix that, yes?" She continued working on vines and her face was slowly turning red - The young Akalak stood there and continued to watch.

EDITAccidentally put 'Akvatari' when I meant 'Akalak'. Fixed that.

[Syrah Steele]

Syrah was on her way to work when she noticed a small woman hanging upside down on an arch, doing something with the vines entwined over the arch. She witnessed the conversation between the girl and the Akalak. To be honest, Syrah almost collapsed. She had started working at the vineyards mid last season and the little yellow blisters that the girl explained seemed very similar to the little yellow bubbles on the grape leaves. Those bubbles along with the weird premature yellow grapes on vines that did not produce yellow grapes worried her a lot. A few workers had bravely tried the sour grapes. They were out of work for a little less than a week, suffering from a food poisoning like state of fever, puking and slight hallucinations. Nothing was fatal though and every employee was ordered to pick and burn the grapes because birds were dropping from the sky. The fruit being more fatal to them.

Syrah was very shocked and deeply saddened at the state of the grapes when she first saw them. Her fathers grape vines back in Syliras had been almost completely wiped out by the hurricane and she hadn't seen this effect from the Djed over in Syliras. The work over at the Bluevein Winery and Vineyards was difficult but Syrah was willing to do anything to help the vines survive the season. And a chance seemed to rise out of the blue this morning.

"Do you know a lot about this stuff?" Syrah yelled up, hoping maybe the girl knew enough to help out the vineyards. The plants worried her and Jon was always worried if they would lose a seasons crop intake. Black always had magicians and philters of every kind to try and restore the plants, but nothing seemed to be working. Maybe science would help them this time.

"The vineyards are not in good shape. Nothing we try works, we will lose an entire season. The leaves have similar blisters on them like the ones up there and weird premature poison grapes. Do you think you can help? I am on my way there now." Syrah really hoped the girl knew something. If she knew anything she might be able to help.

[Petpapaysa]

"I know almost nothing about this stuff." The answer probably wasn't the one that Syrah was hoping for, but it was the honest one. "If the plants are sick, I have no cures. I'll take a look though, and I can maybe cook up a treatment. Watch your toes." Pulling her torso close to the beam she was hanging from, she grabbed her bastard sword which had been flush on to p of the beam in it's harness then hung it as close to the ground as she could manage and dropped it, and with a bounce and a clatter it was at ground level. Pulling herself up to the beam again, she dropped down a backpack in a similar fashion. Her face turning more and more red from the exertion, she carefully closed her razor and pocketed it before giving the young Akalak standing below a query. "Are you strong enough to catch me?"

"Ha! Of course I am." At only barely six feet tall, the Akalak was clearly not as developed as he was going to get. Like all the blue men though, there was more muscle on him than could possibly be useful, and so trusting his assessment of his abilities Petpapaysa grabbed onto the beam with her hands, dropped her feet, dangled a few seconds to get steady, and dropped into the Akalak's waiting arms.

The Akalak perhaps didn't have good footing, because as soon as he tried gripping the small Chaktawe, he fell, and the big blue man and the small brunette woman were both on the ground. "You worthless idiot!" She shouted at him in Tawna as she scrambled to her feet, her hands balled into fists and visibly shaking.

The young Akalak apologized as he rose to his feet, "I am so sorry, you were much heavier than I had expected and -" Petpapaysa shot him a dangerous look, strapping her sword to her back in the same moment he made a comment about weight. She wasn't offended, Chaktawe were usually much heavier than people with the same shape, but she did take a small amount of pleasure seeing the man squirm and regret his word choice. He remained silent as she shouldered her pack, and chose not to press his luck as Petpapaysa's attention returned to and stayed with Syrah.

"You say nothing you've tried works. What have you tried?" Petpapaysa looked up at Syrah with the question, then turned her gaze to her hands - her left hand was moderately scraped and she could feel a bruise forming on her hip, but was otherwise okay. She was tempted to ask how it was discovered the grapes were poison, but avoided the subject in case the answer was awful.

[Syrah Steele]

Syrah was thoroughly disappointed by the girls answer. If the master magician and Philters couldn't fix it, how could someone with no experience fix it? She sighed and hung her head, about to start walking again when the girl said she would still look. Syrah hesitated, but then thought that any help could help, and hey, maybe she knew something everyone else didn't. She nodded at the girl and waited for her to come down, quickly sidestepping the falling blade.

The young Akalak was truly disappointing when he caught, or tried to catch, the girl. Syrah would have laughed if the mans catch and words after weren't so sad. All she did was shake her head and the boy stumbled over his words. The girl seemed offended, but also dropped the subject easily, disregarding him at once. If it was Syrah she would have smacked him upside the head and commented, rather harshly, at his strength. Maybe tossed in a few 'what would your father think' or 'you should be ashamed of yourself, weak boy.'

Syrah stopped when the girl asked what they had tried. She didn't know much, only saw the unfamiliar men and women in the fields doing magic and pouring weird concoctions on the plants. Jon had told them he had hired Philters and magic users to try and solve to problem before he gave up. "Um, I actually don't know much." She looked at the girl knowing her answer wasn't that great, "Jonathon hired Philters and Magicians to try and fix the problem, they used magic and poured liquids on the plants, but nothing happened..." She trialed off, the subject depressing her. Syrah didn't like that the plants were in so much peril. She loved the vines as if they were her children.

"They were supposed to be masters. But they failed. No one has much hope anymore and Jonathon is thinking about ripping up all the plants. That would be a major setback and tragedy. But if we don't find an answer soon, we will have to throw them out. Even if you don't know much, we could use all the help we can get..." Syrah told the girl hoping and praying to the Gods, mostly Bala, to help the plants. Then she extended her had towards the girl, wanting to be polite to make sure she helped them. She knew if she offended her that she might not work with them. "I am Syrah Steele. I can take you to the vineyards and you can do whatever you need to do. I can pay of course, for your effort. I'll introduce you to Jonathon Black as well, the head of the Bluevein Winery."

[Petpapaysa]

"If they ended up actually using a philter without it working, they probably weren't very good at all." Petpapaysa had a pesky habit of assuming she was better than absolutely everyone else in her field - it wasn't that she could craft better philters, but that she didn't think anybody else invested the same amount of time and thought into the mysteries philters were meant to solve. She was of the opinion that applying a philter before being certain of it's success was idiocy or laziness - if she had to guess, the philterers who'd made attempts before her were probably just attempting common go-to philters, full of nutrients that were good for plants and medicine to correct common ailments of crops. Petpapaysa didn't know how to cook up either of those kind of philters off the top of her head, but she wouldn't have wasted resources on a philter that was just a guess.

"My name is Petpapaysa..." There was a pause as Petpapaysa shook Syrah's hand and chose her words, "...and I am a philterer, by profession." Introducing herself to people who used two names was always odd for her, she felt like they were always expecting a family name or title when she had neither in a meaningful capacity - Why couldn't one name be enough? "Let us go to your vineyard then. I wouldn't ask for you to pay for anything other than success, I'm not close enough to starving to pile a bill upon a failed crop and still sleep at night."

"...I probably will tear up a plant or two, though. I want to look at the roots and soil they're in. And you might find me asking for a few barrels. And a place to work with fire." She contemplated the fact that there was known poison involved and added another potential request, "And maybe some gloves." She tended to hate gloves for the way they obstructed her extra sense even more than she hated shoes for the awkward way they fit on her wide feet, but she was in no mood to die from exposure to grape juice.

As they started on their way, her head was already swimming with the different ways things might have been just awful, only paying enough attention to where they were going to avoid getting tripped over. "You know, if the plants can't be cured, have you considered just finding an antidote? Mix it right into the wine. It would probably be disgusting, but hey, maybe it's the kind of spice that makes a wine stand out on the market." She did in fact see a solution in mixing a poison with the wine, but she didn't know anything about poisons - she made a mental note to make off with some poisoned grapes and see if something could be learned after her work was done.

[Syrah Steele]

Syrah hadn't met the other Philters at all, only observed from a distance as they worked and she really knew nothing about what they were doing, so she just shrugged at the girls comment. When she introduced herself Syrah had to repeat the name in her head a few times, it was long and confusing and Syrah tried to make sure she would be able to say it right and remember it. She was also a little glad that the girl was a Philterer, she had more faith in them than she did the magicians. They irked her and she didn't think they could do much good.

As they walked Syrah obliged to the girl wishes, she could get the supplies easy enough and ruining a poisoned plant wouldn't be that bad she thought... Everything Petpapaysa needed would be in a shed of some-kind on the property.

They got into the vineyard and Syrah stopped at what the girl said next. "I..." she paused thinking of the words, "I don't think that would do any good actually. Um, it would change the wine and it would still be dangerous to anyone who ate the grapes or if the 'antidote didn't work. Plus the birds would keep dying." Oh, she hadn't told Petpapaysa of that. "Yeah, bird are eating the grapes and falling out of the sky, dead. All of them had eaten the grapes, we need to fix the vines themselves, the welfare of anyone or thing that eats anything from the vines could be in danger..." Personally she didn't care at all about the birds, but Jonathon Black and the other Akalaks did, so she would have to as well.

She lead Petpapaysa into the vines more and she stopped and said, "Well all the blisters and grapes are on almost every plant, no matter the kind. So just work anywhere. Get a good look at them, I'll be right back with the stuff you need." then with that Syrah slipped away, venturing out to look for the shed and some men to help her carry the barrels as well as inform Black about another attempt.

[Petpapaysa]

Petpapaysa personally thought that killing off birds preying on crops sounded like a great idea, but it wasn't her vineyard and the Akalak's for all their warrior culture nonsense would probably object. "Again, I don't yet know enough about poisons to follow that route... poisons, as a science, are difficult to study near cities without attracting the ire of it's citizens." Philterers themselves tended to be treated suspiciously in a lot of places even - it didn't help that most poisoncrafting equipment was identical to philtering equipment. "Hopefully the solution lies well within our expertise though." The small Chaktawe didn't sound particularly optimistic, she had told herself in her mind that she should be completely able to devise a solution that would prevent the grapes from being poisonous and the leaves from blistering - but she was less optimistic about saving the current crop.

As Syrah went to fetch supplies and help, Petpapaysa went to work, picking the most afflicted plant she could find and going about digging it up. She had no shovel, but had a shameful lack of respect for her weapon, and so drawing the large sword from where it hung on her back, turned it towards the ground, and started stabbing. There was a decided lack of percision at her thrusts dirt-ward, but it did the job and after a few dozen jabs angled under the plant, Petpapaysa thrust the naked blade directly down into the dirt and left it there to work with the grape plant.

The first thing she did was to check for grapes, and hidden under one very big and very blistered leaf she found a small one, just as awful looking as she'd imagined. She picked as delicately as possible, but apparently not delicately enough. The skin of the thing detached from where it stuck to the vine, so that most of the flesh of the grape remained on the vine as the outer layer sloughed off under the light pressure of her thumb and forefinger. Perhaps the gods in that moment were getting revenge for her lack of reverence, because as the skin and the meat of the grape seperated, a bit of grape juice splattered every which way - some onto leaves, some on to the dirt, a bit on her hand and a bit on her shirt. Philtering was messy - the minor mess didn't bother her. What did bother her was poison grape juice on a hand that she'd scraped up not long ago. Spitting onto the scrape and then wiping it on her pants, she examined the hand a moment as if staring at it might prevent any poisonous effects. She could in fact feel on the scrape where a bit of the awful grape juice had soaked in, and could even see on the spot after a moment a little bit of discoloration and puffiness. She sat there a moment thinking about how she felt, paying careful attention to the signals her body was sending her to see if the poison was wrecking her anywhere else - her heart was beating especially hard, though she attributed that to good old fashioned fear of having poisoned herself - besides a bit of localized nastiness from where it'd gotten in the scrape, Petpapaysa concluded that the tiny drop of grape juice was not going to do her harm.

She reached to yank the plant out of the ground, but an idea occurred to her. Reaching over to her sword, which was very politely remaining in the ground where it had been stuck, she very carefully and gingerly rubbed the side of her hand against the blade, managing to cut her self just a little bit. She wiped off the blood on her pants before yanking a blistered leaf off the vine and pinched a small hole into a blister. Anybody with a lick of common sense would have let her know that the action she was about to take was the highest degree of stupid, but she had a hunch and planned to follow it. Holding the leaf over her cut hand, she allowed a drop of oil to spill onto her cut. She waited a moment, and after feeling no pain, rubbed the oil into the cut by rubbing it on her pants once more. Feeling no stinging and seeing no immediate inflammation, she crunched up the leaf in her hand, letting every blister rupture and have its contents pour onto her cut, then after a moment of no ill effect, rubbed the oil into the cut with the wrist of the opposite hand.

The oily contents of the blister, it seemed, were not poisonous.

"Syrah! Syrah-Steele! I'm making progress!" It was probably too early to be excited, but finding the blister-oil to be non-toxic was important. It was an increased understanding of the problem, one more revealed variable, and one step closer to either a cure or, pending a very likely failure, a preventative medicine for future crops.

Petpapaysa was assuming she was the first person to make her realization about the vineyard's problems, mostly because rubbing blister-fluid from poisonous plants into one's skin was an awful idea, and anyone with the gutso to call themselves an expert wouldn't be caught dead making the attempt.

[Syrah Steele]

Syrah decided she needed to find Black first. She wasn't aware if any employee had ever brought a person in to help, but she knew it was always Black. She needed to find out if it was ok with him to bring in a stranger. She quickly ran through the yards and the winery to his office and knocked on the door. After a simple reply to come in she popped her head through and told Jonathon of the situation. He contemplated it for a second or two then nodded his head in a silent approval. Smiling she thanked him and rushed back out to grab the supplies her helper needed when she stopped and ran back to the office and asked her boss to assign a couple of guys to help her carry some barrels back to Petpapaysa. He then came out of his office and pointed at a couple Akalaks who jogged over and then gave them over to Syrah. She thanked him again and, with her assistants, ran off to the supply shed.

The shed was almost on the other side of the winery and it took a few chimes for her little group to walk over. The Akalaks would converse with each other but just low enough for her ears to be unable to pick up and they wouldn't talk to her. She knew that the other employees didn't really like her that much just because of her name and skill and attitude. Well maybe it was just her attitude, she thought it was her name and skill because she was so proud. But that was just how Syrah is. She didn't really mind the other workers opinion of her she didn't really associate with them and didn't talk to them outside the job.

When they got to the shed Syrah quickly opened the door and stepped inside. It was dim and she had to walk around more, get closer to the objects to really see what was in there. Soon enough she found the barrels. She thought they may be a big big, but they would have to do. And at the back she found a barrel full of gloves. She grabbed two, not really looking if they matched. She didn't know what size hands the girl was, so she hoped these would do.

"Each one of you grab a barrel and follow me." Syrah said to the Akalaks and then strode out of the shed. The Akalaks looked at each other with raised eyebrows then picked up a barrel and followed her out. Syrah was so used to always bossing people around when she worked at her fathers vineyards that it didn't seem rude to do it here. But at her fathers she was a boss and here she wasn't, but there was nothing they could do, Jonathon Black had sent them with her.

With both her assistants following her with large barrels and her with a pair of mismatched gloves in her hand, Syrah lead the men to the waiting Petpapaysa. She was thinking of a spot where the girl could have fire when she heard a barley audible shout. It was Petpapaysa telling her that she had made some progress.

Excited, Syrah forgot about the Akalaks with the barrels and ran back to the Philterer, leaving the men on their own. When she arrived a chime or so later she saw the girl on the ground with a dug up plant and a cut hand. Confused she asked what was going on. Syrah didn't see any progress with her injuring herself. "What did you find?" she said. "Oh, and here are your gloves I hope they are alright." Then remembering the Akalaks with the barrels she looked behind her and saw them a little ways off, but coming straight for them. "Your barrels are coming and you can make fire over there." She said pointing to a place out of reach of the grape vines.