I received a summons from the recently-appointed head gardener for a new botanical garden project in Throal, one Gudrun Seivermorgen. She was extremely busy with the construction portion of the project as well as ensuring the continued growth of the plants she had already collected. It was being sponsored by some up-and-coming person (I don't recall the name... but I suppose it will be quite obvious once the gardens are finished, since I imagine they'll be named appropriately to remind everyone who funded them).
The letter she sent indicated she had need of someone with my skills and asked that I put together a team, although she wasn't terribly specific on the job at the time. Still, I put word out to a few folks to be on standby and went to see what she was looking for. It seems that some of the exotic plants she wanted were in exceptionally dangerous regions of Barsaive and so she had been authorized to hire a team of Adepts and even procured an airship for the expedition as it was apparently quite urgent. That was probably for the best, since the plants she needed were quite spread out and might not have survived the journey being hauled through the Servos Jungle, or over the Throalic mountains, or even across the plains, in a pot, being constantly moved around.
In any event, I had my team on hand and quickly gathered them; Taras was an obvious choice, who else but a Scout to guide a team through the wilderness and find something? We were going into particularly dangerous parts of the world, so R'edtarian seemed like an excellent choice as well. Taras recommended a Windling Shadow Named Vallone, and another Elementalist, a Dwarf Named Barag Yurdrum (who I notice is slightly further advanced in the Discipline than I, but I imagine I got the lead on this one since I am after all a botanist).
There were 3 flowers in particular that Gudrun was looking for, and the first (an interesting specimen known as a water wheel that has several mouths around it for eating small creatures) was found in the Servos Jungle near the Galanga River. Captain Chuggy, who was in charge of the airship, brought us over the River and we lowered ourselves down by ropes (except of course for Vallone; being a Windling she just flew). Taras then brought us to a clearing where he spotted what might be our flower. Also, spiders. Huge ones. I mean, he didn't spot the spiders (Vallone did), but they were there. They spat an almost acidic substance at us, and had poisonous bites, and thankfully most of them were dead by the time we were done. Still, one of them is still out there, and it just gives me the creeps to think of it. I managed to avoid being bitten, but Vallone got paralyzed for quite a while. We dug up around them, got them into their pots, and signalled for our airship to lower some ropes again.
The second flower was to be found somewhere near the head of the Serpent River, "past Clear Creek Crossing". Well, that wasn't terribly specific, and Taras was having a hard time finding the potential location (they grow in areas that are damp and wet), but thankfully my Elementalist senses led us to a cave. In that cave was the flower we were looking for, as well as a bunch of small, very fast spiny creatures. They were apparently also poisonous, and Taras collected some of their spines and sacks which are valuable to alchemists. Personally, I've never worked with them before though... must be for a formula I'm not familiar with. This plant requires a second plant in order to survive, a fair-sized bush which they would grow in the roots of, which we were able to collect as well. We also spotted an interesting plant known as a phoenix flower, a climbing vine famous for being able to almost instantly revive after droughts when it gets water. They were quite beautiful, and I thought Gudrun might be interested, so we gathered a few sticks for them to climb on and added them to our growing collection (pun intended).
Our final destination was in the far side of the Caucavic Valley. Again, grateful to have an airship, we boarded and again set sail for our destination. Around about where the Caucavic River Splits, the region we were supposed to be looking for the Queen of the Night, we spotted a couple of large, frog-like creatures. Nobody was too certain of what they might be, but we figured they probably jump, have long and sticky tongues, and can swim. We got out of the airship a good distance away so they couldn't catch us while we were climbing down. Apparently we missed a few, because there were actually five of them. Fortunately, our efforts didn't go to waste; we had figured we'd need to deal with them to search the region, but the flowers we were looking for were growing nearby. Only one of them was growing in a dark crevice in the rocks nearby, but when we waited for midnight the area surrounding it blossomed with over a dozen of them! We gathered a few from softer parts of the ground, potted them, and again signalled for our airship once it was light.
On our return, Gudrun was quite pleased to see us return with all the flowers she needed, and Captain Chuggy was happy to see Taras gone (something about Taras not trusting his ship's safety, and he grumbled a lot about Taras getting his name wrong too. Well, there's a reason I brought him to the wilderness, but wouldn't bring him to a high society dinner party, and it isn't just that I'm not invited either). She accepted our extra find of the phoenix flowers as well, and I am pleased to have done so much to beautify Throal. Also, as promised, we were well-payed for our services.
During our trip, Barag and I had enjoyed some discussions on the Discipline we share, and I was surprised to find that I even had a spell he was interested in; Air Mattress! I was more than pleased to share, his assistance was most valuable. Now then, I have to go find Keel and have a word with her about the Battle Shout. I think she must have forgotten something, because I did a lot of shouting and none of the things we fought looked the least bit impressed.Statistics:Posted by Sharkforce — Sun Nov 29, 2020 7:03 am
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