[Catchall] Metropolis of Eden

[fromsprouts]

Who: Umemiya and You
What: Things that happen in October
When: All month, possibly into next
Where: Skull Town, The Spire, Out in the Forest
Warnings: None yet


1. A city in bloom [Open, Skull Town]
With permission of the guild leaders, Umemiya's beginning his winter garden project out in Skull Town. While he isn't spending all his time at the garden, he does make regular trips out to see progress in tilling and planting and offer advice to those working in the garden. While he wishes Noelle were here to use Grassy Terrain and boost the growth of the plants, the old fashioned way will work fine, since the weather seems clement enough.

Perhaps you were planning on volunteering and come to meet the Lucario for marching orders. Or perhaps you're just wondering what's going on in this corner of the outpost. Either way, Umemiya greets any who approach him with a broad grin.

"Good weather for this work, don't you think?"


2. A city with that adapts to survive [Open, The Spire]
Umemiya makes himself busy around the guild's space when he isn't out at Skull Town or off on a quest. He's glad to help with cooking meals for the dining hall, and when he partakes of food he's likely to approach someone and ask to sit by them. After all, he's always been a warm extroverted soul, interested in building community.

And of course, he can also be found in the training rooms, working to try to learn some new moves, because he's realized there's types he doesn't have a particularly good answer to. Up for sparring?


3. A little morе room [Closed to Need, Woodn't You Like]
The idea of going out for a walk in the forest and gathering wood is almost a break from everything else Umemiya has on his plate. He meets Need out at the edge of the woods, ears perked and tail already doing a slow wag.

"So, we just get a bunch of deadwood and dry branches and bring them back to town? Seems about as simple as it gets."


4. For underdogs and misfits to thrive [Wildcard]
Find me wherever Solstices are sold at darkersolstice to plot, or just come at me with something random. I have faith in you! You're amazing and your hair looks really nice today!!

Flip me to brackets if you please, I'm easy.

Comments

A city that adapts to survive

[edgewater]

[ parvati's taking a break for lunch in the dining hall, plate with a decent amount of food resting on the table. she's got a flatbread in her hand that she's munching on while scribbling down notes on her schematics with the other. murmuring to herself, too, between bites.

the schematics are covered in mostly chickenscratch from how quickly she's writing, crossing out, and subsequently rewriting notes around a drawing of some kind of machinery. ]

But that relies on-- no, I could work it out. Maybe. [ looks like she's pretty lost in her thoughts right now, even as she glances between her work and her food. ever a creature of habit, parvati. ]

[fromsprouts]

Do you need a rubber duck?

[He's not sure the term would have survived to her time, and honestly he doesn't fully understand why Mizuki sometimes asks him to sit there and be a rubber duck while he explains some computer bullshit that flies over Umemiya's head until he suddenly reaches a breakthrough, but at the very least, it's probably polite of him to announce his presence before sitting down.]

[edgewater]

So if it fil-- [ her head abruptly snaps upright at umemiya, awkwardly ripping another part of her bread off with her teeth ] Hi! Uh. Not sure if that's a part I'd need.

[ she's familiar enough with random little earth things the captain brings up sometimes, but she seems to have missed what umemiya is saying anyway. she finally tears the bread, chews, and swallows. ] You wanna sit down?

[fromsprouts]

So long as it won't bug you. You look like you're thinking very hard.

[Umemiya is careful not to set his tray down on her schematics.]

What are you trying to plan out, here?

[edgewater]

[ she sets down her pencil to turn the paper towards umemiya, which probably doesn't make it any more comprehensible to him than when it was angled towards her. ] Water pump for the tunnels. Mightyena's got me working out a solution to the flooding problem so people don't have to sleep in drenched beds or be at risk of drowning.

[ parvati, as she says this, pulls her plate closer to her and begins to chow down a little more on her lunch. ] I've never actually worked with this sort of thing before, so I'm mostly groping in the dark, but I'm getting closer. Hopefully.

[fromsprouts]

Wow, that's not an easy task to take on. So...how are you going to pull it off? Run a pump on the energy of electric types?

[He's not sure how well that'd work, but he hasn't seen a standard power plant around either.]

[edgewater]

That's where I'm stuck. I've figured out what materials I'd need, for the most part. But I think I could get it running on its own using the water as a power source.

[ besides, relying solely on electric types 24/7 was pretty risky and pretty unfair. better to have some kind of analogue plan. ] It's pretty easy to get a machine working once all of the cogs're in place.

[fromsprouts]

Maybe there's a waterfall somewhere that can turn a wheel, something?

[He gestures loosely with his spoon for a moment before digging into his stew.]

[hasapoint]

It's hard to read body/facial language in a Doublade, but they can show expression in how they move. By those standards Need still has this stiffness or stillness to her. She's found she can keep one blade slightly drawn and backwards-facing so she can see both behind her and before her, and is usually arranged like that. The scarf-arms on her pommels are usually limp. When wind tugs at them, she lets it.

"Could be," she allows. "Dead wood is often food for beetles and so on but I don't know that ecology applies in a place like this." There are beetle-like Pokemon but do they eat decaying wood? Do bird-looking ones come to eat them? "I hope someone here knows what coppicing is, if this is intended as a long-term settlement."

[fromsprouts]

"Well. I certainly don't know anything about it. The city I'm from was well-settled long before I was born." He's got no shame in admitting his ignorance. Means he has a chance to learn something new here

He can't help but envy her ability to watch before and behind them, but he does at least keep his Aura sense active for anything hostile.

[hasapoint]

"Easily lost knowledge. Fortunately it's also easily relearned. Coppicing is cutting trees to stumps and letting them grow new stems to cut again. Of course, that's not something with an immediate return, and wood burns best if it's had time to dry out anyway." If that applies. The Firestarting Gift makes it possible to burn green wood as if it's seasoned. Is that the case with Fire-types too?

He doesn't seem all that tense, if she can gauge at all, but not totally laid back either. "You've been out here before?"

[fromsprouts]

"Yeah, a few times. I'm not the expert that, say, Fireheart is. He comes out this way to hunt for himself." With everything that may imply for itself. "But you can't get to Skull Town without crossing the forest."

[hasapoint]

"Hm." Need is very carefully neutral about hunting. In the normal course of things, yes, it's well and good. When there isn't any distinction between 'animals' and 'people', now that's a different story.

She probably should get herself on the side of prey. Need has spend millennia bashing herself against the idea that those who are stronger and have more power, in one form or another, have every right to harm and exploit those who don't. It's not like she's incapable of setting 'men' and 'women' aside to focus on the underlying issues that truly bother her. And she's certainly accustomed to things that are important to her being trivial or ridiculous to others.

Still, she should probably learn more before committing to the knee-jerk judgement she feels, and her player doesn't really feel like making this as big a thing as would probably be appropriate.

"There must at least be a path worn through to the other town by now. Even if hovering or flying is rather common." Her voice is dry, but she doesn't gesture at herself. Out of the habit.

[fromsprouts]

"There is a path. No one's actively patrolling it to keep it safe, yet, though. I mean, I've gone back and forth for my gardening project--I'm getting a winter garden going--but I'm confident in being able to defend myself."

He shrugs, not lingering on the hunting thing, either. Plenty other points to hit in this talk.

"It's not nearly anything anyone would call a road. Someday, it might be."

[hasapoint]

"That's right, now that you have a guild you're allowed to do that kind of thing!" There's definitely a sardonic note to her voice. "Congratulations."

Not a lot of fallen wood to be found this close to the edge of the forest, just scattered twigs. There's been some autumn winds that have knocked the foliage around. No strong storms, but Need is hoping to find something broken off a standing dead tree, or that kind of thing.

[fromsprouts]

"If Mightyena puts out a call for bodies to do patrol, I'll not only volunteer, but offer to help her write a sensible watch schedule for folks. It's something I've done before, back home, just not in a forest."

He gives Need a wry little smile there.

"It'll be her who makes it happen, if anyone. Polteageist prefers calling for escorts for scholars going into risky territory, and Ribombee's focus seems to be closer to home."

1.

[friendlyflower]

"Golly, it sure is!" What a moron, Flowey thinks. What's next on the small talk agenda, weekend plans? "Sunshine, dying leaves, and that Autumnal chill in the air. That won't stop you, though! Sure hope I don't shrivel up and die for the season, hee hee!"

Flowey has a habit of getting to his quests early, so there's time for them to talk before Cedric arrives and the two of them start gardening.

[fromsprouts]

"Yeah, there is a reason we're not planting sunflowers this time of year. The plants I've chosen are hardy and tolerate lower temperatures so long as they get some sun. Brassicas are chill like that."

It's worse, he's this close to unlocking a vehetable-themed infodump.

[friendlyflower]

Ah, a garden freak. Just like a certain someone he used to know. Flowey resists the urge to roll his eyes, but only barely. "What's your plan for pests? They might be sentient, you know! Gonna hang out here and beat them up? Squish 'em? Poison?!"

1/2

[fromsprouts]

...

"..."

...

2/2

[fromsprouts]

"...asking them nicely not to eat all the plants before we can harvest them?"

[friendlyflower]

"Hah. You're too nice."

He says this, but he detected a certain... weariness. This isn't someone who's never known conflict, Flowey thinks.

"Everything's gotta eat, you know! I've had to chase off a Caterpie or two from my leaves before." That reminds him, though. "How about some lavender around the garden? That usually repels a pest or two. I'd suggest marigolds, but it's probably too cold for them."

[fromsprouts]

"Most lavender doesn't like cold weather much better. Some varietals do alright through winter in mild climates, but I don't know where to get any of those around here. I'd go for Spanish lavender, if anything. Rosemary, though, that might work."

He grins broadly. "Thanks for the suggestion!"

[friendlyflower]

Oh, this guy really knows his stuff. "Rosemary it is! This is just stuff I heard and read about here and there. I'm not an expert like you! It never really got cold where I was from."

Well, Snowdin was cold, and Hotland was hot, as the names implied. But the Ruins and New Home were the same year-round. The perks of living underground, he supposed.

[fromsprouts]

"Well, you didn't come up with the idea of lavender or marigolds out of nowhere. You clearly have some knowledge. I'm excited that you're helping out with this garden."

And the worst part is that this bright warmth is all completely genuine and easy for him.