Author: TristanaDeformem, Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2018 5:52 PM, Post Subject: Carrying Capacity [P]

Giant beetle! The entire city was one a back of a giant beetle! Questions spun around in her mind as she thought more and more about this fact. Onnen was a land full of secrets and new discoveries that had never been seen before until now. Her heart soared at the thought of new lands with new people. That also meant that there were new friendships to be created. As soon as Tristana made it to Kwama, she pulled over the nearest local townsperson and began a ramble of questions. This poor townsperson was a Cheetah and clearly confused by all of these questions. When she realized this, she spoke slower and the wonderful Cheetah was able to answer some of her questions. Once she was done with the poor townsperson, Tristana walked over to the market.

Onnen had a huge war with the other two continents. But it seemed that most of Onnen was not involved. Only the insects were involved. Which was what made Tristana a little on edge. During the war she had killed some of these creatures and that fact put a weight on her mind. It was a matter of self defence and defending a friend. But at what cost? Those insectoids that she had killed would be missed by loved ones. Those loved ones would spend the rest of their lives in misery due to this loss. That was partially one of the reasons that she had decided to come to Onnen. Guilt. She wanted to befriend and help as many people on this content as she could. Then, maybe she would be able to overcome this guilt. And Tristana would have new friends. Even if they weren’t from Onnen having more friends meant a happier life. A happier life was more valuable than anything in this world.

She continued wandering through the market. Next to her was a golden dragon that was slightly larger than a dog. The dragon was still young. Only a toddler compared to most dragons. But it was intelligent enough to know that this place was dangerous. A hand reached down and patted the dragon on the head.

“It’s alright Chai.” Tristana said with a soft smile, “We are fine. If you behave I promise we will find a place for you to hunt.”

Chai opened its mouth then closed it without making a sound. The both of them continued onwards. Tristana herself seemed to be out of place. A dark brown cloak was wrapped round her and had a hood that casted a shadow on most of her face. On her back was a backpack filled to the brim. She also had a bo staff strapped to the backpack in case they needed to fight. However, Tristana would still try to avoid a fight as much as possible. The last thing she wanted was to get into trouble. Or to hurt anybody. What caught the most attention was the fact that she had a dragon with her.

Purple rugs at one of the stalls caught her attention. Running her hand through the fabric, she could feel how soft it was. Just as she was about to get some money out of her purse, Chai started tugging at her cloak with its mouth. The dragon was trying to remind her to not buy unnecessarily. No matter how pretty it was.

“Right.” She sighed. After apologizing for not buying anything, she continued onwards. There were a few more stalls that they stopped at. One had been displaying a few magic tricks and was promising to teach some magical spells in exchange for money. Tristana took the lesson and had learned a new spell. Which she quickly wrote down in her journal. Normally people would put these spells into scrolls but she had neglected to get any. Then they stopped at another stall. Here, Tristana was able to sell a shard of untainted dreams for quite a bit. Shards like this were rare since it was new to this content. Markets and merchants must have been making a lot of money on both sides. Onnen had many resources that Canelux and Parvpora did not have. And Parvpora and Canelux had resources that Onnen didn’t have. Whoever got to trade first would become extremely wealthy. Luckily Tristana didn’t have to worry about being a merchant.

The sound of two people arguing caught her attention. A girl with blonde hair and bronze skin was arguing with a shopkeeper. Windows of the shop were open so anybody passing by could hear the argument. After listening for a few moments, Tristana approached the leaving storekeeper.

"Excuse me.” Tristana said, “I need to buy some poison.”

Chai casually walked in and plopped onto a floor. It started to take a nap.

“I have seen this giant tortoise near the town. I’m afraid it’s starting to become cranky. It’s started to stomp around and make lots of noise.” Tristana explained to the storekeeper, “The last thing I want is those defencive beetles to start swarming the town. There would be such ruckus. Not to mention a battle would destroy so many stall or maybe even a shop.”

The shopkeeper looked surprise. Only half of her face was covered up, the other half displayed a sweet worried expression. Letting out a sigh, the storekeeper turned to Sawyer.

“Get your turtle out of our town. And if you decide to do something else with that poison, make sure it can’t be tracked back to me.” He muttered to Sawyer.

He went back into the store and prepared the poison. Then he handed it over to Sawyer. Before letting her run off with it, he held onto her hand and glared at her in the eyes.

“Remember. I had nothing to do with it.” He muttered harshly.

The storekeeper went back behind his counter. Tristana attempted to gently push Sawyer out of the shop.

“Come one Chai. We need to get going.” Tristana called out.

The golden dragon lifted it’s head up then got to its feet. Chai followed Tristana. 

Author: Sawyer, Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2018 4:17 PM, Post Subject: Carrying Capacity [P]

When she had first set sail for Onnen, Sawyer had been unable to quell the unwelcome twinge of foreboding. The small island tucked away into a corner-pocket of the world had always been a part of Revaliir which she had glossed over with a combination of bemused curiosity and reluctant ambivalence. The insatiable desire to learn about everything in the vicinity that usually accompanied her while on her hunts (and anywhere else, for that matter) had an inexplicable tendency to snag on a figurative fence when it came to this particular part of the map. While the lonesome piers and the isolated, impassive tribes she had heard so much about would ordinarily leave her hopping at the opportunity to discover whatever was being hidden from her, something seemed to push her away.

Indeed, Sawyer could not quite break free of the shadow cast by the knowledge of the history of Onnen's connection to the gods that was embedded in the age-weathered carapace beneath her feet. The usual voracity with which she took in information around her was here somewhat unbalanced by the ever-looming history between Onnen and divinity, but she knew that once she got over her uneasiness that she would greatly enjoy digging beyond its depths. She was, after all, standing on the back of one of the largest monsters Revaliir has ever known — it was impossible for her to resist. It was like the perfect tourist trap had been set for the woman who sets perfect (if you ask her, anyway) monster traps. Somewhere along this great chitin shell were hidden key pieces of an underground unity being played out between man and monster. These thoughts turned the towering maze of winding streets and buildings and the restless sounds of the beetles around her into a detour that she had no choice but to visit from the moment she had been dropped off at Onnen and told not to make any detours.

Sawyer had responded with a vague kind of surprise upon being assigned the mission (technically speaking, she had been filled with an irrational sense of dread and unsolicited terror upon first hearing about who would be giving her the initial briefing - they were the head of a notorious crime syndicate who didn't like taking no for an answer. Sawyer spent the entire trip to Vilpamolan coming up with hypothetical reasons and misdeeds for which she might be punished, ranging from taking the second-to-last bonbon from the dessert tray to causing the death of a local farmer’s two cows and his second cousin through a series of unfortunate misunderstandings that had been initiated by an innocent remark that last week’s meal at the local tavern had tasted a little off) which was completely understandable. She wasn't usually contacted to take on bounty hunting jobs as her skill set wasn't exactly geared towards finding people - there were enough warriors and barbarians or whatever who could swing around a sword until their arms fell off who could tackle that kind of operation much better than she could. So it wasn't until she was told that the objective of the mission was the live capture of a human target that it started to click why they might've thought that Sawyer could be up to the task.

Nevertheless, Sawyer still had had her misgivings about the task in question, as she always did about human targets. She didn't like taking on missions that involved her having to go up against humans. Something about it didn't feel right.

And yet here she was.

Riding on the back of a giant beetle.

Haggling with a general store manager over the value of fifteen pounds of poison.

The world worked in strange ways.

"Again," she said, "I need to know how much it would take to incapacitate a large pet." Sawyer raised her hand, palm-down, to be about level with her shoulder. She looked back at the shopkeeper. "A rather person-sized pet."

The man behind the counter scowled, folding his arms somewhat crossly. "And what exactly are you planning on using this for?"

"Safety," she said quickly. "I'm just thinking of safety. I've got pets at home— Rats. I've got rats at home. I don't want to kill the pet, so how much poison do I use so that it kills rats," she again gestured at the height near her shoulder, "and not a twenty year-old woman?" Sawyer winced.

"What did you just say?"

Quickly backpedalling now, "A twenty year-old pet?"

The shopkeeper was already returning the poisons to a locked cabinet in the shop, gathering several different brightly-labelled and individually-sealed packages into his arms. Sawyer watched with remorseful eyes as the poisons disappeared from sight. "What kind of pet is person-sized and lives for twenty years? I don't buy it."

Sawyer sighed, thinking deeply to herself. She was hoping she wasn't going to have to resort to more benign techniques like peppering the landscape with bait and traps and squatting in every bush from here to Sahel until one of them catches something desirable, but she had a few sessions of information-gathering and tricks up her sleeves, not to mention enough alphanumerical plans left before she got to plan P (which, for posterity, was the aforementioned technique regarding traps and bushes and whatnot) to prevent her from resorting to such benign and desperate measures.

The shopkeeper was already on his way out the door by the time Sawyer snapped back to reality. "I'm informing the authorities of this."

"What? Wait— hold on!" Sawyer nearly vaulted over a stack of construction equipment on her way to seize the man's wrist, keeping him from passing through the door. She stammered, breathless, panic bubbling while she tried to form her words.

"And why should I?" asked the shopkeeper, "What kind of pet is person-sized and lives for twenty years?"

"A tortoise!" came her voice, blurting out the best thing she could think of. "It's a very large tortoise!"

The shopkeeper glared at her.

She had to find a way to carry all of this poison.