Scene 12, closed: Canas and the Dragon(snaps)
Canas has been pestering Gurg for some time now. Gurg is familiar with his difficulties and what Gurg considers his bad attitude.
"Look, I'd help you out, but there's not much here that I can give you. We have lots of things need doing, that's why they pay my salary, but not much for you. You could barely keep those gargoyles under control."
"Hey, they weren't where you said they'd be, and there were more of them, and they weren't in any mood to talk. They were about to kill that poor girl."
"She'd have been fine. And we didn't want them destroyed. Sand. Nice thinking, sand from rock, but there's no way we could recover them. That's why we've been having so much trouble with mischevious spirits lately. We should have billed you for them, but no, we paid you anyway.
"What is it you want out of magic? Did you go to the induction address? Where do you see your place? You should be finding your own way by now. Whatever. Here. The Head of Grounds needs someone to look after the garden. Weeding, pest control, harvesting alchemical components. You do that and you'll be fine. Just stay out of trouble. And if you can get us some new gargoyles, I'll see if I can find you something good."
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"I see, Thank you for this... opportunity," stated Canas, doing his best to hide his displeasure at being given yet another job that he suspected Gurg had saved just to try to get rid of him.
"Oh yeah, and I'll see what I can do about those Gargoyles," added Canas as he turned and left. On his way back to his room, he couldn't help but wonder what sort of "pests" Gurg has mentioned.
Is he just heading back to his room, or is he going to go and see what the grounds keeper wants from him?
OOC: Sorry about that, I meant to elaborate, but I guess I forgot to type what I thought.
IC: After speaking with Gurg, Canas heads back to his room in an attempt to find some heavier clothing that might be suitable for garden work. Garett, much to Canas' surprise, had enchantment books open on his desk rather than the usual assortment of weaponry.
"Garett? I thought you preferred to work on your enchantments while you practiced swordplay outside"
"I do, but to keep my scholarship I have to prove I can do something other than enchant my own weapons, after all, even a fencing scholarship has academic requirements."
"Well, at least you get a scholarship, I have to do all this odd work for Gurg just to have any spending money... aha!" exclaims Canas as he finds the clothes he was looking for. Before leaving the room, Canas turns to Garett with a slight smirk "why not enchant a few gargoyles, or something, that would be pretty impressive." With that Canas leaves to go speak with the grounds keeper.
The grounds keeper, Festus, meets him in the garden, a bit west of the barns.
"Welcome, my boy. You look promising. Not like that lazy lump Gurg got me last year. Pay attention, you can learn something." With that, he leads Canas off through the rows of garden vegetables and into the winding paths of the more ornamental garden.
"This is a magical academy, so we don't really do alchemy, but some of us dabble in it anyway. Smart enchanters see when it can help, and practitioners of all schools like to take the easy way when they can. Think of it this way, there are two ways to make a potion. There's the direct way, which we teach here, just take some liquid and enchant it with the effects you want. It's flexible and it's fast, but unless you're pretty good, the effects don't keep well. Also a little hard to mass produce. Then there's my way. Find the right ingredients, ones that just naturally have the magic you want in them, and mix them in. Keeps forever, and sometimes works better too.
"Of course, it takes a lot to find the ingredients, and to know what they are. That's where we come in. I know what every one of these is. You don't have to, but I'll gladly teach you if you care to learn. If you don't care, then I'll just give you a description of the ones I want you to pick, and you bring them back. Other times you have to keep everything watered and weeded. There are only a few weeds that can deal with this magic soil, I call it miracle grow, so they'll be easy to spot once I point them out.
"Oh, and pests. Sometimes we get things, like a tribe of gnomes or something, that take up residence. If they're smart enough, we'll make a deal with them. They tunnel and do a great job of aerating the soil so long as they don't destroy too many things. The Short Fang tribe of gnomes is over in the moss garden right now; their lease is up in another two years. Don't step on them. Other times, maybe a wyvern starts munching on the dragon snaps, or a direwolf stumbles into the wolfsbane and we need to get rid of the carcass. We keep this thing in shape for the faculty that want it.
"Any questions?"
'perhaps this won't be so bad after all' thinks Canas, slightly surprised at being given a chance to learn an alternative method from pure casting for causing effects.
"I'll do my best to learn what you would teach me, it sounds interesting to say the least. As for questions, I only have two: just so I'm prepared, how dangerous are these plants and pests? And, regardless of your first answer, when do I start?"
"Oh, the plants aren't dangerous, and neither are most of the pests. If anything turns up that you can't handle, come find me and we'll figure out what to do. And you can start now. Take that watering can down to the well at the bottom of the garden and give the moss a good soak. That needs to be done at least once a day."
Doing as he was told, Canas hastened to the well, and did his best to not drown the moss, hoping he wasn't doing anything wrong. Canas silently thought over how much time he was going to be spending outdoors now, hoping he wouldn't lose all of his free time to this.
"Well, at least I'll be outside more now, everyone always told me I needed to go outside a little." mumbles Canas to himself, trying to take in where everything was and maybe catch a glimpse of one of the gnomes.
After finishing with the moss, Canas goes back to meet with the grounds keeper and ask about any of the more common things that had to be done on a regular basis.
If Canas has finished with his work for the day, he heads to the library to do a little more reasearch on the plants that he saw. Uses, how to best care for them, things like that. While in the library, Canas will also search for books pretaining to the different trade areas in Sigil and other large cities.
OOC: Sorry it's been so long, I didn't really consider the fact that my actions have been rather passive.
IC: If nothing promising comes up in the search for other trade markets Canas hasn't been to yet, he'll go to Sigil's market, cautiously walking down a back alley to a shop specializing in antiquities and older books.
"Anything new since I was last here?" Asks Canas, slowly scanning a bookshelf full of everything from scrolls to books he wasn't certain he could lift, all looking as if they would crumble if touched too heavily.
"Also, how's competition in a market like this, it can't be much more than 'how much can I get for this?' then back on the shelf."
"I got in a new treatise on electricity. Should be right up your alley. Some guy came up with some alternative to candles. Seems complicated and expensive to me, never catch on in any big way, but interesting. You'll like it.
"Competition's stiff, like in any trade. But I do all right. I have to offer great prices, or I can't compete, but I make up for it by knowing my customers. I know just what they want, and I give it to them."
"That's it for new things on electricity, huh? Well, I'll take both, lets see... is this enough?" Canas takes out the majority of his remaining money, not even totaling 150 (whatever the unit for money is).
"I don't suppose you have any books on the history of the elemental planes, I would be interested in some of those as well, though I'm not entirely certain I have the money to pay for them right now..."
After hearing the dealer out for any other books, Canas purchases the treatise on electricity, and if he can afford it, the second book also. "Thanks very much, and also, could you keep an eye out for anything about the elemental planes, I'm interested in books on them as well."
Canas hurries back to Hedgemere, so that he can finish his homework and start on his new books. Finding an open area of the practice field, Canas thinks for a moment, recalling the previous day's lecture before beginning work on his hand motions, which always seemed to give him trouble on the more intricate spells.
Well, after I begged Gurg for a job for a while, I finally got the chance to try and contain a couple of gargoyles that had become troublesome. Anyway, once I found them, they were violent but nothing terrible. The problem was a young girl ended up near the fight somehow, and the gargoyles went after her, so I did the best I could to save her and ended up obliterating a number of gargoyles, Gurg wasn't too happy, and I doubt he's in the mood to give me a job past gardening now.
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