Possibly the rainiest place on Evelon, Baian stretches for miles along the southern coasts. Thanks to the moist soil rich in minerals, wildlife here have developed unique adaptations. To travel through this thick, muddy area, most either take specially designed boats. (+2 Offense)

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In The Name of Science [Self]

Postby Flame » 03/29/2016 6:18 PM

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The swamp was normally a quiet place, filled with only the ambient noises of birds, bugs, the occasional amphibian, and the even rarer rustle of the wind through the rushes which populated the boggy landscape. Not a particularly peaceful quiet, per se, but things had a way of feeling still in the humid air, as if the oxygen itself was stagnating. Of course, that was just a side-effect of the carbon dioxide being put off into the atmosphere from all of the things decaying in the general vicinity of the swamp...but it was really better not to think about that.

However, it was singularly difficult to think about much else aside from the stench which seemed to seep from the very ground itself, an eye-watering aroma that hinted at death and other unpleasant things. In the middle of the unusually warm summer day, the damp (and in some places, boggy) ground seemed to simmer and bake at the same time, letting off putrid clouds of whatever noxious gas was hidden just under the wet dirt. The trees scattered throughout the landscape hardly did much to mitigate the heat - instead, they somehow managed to make it look even more bleak and dead, as if the greenery was just barely clinging on to life in a world of muddy brown hues. All-in-all, a lovely spot.
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Re: In The Name of Science [Self]

Postby Flame » 03/29/2016 6:30 PM

Now, most living things probably would have avoided this particular place like the plague. After all, one would probably think that this would be the place to go if they wanted to catch the plague. Normally, that was true - the swamp wasn't an area frequented by many; even the denizens of the swamp didn't particularly seem like they wanted to be here. The quiet, coupled with the lack of disturbance on the surface of the boggy marsh clearly showed that no visitors had passed through recently, and the swamp wasn't holding its breath for any either.

However, for some unknown reason, today wasn't like most other days. While on almost any other given day, the swamp would have kept on stewing quietly in its own oppressive heat, the half-silence was unexpectedly broken by an equally unexpected sound. Normally, the only noises to break the background buzz were the croak of a frog or the chirp of a lost (and generally timid) bird - sounds which made a poor impression of fitting in to the environment. This new sound, however, broke all of those barriers of convention - clearly whomever it was didn't particularly care whether they fit in here or not.
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Re: In The Name of Science [Self]

Postby Flame » 03/29/2016 6:41 PM

"This wasn't what I meant when I said I wanted a change of scenery."

The voice, while slightly mechanical and almost whirring in nature, clearly held a note of petulance, the sound somewhat reedy in the thickness of the swamp air. The voice also seemed soft, as if it belonged to a small body, and it was almost swallowed in the oppressiveness of the atmosphere. It belonged to a small, robotic dinosaur, whose pure white metal body was now smattered with splashes and flecks of dirty green-brown muck. Normally, a tiny body like his would have sunken into the pseudo-quicksand-like marsh floor, but he had strange attachments strapped to his clawed feet - a personal innovation of his mistress and creator.

They looked something like fat tennis rackets - like snowshoes, but with more surface area. The wood of their frames gave them the buoyancy to hold the little metal Velix up, but he clearly wasn't terribly impressed with his current situation. He slogged along, doing his best to keep his joints away from the stinking mud, but only partially succeeding. After his last incident during Allorah's Christmas adventure, she'd since given him a waterproof coating to keep him from rusting. However, that didn't mean that he had to like getting dirty.
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Re: In The Name of Science [Self]

Postby Flame » 03/29/2016 6:56 PM

"Beggars can't be choosers, Pip!"

The voice was uncharacteristically cheery, considering the environment it found itself in. It drifted back from a little ways ahead of where the Velix was slogging along - the customary positioning for the scientist who headed this little two-person duo. Unlike Pip, Allorah was wearing a pair of green waders as she trekked through the marshy landscape, leaving a small wake behind her that the Velix then had to carefully traverse. Another person might have been irritated to no end with the woman's apparent lack of consideration, but Pip was used to it - he knew it was how she worked, and despite appearances, she took good care of him.

He sighed to himself, using body language moreso than actually sighing. He was a machine after all, and breathing served no purpose for him. He'd simply picked up body language from his mistress over the years, and it had since become a subconscious instinct for him. After all, when dealing with humans, one had to realize the importance of things such as tiny physical cues, and if nothing else, Pip was a good study.
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Re: In The Name of Science [Self]

Postby Flame » 03/29/2016 7:28 PM

As much as it seemed like she didn't care, Allorah really did have a soft spot in her heart for the little robot. He'd been her constant companion since she'd created him, and she counted him amongst her first successes. True, she'd created him when she was much younger than she was now, and perhaps she would have done some things differently if she were to go back and do it again now, but he was the way she'd made him as a young meddler (before she could even call herself a scientist), and she used him as a reminder of how far she'd come since then. That, and the lesser-admitted fact that she was attached to the little guy, and she'd trade any number of her more recent inventions if it meant keeping him safe.

"It's not much farther now," she assured him over her shoulder as she continued to slog through the marsh, glancing back for a moment to ensure that he was getting along alright before going back to her task of searching the ground around her for...something. One couldn't have guessed what it was that someone like her would be looking for out in the middle of the the swamps, but she clearly knew exactly what it was she was seeking in the otherwise colorless marsh. It was just a matter of when she would actually find it.
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Re: In The Name of Science [Self]

Postby Flame » 03/29/2016 9:02 PM

The only response Allorah got in return from the Velix behind her was a half-hearted grumble, but the sound of his footfalls picked up in pace just a little. She smiled lightly to herself, although honestly, she was glad for the fact that they were almost through with this grueling journey as well. Hopefully. If her sources had been right, what she was looking for ought to be somewhere nearby.

As she made her way into a small clearing where the trees were sparser than usual, she paused, leaning against the trunk of one of the sturdier-looking specimens. Shrugging one of the straps of her backpack off of a shoulder, she swing the satchel to the front of her body, unzipping it deftly and rooting around in one of the pouches towards the front. After a few seconds, she fished out what looked like a well-worn pamphlet, making sure that her hands were clean before proceeding to unfold it. As she did so, the figure of a map appeared on the surface of the paper, showing topography littered with scribbled markings which matched the lay of the land around them (although that would have required a much closer look). As she waited for Pip to catch up, Allorah perused the page in her hands, trying to pinpoint where they were and where they needed to be.
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Re: In The Name of Science [Self]

Postby Flame » 03/29/2016 9:07 PM

It took a minute or two, but the muted sound of squelching announced Pip's arrival in the clearing in which Allorah was now standing. His grumble seem to have returned (and it had nothing to do with his joints rusting), and as he slogged up to where his mistress was, it seemed to increase in volume as well. "Close, she says," he muttered lightly under his breath, although he knew full well that she could hear every word he was saying. That was intentional. "If you knew that we were close, why would you need to check the map?" His question was logical, but at the same time, he knew as he spoke that he probably didn't really want to hear the answer.

Picking a encumbered foot up, he shook it half-heartedly, hoping that perhaps some of the mud which had caked onto his engineered mud-shoes would come off, but knowing better than to expect it to happen. It was slowly beginning to build up around his clawed feet, and it certainly wasn't doing anything to help his pace. His best hope was that Allorah took notice of his plight and came to his rescue, but again, he wasn't holding his breath for anything.
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Re: In The Name of Science [Self]

Postby Flame » 03/29/2016 9:15 PM

"You know it never hurts to be sure," Allorah chided lightly in response to Pip's question, but she knew that he was also just tired of slogging through the swamp. It had been a long day and they had come deep into the marsh - she herself didn't really want to think about the return trip they still had to make. She would be surprised if she came out of this without having lost some major sensitivity in her olfactory functions, but she supposed that was the price one paid in the name of science. Sacrifices had to be made every once in the while to get results, and someone always had to do the dirty work. Plus, on top of all that, she didn't trust other people to do the work which she did.

Her eyes scanned the map, following the path which they'd taken into the swamp from the town on the edge of the paper. The landmarks available to them had been few and far between, but thanks to a bit of luck and good cartography, she was fairly certain of their position on the map. "We passed that big, mossy boulder shaped like a tuskow about five miles back now, by my reckoning," she said out loud, but mostly for her own benefit, "So the spot should be right around here." She looked up from her map to look around once again, squinting lightly at her surroundings. "Start looking for damp, sunny patches with moderate shade."
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Re: In The Name of Science [Self]

Postby Flame » 03/29/2016 9:22 PM

Pip should have known better than to expect an admission of a mistake from Allorah, but at the same time, he knew how infrequently she was ever wrong. Even when nothing seemed definite, she somehow always managed to know where they were or what to do exactly when. He had no idea how she managed it, but he supposed that was why she was the scientist and he the assistant. As she talked to herself, he listened with one ear, although his focus had turned more to his foot - he was pretty sure he might actually manage to get a clump of that mud off if he just shook a little harder...

"I'm pretty sure you're describing literally everything around us for miles and miles," he replied to Allorah's order, although he knew that two seconds from now he'd been snooping around looking for what she'd mentioned anyway. Sighing, he let his foot fall back to the ground with a wet squelch, looking up at his mistress with forlorn. As he did though, she reached down to scoop him up, holding him by the cleaner back of his neck as she wiped some of the heavy mud from his paddled feet with a wadded paper towel. "There," she said as she set him back down once again, this time considerably lighter, "Now, the faster we find this plant, the quicker we can get out of here. And don't you go calling me every time you find a weed that looks 'kind of like it' - be sure before you get me!"
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Re: In The Name of Science [Self]

Postby Flame » 03/29/2016 9:31 PM

As soon as Allorah had sent Pip off with the half-warning, she had popped off into the undergrowth as well, presumably to search for the elusive plant which they were here in search of. It was for a new experiment of hers (there were always at least eight different ideas swimming around in the back of her head, and those were only the well-formed ones), and it was crucial that she find the plant in its natural habitat. She needed a live specimen, and the container currently in her backpack would assure that it found its way back to her lab alive, well, and still in one piece. Never mind the fact that she was going to have to haul some of this swamp muck back to the house with her - it was a small price to pay for a specimen that she might never otherwise see alive and actually growing.

"Hey!" she heard a shout come from somewhere in the near distance, followed by a pause. "I think I found it!" Allorah was just about to chide him for using the word "think" in that sentence (this wouldn't be the first, nor by far the last, time Pip had misidentified a sample) when he followed up with another statement, this time sounding considerably more sure of himself. "Yeah, this is definitely it!"
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Re: In The Name of Science [Self]

Postby Flame » 03/29/2016 9:38 PM

Hurrying (as much as one could hurry while wading through a swamp) towards his voice, she soon spotted the slash of white metal near a short, feathery-looking shrub. Kneeling down - thank goodness those waders came up past the waist - she peered at the plant which the Velix was now pointing at with a small metal claw. It was a tiny thing, no taller than six or seven inches high with multiple fronds protruding from an undiscernable stalk. The leaves looked something akin to small maple leaves, but on a tiny scale, and minute yellow flowers bloomed at the end of each frond of leaves.

Snagging a small notebook out of another pouch of her backpack, Allorah quickly flipped to a dog-eared page, glancing back and forth from the page to the plant. It was a few moments of intense observation before she finally seemed to be satisfied with his finding. "Good work, Pip," she acknowledge, patting him lightly on the head before unzipping the main pouch of her backpack to pull out a clear, but sturdy-looking plastic box and a small trowel. She made quick but careful work of extricating the plant from the ground, making sure not to damage the roots as she removed the plug of soil around them. Stashing it away in the box, she replaced it in her backpace, standing once again and brushing her waders off lightly. "Well, that wasn't all that painful, now was it? Come on, Pip, let's go home."
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