[no wonder X doesnt like her. His magical reserves come from the same sort of passive absorption. Still, I know 2 things that would have gotten through X's barrier. Light, and sound. I know this, because X can hear her talking, and can see her inside the dome. Light is the first thing I would have tried after realizing the dome's indestructibility. The control console is an obvious, if cliche, target. Sound might have unfortunate consequences, in that the dome might act like a sounding board with the imprisoned still inside. Ever put a bug in a ziplock bag and tape them to a subwoofer? Yeah. Nasty business.]
Picking goodies was relaxing. Just the gentle swooshing and rustling of the wind through the treetops, and subtle chirps and furtive noises of birds and forest creatures. It almost seemed like one of the many "extended camping trips" he had gone on as a child. The prospects of the dreary and broken fortress had almost totally slipped his mind. He'd have to ask Jerry to leave some of the forest alone. He didnt care if the others would brand him "Elfy" for it, Forests were awesome. Not worthy of slavish worship like the elves did, but still awesome.
His basket was getting pretty heavy with the half-dried, curly, and mottled brown honey locust pods. He had made a joyful discovery of a hen-of-the-woods in some leaf litter, though he doubted anyone but himself and maybe Reudh would be at all excited by the enormous blob of amorphous mushroom folds. There were a lot of things in this little forested glen he was picking through, but not a lot that was at sustainably harvestable levels. If you intend to come back to an area again, you always leave enough behind for the animals and for the plants to perpetuate themselves. There were a lot of acorns, but he didnt feel desperate enough to harvest those just yet. The process to remove all the tannins made them labor intensive in the extreme, and as such, really should only be taken when explicitly necessary because there is nothing else. The number of useful things growing in this forest was suspicious to him, since many herbs were growing seemingly at random, but clearly out of place for the biome, like lemon balm, plantains, elderberry, wild ginseng, yarrow, curly dock, genuine licorice, and many others. You would expect maybe the yarrow and doc to grow on the forest edge, but the seemingly random distribution of all these things, and the fact that many were really exotic, like the ginseng, suggested that maybe this forest had been cultivated at some point. Elves were a strange breed-- Maybe they had been responsible?
About a hundred yards in from the forest's edge, there was an ancient black walnut tree. Typical of the species, it had murdered nearly all the plantlife around its rootzone with juglones from its cast off leaves and the pulpy fruit bodies that surround the actual nut shells. His basket was already pretty full, but he might come back later for the walnuts. Cracking out black walnuts was always a chore, and they were an acquired tasted anyway. Personally, he liked them, but he wasnt so sure about the others. They were touchy to use in cuisine, and their earthy, slightly bitter taste made their use in deserts problematic. The hulls made good tumbler polish though, and in a pinch, a suitable substitute for coal in blacksmithing.
Further in, he bumped into the river, as it curled around the countryside upstream of the fortress. Cattails were bobbing nonchalantly in the gentle breeze. He doubted the others would understand why he was smiling his fat face off, but he knew that cattail rhizome could be peeled, steamed, and mashed up like potatoes. Cooked right, they would make a nice companion with the jerkied fish. The young sprouts were equally delicious, and tasted a little like sweet corn. He sat his basket down, picked up an old stick, and started digging up the long, branching rhizome from the bank....
....
Several hours had passed, as he continued to harvest and wash the orange-brown skinned and white fleshed rhizome from the slurpy mud bank, and wash them in the river. He had quite a mound of them packed into his basket, which was now nearly overflowing with the samples he had collected.
He washed off the muck and grime in the stream, carefully walked back up the bank at a less disturbed location, and was about to pick up his heavily overloaded basket when it struck him-- like peal of thunder, or a flash of lightning, the slowly strengthening magical awareness he had been developing since learning to use magic flared up, raising the hair on the back of his neck, and sending tickles down his spine. Somebody was using *A LOT* of magic, and it was making him edgy. He couldnt quite place the exact spot, but it was coming from where he believed the fortress lay. Hefting the heavy basket with a grunt, he shuffled back as quickly as he could manage...
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Topic: If Bay Forum were a Mountain Hall, continued... FULL DISCLOSURE (Read 266148 times)