I got snowed in today, so I thought I might as well bust out another small update.
---
Deep within a koopa fortress, six koopas stand before a small animal pen enclosed in copper wire mesh. A seventh koopa and a dinosaur are being carried over the shoulder of one of the koopas. They stare into the cage, all with faces displaying a varying degree of confusion.
---
'How the hell did we even catch these guys in the first place?' thought the bookkeeper as he looked into the cage. Inside the cage were what appeared to be living masses of water vapor, each with a joyful smile somehow on their 'faces'. Some of the creatures darted back and forth excitedly, while others fazed into and out of existence. Next to the entrance to the pen was a sign that simply said 'Cloud Drops. Further research required. Leave door closed at all times'. Mottled Petrel looked like he was the most perplexed of the group "Uh, do they do anything of value?". The bookkeeper had no idea what he was looking at either, and simply leafed through his notes to see if he could come up with anything. He couldn't, "I couldn't tell you.... Do you want some anyways?" the bookkeeper asked hopefully. "I'm not sure if we could even bring them up to the wagon, much less keep them at the fort." Mottled Petrel said, still trying to wrap his head around just what the hell was in front of him. A cloud drop moved towards the edge of the cage, but instead of passing right through the gaps in the wire like a normal gas would it stopped right at the edge. ZM5 used one of his unoccupied arms to reach up and poke the cloud drop through the mesh with his finger. His finger almost seemed to push into an invisible membrane of some kind, which flexed outward against the intruding finger pushing the cloud drop backwards. "What the hellllll..." ZM5 whispered to himself, taking out his notebook to quickly jot something down.
"I don't blame you, no scholar to date has been able to make sense of them." the bookkeeper then motioned to a similarly small pen next to the cloud drops, this one was only surrounded by a small knee high stone fence "How about something more practical, no koopa fortress is complete without some proper defenses!" The koopas walked over to the small pen, and as they did so a few piranha plants rose up over the lip of the fence. In doing so, they caused a few nipper spores to float up into the air on the updraft they created. Even without eyes, the piranha plants recognized the bookkeeper and started moving back and forth eagerly like a puppy whose master has just come home.
"Piranha plants make excellent sentries that can be placed at important entrances that need constant supervision. They can fend off any small intruder on their own, and they're robust enough to potentially fend off a larger one until actual fighters can get there. Also, they can get to know you if you see them enough." The bookkeeper explained as he opened the gate and walked into the pen. Upon doing so the three mature piranha plants leaned in to nuzzle him. The rest of the koopas stayed outside the pen, seeing that there were a number of nipper plants hopping around the bookkeeper's feet and a few piranha buds lightly clubbing his lower legs as he stood there. Mottled Petrel seemed like he agreed that this seemed like a good idea "Sounds good, but what are the rest of the things in this pen?"
The bookkeeper was delighted to explain "Piranha plants reproduce once in their life, I'll explain how that happens later, but just know that it takes most of their life for the spores to mature to the point of being able to live on their own. When they reach this point the mature piranha plant ejects them and they float around along the ground for a while. These spores are alive and sentient, but have less cognitive ability than a stump. Within about a few months the spores settle onto the ground and transform into a nipper plant, which are these little white guys hopping around at my feet." the bookkeeper reached down and picked up one of the nipper plants that was in front of him. The nipper plant bit and latched onto his thumb, but it looked like it had as much force as pinching someone with tiny tweezers made out of wet paper.
"These guys jump around and nip things at random for a while. As they do so they exchange pollen with any other nipper plant they might come across, fertilizing the spores that will eventually be ejected by the mature plant. After they feel that they've picked a good spot they send out some more permanent roots and grow a more serious mouth to become a piranha bud. In addition to those changes, the piranha buds also develop the aggression that is characteristic of piranha plants. They slam their heads into each other in an attempt to assert their dominance over the buds around them." The bookkeeper gestured to the piranha buds that were pounding away at his legs. He bent over again to put the nipper plant in his hand down, and then forcefully flicked one of the piranha buds with one of his fingers. The piranha buds took this as a sign that the bookkeeper was dominant and laid themselves low to the ground as a sign of submission.
"The piranha buds then grow where they are and eventually become full grown piranha plants, restarting the cycle. But be careful, the mature piranha plants have a serious set of teeth and will still fight among themselves for dominance. They'll kill each other if you aren't careful. Finally, there's a lot of untapped potential to these plants. Someone accidentally left a bunch of them in the furnace room, and we eventually came back to find that they were spitting fireballs. Then some idiot hauler dropped one of these precious fire piranha buds into a pool of lava on his way to the designated sentry spot for the plant. We were about to have him executed, but then the bud rose to the surface with even more intense fire powers. We understand very little about the selective breeding of these plants, but every once in a while we hear similar tales from adventurers about piranha plants that have grown to have incredible abilities. The come tell of piranha plants that have adapted to swim through rivers, piranha plants that have grown fully functioning legs that let them jump through the tree tops, we even found a giant piranha plant down in the caverns that had adapted to living in the underground lakes! But alas, all of our experiments so far have provided patchy, inconsistent results. So, I can't say for certain what you should do to try to get any of your future piranha plants to grow up with special abilities. So, how many do you want?"
The bookkeeper was hoping that they'd go for a few fully grown plants so that they would be out of embark points before they stumbled across some animals of actual value and rarity. The group of five outside the pen started whispering among themselves, but were interrupted by some unnatural sounds coming from one of the mature piranha plants. It sounded like the plant was trying to inhale a chair covered in glue, but the way it bent over with its mouth open towards the ground made it seem like it had already swallowed the chair and was trying to regurgitate the rest of the dining room set. The bookkeeper knew what was happening, but looked see, with amusement, that the other five koopas were torn between getting closer to figure out what was happening and recoiling in fear. Even Enemy Post tried to look up to see what the hell was happening, but fell back over ZM5's shoulder because of the pain.
In the back of the piranha plant's throat a writhing ball of white and green could be seen rising. It looked like ZM5 mistook what was coming out of the piranha plant to be some kind of parasitic creature, because he jumped backwards in fear and started rifling through his notebook to see if he could find whatever he had misidentified it as. 'I should really confiscate that notebook when I get a chance, it looks like this guys is hiding secrets or something. I'll bring it up with the head brute when ever he wakes up from his alcohol coma.' The ball was rising farther into the piranha plant's mouth, and stopped before it reached the teeth. The piranha plant then forcefully spat the ball of who knows what onto the ground, creating a large splatter of white liquid around it. In his haste, ZM5 shoved his finger into his notebook in an 'I found it' way. He then reached into his shell with an available hand to pull out a small leather satchel, and opened it to show that it held dozens of small vials in all shapes and sizes. 'All right, now I really need to do something about this guy' the bookkeeper thought, and then looked back down at the pulsating ball of white goo and green tubes that was shaking around next to him on the floor.
ZM5 ran his finger along the tops of the vials, and stopped at a small blue one containing orange liquid. He pulled it out, showing that it was surprisingly ornate with designs carved into the glass that looked almost like symbols of a forgotten language. He ripped the cap off and ran into the pen. Without a moment's hesitation he emptied the contents of the vial onto the white mass now at his feet. Everyone waited a minute, and then stared at him questioningly. The viscous white liquid that seemed to be holding the ball together began to settle out onto the ground and soak into the dirt below, leaving only the writhing green tendrils within. These green tendrils had a red ball at one end and what looked like a wet paint brush at the other end. A nipper spore that was floating around at the bottom of the pen came closer to the remains of the ball to see what all the commotion was about, upon doing so it recognized its new brothers and sisters that had recently been birthed. This spore then began to excitedly float around the pool of white liquid. The newly born nipper spores among the remains of their birthing fluids began to get up and shake the goo out of their head fluff. They were still mostly green, but soon enough they start drifting around above the ground to join their spore bretherin.
"Oh" was all ZM5 could muster, as he slowly returned the vial to his satchel. "What was that that you just poured out?" The bookkeeper asked, stepping closer to ZM5 with an angry glare starting. ZM5 looked like he realized that he fucked up "Uhh..." he quickly moved the satchel behind his back "Orange juice?". He gave a guilty but hopeful smile, the bookkeeper totally didn't buy it "Really?" he asked incredulously. ZM5 cautiously placed the satchel back into his shell "Yeaaaaaaaah... I like to carry around juice with me in case I get thirsty. These ornate vials are family heirlooms, so I carry them around to hold my juice. I thought... I thought the new born nipper spores looked thirsty" ZM5 looked like he was expecting to be thrown in jail at any moment, but maintained a fake smile. 'I don't have time for this, this guy's lying but it's not my job to question personal items' "Whatever, but if I find out you're carrying explosives or anything on you I'm going to have you strip searched before you leave. Got it!." ZM5 nodded quickly and looked relieved, the bookkeeper continued to stare menacingly at him for a few seconds.
"Uh, we'll take those six new born nipper spores. Can we get a discount because they're only a few minutes old?" Mottled Petrel asked hopefully from behind ZM5. 'Dammit, I can't sell them for much if these guys just saw them be birthed' the bookkeeper sighed "Fine, since they'll be useless for a while they'll be only three points each. But I can't offer such a price for the rest of them, so you'll have to bring them with you to avoid confusion. There should be a chest to the left of the gate, inside are some jars, scoop up the spores you want and put them in one of them. Don't worry, there's some air holes in it and the spores don't have to eat or drink." Derpy Dev looked down with another guilty smile, apparently he had been kneeling on top of the described chest the entire time they had been at the pen. 'Idiots, if he's broken that chest it's coming out of their embark points'.
The chest was in fact not broken. Derpy Dev got off of the chest and removed a jar from it, then he eagerly jumped the fence to scoop up the nipper spores. The piranha plant mother father guardian? however the hell piranha plant reproduction works that had just given birth was now protectively sniffing its children to make sure that they had all made it safely into the world. Luckily for Derpy Dev the piranha plant understood that it would be unable to protect its children for long, the best it could hope for was a favorable gust of wind to deposit its children in a safe grove somewhere far away. It licked the remains of the birthing fluid from its children, a final act that it hoped would ensure that their tufts of fluff would be ready to carry them away from the nest safely.
Derpy Dev plopped himself onto the ground and quickly began placing the spores in his jar. Because it only had a mouth, the piranha plant couldn't express much emotion, but what could be seen looked like the sad smile of a koopa mother whose children were old enough leave their home fortress to make a name for themselves out in the dangerous world. But it could be more accurately compared to sea turtles hatching on shore and immediately running to the ocean in hopes that a good current would be there to whisk them away to their new life... if their sea turtle mother was stuck on shore, was a plant, and had just regurgitated them into existence. The bookkeeper picked up on this moment, and was touched, but Derpy Dev didn't as he closed the lid and jumped back out of the pen.
He held the jar up in the air for a moment to look, mesmerized, at the spores floating on invisible air currents within the jar, gently bumping into each other and into the side of the jar. He shook the jar a little with his other hand, visibly jostling the spores inside. Mottled Petrel looked concerned for the spores, and reached up and took the jar from him "Maybe I should hold this one, you've already got your hands full.". Derpy Dev reluctantly handed it over, but then smiled when he remembered the hint block under his arm. Mottled Petrel still hand the chains around his wrists, so holding the jar was really awkward "Bookkeeper? Can you remove these chains so I can carry the jar? It would probably be better to put them on Enemy Post than me". Mottled Petrel was right, Enemy Post was beginning to weakly try to struggle off of ZM5's shoulder. The bookkeeper sighed again, apparently something he was quite fond of doing, and unlocked the chain around Mottled Petrel's wrists. With a little bit of effort he tied Enemy Post's arms behind his back.
"So... let's see... You're up to 1 hint block, 8 trolls, 4 laser ceratosauruses, and 6 nipper spores. Without further ado, let me direct you to my own personal favorite... the lawn mower pen!". The bookkeeper gestured to the next pen over, from this angle only a large fence could be seen. But what could be seen of the fence was impressive, the stones were masterfully arranged to depict a koopa embracing a lawn mower, several important parts of the depiction were studded with silver. 'God I love my job' was all the bookkeeper could think as he walked over to the lawn mower pen, the place where he had first met his beloved lawn mower companion.
---
I have yet to successfully initiate any piranha plant changes (then again, I haven't put much effort into a serious attempt), but according to the ROTMK thread it is possible to cause piranha plants to develop certain abilities when you have them undergo special conditions. The thread also said that there was a chance that the reactions didn't actually work, so if someone wants to test this on their own I'd appreciate it. Also, I don't like to request fan art, but if someone could try to make a rendition of a piranha plant trying to swallow a chair I'd love to see it.
Poll
5 (6.4%)
Author
Topic: The Resurgence of Modded Hell (Back, Still Broken, Now With Giant Butterflies) (Read 301665 times)