Paracelsus the cat did not appreciate this new information, but remained silent.

Edith was interested, "Do you rely primarily on chemical means to keep things under control? You must be using some impressive mechanical equipment."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:50, Wed 11 May 2016.

"The Soil was saturated to start with and the city was built so that the outer wall spray sinks into the ground under the city to keep it that way. The wall's have a rail system with spray arms running along them. Most the bigger cities on Venus have some set up like it. Leaving by land is done buy tunnels with ether REALY thick walls or walls with an outer primium linning. The force field keeps bugs, flying creatures, and most all airborn bacteria out." He rubs the back of his head. "There are settlements and hunting camps with less but they usually have some strange magic hoo joo protecting them."

He sighed some taking a seat. "Don't make the mistake others do, this is an amazing planet but if you don't have the right protection even the bacteria in your own body can grow to strong, and it's rare but not unhurd of for unprotected individuals to develop minor mutations. Life magics are strong here, very strong, particularly closer you get to Thetis Rigio and it's valley where the Shade Ream is."

Edith considered the stranger's warning. She'd love to go out and explore, but without any Life magic, she'd never survive on her own. And while she could throw something together to help her, after their most recent fiasco, Edith had little left to work with. Hiring a team was out of the question.

"Is it actually worth it, then, to farm here? Is there any industry here or do you import everything?"

She paused, then added, "I don't suppose you know anyone looking for a tech- computers, engines, practically anything that doesn't have a pulse, I can fix."

In the mean time Donovan was learning about Life and Prime in an interesting way. The person didn't know much about the process but they knew that people would use life, spirit, and/or prime magics to enhance, awaken, and/or imbue into drugs special properties that would not otherwise be possible or at the very least incress potency.

For example while Olympus Gonge is hybridized with mushrooms, the cannabis sativa strain is particularly potent due to decades of magical instrument of primal energies and spiritual awkenment of the plants.  That and with out life magics it would never have hybridized with a mushroom... there not even in the same kingdom of species.

---

"For feeding people, no not really. But it's the some of the locals like it eat it, and the plants have interesting properties for industrial and medical uses. Mass food production as far as farms go is mostly done on Mars and Ganymede. But there is some profit in some foods as they have particularly pleasant and strong taists and can be sold as luxury items. So it is worth it, just tends to lean to particular clientele." He laughs some. "But I'm no expert on economy so eh... I just grow what sells the best usually, I just get curious too what there doing with it."

In response to the added question he thinks a bit and shrugs. "Honestly we have a fair amount of mechanics but not all can work on hyper-tech, if you can manage that you can probably find some work. Stuff wares down and brakes a lot around here. Your best bet for a job would be a hunting camp, but around here there arn't many hunters coming and going but there stuff gets broken the most. Dino's are big money, everyone likes to eat meat and you can't get much more from anything than a dino. Big meat means big smashing feet and the like though. No matter how well your prepared there is damage all the time and when damage happens life tends to get in there and cause more damage. So..... hum.... just look for stuff coming in from the tunnel with vines or moss growing over it, and hope they don't have a contract with a mechanic."

Edith kept half an ear on Donovan's discussion with the proprietor. If this was what it took to get him on track, she was fine with it. She wasn't one to dismiss the value of mind-altering drugs- as long as one didn't get carried away with them.

Meanwhile, she was happy to chat with the farmer about local goings-on. She asked him how the season was going and made small talk. Then she remembered one of the reasons she had come here. She couldn't actually buy the material now, but at least she could try to track it down.

"Do you know where I could find a local metallurgist?"

Oh yah you should check out: link to a message in this game

He rubbed the back of his neck "I can't say I do, mining tends to upset the local life and leads to attacks, the few there is are up in even colder mountains where the worst they have to worry about is large mammals. You might be able to find some mechanics that know a bit of metallurgy. Most the metal we get though comes from Hades on Mars, but there some that get it local or use the stuff from mars make alloys and magically or hyper-tech purified metals." He hums a bit.... "Wait wait... I think I hurd something about a Repuesto plant maybe that was just talk though that some one thought Repuesto would be easier to make on Venus I couldn't tell you." He shrugs "You might try the info sphere but a lot of people outside the citys don't really keep up with that." The guy was struggling to be helpfull but clearly wasn't very sure.

Edith flashed the farmer a delighted smile, "Thanks. I'll check that out. It's been great talking with you, but I don't want to keep you."

She checked on Donovan, who was still deep in conversation. Tapping him on the shoulder, Edith said, "I'm going to check up on something. Be back in about an hour."

Donovan nodded, more out of habit than anything else.

Edith waved to the vendor, then headed out to find the info sphere.

"He's going to get into trouble," Paracelsus said into her ear from his perch on Edith's shoulders.

"He'll be fine," she replied.

"He'll get in trouble," the cat replied confidently. "I'll bet you."

Edith signed, "I don't have much to bet right now."

"You still have some catnip," Paracelsus pointed out.

"Just a little."

"Enough."

"Ok. Fine. The catnip I have left."

As for mage drugs, the same prossess applies to making beer. Some magic used correctly can make the potency of beer stronger.

The info sphere is just like the net, she just needed to find a place she could access it freely. Most the mining seamed to take place at the highest peaks of the Maxwell Mountains, but there was some mining Ovdia Regio up the mountain some, that used this city to ship there metals. Looked like the best places for her to look for one would be a machine shop or the mining crews dock.

The dock sounded like a good place to get some information on both a job and a local metallurgist. Repuesto was also something to look into- it might help Donovan see link between Life and Matter.

Edith and Paracelsus made their way to the docks and started asking around.

Seams digging anywhere pisses off the local life, so they don't process the metals the same place they dig them up from. She gets some mixed info there, general idea being they probably shouldn't be doing it and at lest one person says if they want metal maybe they should try asking the planet/mountains for it first. Ether way there was a tunnel leading up to the smelting plant, it has a lift and only authorized individuals can use it. She could try hanging around there till the next shipment comes down.

Edith tried to determine if the local life didn't seem to like any construction work or farming going on or if it specifically didn't like digging up metal. She was familiar with the Gaia hypothesis, but didn't remember if it had ever been applied to other planets. If the planet had some kind of consciousness, that had a lot of implications for how it should be treated. Maybe Dononvan had some ideas about that.

Since she didn't have a better idea, Edith hung around and waited for the next shipment, chatting with whoever she ran into about local events.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:42, Sat 14 May 2016.

Some digging around the infosphere shows there is resistance to clearing land for construction and farming but not to much, but digging deeply for much of anything tends to cause all sorts of problems. Many people have no dought the planet is alive and not to happy what we did to Earth and that's why it's always trying to kill us. Others more along the lines it don't mind us here but don't want us to damage environments, and it's not that it's TRYING to kill us... it's just how life is on this world. Others think it's stupid to think the planet is alive and account it all to the energies of the planet, mining disrupts the balance of the planets energy much the way exstream magics/hypertech disrupt the stability of the pattern and the attacks are just the planets form of paradox. Then like the guy said there people who think the planet would be happy to supply us with metals if we just asked it.

Meanwhile Donovan is being tought the basics of the procedures but it's all a bit over his head.

Enhance Drugs - life 2, mater 2, prime 2
Create Mage Drugs - life 2-4, mater 2-4, prime 3

Distracted by her new questions about what kind of life the planet was, Edith wondered if there were any Tradition gatherings here. Verbeena would be most likely to have asked and found answers to her questions- and this was a prime planet for them to have settled on.

Edith did some research to see if there were any Etherites or Verbeena around, looking for organizations with key words or individuals whose work was a little too advanced to be just regular tech. More than ever, she wanted to see what the world was like outside the cities- the difficulty was finding a safe way to do it.

Paracelsus did not like the idea of the planet being alive. He was worried about cat-eating plants, a whole cat-eating planet was too much to deal with. He privately hoped Edith didn't find a way to go exploring.

Meanwhile, Donovan was eating up all the new ideas he was presented with. They might be over his head, but there were bits and pieces that could lead to new insights.

Donovan is suggested to find a copy of an old old book written by George Washington for some magic enhancements on drugs that can be pulled off with little to no magical tallent while it's growing. There are parts of it he could probably apply to grain and barely.

Paracelsus is less encouraged by the spirit chatter, he never been around wyld spirits like this... truly wild wyld spirits. The spirit chater was mostly nonsense images and primal felling. His death sense also saw way more life and death (outside the city) than anywhere he had ever been likely.

The net talked about Verbeena camps, but they didn't really let people know where they where and the blended in with the jungle to the point few found any of there camps accidentally. There was an Etherite expedition stress testing new life support systems, but they where quite a ways down and into the jungle.

Excited about the possibility of being able to actually *do* some magical enhancements instead of just study them or work on them the slow way, Donovan forgot that Edith was expecting him to stay at the store. Actually, he didn't forget as much as not worry about it. After the first time he had wandered off and it had taken several hours for Edith to track him down, she had done some kind of magic to his jacket that made it easy- or at least easier- for her to find him. Thanking the proprietor exuberantly, Donovan headed off in search of a bookstore.

OOC: Edith has sewn a lock of her own hair into the seam of Donovan's jacket.

Paracelsus put his paw down; he was not leaving the settlement. It was far too dangerous out there. In fact, he fully intended to ride around on Edith's shoulder instead of doing any exploring on his own.

"Besides, you were looking for a job and information about that metal, weren't you?," Paracelsus reminded Edith.

"I suppose. But maybe we can kill two birds with one stone," she replied.

"As long as cats don't get hurt in the process," Paracelsus grumbled.

Back on track, Edith returned to her original search.

Who uses books anymore?

Donovan went and spent the handful of killo-creds she left him to dive into the info sphere at the city center. He had to track down the file on the online equivalent of the sub-sub-sub basement of some run down old university library they don't use anymore sense they built a new one in the Central Colonial Government Library. It sucked....  However he was driven and found it quickly, and was able to download it to a data pad so he could log out and study it.

The book was mostly about the care of cannabis sativa, he though it was a billion dollar crop and put a loot into it before the cotton gin changed things. The founding fathers had a very strong interest in horticulture as a hobby, particularly cannabis and brewing and general drunkenly. Frankly they where his kinda of people likely. Most of it was stuff he could probably find quite early on his own, he pieneared several growing, trimming, and general caring methods for various plants along with the others. In particular there was some things on cannabis that might work with wheat and barely for trimming the plant as it grows to incurage mass seed growth, or mass bud growth, but little to none of the other. One was good for improving the crop with plenty of seeds for the next generation, and the other yeld.

But what most useful was information in using life/mater/prime to monitor the plants as they grew and use the information for picking and choosing which plants to use for the next generation. There was also hidden stuff involving entropy that could be used to aim for certen results and know what the to put into the soil before the plant needs it or before it would need to be used for the affects he would be looking for.... he barely noticed it, but managed to pick up on the code.


After waiting a while, and sounds making Paracelsus jump a few more times than ether of them cared for, the lift was hurd coming down the tunnel.

Donovan had a new-found respect for the founders of the old United States of America. He noted the names mentioned in Washington's book and decided to check them out further. He knew that they wrote a lot of letters and diaries back then and since they all seemed to be farmers, maybe they would have shared information and experimental results informally.

The problem was going to be getting Edith to put down some roots (so to speak) in order to try out these techniques. Donovan knew that she had been trying to find ways to get him more interested in his studies- it might be as simple as telling her about his discoveries. With a little luck, she'd find a job on the planet that would keep her busy for a little while.

That reminded him, Donovan had wanted to get some soil samples to try to figure out what it was about the planet that made it so fertile. At first he wanted pure, non-poisoned earth from outside the city, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that the dirt inside the settlement would be even better. That way he could study both the earth and the components of the planticide that inhibited them- letting him come at the question from two different directions.

On a new mission, Donovan headed off to find some soil samples.

Meanwhile, Paracelsus had moved from Edith's shoulders into her arms so she could pat him while they waited. He wasn't afraid- or at least he wouldn't admit it, but caution was simple common sense on this planet. All the life, death, and noise was disconcerting.

While Edith waited for the transport, she checked out the Help Wanted section. When the lift arrived, she started asking around about jobs and for someone who knew about metallurgy.

The man in charge of the smelting plant knew a good bit about metallurgy of course, and they where a little light handed but didn't suggest she work with them,the conditions arn't the safest. But they will let her come see for herself so she can talk to the guy, but they weren't going to let the cat come, they where quite sure he couldn't handle the heat. Though Edith is able to convene them she can keep them both cool and protect themselves with her tech/magic... that or they just got tired of listening to her explain how. lol

Donovan did find experimental horticulture was a hobby most the USA's founding fathers took an interest in, particularly the mason ones... seams every one of them took some time to play around with plants in the garden. Though he may be a little disappointed there interests on cannabis was not internally recreational, they found an ungodly amount of uses for hemp but like he saw before the cotton gen made most of those faster and cheaper to do with cotton, farmers where only interested in making money so....  However he did find they where unimaginably heavy drinkers. There was particularly a LOT about the way Monticello gardens where built. Jefferson and many of his friends seamed awful interested in the layout of the gardens and how they where built. There might be something of interest there if copies of the original blueprints, notes, or letters on such still existed some where.

Most likely the latter. Once she gets going, she can talk circles around people with a smile on her face.

Donovan made a note to look into Masonic symbols and codes. If the Founding Fathers were all Masons, Jefferson might have built the gardens based on those ideas, hiding clues in the architecture.

That road don't turn up much.... but the sons of ether (and a few older defunct groups) have masonic images in there crest.

When she gets to the facility, they weren't kidding... it was hot... the kinda hot that unless your fairly tough it's going to cause some serious health concerns. Poor kitty would be in the hospital if not for a bit of magic. The safety concerns where obvious... vats of molten metal moving about, a single drop would pass right though you weren't careful. One person lead you along a path that avoided getting anywhere near the vats as they moved and particularly as they pored, making it take a little longer, to get to the mans office. "This lady wanted to talk to you." he said and simply left.

The metallurgist just raised a brow looking over her. "You brought your cat?"

"To quickly prove a point," Edith replied. "I made a protective suit light enough, durable enough, and flexible enough for a cat. Your number one concern here is worker safety; I can improve your current protective wear significantly."

Paracelsus was not happy about the suit, but he knew it'd be much worse without it. Besides, if they were going to get off the planet, Edith needed a job. So he gracefully jumped to the man's desk and sat down, allowing the man to admire him....er... the suit.

He petted Paracelsus some. "We can't afford this kind of thing for everyone, and a lot of people would rather put up with the heat then ware a get up like this over there whole body. Now if you can make hyper-tech or perfected metals (no and not quite yet) then that's something." He hums looking over the cat. "Can this one do the whole death clock thing? ... er yah know... see when people are going to die?" People look different with death sense when there about to die.

making charms takes 3 prime
making artifacts take 4 prime
making perfected metal 5 mater and 3 or 4 prime

"Not yet," Edith replied. "but I'm getting there."

"I heard you might be hiring some people. I can fix practically anything that can be broken. And yeah, Paracelsus has been known to pick up on people in crisis."

He nods. "I could pay you to fix a few things but I don't want to put you in any danger, I couldn't afford you getting hurt. There are some hunting camps that would probably pay a lot to have some early warning to an ambush from some of critters out there... they are careful usually but most means of detecting creatures are a little unreliable with all the life energy out there, it's as hard as detecting when a dust/electrical storms going to hit on Mars. If some one is about to die odds are it means something is about to attack and they can go on the defense, having someone or something with that gift on hand is worth a fair amount."

Edith didn't need to see Paracelsus' twitching tail to know exactly how he felt about that idea. She might be able to convince him to go outside for a good reason, but acting as an early warning system in a place full of dangerous animals, aggressive plants, and wild spirits wasn't going to do it.

"I don't think he'd be very good at that kind of work," Edith explained.

"Besides," she added with a smile, "it would conflict with his 18 hour a day sleep schedule."

"Which reminds me, are you familiar with something called Ventalium."