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Day 11, Humid Season
Oct. 29th, 2020 05:41 amIt turns out that if you have enough oincs, the mayor of Swinesbury will let you just buy a house the villagers aren't using. The shabbiest one in the town, with a gnarled, leafless spiky tree rising from its garden, but nevertheless a place to hide out from the storms of humid season and the vicious beetles that swarmed the rainforest in those foggy, damp conditions. Getting the money wasn't a problem; there were many hedges in need of haircuts around the town, and a greengrocer happy to take as many clippings as Wormwood could hand over. The old pig from the school was also very pleased with the carved stones Wormwood had found.
Once inside the shabby house, Wormwood dumped absolutely everything they didn't need on the floor. There was one room and everything from floor to ceiling was made of wooden planks nailed haphazardly together, which was a disquieting sight. Maybe they could get something to cover it up with later, besides the pile of odds-and-ends - sparkly rocks, bat skin, a chunk of Mant chitin, a bottle of antivenom, all sorts of things - taking up the corner. The overgrown lawn outside got to hold their science machine, but more importantly it was a patch of dirt to plant seeds in.
According to the science machine, they were going to need another machine that looked like a pig with wings if they wanted to get much use out of the sparkly rocks. However, that was going to have to wait, because as far as Wormwood could tell this town had absolutely no protection against lightning strikes save for hoping they came down somewhere far away from you. The round science machine at Milliways had taught them to build a lightning rod; they could make a few more of those to cover the area before they ran out of rocks.
--
There was no way around it. None of the pigs in town sold bird feathers, and they hadn't seen the door to Milliways in a while, so Wormwood was going to have to catch a bird themself. That meant they needed silk. And that meant stealing it from the spider-monkeys.
However, they wouldn't be going alone. They lobbed a hunk of purple insect meat into a thicket of snapteeth, a parent rooted to the ground and their three seedlings cavorting under the outstretched leaves.
"Hungry?" Wormwood called out, watching the snapteeth tear the ex-dungbeetle apart. They stepped closer and waved another piece of purple meat in the air; the snapteeth's snouts whipped around to face it. "Come get it!" they shouted, sprinting towards the nearest web-covered tree.
With the young carnivorous plants hot on their leafy heels, Wormwood threw the slab of monster meat underhand into a wad of sticky webbing, right between two hulking eight-legged apes. The seedlings took the bait, hopping straight past Wormwood and the spider monkeys; the monkeys howled and lumbered towards the snapteeth. Wormwood crept around the furious clash of flora and fauna and withdrew an axe from their backpack, whispering apologies to the silk-wrapped tree with every chop.
There was a crack from the tree above. The spider monkeys looked up. The snapteeth looked up. Wormwood looked up. The cocooned tree crashed to the forest floor, splintering into so much firewood across a particularly dense-boned ape's back; Wormwood tore a fistful of silk from the fallen cocoons and ran towards Swinesbury.
Once inside the shabby house, Wormwood dumped absolutely everything they didn't need on the floor. There was one room and everything from floor to ceiling was made of wooden planks nailed haphazardly together, which was a disquieting sight. Maybe they could get something to cover it up with later, besides the pile of odds-and-ends - sparkly rocks, bat skin, a chunk of Mant chitin, a bottle of antivenom, all sorts of things - taking up the corner. The overgrown lawn outside got to hold their science machine, but more importantly it was a patch of dirt to plant seeds in.
According to the science machine, they were going to need another machine that looked like a pig with wings if they wanted to get much use out of the sparkly rocks. However, that was going to have to wait, because as far as Wormwood could tell this town had absolutely no protection against lightning strikes save for hoping they came down somewhere far away from you. The round science machine at Milliways had taught them to build a lightning rod; they could make a few more of those to cover the area before they ran out of rocks.
--
There was no way around it. None of the pigs in town sold bird feathers, and they hadn't seen the door to Milliways in a while, so Wormwood was going to have to catch a bird themself. That meant they needed silk. And that meant stealing it from the spider-monkeys.
However, they wouldn't be going alone. They lobbed a hunk of purple insect meat into a thicket of snapteeth, a parent rooted to the ground and their three seedlings cavorting under the outstretched leaves.
"Hungry?" Wormwood called out, watching the snapteeth tear the ex-dungbeetle apart. They stepped closer and waved another piece of purple meat in the air; the snapteeth's snouts whipped around to face it. "Come get it!" they shouted, sprinting towards the nearest web-covered tree.
With the young carnivorous plants hot on their leafy heels, Wormwood threw the slab of monster meat underhand into a wad of sticky webbing, right between two hulking eight-legged apes. The seedlings took the bait, hopping straight past Wormwood and the spider monkeys; the monkeys howled and lumbered towards the snapteeth. Wormwood crept around the furious clash of flora and fauna and withdrew an axe from their backpack, whispering apologies to the silk-wrapped tree with every chop.
There was a crack from the tree above. The spider monkeys looked up. The snapteeth looked up. Wormwood looked up. The cocooned tree crashed to the forest floor, splintering into so much firewood across a particularly dense-boned ape's back; Wormwood tore a fistful of silk from the fallen cocoons and ran towards Swinesbury.
