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Dragon's Cradle
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Post by Blue Raspberry on Mar 9, 2023 16:24:12 GMT -5
"Alright, move that barrel over by the work tables please." Count Thadda looked over his clip board at the frenzy of activity all around. The situation was hectic to say the least. With the influx of fleeing civilians from all of the earthquakes happening around, many people in need had fled to Sky Peak Village and the efforts to help them were being lead by Count Thadda personally. "You got it!" Blue replied with a salute and went over to pick up the barrel on their own and move it. They. along with Astrid, had been helping set up a temporary soup kitchen to help feed the hungry refugees gathering in town. The efforts were at least going along smoothly with the help of the two powerhouses running around. Lifting heavy barrels of food, breaking up some small fights among the refugees, and otherwise doing any task that needed doing was nothing to them and everything to all of the people in need. With the barrel delivered, several workers immediately began to pull the ingredients from it and start cooking meals to hand out. It was nothing luxurious, just food made to fill one's stomach and keep them going. There were far too many mouths to feed to be able to do much more. Soup made from boiled vegetables and a meager amount of chicken was all they could get quickly. Still, at least there was food. That much was a great relief for many of the starving refugees. Quest Name: Food Distribution Participants: Requires exactly two people (you and one other, if the other participant does not qualify, they will not gain the reward) Location: Anywhere (Can be repeated for a different region) Post Requirements: 5 post per person, 200 words per post Reward: +10 Security for selected Region (+10 more if your home region) Description: Keeping the region strong means keeping its people healthy and fed. While it might seem menial, preventing our region from going hungry is extremely important. You can help by passing out food to the local communities, or visiting a more remote village and helping them harvest crops, gather food, or hunt. Whatever you can do to help feed the region will keep the masses happy.
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The Tinkertons
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Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Mar 9, 2023 21:39:13 GMT -5
No one expected to be breaking into the emergency food stores this soon after harvesting them, but even fewer expected an onslaught of refugees to rush to other cities. The earthquakes and rumblings across Charon have only gotten worse, and while that on its own is cause for concern, the bigger problem is feeding desperate and hungry people.
Astrid is not a cook. She's learned a few things from Cantio, but nothing meant to feed a hundred people or more. Instead, she finds herself much more effective alongside Blue helping to set up, fetch supplies, and shout at people in some sort of organized way. It definitely helps to be able to fly over them to deliver information than to push her way through a crowd. The early day is rife with running around, but it isn't long before fires are started and pots are on braising meat and vegetables and ready to be filled with water to make soup.
Astrid kind of wonders where these efforts were when she was on the streets, but those thoughts don't linger. There's too much to do!
Count Thadda looks to her and Blue. "We need a few tables to set up an assembly line and some extra bowls," he says. "Take this writ and go collect what you can from local businesses. This states we'll reimburse them for any lost business."
"Got it!"
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Mage's Guild
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Dragon's Cradle
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Post by Blue Raspberry on Mar 9, 2023 22:04:59 GMT -5
Blue followed behind Astrid as they set off for the nearest businesses to collect the tables and bowls from. The first stop was a small restaurant that specialized in Zeinavian food. The smell of curries and rotating kebab meat cooking over fire filled their noses as they passed through the door, pushing a beaded curtain to the side. With the hustle and bustle outside of refugees, it was strangely packed in there. The tables were all filled with customers eating leisurely.
On closer look, the customers were all lavishly dressed in fine clothing. These weren't refugees at all. The place was filled with merchants and nobles who had evacuated along with everyone else. The disaster didn't seem to worry them at all. The travelling merchants had no homes to lose, all of their wealth with them or in their wagons that they'd fled in. The nobles were wealthy enough to rebuild their damaged homes or vacation homes. This horrible situation was nothing more than an inconvenience to them and it showed.
Blue looked to one of the busy servers running around and flagged them down. They seemed reluctant, but they rushed over to the two individuals they recognized as local dignitaries. Whatever they needed was surely important.
"Hi. We need to borrow some tables and bowls." Blue said and then looked down at Astrid for her to show the paper Count Thadda had given them.
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The Tinkertons
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Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Mar 9, 2023 22:40:55 GMT -5
Without any hesitation, Astrid provides the writ given to her by Count Thadda, and the server glances over it with frantic eyes before glancing around at the packed restaurant.
"Um... All of our tables are quite full..." she says hesitantly.
"Hey, lady, we need more wine over here!" one of the nobles rudely calls.
"J-Just a minute!" she calls back, somewhat anxious and frantic. Then she looks at Astrid and Blue for a moment. "Um... I'll be right back." With that, she scurries back toward the kitchen to talk to the owner who's pitching in to help feed the hungry crowd. Blue and Astrid catch a glimpse through the serving window of the dirty-aproned man's devious smirk and see him point out toward the dining room. There's some amount of glee on the server's face as she returns to Blue Raspberry and Astrid.
"The owner said you can take those two tables there, and he'll pack up some dishes for you as well." The table she motions to is, of course, the table full of rude, lavishly dressed patrons.
Astrid gets her own devious expression. "Gladly!" She walks over, and the noblemen look at this dirty child in disgust. "'Scuse me, fellas, official emergency business by order of the Count. He apologizes fer any inconvenience." Without further warning, the girl grabs the tablecloth and collects all the corners to keep the mess contained, then she dumps the table over and rolls it right on out the door.
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Mage's Guild
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Dragon's Cradle
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Post by Blue Raspberry on Mar 9, 2023 22:59:15 GMT -5
While Astrid rolled the table out the door, the server came over to Blue Raspberry with some stacks of bowls on a tray. She looked a little unsure, the bowls not really securely packaged in the rush. That was fine with the ooze.
"Thanks! I got them!" Blue reassured her. The plates on the back of their armor shifted, opening up to expose the blue ooze, but it went unnoticed hidden beneath their cloak. Blue took the stacks of bowls one at a time and put them behind their back where they were stealthily consumed by the ooze. The server's eyes opened wider as she realized the bowls were disappearing as they went beneath the knight's cloak, their hands coming back out empty to take another stack. Quickly, all of the bowls were securely stored and Blue turned to leave, the armor plates on their back shifting closed again.
Before the knight could walk out the door, a hand suddenly grabbed onto their pauldron and roughly tried to jerk them around. Tried. The meager merchant that had angrily rushed over to the door struggled, trying to pull the knight around and failing. The effort seemed to be too much for them as they started to huff angrily. After a moment, Blue turned on their own to face him.
"H- hey! She took... one of... our tables!" He wheezed as he leaned on his knees.
"Oh, you're right, sorry!" Blue replied.
The noble looked smugly at the server while Blue walked over to the remaining table, but they suddenly looked dismayed as Blue turned that one over too and rolled it out the door as well.
"Almost forgot this one! Thanks!"
The server put a hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh.
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The Tinkertons
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Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Mar 9, 2023 23:12:27 GMT -5
Now that she's out in the street, Astrid hefts the table over her head, holding the underside flat against her palms so she can more easily move through town. Well, sort of. It's quite bulky, but her shrill shouts of, "MOVE ASIDE, IMPORTANT DIGGITERRY BUSINESS! COMIN' THROUGH!" parts the sea of people without many issues. Finally, she makes it back to the tents where she can hear the soups have come to a rolling boil and the scent of plain food permeate the air.
"Where do ya want these, Mister Thadda?" Astrid asks. Thadda blinks and can't help a chuckle seeing her and Blue accomplishing the task so quickly. He points to an area to set it down, and she rushes over and plops the table down before sliding out from under it and leaving space for Blue to do the same. When the tables are set down, a few workers immediately start setting up stations to serve people. They carry over a stand from which a hot pot hangs and start spooning out soup into bowls of travelers who brought along their own tin travel cutlery.
"Did ya get the bowls?" she asks, looking at Blue, ready to run back and get it if she needs to.
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Mage's Guild
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Post by Blue Raspberry on Mar 9, 2023 23:40:50 GMT -5
"Yup!" Blue replied cheerily.
With a quick glance to make sure no one was watching, Blue hunched over in front of an empty table and the plates in the front of their armor separated to expose their blue, gooey stomach They started extracting the bowls that were still in stacks and placing them on the table in front of them. Once the last bowl was placed down, the plates shifted closed again.
Some of the other workers noticed the stacks of extra bowls suddenly on the table and began to use them to serve the soup with a sigh of relief. The amount of refugees with their own dinnerware was far less than the ones who didn't. Many of the refugees only had what they could wear on their backs, their clothing and maybe a pack. Few had thought to grab bowls and spoons in their effort to flee to safety. They didn't seem that important compared to their survival or their families. Understandable.
"We could use a bit of help over here!" Someone called out from behind one of the serving tables that was handing out cups of water, filling them from a large barrel. "Water barrel's almost empty!"
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Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Mar 9, 2023 23:53:23 GMT -5
Astrid makes some efforts to make sure no one sees Blue being an ooze and suddenly regurgitating a few dozen bowls onto the table. Everyone seems much too busy with their own efforts to have noticed, and she's grateful. Sometimes the ooze is pretty bold about their ability to absorb and spit up objects in public. At the same time, they've gotten a bit slicker about it too. She's glad to see them learning so fast.
With the water barrel running low, Astrid darts over and pulls the nearly empty barrel away and replaces it with a full barrel. It won't last long, so it needs to be refilled. "This'll take some effort. Ya wanna help, Wolfe?" she calls, collecting the lid and lifting the barrel. "Fillin' at a well will take too much time an' effort I think, unless ya have a good way ta move a buncha water." She doesn't think they do, so she quickly thinks about the layout of Sky Peak Village.
"Oh yeah, there's a place down below where the creek dumps into troughs fer fillin' barrels like this! Let's go!" On tiny legs, Astrid starts running through the crowd and down steep paths to the bottom level of the village where a series of troughs carry streams of water from within the mountain spring down to a filling station below. Getting the barrel down here was easy enough, but it's much too unwieldy for her to carry back up on her own, not with her tiny arms. She hammers down the lid once it's full and steps back.
"I think ya'll have ta carry it back."
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Mage's Guild
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Dragon's Cradle
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Post by Blue Raspberry on Mar 10, 2023 0:24:34 GMT -5
"Sure!" Blue grabbed a second empty barrel and followed Astrid down to the filling station. The barrels were easy to carry while they were empty, especially for the unusually strong pair. They could handle them with ease. That was not the case when they were actually full. While they were still not too heavy to lift, they were just too large for Astrid's shorter arms.
"No problem! I got them!" Blue stated confidently as they grabbed the two barrels and hefted them onto their shoulders, one barrel in each arm. It was a little heavy, but they could handle it. They'd done a lot of training and increased their strength a lot. The ooze's training was a bit different than most. Instead of working out, they sat down and focused, similar to mediating. Pulling the extra ooze they'd created from all of the food they'd absorbed out of the space pocket within them and condensing it into their form. They'd gotten quite a bit heavier as a result, but also significantly stronger. They could even lift Astrid's hammer now after enough condensing.
"Let's go." Blue started walking back to the makeshift soup kitchen. The barrels threatened to fall over a few times, but they were held firmly in place with the help of a bit of sticky slime on Blue's hands. They placed the barrels with a couple of thuds behind the serving table and sighed.
"Hey Astrid, were you always really strong? Could you have lifted one of these water barrels when we first met?" Blue asked, suddenly curious. They didn't remember whether Astrid had always been super strong. Blue certainly hadn't. Was there some point she suddenly gained her strength that they hadn't noticed?
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The Tinkertons
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Dragon's Cradle
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Post by Lady Astrid Stormstone on Mar 10, 2023 0:38:09 GMT -5
As hard as Astrid tries to lift the full barrels, she just can not get a grip on them, so she's glad that Blue doesn't mind hefting both of them. "Thanks, buddy," she says with a smile. During the trek back up to the food serving station, she works at foot traffic control and makes sure no one gets in the ooze's way. Finally, they reach the top and the barrels get added back into the rotation.
At the question about her strength, Astrid gives Blue a quizzical look. It's not often either of them really talk about things before they met. "Huh? Oh, yeah, I've been strong fer long as I can remember. I thought everyone was able ta lift stuff as easy as me, but then I found out they couldn't..." Her eyes fall low as she remembers some of the local kids giving her a hard time. No parents; freak strength; devil horns. "I guess it made me feel even more different than me horns did."
Blue's voice comes like a breath of fresh air, pulling her out of her melancholy. "But the horns are cool though! I wish I had a pair. You and Cantio both have them."
Astrid looks up at her best friend, Blue Raspberry. Being on her own was pretty tough, but she's not on her own anymore. She's happy about that. "Aye, I guess they are pretty cool. I've got somethin' ta match da." A small chuckle moves her shoulders. "Thanks, Blue. I think yer pretty cool, too."
By the time they've gotten settled, another barrel is nearly empty. It feels a bit dreadful, but the two of them can manage this to help everyone. It's a long afternoon full of many trips up and down the village, but at the end of it, everyone's had a meal, and the volunteers take a much-needed break.
They're going to need a proper place to take care of all these people.
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