Surprising no one, Galvynn has once more found himself wandering somewhere new. It had been awhile since he wandered through the bamboo forests of the Isles, but the new sights seemed to be agreeable to his companions. Bucky pushed down a medium sized shoot of bamboo to quietly gnaw on it. Enjoyable wasn't the right word for the experience, but the badger powered through it because he was told it was food.

The druid could only laugh a bit, "All right well, this is as good a spot to rest as any."

He lowers himself to sit down on the ground. Iomann, the songbird griffon, wriggles her way out from the pocket inside Galvynn's jacket and hops onto his lap with a little chirp. The chirps turn into happy trills as she receives some head scritches from the druid. It's a quiet and pleasant little scene, the sounds of water rushing along in the background.

"Sounds like there's some water up ahead when you get thirsty Buck, don't eat too much of that." He probably shouldn't let Bucky eat that in the first place, bamboo isn't exactly on the badger diet. On the other hand, Bucky does need to learn impulse control and Galvynn can't always be the one enforcing that.

---

Quest Name: River Tour

Participants: Two or more

Location: Crescent Isles

Post Requirements: 5 posts per person, 200 words per post

Reward: +1 Renown

Description: The Crescent Isles are a beautiful, serene place to visit this time of the year, and one of the biggest attractions that draw tourist are its beautiful, twisting rivers that snake throughout the region and connect many of its bodies of water. It has become a favorite pastime of nobles and the rich to hire guides to take them down the river on a boat. Be a part of one of these river raft rides, either by acting as a guide for a visitor, or maybe going on a tour yourself! However, the trip is not going to be as calm and peaceful as expected. Rough rapids, rocky outcroppings, and unpredictable sea life look to bring disaster to your ride.

Galvynn was not alone in his travels. A lone wooden canoe drifted along, water gently sloshing trolling along the riverbank. Its solo passenger sat at the back, humming and tapping one of the chitinous plates on his arm with his claws. It made a decent rhythm.
Considering where he’d been throughout his travels this far, the smooth whoosh of the river almost made him sleepy. Staccato didn’t mind it though; the ambiance made his thoughts flow easier. He had many questions with very few answers after all.

He refused to let this dampen his mood however. A creative flame had sparked from within, and he wanted to ride along with it.
His humming soon turned to nonsensical singing, focusing on the tune rather than the words- but he certainly knew how to hold a note.

While his little diddy did sound lovely, it distracted him from steering the boat. His size already unbalanced it. Just as the arachnid humanoid started hitting a high note, the boat suddenly jolted to a stop, causing him to flop forward.

“Ack! What happened-?”

He leaned over the side to see the front of his boat wedged between a rock and the side of the riverbank. The flowing water pushed against the boat’s side, some splashing over the wall onto the floor. Staccato frowned and grunted in dismay before trying to push it backwards. It didn’t budge.

“Aw crap..”

He tried again, this time bracing four arms against the riverbank. The boat moved slightly, only for the tip to sink itself into the riverbank. The water against it seemed to only twist it deeper.
Still Staccato tried, now attempting to use his paddle as a lever.

The menagerie of the druid raises its collective heads at the noise. Iomann hops forward to ward off this threat. She peeps at Staccato and stands firm, ready to attack. The songbird griffon stands and imposing foot and a half tall and weighs several pounds, a frightening foe indeed.

Plodding behind her is the actual muscle of the group, Bucky the Rune Badger who was closer in size to a bear. He sniffs along the ground as he continues to approach, following the sounds of Iomann. Cuinass departs from Galvynn to soar ahead and try and get an actual assessment of what is going on. The owl knows full well that the others in the group aren't going to be useful in warning of a threat if there is one.

Galvynn has a small smile on his face as he catches up, scooping Iomann up in a hand. She continues to peep as she's set onto the druid's shoulder to perch.

"Shhh little one, I don't think is a deadly foe to chase off." He chuckles softly before looking to Staccato.

He takes a moment to look at the situation before coming to an idea of what's wrong.

"Do you need help friend? These waters can be a little tricky at times. Wouldn't be the first I've pulled from the waters."

While Galvynn approached, Staccato continued to struggle. Each unsuccessful tug had more force behind it than the last.
The rising frustration kept him from noticing a crucial detail in his situation, his angle. If he just adjusted the way he pulled, he’d have better luck…

“Come onnnn!”

Though his whiny voice sounding typical of humanoids, his appearance hardly matched.
A 7 foot stature, eight limbs, and scattered plates of chitin, this thing had some monstrous qualities to him.
Not to mention a set of fangs bulged and peeked from his upper lip, which frankly spread a bit too wide for anyone’s comfort.

He braced himself, just about to try yet again when Galvynn’s voice caught his attention.

“Huh?”

He turned to fully face him, only for a leg to get pinned between the boat and the rock, causing the other to stumble with a splash.
Back up he came, shaking himself off and finally slumping in defeat.

“Heeeeyyyy..”

Eight pupilless magenta eyes looked right at the Druid and his crew. The two largest ones had some resemblance to humanoid eyes, squinting and peering as he tried to focus his vision.

“I thought rowing a boat would be easy-“ he said with an embarrassed chuckle,
“I uh, heh, I do need some help if you’re cool with that-“

The strange look of Staccato actually does little to unseat Galvynn's affable smile. It is clear by the druid's own looks that he is not exactly unused to traveling with strange companions. There was a large badger and tiny griffon with him anyways. Plus he looked like most of his time was spent outdoors and Charon is full of strange and magical monsters.

Bucky would plod over to the stranger and nudge him a bit, offering his wide head as a support to help Staccato stand back up. Unbeknownst to the spider-humanoid this was also an underhanded attempt to get free head pats. Iomman as flitters over to start making circles around Staccato while she chirps.

Galvynn only chuckles and heads towards the boat, "No problem friend, slow moving rivers like this can sometimes be a bit tricky....the currents whorl unexpectedly and send you right towards the rocks."

It doesn't seem as if the druid has any special tools to try and get the boat unstuck. He just plans to try and tug, giving it the ol Charonian College try.....which goes about as well as Staccato's attempts. Somehow, the boat wedged itself enough to be stuck without just breaking apart. It was quite the accidental feat.

"I hope you are not in a rush because this is quite stuck." He smiles giving a sheepish scratch of his cheek as he thought.

Staccato initially recoiled at the sheer size of this animal, his own fur rising up.



“Woahhh, that’s a big rat, don’t bite me-“ he nervously chuckled as he watched Bucky approach, “What’re you doin- Oh, okay.”



His tune changed once the badger helped him up to his feet. He leaned against the big beast, pushing down on his head a bit until he fully steadied himself. Bucky’s devious little plan was not in vain though. The moment the arachnoid felt the fur, he begun ruffling it in fascination, and ruffling soon turned to light scratches once he noticed the positive reaction it elicited. His claws likely felt like a backscratcher to the big badger.

“Ooo you like that? I guess that would feel good, huh?”

His attention then shifted towards Iomman, head turning as his gaze followed her. It reached about 90 degrees before he had to face forward again. He barely paid attention to Galvynn’s help until the other spoke up, to which he merely sighs.

“I mean, I’m not rushing, but this still kinda stinks,” he then chuckled, “I heard that people did these tours with guides and such, but I can’t pay for that, so I figured I’d take myself down. Guess not though.”

He glanced to the boat, hands going to his hips as he takes in his impressive mishap. Was this sort of thing common? Maybe that was why people hired guides…

“Do you have one?” He then asked Galvynn, “It’s okay if you don’t want me to steer it, but that one was the only one I had-“

"Badger, but close." Galvynn laughs as he continues to look at the boat with some concern.

Bucky does relax his shoulders when the pets come, very happy that such a scheme worked. He was smart enough to retreat if Staccato had gotten aggressive or really scared, hence the tension, so to be rewarded with pets was great. Iomann eventually lands on Bucky as well to curiously hop around Staccato's hand. This was an entirely new type of person to her.

"Guides usually know the tricks, but even then I've seen plenty get stuck....seen plenty of people get by without a guide too. The waters shift unpredictably sometimes." He puts his hands on his own hips as he thinks a moment.

"I don't, normally if I do need to swim I can just become something more accustomed to it." He smiles and looks back over his shoulder at Staccato.

As they talk, the rocks begin to wriggle and move on their own. Slowly the boat starts to move back up river and away from the group. Galvynn looks back to see this happening, raising an eyebrow. The boat isn't moving incredible fast, in a few quick steps Galvynn is level with it again and it stops moving while he looks at it.

"Interesting....What were you doing before getting on the river? Just taking a boat and going sight seeing? Skipping rocks across the river?"

“Oh-“

Staccato bent down for a better look at Ionman, watching her hop about with a childish curiosity.

“Awww what are you?” He cooed, “You’re pretty neat too.”

His pets on Bucky slowed as he slowly reached a free hand to her, only to stop before touching her. Animals can bite after all…

He turned his head slightly towards Galvynn’s voice, as if side-eyeing him. In reality, he was just trying to watch him from a small eye on the side of his head so that he could keep giving Bucky scritches.

“Ohhh I see, I see,” he said with a nod, “I don’t know much about how water flows to be honest. Does it just change at random or…?”

His attention shifted towards the boat as Galvynn moved towards it. Puzzled, he removed his hand off Bucky and waded back into the water to join the other.

“Wha..?” He glanced between the boat and the rocks a couple of times, “Weird, we didn’t even touch it-“

He put a hand on the boat despite it already being stationary. At the same time, while he replied to Galvynn, he nudged the rocks with his foot.

“But yeah, I was sightseeing, I’d like to see more of Charon, and this place seemed nice. I mean, definitely nicer than some other places I’ve been to-“

He chuckled at the last part.

“Hey-“ He met eyes with Galvynn again, grinning as he got an idea,
“Want to come with me? I’m kinda enjoying this conversation; I don’t want it to end yet-“”

Iomann chirps and tweets at Staccato as if he can understand her. She seems a little confused when it becomes apparent he can't, looking back to Bucky. The badger offers a few chuffs of his own in response to the little griffon. Iomann chooses to then hop onto Bucky's head to get a closer look at Staccato. Clearly it was the distance that was the problem, now he should understand her.

"It depends, it's not random, there is always a reason...weather would be the main one, but someone could also move something in the river or if a beaver starts building a dam." Galvynn looks up and down river once just to see if there was anything up ahead.

"I'd be happy to, but first." He smiles towards Staccato before croucing down in the water. As the other nudges the rocks with his foot, the druid spots a bit of movement. "Aha!"

Galvynn can't help but chuckle, "Dia duit a chlann bheaga, an bhfuil spraoi agat ar maidin?"

The language is an older dialect, the words seem to hold an earthy weight to them in some strange way. As he speaks the rocks start to move again before popping out small arms and legs and scuttling away from the boat. The make a low grinding noise to the druid.

"Ó? Agus cad a bhí beartaithe agat a dhéanamh leis?"

More grinding noises as the rocks jostle and bob.

"Bhuel, cad faoi seo, déanfaidh mé é seo a thrádáil duit agus tógfaimid an bád ar ais?" He produces a moss ball from a pocket.

The rocks grind amongst themselves before reaching their little stone hands up. Galvynn chuckles and hands over the moss ball before watching them rumble off out of the water.

"Baby Geonids, maybe only a few centuries old. Seems like they just wanted to see if they could catch a boat." Galvynn stands with a grin, seemingly not worried about the fact his lower half is soaked from crouching in water.

Unforutnately for Iomann, her newfound acquaintance remained oblivious and simply gave her a blank stare before giving a similar look to Galvynn.
His explanation made sense, yes, but those didn’t seem to apply here. The weather hadn’t changed at all since he got here, and he hadn’t seen any beavers…

Thankfully he got his answers- well, one of them- right away as the very rocks around them suddenly moved on their own.

Yep. The rocks. Were moving.

Staccato yelped and jumped back, barely maintaining his footing on the rocky riverbed. His hair stood on end. Since when could rocks move by themselves, much less talk?
Well, it seemed like talking. They made noises that Galvynn responded to, to which he replied with equally puzzling phonetics. Those seemed like words, but not any kind he’d heard before. Was he imagining this?! It seemed too surreal to be, well, real.
The confounded arachnoid could only watch and listen to that entire exchange, especially keeping his eyes on the geonids. He watched their every move, unsure what to expect, and remained tense until they finally rolled away, leaving the two alone once more with the trickling water.
There was a beat between the two as he questioned that experience.

“B..Baby. Geonids?” He slowly said, still incredulous, “They’re. Baby rocks? Those exist??”

Last time he checked, rocks were not alive to begin with. They did not move or speak. Yet he just witnessed his friend communicate to a bunch of apparently young rock things. He said they were babies, which implied they aged.
Even rocks had a concept of a past, present, and future. Who would’ve thought?

His simple mind reeled trying to process all of this, leaving him with a stupidly stunned expression. When he tried to question Galvynn about all of this, his words came out falteringly.

“Wait wait, so they- okay- they didn’t let me move?? Why?? What did you say to them??”

"Of course there are, do you think mountains just happen?" He laughs and smiles towards Staccato.

He grabs the boat and pulls it back towards the shore. It is beached near all of them so it doesn't take off down the river again and leave them in the same place they were in just a few minutes ago. Progresss would be nice.

"Oh, it seems you were just an unfortunate result of them playing. They just wanted to see if they could catch a boat. They weren't really sure what to do now, so I traded them a little ball of moss for the boat and they seemed happy....Usually if you run into elementals, trading them something similar to them works...not always, but it helps."

Iomann flitters back over to Galvynn now that he is seemingly done with this work. She perches on his shoulder and chirps at him, posturing towards Staccato.

"Because he doesn't understand you like I do little one, but he is a friend, so be nice." Iomann looks towards Staccato, thinks, and gives an agreeable chirp.

"Sorry they bothered you like this, but seems like you're all set. Do you know where you're going?"

“Uhhh…” Staccato glanced sideways at this question, cheeks growing warm.

“I mean… yes?? I kinda did? Are you saying the mountains are alive too?”

It’s not something he thought about before. Was it such common knowledge to others?

He tried to ignore this embarrassed flush as he hurried to Galvynn, lending his own strength to move the boat regardless if the other needed it or not. He still listened though, curiously peering towards where the geonids used to be.
Trading sounded easy enough, but now he needed to find things to trade…
Elementals, he called them? By that name, Staccato assumed they were related to world’s elements, but he felt too embarrassed from earlier to ask.

Instead, he took interest at the seemingly mutual communication between Galvynn and Iomann, slowly approaching them both to listen. He only stopped once he was addressed .

“Oh, uh, don’t worry about them, it’s fine,” he stepped back a little in a shoddy attempt to hide his eavesdropping,
“I mean, I’m going down the river. I wasn’t really planning anything else; I don’t know what’s down there.”

Hearing himself say this, he made a face. Maybe going in blind wasn’t his greatest idea.

“What about you? Where are you going?”

"Parts of them at least...give them enough time and you'd be surprised how big some of them can get." Galvynn stretched himself out a bit as the boat was pulled to shore.

The animals around him began to settle, Bucky especially who does not need a moment to think about taking a nap. Iomann nestles into the neck of the druid, forcing him to tilt his head to the side to accomodate her. Still, he does not seemed bothered by any of it. It keeps her from bothering others....mostly at least.

Galvynn does not seem too bothered by the eavesdropping when Staccato steps back. He had grown used to people watching him with that kind of interest and at least with this new friend it was well intentioned. As bad as he was at social cues with others, he had begun to pick up on when some one was interested versus when they were weirded out.

This seemed to be friendly interest.

"Who knows?" Galvynn laughs a bit. "I don't usually have a plan on where I am going, I travel and wherever I end up is where I end up. Sometimes I find myself running into people like you who need help, sometimes I'll go days before seeing a human or someone like that."

“Oh, I see-“

Staccato grabbed another end of the boat to help Galvynn put it up to shore, and left it there once they succeeded.

The tour didn’t appeal to him anymore. The sights weren’t worth the hassle of steering.
Galvynn, on the other hand, seemed to have enough stories of his own to pass time with.

So he sat himself down on a nearby log, grinning at the other’s little remark.

“Well, I’m glad I ran into you then! I don’t fully know where I’m going either. I’ll end up at the Capitol soon enough,” he chuckled a little,
“I don’t mind hanging around here for a bit, it’s pretty nice just like this.”

Hopefully Galvynn wouldn’t mind either. If he did, Staccato would simply move along.

In either instance, no river tour occurred. A lovely riverside stroll was a nice alternative though.

---

((I’m gonna end it here if that’s cool with you.))

"It gets too busy near cities for me to be comfortable...this is where I find the most rest." He smiles brightly.

Galvynn was more than happy to spend a good portion of the remaining day with Staccato. As strange as he can be in social situations, the druid does enjoy them. It was nice for Galvynn to have chances to talk with people in a low stakes situation.

The tension across Charon was hard to ignore, but days like this were nice. He enjoyed meeting someone new, helping them, maybe teaching them something about nature they hadn't considered. These were the days that Galvynn truly cherished.