[MINGLE] Just don't touch the puffball

[markwatney]

WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: 6I Town Hall
WHEN: 7 June, after lunch
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: n/a
NOTES: Please note in your subject line if a top-level is to Mark (or whoever)

---

I have to be honest, as a botanist, there's a lot about this new, expanded world to be excited about. It seems like almost every time I go out to collect samples, I find something I haven't seen before, and nearly every minute I'm not working in the fields or greenhouse, I've been in Ravi's lab doing tests and compiling observations. Some of the specimens are pretty spectacular, but for a lot of them, the things that make them impressive are also things that could be a problem for the average villager.

Which is why I'm here now, in the town hall, lining up a variety of plants on a long table at the front of the room, some dried, some placed carefully under glass, many seeded in whatever I could find to use as a pot: Sauce pans, old boxes, tea cups.

Early this morning, I left a message on the blackboard in the Inn in big chalk letters:

Seminar on new native plants
TODAY - TOWN HALL - AFTER LUNCH
IMPORTANT INFO!!

In the old place, I used to take folks out one at a time and give them a crash course on what was edible and what was poisonous, but that's just not going to cut it now.

As I wait for folks to arrive (As I wait, hoping folks will arrive), I lay out labels in front of each plant listing what I've been calling it, whether it's dangerous, and any known properties. Once I'm done running my mouth, people can come up and get a good look.

Comments

[digging]

"May be," Karen allows with a faint smirk as she glances back up to Kira. They see each other sometimes, but they haven't really talked all that much since that day in the cave, maybe because neither of them really want to think about what they uncovered there but they know they'll feel compelled to bring it up.

Or maybe that's just her.

"Different scents for different people," she reads now off the little label in front of the plant. "Huh. That's weird." She lifts her gaze to Kira again. "What are you smelling?"

[3ofswords]

Kira thinks about it plenty; not about telling anyone, just the mental scab he picks open when their new home can't keep him busy enough. Sometimes, he'd take another surprise-trip to scenic middle of nowhere over extrapolating various heat deaths of their universe from the Observer's pet project.

As Karen reads the label, he looks to the side, updating his mental notes to tag the yellow flowers for future tea and cigarette experiments.

"Mom's rice cooker and bubblegum," he answers. His sidelong glance raises to Karen's face, awaiting her own answer. Trying to indicate, without indicating: things he's likely never smelled before.

[digging]

"Interesting combination," Karen allows with a cant of her head. No more interesting than her own, maybe, now that she considers it. "I've got gunpowder and coffee. Which is... familiar, let's just say." And notable, maybe, when compared to Kira's.

"Is bubblegum a significant scent for you?" she asks, and leans a bit closer to get another whiff. "Okay, now it's coffee and newsprint." If she closes her eyes right now, with the sound of the group milling around her, she'd probably feel like she was right back at the Bulletin.

[3ofswords]

It's the kind of question that should be a bit teasing; or at least that's how he'd ask it. In context, it's just another piece of the puzzle. Breathing deep, he can't say there isn't a placating effect: that had kind of been the point, of the gum. "Bit of a placeholder for other habits," he admits.

Habits he'd never had, in this incarnation. Habits he couldn't even act on. The rarity of alcohol was surpassed only by the rarity of cigarettes, and he'd never heard of anything stronger appearing.

Weed, in his opinion, barely counts. "Scent is supposed to be pretty well tied to memory, but does it say they're for anything other than nostalgia?"

[digging]

"No, it just says different for different people," Karen replies with a glance back down at the label. "It doesn't look like there's any kind of negative affect... Possible memory enhancement when ingested," she reads. "Maybe Mark hasn't done as much research on this one. Prioritizing the dangerous plants instead."

It's weird, though, like something out of Harry Potter. "I assume the scent is meant to attract animals so the pollen gets spread. Here's hoping it doesn't work like a love potion on humans," she adds with a soft laugh.

[3ofswords]

He rolls his eyes, but immediately after, wonders if that's such a stretch. One of the plants on display gives lightning powers. Retracting his hand, he glances over to the description of the yellow bulbs, comparing the two.

"Mental clarity, memory, decongestants, human lightning rods--when are we going to find the mushrooms that make you see god?" And who is going to try them first, after the spore incident? "I mean, I guess we could raid the peach trees and make prison wine in a toilet, but I only want to do so much damage to my frontal lobe."

[digging]

"God, this place needs booze," Karen ejects with a roll of her eyes. "Real booze, not something that may or may not be booze and may or may not make you blind." In retrospect, she's so glad she drank that beer at the dinner she was skeptical about when she first came through, back in the old place. It's not as comforting as a bottle of proper whisky would be, but at least she doesn't have to regret missing out.

"How is there not booze? That's the real question."

[3ofswords]

"They gave us weed," he points out, "but there's only ever alcohol for those big feasts, or given out to specific people." He has the empty bottles at home to prove it once existed, and Jax had shared a private stash when he first--returned--but hoarding bottles from the feasts seems the only method anyone's come up with so far.

As for how no one's set to making it yet, the reasons have started to fall away with the expansion of their resources. "In the canyon, we didn't exactly have the food stores to spare on a few botched attempts."

[digging]

"Where's my booze? All I got was shampoo and paper— Which, let's be clear, I am very grateful for," Karen says, adding the last bit both toward the ceiling and into her wrist device before she looks back to Kira.

"I guess that's true. I didn't really think about it that much until..." She makes a vague motion Kira's way and then drops her hand. "For a long time, I was focused just on getting out." But if she's not really her, if she was grown in a lab for some asshole's entertainment, what's the point?

"We should make something with those magic peaches," she adds, preferring to pull the conversation back to the safer realm of questionable inebriation.

[3ofswords]

"Or we can find whatever does the opposite of these," he says, brushing a finger across the notes on the memory-boosting flowers, "and really forget our troubles for awhile."

He's--mostly joking. The last thing the village, or maybe just Mark needs, is for him to forget what he's doing here. Obviously if he wanted to start over, or start someone over, he'd go snort the puff pod and let them send a fresh Kira through the fountain.

Looking down at his own watch, he wonders if that's another reason not to talk about it. In the canyon, the ways they were observed didn't have physical apparence: would the Observers replace them, if they stopped being--whatever the Observers need them to be? Non compliant versus nonreactive? Not ready to test it, he lifts his own watch and sets a mild gaze out on the crowd: "Personally, I'd like some shampoo samples to pass out to those who haven't heard of it yet."