sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Just don't touch the puffball

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[MINGLE] Just don't touch the puffball

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.

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Owen shoos Kero off at the door, maintaining a hard stance on giant alien lizards and the indoors. If it grew up outside, it stays outside; overpowered badgers who want to dunk him through rooftops notwithstanding. Getting that through the animal's head involves several minutes of physically blocking the door, lifting a leg to prod it back for several attempts of mounting the threshold.

"Down," he slowly intones, drawing it out just as long as Kero's plaintive whine. "If I somehow die learning about plants, you have permission to eat my corpse. Get."

Either cowed or placated, Kero trots off, leaving Owen to move inside and let the next arrivals pass. It is entirely possible for him to die learning about plants: that's the reason to show up in the first place. If the guy who's been growing all the other plants wants to share a warning or two, better to learn the effects second-hand, and not after he--or his weird, excitable lizard--step on the wrong thing in the woods.

Which doesn't make it any more fun to be in a closed space with people who are mostly still strangers. Owen makes for the back of the hall, pushing out the back door in time to see Kero round the corner. He pulls it just as quickly shut, satisfied with another exit, and takes up a place on the wall that gives him a sight-line to Mark, the specimens, and his way out.

[ Grab Owen during the seminar, or get caught at either door while he shoos his croc-dog. ]

When Mark's finished talking, Peter's the first up to the table at the front of the room, his eyes round with childlike delight as they sweep over the plants there and the descriptions laid out in front of them. The puffball he affords a wary look, but he grins when he gets to the blue lily, vibrant beneath its glass covering.

"That is so cool," he murmurs as he drops to a crouch in front of the table so the flower is directly in his sightline, his mind already racing with what he could do with a power that let him manipulate electricity. You'd probably have to be really careful until you'd mastered using it, or you could do as much damage as good with it. "It would be like being a living Tesla coil but better because you could control the voltage more consistently."

What if they could use it to power the houses? They'd have to figure out a way to store it, some kind of battery, probably a big one because of how low-tech everything is here.

He glances up, looks one way and then another from where he's still crouched in front of the table. "Has anybody used this? Is it AC?"

When Karen hikes out beyond the borders of the village, she typically makes it a point to avoid most of the plant life she doesn't recognize, particularly since the event with the puffballs and two people nearly drowning in their own beds. She's brought one of her notebooks today, though, and takes down detailed notes on everything Mark tells them — Descriptions, adverse affects, where each species is commonly found. Some of these she thinks she can bring back from her nearly-daily forays, and once the formal part of the talk is done, she has a chat directly with Mark about which he thinks they need most, and how to bring them back safely.

After, she wanders the length of the table, sketching out rough drawings of leaf and flower shapes, noting peculiarities, wanting to make sure she's got everything she needs so she doesn't screw up and end up bringing back a bag full of weeds useful to no one.

The goldbells she's seen plenty of times, and she's taking down the list of known effects when she catches a whiff of scent, familiar enough that it doesn't immediately snag her attention as being out of place. Blinking, she looks up, twisting a glance to the group of people around her, none of whom seem to have noticed.

"Does anybody smell that?" she asks, fingers gripping hard over the edge of her notebook.

Gunpowder and, just beneath it... coffee.

[Come play with the forget me nots]

Given her propensity to spend time outdoors, and the recent panic over the spores, Lyanna cut her hunting short for the day and returned to the inn for Mark's lesson on plants. She was never a diligent student, having normally tuned out her Septa's lessons, preferring to go to the woods with Benjen and play at swords. Coupled with the recent loss of her brother, her attention and mood was not the best.

She wandered about the room, staring at the plants with a dazed expression, trying to force herself to focus for the sake of her safety, but unable to pull free from other thoughts. The puffballs were at least carefully shielded, sparing them from having to breathe in toxic spores again.

It was the blue lilies though that at least drew more attention. "These are the ones that give you the ability over lightning?" That could be as dangerous as the spores, if the person didn't know what they were doing.

It had taken longer than Peeta cared to admit to gather his bearings. The dreams of the arena and the lingering feeling of being hunted had been slow to subdue. Katniss' presence had helped, but with as many Victors as there were in the village, it made the feeling of being trapped ever present. He'd kept to himself in an effort to get a handle on his emotions, but in the end, it left him isolated. They would need allies here and that meant being social, something he was at least good at.

And it would be a lie to say that he wasn't interested in the plants here, just as he had been interested in the ones that Katniss had shared with him in District 12. They had a project there, listing and drawing the different plants and cataloging their uses. There didn't seem to be anything of the sort here, as this meeting evidenced, so he brought pencils and paper with him, ready to sketch the plants. Colors would have to be listed, as he didn't have the tools to fully shade them.

He stood in front of the puffball, diligently sketching it, unsatisfied with his work, but unsure whether or not he should start again. Resources were dear. "If we find enough paper, I might be able to make enough of these to pass around the village."

Margaery had felt more at ease in the former village, having been able to recognize many of the plants in the woods from her life at Highgarden. While she wasn't an expert, she knew enough to recognize what to avoid and what would be edible. But coming here, everything was foreign to her, as foreign as the electricity that powered the inn and several other homes.

If the trek through the woods to find the lichen had given them anything, it was at least exposure to several of these plants. She might not know their names, but she knew what the blue lily did and could recognize both the puffball and lichen on sight. It would at least be useful if she was forced back to the woods, but as of now, she had less interest in going back. It was too unfamiliar and too dangerous for her liking.

She remained at the edge of the crowd, watching the group as they examined the plants, listening as Mark explained their uses. She helped clean up after lunch, lingering longer in the kitchen than was necessary. There was no reason for trepidation, but she felt no great inclination to wander around like the others.

When there was nothing left to do, she found a seat near one of the windows, still on the edge of the crowd, but close enough that she could watch them. When someone else finally came to join her, she gave a small smile. "Did you see enough of the plants to recognize them?"

This meeting could not have come at a better time. For the short time that Circe had been in the village, she had avoided the inn, preferring to keep to the woods or her home. While she had been lonely in exile, this was still an unfamiliar setting and there was a part of her that was mistrustful of strangers. They weren't sent here by her family, as a means to mock or torture her, but she knew the stories of what happened to nymphs. It took time for such fears to subside, as there were so many, exacerbated by the situation she found herself in.

But after being in the woods for so long and learning about the new plants, the idea of this meeting pushed away those concerns in favor of interest and curiosity. She couldn't sense the magic in these plants, she couldn't hear them humming or find a way to summon her magic back to the surface. Until it returned, she had to rely on the knowledge of others.

So that meant asking questions and interacting with others. Slowly, bit by bit, she felt her tension ease away and became transported to an area that she felt at ease in. The plants might be different, but it was still a forest, a place that was her own. "Do we know the uses these might have on health?" She asked, glancing at the figure closest to her.

After the lecture, after all the bustling around, Mulcahy is still waiting as the last few attendees ask Mark questions and then leave, one by one or in pairs, talking about what they learned. He'd sat and listened to all of it; he didn't want to be ill again, after all. Briefly he wonders how Mark managed to learn all of this and not place himself in great danger of injury, but that's a question for a later time.

"Dr. Watney?" It's a bit more hesitant than it was with the other members of the operation, but Mark presumably has more to do right at that moment than someone who was free to attend a lecture. "I don't want to take up too much of your time, but I was hoping to thank you for all you did to find the treatment for that... horrible disease."

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For Mark