Geoda explorers, part 2

“O golovu…” Ixchel groaned. She managed to remain on top of Pharion for the whole night, but where were they? The feline slowly climbed off of Pharion, her eyes barely peeking open to see her surroundings. The light hurt a bit...maybe she shouldn’t have drank that much, especially since they were here on business. She let out a sigh as she rubbed her temples. “Tella..awake?..” she shuffled over to the large snake and papped one of her coils.

“Noo…” Tella groaned, a splitting headache having developed overnight. “Not awake. Never awake again.”

“Ech.” Ixchel thought it best to leave Tella be. Waking the large snake would prove more to be a hassle than what it’s worth. She neared the opening of the tent, but before exiting she noticed two unfamiliar figures. The feline rubbed her head once again, recalling what she could from the night before. ‘A rock and king?’ Neither looked to be a rock type. She rubbed her eyes, turning to the flap again. She opened it a tad only to be blinded by light causing her to hiss quite loud as she flailed on the floor with her eyes covered.

Zar’roc slowly rose his head as he heard the flap open and then the desperate flailing. “Mmm...oh, you’re the girl Pharion brought back.” Zar’roc muttered and then yawned, getting to his feet and started stretching.

Her hissing and flailing ceased as her ears caught the sound of Zar'roc's voice. "Is the King Rock? Or is little yellow babe?" She rubbed her eyes a few seconds more. Her vision was still cluttered with many colored spots, but she can open them a tad more.

He looked at her curiously. What an odd...choice of grammar...wait, he’d heard about someone that had trouble speaking from Maran, a small female with a lot of spunk...now, where did she get King rock from? He was Zar’roc...hold on...Zar...ROC. Ahhh. “Yes.” He said. I am Zar’roc, or King Rock. The Yellow child is mine and his name is Kaza. It’s nice to meet you miss.”

“Ixchel. Sleepy snek’s partner.” Her vision slowly less colorful now. “When get here?” she asked, but wasn’t clear if she was talking about herself and Pharion or Zar’roc and Kaza. The feline carefully sat properly. She still felt the throbbing in her head.

Zar’roc stood up and stolled over to her, and gently nosed her cheek playfully. “It’s nice to meet you Ixchel. “Pharion carried you here. You’re in our tent...but judging from last night, you might be feeling that hangover.” He walked off and dug in their packs to pull out a flask of water. “Here. Drink some water. It should help.”

Her eyes widen slightly, not expecting to be touched by the Absol. “..Yes...” she took the flask, “Wanted this actually, but light hit my eyes.” She unscrewed the flask and drank the water inside. “What is little yellow babe’s name? Prince Rock?” The feline walked back to lay against Pharion’s tail. “Are you a king?”

Zar’roc chuckled and shook his head. “No, I am no king, and he is not a prince. His name is Kaza. He’s my adopted son. I am Zar’roc...or just Zar, or whatever name you want to call me.”

“Ah, odd names. Mine too.” she smiled before taking another drink. The water should be helping her headache soon. For the time being, she shouldn’t go out in the bright light. “Zar and Kaza.” she said to herself as a reminder.

“Well I think your name is quite charming. Not odd at all.” Zar’roc chuckled. “It’s very nice to meet you. It’s safe to assume you are an explorer as well?”

“Means rainbow lady, heh.” She passed the flask back to Zar’roc her smile still there. “Thank you again. Yes, fun so far. Same?” she rubbed her eyes again, along with her temples. The headache was still there, but it should subside, hopefully.

“Oh it’s quite fun so far.” Zar’roc said and closed it. “Then again, we have things to do today, but if you’re up for it, I won’t mind some female companionship. If I heard right from Maran you are incredibly strong.”

“Very!~ Maran is very clever bird~ Good teacher too.” Ixchel sighed recalling some of the tasks they had to accomplish. The goal is to complete them all. “Right. Tasks.” She stretched a bit before standing once more. The headache only pounded, but there wasn’t too much pain at least. “Need others too. We join you and little ye- ahem, little Kaza.”

“I’m glad I can help you. We should have the same tasks...so we should do them together. Kaza wrote them down somewhere…” Zar’roc turned away and started rooting around in their bags. “What was the schedule…”

Meanwhile Zar’roc searched for the schedule, Ixchel sauntered back over to the sleeping snake. “Tella.” she hopped onto one of snake’s coils. “Tella wake.” her tail bopped against Tella. Ixchel continued calling her name and tapping.

Tella groaned and slowly opened her eyes. “Noooo….I don’t wanna.” She groaned. “Bad tail bopping. Stop bopping. I wanna sleep forever.”
“Found it!” Zar’roc said rather cheerfully. “They’re all listed here. A couple days of work.”

“Niet.” she moved on over to Tella’s face and lightly papped at it. “Time for work. Zar will help with little Kaza.” she purred and turned her attention back to the Absol. “Goody~ What is first?” She remained on top of the sleepy snakes head, still papping…

“Looks like we’re going to help make a cactus a house.” Zar’roc stated, reviewing the task for the first day. “Is that alright with you?”
“Bwwaaaaarrw...fine.” Tella grumbled and slowly raised her head. “House plant, sure.”

“Spiky house, sounds like good time.” Ixchel took advantage of Tella’s rising to hop onto Pharion’s head, nearly slipping off. “Nyehhh, wakey Pharion.” she slowly made her way to the top of his head. “Is time for working.”

Pharion’s eyes slowly opened and looked somewhat cloudy before he closed them again and gave a loud yawn and stretches his legs into the air. “Ahhhhhhhhh~! Phew...morning…” He mutters and smacks his chops.
“Good morning Pharion.” Zar’roc said cheerfully. “Ready to work?”
“Sure, sure…” Pharion said tiredly. “I’ll...ahh...gimmie a minute.”

“Easy.” Ixchel mumbled to herself, the headache was starting to subside. She slid off of the large canine and walked towards Zar’roc. Once near she made one last stretch before proceeding to groom her curl. “Is little bab going to stay sleeping?”

Zar’roc pondered this for a moment...but then placed a paw on his side and started to gently shake him awake. “He’ll be coming with us. Kaza dear, it’s time to get up.”
Kaza gave a small groan and rolled over. “Mmmph…”
“Ahh...he’ll be up in a minute.” Zar’roc said.

“Okie dokie.” Ixchel was pretty much ready at this point. Hopefully the light outside does not worsen her headache.

It took quite an ammount of time but they were finally all awake, all brought up to speed, and those with headaches had mostly gotten over it.

The first task was to help turn a giant cactus into a house. Shouldn’t be too hard. Once they had reached the construction site, Ixchel hopped off of Tella’s head.

“Is big.” she mumbled to herself.

“Super big.” Tella agreed, sizing up the cactus that was more than five times as big as she was.

“Start hollowing?” Ixchel asked everyone else.

Kaza nodded and hopped off Zar’roc’s back, pacing around the cactus. Everyone waited for him to size up the situation and then check it with the plans. “...Alright, this shouldn’t be too hard.” Kaza said after several minutes of thought. “We’ll work in sections. We’re just here to HELP the locals with their construction work, which means we can leave the finer details to them when they pick up where we leave off.” He nodded to himself and trotted over to a marked section of the cactus. “We’ll remove the needles from this area and start digging here. This is where the door to this residence is. Ixchel, please handle the lower needles, Tella, please get the higher needles, and Daddy and Pharion, please get to work on cutting through the cactus’s skin with your claws. I’ll go get a wheelbarrow to cart away the excess…’materials’. They’re very conservative in this place so please don’t just dump things into the sand.”

“What happens after we get this door done?” Pharion asked.

“Well then we tunnel into the cactus and hollow it out.” Kaza said. “It’ll take a while...and this’ll mostly be for you and dad. Ixchel and Tella...you aren’t really...the digger types.” Kaza said, trying not to make it sound bad. “You’ll be on wheelbarrow duty, carting away all the cactus ‘pulp’ that they’ll be digging out. My job will be getting it in the wheelbarrows with a shovel. Is everyone alright with this plan?”

Nobody had any objections to this plan and got right to work. Perhaps the thing that surprised them most however was just how soft and spongy the inside of the cactus was...and this made digging it out rather difficult. Soon Kaza joined them with the shovel when there wasn’t a lot to put in the wheelbarrow. As expected, this was quite a task, but there was one thing he’d not taken into account...this was a VERY tall cactus and now they they’d gotten every bit of this cactus they could reach, they didn’t have a way to get the rest. “Sooo…any ideas?” Tella asked the rest of the group.

Pharion simply shrugged. Zar’roc pondered scaling the walls...but that would do damage to the new walls.

“Well then we tunnel into the cactus and hollow it out.” Kaza said. “It’ll take a while...and this’ll mostly be for you and dad. Ixchel and Tella...you aren’t really...the digger types.” Kaza said, trying not to make it sound bad. “You’ll be on wheelbarrow duty, carting away all the cactus ‘pulp’ that they’ll be digging out. My job will be getting it in the wheelbarrows with a shovel. Is everyone alright with this plan?”

Nobody had any objections to this plan and got right to work. Perhaps the thing that surprised them most however was just how soft and spongy the inside of the cactus was...and this made digging it out rather difficult. Soon Kaza joined them with the shovel when there wasn’t a lot to put in the wheelbarrow. As expected, this was quite a task, but there was one thing he’d not taken into account...this was a VERY tall cactus and now they they’d gotten every bit of this cactus they could reach, they didn’t have a way to get the rest. “Sooo…any ideas?” Tella asked the rest of the group.

Pharion simply shrugged. "I could scale the walls...but that would damage them." Zar'roc said as he mused out loud. After a bit more thought, he turned to Kaza. "Kaza, can't you make platforms? You could just lift me and Pharion up there."

"You maybe but Pharion is a little too heavy for me to sustain the barrier long enough to get the job done." Kaza stated, although he seemed a little disappointed that he couldn't he couldn't do that they needed. "I could support you and myself for an extended period of time. No promises that it'd be long enough..."

Zar'roc patted Kaza's head. "There's no saying that we had to finish the job today. We're just here to help out, and we'll need your help later, so when you start feeling tired, we'll call it for the day and let the citizens take it from here. What was next after this again?"

Kaza dug out the list he'd made. "After that we finish with this, we'll get complementary hats, and...then we'll help Gavina rescue some people that didn't listen to mister Hathor's tride and set off on their own without a tribe. That was two days ago and they haven't been heard from. It's possible that they're in Gabite territory...so we can either go directly for the rescue or we can...speak with these Gabites with Mister Bass. Word of warning, I noticed that he seemed very open to the idea of a 'scrap' if negotiations failed, so I would relate him to Digi. He does believe they can be reasoned with. They're just quite young and crazy so we might be dealing with a lot of Digis."

"Many tiny babes?" Ixchel asked with growing interest.

"We should ask Maran to come along!" Pharion added quickly. "She could handle Digi! She HAS handled Digi for years!"

"That'd be an idea but this is an explorer only task." Kaza stated. "And we're not finished with this one so let's not get too ahead of ourselves."

"You take a lot of notes." Tella chuckled. "A lot of Digis...I'm down for a ton of Digis!"

"That's good news because I'm not!" Kaza said with a hint of sarcasm.

"Oh my...I see we're in good spirits." Zar'roc said warmly. "Alright then let's get back to work." And with that they resumes...at a slightly different pace. Pharion didn't have a lot to do other than blow a small, constant flamethrower to provide light with Zar'roc and Kaza continued to hollow out the spongy interior of the cactus on small, floating platforms, which Tella and Ixchel placed in the wheelbarrow and carted away. They didn't finish...but they hollowed out at least most of it before Kaza started breathing harder. "Alright, we're done for today."

"N-no, I'm fine!" Kaza insisted. "We can-"

"No. We're quite done." Zar'roc said and hopped down from the platform. It was significantly warmer than it had been beforehand...mostly due to Pharion's fire, but now then he was in a natural light, it was clearer that Kaza had been showing other signs of fatigue. "You're sweating." Zar'roc stated.

"It's was warm..." Kaza muttered. "Fire."

"Babe rest tiem now." Ixchel said firmly. "More work to do."