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| Lost again? I gotta be more careful; Yajirobe's Beans Quest | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 27 2009, 12:37 AM (79 Views) | |
| Prototype 10 | Jun 27 2009, 12:37 AM Post #1 |
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Day 1 of 2: 1,527 words Confronted with the infinite expanses of the afterlife, Proto had begun to get a bit out of touch. He often wondered what was going on back in the realm of the living and couldn’t help but feel like his time here was coming at a high cost. Sure he was learning things and having experiences that he couldn’t get anywhere else in the galaxy, but what of those he left behind? He had learned new techniques from some of the greatest humans to ever live and had the chance to spend some time outside the areas of violence and just enjoy their company. After many hours pondering the next course of action, Proto realized that he had once again gotten lost in thought and been flying in the same direction for some time now, but with no destination. Proto was no stranger to things of this nature happening and often times had to stop himself from thinking too deeply just to keep appointments. Checking the surrounding area for any familiar landmarks, Proto found that he had travelled some distance while in thought and turned his attention now to the only notable structure in the area, a small, raised building with a large fountain in the center. Taking his time, Proto would leisurely float towards the building, unaware of its inhabitants or their intentions. To Proto, this was just another experience he had yet to attain. Landing softly on the stone tiles of the floor, Proto began scanning the area for signs of life. Much to his dismay, the only living things in the whole building seemed to be these small plants that barely grew more than a few inches out of the ground. Upon close examination they seemed to be a bean of sorts. Proto knew he had seen these somewhere before but where? Accessing his memory banks, he remembered seeing several of these plants at Korin’s tower on earth. In fact, during his stay there one of the students was accidentally injured during his training and I bore witness to Korin administering one of these beans to the young man. To my great surprise the man rose off the ground as if nothing happened, even his wounds were gone from his body. One thing puzzled Proto though, Korin was said to be immortal, so in theory, he had always been the one to grow the beans. That being said, who was it that was taking care of this garden here in the afterlife? Surely any injury here wouldn’t require the usage of such an item to repair and yet here stands this magnificent testament to Korin, a hidden land filled with what must amount to hundreds of beans. Even the fountain in the center, simple though it may appear, contained fresh, pure water of a cool temperature. I felt refreshed from a single sip of its waters. Taking the time to actually walk the interior of the compound it became evident that at least one person lived here. There was a personal space in addition to the work areas and kitchen, but no areas for guests. My best guess is that the master of the house was currently away. Rather than leaving and attempting to return later (navigating the ever changing topography of heaven was harder than one realized), I decided to sit in quiet preparation while I waited for the owner of the building to return. Night had fallen in the wistful land of the dead. It would be several hours into this night before Proto would even notice however. Once again we find the curious android unaware of the abstract of time as he whiles away, trapped in thought, veritably locked into his own highly functioning, highly artificial mind. It wasn’t until his long range sensors picked up an object heading towards the building that he was able to rouse himself from his contemplations and prepare for the arrival of whoever was approaching. A quick splash of water from the fountain felt good against Proto’s face; perhaps before he left he would take a bottle or two with him for the road. Sensors indicate that it is a medium sized hover vehicle approaching, an older capsule corporation designs if I’m not mistaken. Once the vehicle had stopped outside, Proto proceeded to open the door only to find the vehicle’s door open and no one to be found within or around. Stepping outside, a cold piece of metal found its way to the side of Proto’s neck. Looking to see what was going on; Proto gazed at a small, rather rotund, human in an orange and black robe holding a sword, the source of the cold metallic feeling. “And here I just came out to greet you.” Proto said with a smile. “I can assure you that” letting the sentence trail off, proto disappeared, only to re-materialize a foot or so farther away and with his hand holding the blade of the sword in place “I mean you no harm”. Try as he might, the human was unable to move the sword forward or tear it from the android’s grasp. It wasn’t until he stopped struggling and accepted this that Proto finally let go. Realizing that had Proto wanted a fight he would have simply attacked, the man sheathed his sword and asked what Proto was doing there. “In truth I was out for a walk thinking when before I noticed, I had made my way out here. I stopped in hoping to get some directions and maybe a bit of lively conversation when I noticed the senzu beans that you grow here. Please don’t be alarmed, I had the pleasure of training for a short while with Korin of earth before my untimely demise. They could be of a great boon to me and those like me so it was my hope that I could bargain for a few before I was off on my way and thus, I awaited your arrival and here we are”. The man shook his head for a moment, perhaps I had said something out of turn, but he seemed more depressed than anything else. “People like me you say eh? I’ve been dealing with people like you for hundreds of years ya ditz. Always coming around, asking for my beans and then going about your business without a second thought as to any of the actual work involved in growing the damnable things. Take my advice kid, whatever adventure you plan to go off and get you involved in, just stop right now and forget about it. You think it’ll be one thing and then it’s another and another and another and before you realize it, most of your life has rotted away over other peoples’ affairs”. He could see that I was trying to take what he was saying to heart; I was weighing the things he said against the things I felt and trying to decide a logical way to compare the two. He asked me why I even needed such a thing to help me. I recalled to him my tales of observation throughout various parts of the galaxy, how I had come to understand many things through peace and tranquility. Then I told him of the many menaces that would interfere with that, how on planets far and wide people were losing their lives, sometimes by the hundreds or thousands because of the whims of those that would choose not to care. While I have no personal stake in the affairs of mortals, there is something within me, I had originally thought it was my programming, but it’s something deeper than that. It causes me to be somehow morally opposed to such acts and not only can I not see myself ever being accomplice to such things, but maybe it is my fate to oppose those that would bring chaos and disorder. In a more selfish truth, their actions interfere with the natural state of things, which prevents me from furthering my studies, but even more than that I’ve wondered what the sense is in having the power to oppose these forces and not using it. He said I reminded him of himself when he was younger. He told me of how he used to be a match for the legendary Goku. He told me of how he put himself through rigorous training on the lookout with earth’s mightiest heroes. How he turned the tides for them and saved the entire planet with a single stroke of his sword. How even when his time of power had passed, he still found a way to help his friends when they needed him most by growing these beans and how growing them was the only thing he had left to remind him of his past glory. It wasn’t until he was finished that I realized who I was talking to this whole time. Yajirobe, the former mountain bandit turned Z fighter. “if you are really that intent on earning yourself a senzu bean then very well, you can start with the groceries” pointing to the mid-sized van behind him, Proto knew this was only the beginning. |
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| Prototype 10 | Jun 27 2009, 04:52 AM Post #2 |
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Day 2 of 2: 1,640 words Man this guy can eat. That’s all that kept going through Proto’s head as he carried bag after bag of groceries into the house. It took him the better part of an hour to get it into the kitchen and another thirty minutes or so to get it all put away and organized. After all his hard work, the human Yajirobe comes out, pushes a button on the inside of the door and the whole thing turns back into a little capsule, what a guy. My first impressions were spot on, the man could eat and to his great joy, I could cook. I fixed for him a meal of dishes so fine, he hadn’t even heard of some them. All of this seemed to play in my favor as it appeared as though I was going to have to do some work if I was to walk away with anything from the garden. I asked about the beans and why he didn’t simply eat them. He responded by telling me that easting more than a few in a short period of time has sides effects, not to mention they taste like fish, which isn’t bad, but sometimes you just have to mix things up or you’ll get sick of it. Now traditionally, I’ve observed that when one person does the cooking for others, someone other than the chef cleans the dishes. Well I can tell you that Yajirobe has not observed this because he passed out just a few moments after finishing his third plate. It is one thing to be given a clearly outlined set of details about what to expect in return for a reward and another thing I simply have to deal with whatever comes your way without warning. After finishing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen I decided to take a closer looks at these plants which were growing pretty much everywhere. As previously stated, they only grow a few inches out of their soil and only a few beans and leaves sprout from such a small plant, but what I couldn’t figure out was how he was taking care of so many. Surely the varied needs of each individual plant must drive the man up a wall. Or at least keep him so busy that he doesn’t have time to spend all day going for one thing or another and yet he obviously had that kind of time. Well it certainly wasn’t my place to tell a hero how to live his life… his afterlife, whichever is more appropriate. When morning arrived I expected the house’s master to do so as well, but that was a mistake on my part. The healthy looking human got up in the early afternoon to the smell of a small meal I was cooking. A small meal which turned into a larger one that is. After yet another round of cleaning I asked about my work here. It was important for me to know exactly what it was I had to do to earn myself one of those miraculous little beans. “All you got to do is grow one for yourself”. I could hardly believe it, all I needed to do was to grow it myself and I could keep it. “But there’s a catch, you can’t ask me for any help, you have to figure it out on your own”. That made things a little more challenging as I’ve never been one to have the proverbial “green thumb”, but I wasn’t about to leave just because it was something I have o experience at. After all, due my programming I am well versed in many fields of study and should easily be able to adapt to anything this tiny plant can throw at me. “The beans have a long incubation period, followed by a rapid growth spurt. What this means for you is that a bean that is planted takes a very long time to gather the nutrients needed to be so effective. There is almost no outward sign that anything is even growing until the final week or so when the beans and leaves actually sprout out from the soil and are ready to be harvested. This will be your bean plant. (He hands me a small hand sized pot with some dirt in it) It doesn’t look like much, but the bean growing in that pot has been incubating for several months now, it should be just about ready to pop.” Accessing my files on plant care, I immediately choose a spot where my plant will gain a good deal of sunlight as well as being easily accessible so that I may water it frequently. I’ve also discovered that many supplements have been created to assist in the growth of plants and so I decide to take a short trip back the shopping area I had previously been near when I was practicing my culinary skills. After getting directions from Yajirobe (He felt as though this didn’t count as breaking the rules since he himself came from town just the other day), I used my instant transmission technique to quickly close the distance and began searching for the right supplements. It didn’t take long, there weren’t that many shops around that carried such items and analyzing the ingredients was basic chemistry. After selecting and purchasing the required items, as well as a few snacks that looked especially tasty, I returned to Yajirobe’s palace of beans in an instant. I took a little time to outline my regiment that I would be using to optimize the senzu seedling’s growth and stability. Within a few minutes I had a detailed plan that covered round the clock feeding, watering and even the amount of sunshine available. With little else to do I took a base soil sample for future comparison and began the feeding process. It was now day three of my stay here and a handful of meals and several feeding cycles later I was still no bean richer. Well I was dealing with an unknown organism after all so it’s not entirely surprising that it’s taking longer than expected to produce any results. As such I continued on with me carefully thought out plan in the hopes that several of the beans would sprout, allowing me to equip some of my cohorts in the near future, provided of course, that I can rally them around one another… It was still too early to tell whether or not I’d even be able to get them to agree to such a proposal, but by the end of my time here in heaven I needed to decide once and for all what my stake in the universe truly was. Beyond me there was still the matter of the others, I’m still unsure as to how many of them I will be able to gather for this endeavor but perhaps they will come more easily than I anticipate. It quite possible that BEEPS, BEEPS, BEEPS! My internal alarm started to go off, this was my failsafe in the event that I became too lost in thought to maintain my feeding schedule for my plant. Yajirobe had stepped out some time ago, he mentioned that he had some errands to run and that he’d be back shortly and yet it has been several hours now and there’s no sign of him. There wasn’t much to do save for continuing to care for the senzu seedling in the hopes of a good yield. My chemical analysis of the soil thus far is inconclusive at best. The soil shows all of the nutrients that my plant food has been delivering, and yet the concentrations within the soil are so high that it leads me to believe the plant isn’t taking any of it in. It’s either ignoring the nutrients, is incapable of absorbing them or is quite simply full and doesn’t need them. Whatever the case may be, I needed to make a quick revision to my plans. I decided to increase the rate at which I feed the plant and see if there is any effect. The following morning my plant finally began to sprout! Within moments a small, four inch stalk grew from the dirt and flourished with life. I was to be very surprised at my reward, though not pleasantly. Despite all the work I put into it, only a single bean had sprouted from the stalk and when I compared it to the other beans of the garden it looked quite thin and underdeveloped. Just when I thought things were bad, suddenly the fountain’s water pressure went through the roof! It sprayed water all over the entirety of the courtyard, me included. Suddenly there was a rich laughter coming from the gate, Yajirobe had returned just in time to witness the dripping spectacle that was me. “I don’t understand Yajirobe, I did everything I could think of to make the seedling grow and instead I think it may have actually shriveled instead. Why did this happen?” Drying his eyes and choking back his laughter, Yajirobe muttered the following, “Sorry about the fountain, its set to automatically water the garden every few days and as far as the bean goes its simple. Sometimes you just have to let nature take its course, all the seeds need is water and sunshine, by trying to force it to grow you hurt the poor thing. Nonetheless that bean is your reward, take it as the lesson you learn from your time here and I hope you never need it.” With that he went inside and started making breakfast for himself. I knew it was my time to go and so I plucked the tiny bean and couldn’t help but be reminded of myself, just another tiny life in the grand scheme of things. |
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| Kuhn Kyojaku | Jun 27 2009, 05:13 PM Post #3 |
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Vegeta's Destroyer.
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Prototype 10. | 13,740 EXP // 100 Zenni. | | 1/3 Senzu Bean. | |
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7:43 PM Jul 10
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Summorien by Zeus00.
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7:43 PM Jul 10