15 Ashan, Arc 721.
Elisabeth’s walks on Faldrass had taken her as far as Balthazar would let anyone wander. The Badlands were off-limits and for safety reasons, everyone generally stayed within sight of the settlement. That part was a bit frustrating considering she could best the guards Balthazar trusted with at least her sword. She didn’t oppose the limitations but there were trials where the young mage felt…restricted. Wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just the reality of the situation. They were in a relatively unknown place with unknown dangers. A little more 'known' would be a good thing before exploring too far.
Since arriving at the settlement, Elisabeth had increasingly felt the need to help in some significant way. It was a humbling feeling, again. It reminded her of her early days in Rharne, wanting the help and effect change and feeling like she couldn’t. Elisabeth had promised herself she would never feel helpless like that again. So, she had trained and learned and trained more. But there was precious little in her training that could help the settlement. The needs were simple – shelter, medical knowledge, food. Despite being a researcher to a Professor of Medicine, she knew little of the skill itself, having devoted most of her time to Vin’s linguistics class.
Hindsight was a bitch sometimes.
What could she offer?
Sighing a bit, she strolled down to the beach. The early morning darkness was still upon the settlement but the young mage really didn’t mind. Dark allowed her mind to settle and think better. It was frustrating that after a few trials of being at the settlement, she was no closer to a breakthrough on how to help than when she had arrived, despite numerous investigations and poking around. Balthazar had been supportive but he too was still trying to find his place. Anyways, it was a conundrum she wanted to figure out for herself. Time to use her brain and solve a problem.
Dragging her feet in the sand a bit, she let her sapphire eyes gaze out over the water, content to feel water and wind with her. Smiling as she walked, she called to each separately, needing to hear their voices for reassurance that the young mage wasn’t alone. It took time – she was still new to calling but it was getting easier as time went on. The winds had picked up into the evening hours but for her, it seemed as though they simply parted, going around her body, unwilling to subject her to their harshness. Deference, she assumed. It was the first time she had been party to it where wind was concerned so she stood still and let the element surround her, closing eyes and feeling the presence of the person she associated with wind, letting the feeling calm her.
Kneeling on the volcanic sand near the waterline was, she noted that it was low tide. Elisabeth let her thoughts wander a bit, going back to a few ideas she previously had considered…but something caught her attention not far away. The early morning was dark but the good thing about darkness was that one’s eyes got used to it after a while and as she looked over, she noted an odd-shaped, broken empty shell. Arching her eyebrow a bit, she picked it up to examine it. It was about half the size of her hand. Searching her memory, she knew somehow that shells were empty ‘homes’ of certain types of seafood. Her knowledge didn’t extend further than that. Having lived in port cities her entire life, one picked up a few things here and there. But what type of seafood lived in this shell?
Food! The settlement needed food sources. What if she could find one?
But how? Elisabeth knew nothing about where to find any of the seafood. Looking at the shell in her hand, she thought hard about what it could be. Thinking back to food she had eaten over the years….shrimp? No. Oysters? Maybe. But those were usually served with their shells and this did not look like those shells. Rubbing her finger over the surface, a name came to her. Clam? Possibly. She had never seen a clamshell before, but it seemed as likely as anything else. She considered running to the settlement to see if anyone could identify it for her but decided against it. She could try to figure out where to find them first.
Tricky business that, especially when one didn’t know where to look. The empty, broken shell had been on the wet sand, presumably brought in and left by the tide. If the clams were in the water, they would have been deposited on the sand as well, but a quick look around told her they weren’t’. So, the only other place they could be was in the sand.
Snap.
Casting her eyes down to the sand, she noted that if she were to examine the wet surface for signs, she needed a light source. Looking back towards the settlement, she abandoned her position on the beach for a few bits and retrieved a torch from the settlement. It wouldn’t last long but hopefully long enough.
Walking back towards the waterline, her eyes lowered and followed the sand as she walked, looking for any irregularities. It took time but before long, she noticed a mound in the sand with a depression in the middle. She thought it odd but not enough to stop looking for something else. But just a short distance away, Elisabeth saw another of the mounds, exactly the same as the first. Hmmm…okay. Weird. But it wasn’t until the third identical mound that she felt she was on to something. Once was happenstance. Twice is a coincidence. Third time? Bingo.
Noting that her torch was beginning to get low, she briefly considered using Defiance in some way but dismissed the idea. No. She was going to do this without magic. Magic didn’t make her special - her mind did. Somewhere along the way, Elisabeth had forgotten that. She was smart and smart was going to find a damn clam.
It seemed to her that the mounds of sand indicated where the clams had been recently. Kneeling down, she used her hand to wipe away the sand, hoping to find it there but was disappointed to see nothing, Hmm…that probably meant that they were deeper. She was going to need better tools – and a new torch.
A few bits later, armed with a shovel and a new torch, Elisabeth picked a mound of sand. Sticking the torch into the ground nearby, the young mage began digging in the orange sand. She wasn’t sure how far down she would have to go but wasn’t daunted. They couldn’t be too far, could they? After taking a few scoopfuls of sand out, she used the shovel to poke through it, just to make sure she hadn’t accidentally found it already, and discarded it. Nope. Wasn’t there. Back to digging. She continued down several inches more before something appeared embedded in the sand. A clam! It was just the very tip of it but she could tell the shell was like the broken one she found.
Tossing the shovel to the side, she quickly lowered to the sand to grab the clam but before she could, it was gone. What? Where the Beneath? Digging a bit more with her hand yielded no further sign of the clam. It had been there! She had seen it. Did they move that quickly?
Sighing, she rose back up and decided to try another one of the mounds. If the clams were able to burrow, perhaps trying on a fresh location would yield better results. Grabbing the torch and shovel, she went back to one of the previous spots with the tell-tale mounds, stuck the torch in the ground, and once again began shoveling, going about 8 inches down into the sand and checking the sand she pulled out of the hole. After a few trills, her shovel hit something…different. Sliding the sand to the side, she noted the familiar form of a clam once again. It had been unearthed a bit more, but Elisabeth decided, this time, not to take her eyes off it, stabbing the shovel into the sand one more time and liberating it from the sand hole. Finally! Dropping everything, she immediately grabbed it out of the sand and held it in her hand, noting the fleshy appendage on the top...or bottom. Whatever.
Okay, she found one. Now what? She still didn’t know for sure what it was. Elisabeth was assuming it was a clam, but it could easily have been something else. There had to be someone in the settlement that knew for sure.
Quickly gathering up the shovel and torch, Elisabeth swiftly made her way back to the settlement to find Balthazar, and hopefully someone who knew what she had found.
ooc
Ignis Clam has been approved!
