Starring:
Date: December 28, 2015
Summary:
Rather large slugs have been destroying crops, and it is up to the Daimyo to catch them to experiment on! I-I mean, save the crops!
"Slugfest Acid Trip"
Northern Land of Tea
At some point in time, some mysterious person or thing infested the ground. No one really knew what the harm was when it sunk into the ground and was absorbed by the local flora and fauna, but they didn't think anything bad could happen … Right? Well, that thought process was terribly wrong, and the result is actually somewhat scary. Giant slugs started popping up in some of the farming lands! Farmers came out to spray the insects, but they only adapted and continued to spread and eat all the crops. Very bad for business … It looks like it's up to someone else to get rid of the pesky garden-eaters!
Giant slugs… How do these things even happen? Either a freak of nature or maybe some scientist that wants to compete with Shuuren is trying to distract him from his own progress. Whatever the case, this is a problem that has to be dealt with. Can't have crops going sour in a country known for its tea export. Adorned in his combat attire, probably because getting slug juice on his suit would not be pleasant, Shuuren leads a group of his trainees on foot toward the farmlands to investigate with a rather large caravan behind them pulling rather large cages for specimen.
As they near the area, the Daimyo says, "Be sure not to kill all of them. Capture what you can for study, and we also need to try and preserve the crop as best we can. Enough has been destroyed already."
Ryuusei is a part of this group, and actually likes slug. Yes, most women are standing around shrieking if anything slimy gets near them but slugs are just another agricultural pest in an agricultural world. Usually salt does the trick, but it appears as if there isn't enough salt in the Tea Cache to deal with these slugs. Ryuusei would have her hand on Kaiyo's hilt, her blade which is choc full of saltwater from the sea. However, Shuuren put the order out to not kill the slugs, but capture them… … … Yet these slugs are… They size from being as thick as her arm, to as big as she is! "R-really? capture them?" She places her hands on her hip, wondering how best to approach this problem. "Do… we have huge nets?"
Approaching the area, she is back in her usual outfit rather than that nice suit. At least she isn't covered in dust and dirt though. Even as she arrives though, she isn't wearing her usual backpack. She glances at the slugs and hten frowns, "That's gross." She states and shakes her head before blinking at Shuuren, "What? You going to make slug stew later or something." She shakes her head, "You're strange, old man." She then takes in a sharp breath before with a couple of quick handseals she very literaly begins to breath out what appears to be a sandstorm worth of sand that she then begins to manipulate, "I can try to be gentle." She states even as sand flows out into teh area before her, "Try being the key word."
Imire scratches his head as he stares at the scene before him. The slugs were everywhere, it seemed, leaving slimy trails and eaten/ruined crops in their wake. He sighs a bit. "I … don't think I'm a good person to be trapping slugs …" he tells Shuuren dejectedly. "Can slugs go unconscious?" he wonders aloud, considering hitting one in the head. He's not sure where the head on the creatures happens to be, though …
The smallest slugs were as long as a small child. The largest slugs were as large as a house. They were everywhere! Really big and yellow-brown slugs slowly crawling to get to the next food source.
Ryuusei was -really- glad she decided that today she wore pants today, rather than a dress. As soon as she saw the slugs she knew she was going to be in for quite a mess. She would roll up her sleeves with a confident look in her eyes as she made her way over to a slug that was almost as big as she was! She would bear-hug the slug and try to lift it up with all of her strength! It was actually quite light for it's size… The problem came when she realized just how much slime these things produced. She was -coated- in a thick film of slime, and it became so slippery that she couldn't get a proper grasp on it. So, there was Ryuusei. Covered in slime. She wipes her face off, but doesn't seem disappointed. She was just extra shiny right now. "Imire-kun, this -isn't- going to work…"
"I didn't say all of them, but a respectable sample would be ideal," Shuuren says with a shrug over at Ryuusei then looks over at Shiiru and lifts an eyebrow. Somehow he gets the feeling this girl might not actually try to follow his orders at all, but hopefully that's not the case. He finally looks to Imire and chuckles a bit, saying, "Well, it'll be good practice for you to try. Not every mission is going to be an ideal fit for you, after all, but you have to learn to adapt to any situation."
As the slugs become active, he watches Ryuusei try her hand and chuckles a bit. He finally reaches into his coat and begins pulling out balls of net that have been wrapped up for use, pulling one after another out to toss to each of the others. "Try those, but you might have to incapacitate them first."
A look at the girl as she goes after the slugs and she snickers, "Gross." She then looks at Shuuren and then shrugs, "Well, they're slugs and…what I do isn't kind." She then whips out several seals and directs the sand. The sand she created whips up and then begins to bury one of the slugs as she uses sand coffin on the thing. She then shakes her head as she watches all the sand move over hte slug before her gaze goes over to Shuuren, "I just am not sure they'll survive the sand all that well given what they are."
Imire nods a bit to Shuuren, then his green gaze watches Ryuusei's attempt to pick up a slug. It fails, naturally, and he can't help but smile as the insect slides away. "Oh! Nets! Thank you for the help, Shuuren-dono!" Imire would take up one of the nets and eye a nearby small-ish slug. He's pretty sure it was one of the smallest around. Imire shuffles the net a bit to untangle it, then he tosses it over the slug to try and catch it!
Sand isn't very pleasant for slugs to be in. It sucks their sliminess away and leaves slugs a crippled husk of their proud selves. So the slug that Shiiru attacked ends up dying! Well, at least Imire managed to net his … Now he has to lug it around and back to Shuuren.
Ryuusei sort of got miffed when Shiiru called her gross. Looks like, for a moment, she will have to refrain from being productive. She throws a baby-sized slug at Shiiru, "You're gross too!" She would growl. Then it was a matter of… well… catching them. She tries to wrestle up the large one she was working on earlier, but… She supposes this was going to be rather hard… No success so far for her.
"Then use your sand to control the net and not to drown them in it," Shuuren points out to Shiiru, lifting an eyebrow. "Is it really so much to ask to exercise your mind a bit?" He then looks back to Ryuusei, who doesn't seem to want to bother to deal with trying a net at the moment, so he just leaves hers on the ground and springs into action himself to start grabbing some of these beasties up in nets with skilled movement enough to not even let any of them get any slim on his clothes as he moves them from the field to the caravan to lock 'em up one after another.
Imire struggles with the single slug he managed to net, and he also got some slime on his clothes. Fortunately, the clothes he wore today were rags, so he didn't worry too much about getting them gross. The teen tugs and hefts the slug all the way to the caravan, working to stuff it into a cart or something before settling with a huff. "Shuuren-dono, you make this look too easy," he grumbles, getting up and tugging his net off the slug he just caught.
With Shuuren working as quickly and efficiently as he is, the whole team managed to get five of the twenty - nineteen thanks to Shiiru … - slugs into the caravan.
Ryuusei finally has her -first- snail by the time it took for Shuuren to get quite a few. This still doesn't solve the crop problem, but mutated squirmy slugs make for good… Shuuren things… Whatever he wants them for! "What do you think you'll accomplish with all these slugs, Daimyo-sama?" She finally asks.
"Simply a product of field experience," Shuuren says with a smirk toward Imire as he moves to gather more of the beasts. As he does so, his gaze would briefly turn to Ryuusei when she asks her question. "Scientific study is about all you probably care to know."
Shaking her head, she looks to SHuuren before rolling her eyes, "Maybe it's because we are capturing giant slugs." She then shrugs and chuckles before looking at the nets she starts to try to pull over hte slugs using sand. She then rolls her eyes, "I mean, honestly, giant slugs. They are only dangerous in so far as to what they can eat." She then sighs and shrugs as shiiru simply sets out to work.
It may not have been noticeable at first, but the group of Tea-folk may start to realize that anything that touched the slugs was starting to melt! And if any of the slime touched skin, it would feel as if the person were burning.
Imire notices that parts of his clothes looked a bit thinner than he would have liked. "Uh … Oh …" he says, growing nervous. "Shuuren-dono, I hope your carts don't melt!" he calls out as he tries to catch another slug with his net.
After a while, it did begin to feel like the slug's slime was beginning to burn her skin. Strange, given… Well… The slugs back at home didn't burn when you touched them. Strange. Ryuusei continues to use the nets to capture the slugs to the best of her ability. A few moments later, it was really starting to get unbareable. "Is this slime poisonous!?" Ryuusei asks with a growl. Then she looks down at the ninja outfit she has decided to wear instead of nice pretty dresses. Black pants, black shirt… Holes starting to form in them. HOLES STARTING TO FORM IN THEM!?!? "WHAT!?" Ryuusei says as she desperately tries to remove the slime from her clothing. She almost had her third slug, and then this had to happen! There was likely enough decay that anyone around would notice that she was wearing pretty underwear that was as deep blue as lapis, and it even had a nice floral pattern! "M-mission over!" Ryuusei says with a deep blush, determining that fleeing might be the best course of action. This was somehow Shiiru's fault. She can tell.
Before anything embarrassing can be shown on Ryuusei, a puff of smoke lets out around her, and Shuuren is standing right beside her with a fresh warrior kimono fit to her along with a dark curtain that springs to surround her. He reaches into his coat once again, grabbing a moist towel that he tosses over the top of the curtain for her. "Wipe yourself off well and change. We'll take care of everything else." He then looks to the slugs again, specifically those in the caravans. "Son of a… We're going to have to scrap this entire crop, but the burn should be slow enough that we can get these things back to the city before the wagons break." With a snap of his fingers, the already collected slugs would be transported, and he turns back to look at the others, saying, "Dispose of the rest."
Looking over at Ryuusei, Shiiru grins and gives off a wolf whistle, "Looking good, Ryuusei." She grins and chuckles before she sighs and shakes her head at Shuuren, "Ruining all the fun." She states and then shrugs before she simply turns her gaze back over to the remaining slugs and hten grins at SHuuren, "As you command." She chuckles and grins. SHe then begins to whip up a great deal of sand and sends blasts of it in the direction of the remaining slugs in the form of little shots of sand that she attempts to kill the slugs with.
Imire would give up lugging his slug to the caravan, instead pulling out his sword. He's distracted when he hears Ryuusei cry out, though, and his green eyes dart around before settling on Ryuusei's figure as her clothes start to show off some skin … The teen goes red in the face and quickly looks away, forcing himself to think about pumpkins (of all things …). He starts cutting the slugs left and right with his sword, which seems unaffected by the slime.
Thanks to Shiiru's sand, all of the other slugs are quickly disposed of. No longer will their slime threaten this countryside! There's still the issue of why the slugs grew to such a size, though … At least the cart was able to get to town before it collapsed in on itself. Shuuren should be happy to have such an interesting breed of bugs.
