The gully continued for a significant distance before the walls of the gully fell away and the snail exited unto the edge of a boggy meadow. The forest trees stopped at the edge of the meadow as though a knife had been lazily dragged along the ground. The snail looked across the meadow with mounting interest. “Look at all those plants!” It thought. “There must be basic quality plants in there.” The snail felt optimistic as it pushed into the grasses, rushes, and sedge.
Patches of moss dotted the ground between bunches of meadow greens. Countless small flowers in many colors hung at the tops of the plants as though they floated on a green lake. The snail watched it amazement as colorful creatures flapped lazily from flower to flower.
*ding*
Butterfly (lesser, neutral)
“Wow, ‘Butterfly’, so pretty.” The snail grew distracted by the flying creatures and nearly didn’t see the snake. “Ah! A snake!” The snail yelped as it yanked itself back into its shell. The snake slithered slowly past, ignoring the camouflaged snail. The snake made almost no sound, so the snail waited an extra long time before poking out an eye to check its surroundings.
“I really need something better than Jump and Slime shot so I can keep creatures from trying to eat me.” The snail thought. “Maybe some more intellect could help me think of something?” The snail wondered. It cast about with Identify, trying to find basic quality plants to eat for points. Further into the meadow, the snail found its first point-giving plant in days.
*ding*
Soft rush (basic)
The snail laid into the nearest rush by pushing it over and eating from the tip to the base. When it finished the first rush, it hadn’t gotten a single point. “What? No point?” The snail thought, confused. “Do I need to eat more than one for a point?” It asked. It pushed over the next rush and ate it in the same way. Again, it didn’t get a point. “Why am I not getting a point?” The snail asked, growing more desperate. “Do I need to find even better quality plants? It took me forever just to find these ones!” The snail thought miserably.
After eating a third rush, the snail stopped to think. It used Identify again on the nearest rush, to double check the plant’s quality. The snail turned to the remains of the eaten rushes and used Identify on the bits it could see.
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*ding*
Rush (basic, partially eaten)
“Hmm, ‘partially eaten’? I’ve eaten the entire thing, right down to the ground.” The snail moved closer to the rush it had just eaten. It noticed that the rush continued under the soil and changed to a lighter color. The snail pressed its mouth down against the buried part of the plant. It slowly pushed the soil away as it ate the buried rhizome. The rhizome branched to the size and the snail shoved meadow soil and smaller plants to the side as it munched along the pale piece of plant. When the snail reached the end of one rhizome, the snail was pleased to find it had received a point.
“Interesting, interesting. Sometimes the points are in only certain parts of the plants. I wonder if I could have gotten more points out of the plants back home if I knew about eating the parts under the ground.” The snail thought as it went back to follow another buried rhizome.
*ding*
Natural active unlocked: Dig
The snail paused and considered this new active. “Yes, an active to help me dig will be very good, now that I will be digging up all the good plants.” It decided. With Dig, the snail’s progress sped up on the patch of basic rushes. When the snail finished the last rhizome in the bunch, it had received 7 points. The snail sat and waved its tentacles in happiness for a while.
“Should I buy another point in intellect? I thought it might help me defend against larger creatures.” The snail watched a wispy cloud drift through sky as it pondered its next action. “Hmm. Alright, I’ll do it!” It decided.
*ding*
Intellect +1: 5 points. Purchase?
“Yes.” The snail felt its mind expand a bit. The sensation was not as strong as the last few times. Unconcerned, the snail thought long and hard about what it could do the next time some rodent followed its trail and tried to eat it. The snail strained its mind trying to imagine anything that might help. It gave up after a few minutes. “Hmph. I guess intellect is a waste of points.” The snail grumbled to itself and began to move, hunting for more point-giving plants.
On the snail’s second day in the meadow, it noticed that it was being followed by the snake. The snake didn’t approach–it just lay nearby and watched as the snail dug up more rhizomes. Danger sense was oddly silent about the whole situation, but the snail kept a wary eye stalk on the snake anyway. Identify gave a slightly odd result, but the snail didn’t have a second snake for comparison and just shrugged it off.
*ding*
Viper (hostile)
As the snail pushed soil off a particularly juicy looking rhizome, it disturbed a fat earthworm. The worm flopped around, apparently surprised to suddenly be above ground. The snail barely had time to react before the snake lunged forward and bit down on the worm’s body. The snail used Hide in shell and only got a split-second look at the snake’s mouth. Something seemed off about the way the snake moved and how it held the worm in its jaws.
The snail didn’t emerge from its shell until Tremor sense was certain the snake had move away. “Why isn’t Danger sense doing anything about this snake?” The snail grumbled. It resumed digging and munching on rhizomes. The snail quickly learned to pull back and use Hide in shell any time it disturbed a worm while digging, because the snake darted in and slurped up the worm every time.