Welcome to Gaia! ::

Minist happily bounced down the busy street swinging a bag in her hand. Inside the bag was an assortment of sparkling new tools. She had really only come to shop for a new screwdriver because the one she had was getting dull and wouldn't be much good, but when she saw all these other tools she couldn't help herself. She had been practically drooling over this power drill until the store clerk told her to buy it or get out of his store. With all this sweet loot in tow Minist was besides herself with joy. Not even Ratmom's nagging of spending all her beetles when she got home would bring her down. She couldn't wait to test these babies out. There was a motor she had left next to the thermal hull which was just begging to be taken apart with these lovely tools. Wait, what was that smell?

Stopping in her tracks Minist was pulled from her nightdream as she looked around for the source of the acidic odor. Just ahead of her, coming out of a hive stem, was a rather large cloud of smoke with a blueish tinge to it. What on alternia was going on there? Making her was towards the hive stem she noticed it was coming from just the lowest hive. So whatever it was it wasn't affecting the whole hive stem. Didn't look or smell like fire either. She didn't really feel like sticking her head in the cloud to peek through the window to see what was up so instead she marched through the doors of the hive stem and made her way to the door of this particular hive. Lifting her hand not laden down with her tools she briskly rapped on the door. "Hey! Anyone home?" she called out.

Minist gazed up at the lusus. This was not what she expected. She wasn't used to lusus answering doors, and denting them. It didn't seem angry at her knocking, though, and even indicated for her to enter. With a smile she nodded to the creature and stepped inside. It smelled worse in here, but at least most of the smoke was all going outside. The source was a bubbling bowl by the window. Minist would have been curious of it's contents, but something else had taken her attention.

Her eyes fell on the shelves and the many items they contained. A grin stretched across her whole face as her eyes widened. Who needed some tiny old motor when you had all of this stuff to work with? Oh Minist couldn't wait to caress some of the gadgetry she spotted on the shelves, to delicately take them apart piece by piece and see their inner workings! Slippping her free hand into her bag she pulled out the screwdriver that was her whole reason for coming to this city. She took a step towards the shelving before she stopped.

There was the lusus, laying in the middle of it all, but where was her charge? Minist glanced around the hive and saw no other troll within the cluttered space. That must be why the lusus had answered the door, their troll was not home. Oh well! Their loss! If they had a problem with her messing with their stuff then they shouldn't have left! Once more she advanced towards the shelving and began to pick items from their hiding places. Soon enough she was sitting on the floor surrounded by screws and springs and other parts of mechanical carnage.

Man, whoever the troll who lived here was, they sure had eclectic tastes! It was almost like a game digging through all this junk to find gizmos to dismantle. Minist had to caste many of things she found aside since she had found those items before and had her way with them back at her own hive at some previous date.Oh, but what was this she had just discovered? Some kind of mechanical miniature hoofbeast that was missing a leg. Really, a lot of this stuff looked like it was picked out of the trash! Oh well! Time to dig into this toy and find out how it's remaining legs move.

"Err.... hello? Slothmom?"

Minist froze and looked up. There, in the doorway, stood another troll. Most likely the dweller of this particular hive. She looked a bit exhausted. Minist wondered what she could have been getting up to while she herself had been making her hive a destruction zone. Wiping some grease off her hand onto her shorts she smiled at the orangeblood.

"Well howdy! This your place? Man have you got some cool stuff. Your lusus is pretty cool too, quiet and keeps to herself. Makes me almost jealous." she said before picking up her pliers and pulling out a pin in the broken hoofbeast in her hand, acting like it wasn't at all odd for her to be here or taking apart these items.

Ah, so wind-up mechanism tightens this spring, which then moves this lever which is attached to the legs. When released it sets the legs to move in a circular motion around the joints making it walk! So simple, yet brilliant! Hm, was that other troll saying something? Minist turned her attention back to her as she unceremoniously dumped the parts on the floor. Oh, she seemed upset. Well, why should she be? It's not like she broke in, she was invited inside by the lusus after all!

Then something hit her. Turning her head she gazed at the bowl by the window. Right! That was the reason why she had come in here! Now that the troll was home she could ask her about it. "Hey, hey!" she said, pointing at the offending bowl and the smoke that still lingered. "What's up with that stuff? It doesn't smell all that great and was stinking up the streets! That can't be safe to leave that kind of stuff just lying around." Completely sidestepping the question presented to her Minist presented her own.

"Acid? What on Alternia were you trying to make, then?" Minist gasped. This was far more interesting then she had previously guessed! She didn't even know the ingredients she had used and could have blown up her hive! Minist was feeling an immediate kinship with this troll. There were so many things she wanted to ask her, so many thoughts running through her think pan. Head buzzing she almost missed out on the reiteration of question pertaining to her activities within the hive.

"Hm? Oh, yeah. . ." she trailed off as she looked at the floor and then at the pair of pliers currently in her hands. "I was just figuring out of all this stuff works. So many interesting knickknacks lying around it was hard to resist. I wish I had my full set of tools with me, but all I had were these new ones and my emergency set that I always keep on hand. Wow, looking around I did more than I thought! Time sure does fly when you're having fun!" With a laugh she reached out and grabbed something off the nearest shelf and sat down to examine it.

Soap had not been the answer she was expecting, but hey, she didn't mind. It wasn't like this troll made the soap she bought. . . right? Oh well, even if she did it didn't matter. Minist wasn't dead yet after all. Hm, thinking of soap Ratmom would probably say she needed a bath. Messing with all this stuff she was getting grease on her hands and dirt, not to mention whatever else was on all this stuff. Hey, is that grubsauce? Seriously, where did this troll get this stuff?

Grabbing her screwdriver she inserted it into a little hole in the gizmo in her hands and began twisting out the screw. Without looking up she said, "It's not the hive itself that matters, it's what's inside that counts. I mean, what's the point of having a bitchin' hive if it's boring inside?" The screw popped out and Minist finally looked up. "You have a bunch of stuff here, though! You can't mind if I mess with some of it, right~? I mean, I don't think I could even go through all this stuff in one night! Of course I wish I could, there's just so much you can learn from dissecting machinery." she said with a sigh. Then she blinked. "Oh yeah, so what's your name? I'm Minist!"

"You'd give me something?" Minist immediately perked up at the thought of receiving something. She carefully watched as the troll as she searched through her items. When the box was pulled down she was less than impressed, but at the mention of wires and gears she perked back up. "Oh?" she said as she stood back up and reached out for the offered box. Taking it in her hands she opened the lid and peeked inside. It seemed to mostly be just parts, not all that interesting, but there were a few tiny gadgets inside. That was interesting, she supposed. Looking at the orangeblood she smiled.

"Thanks, Abrila! You're alright, you know that? This night is turning out awesome!" she said, still grinning. Then she sat back down and began to riffle through the contents of the box, disregarding the boring stuff and looking for the interesting bits she could mess with. She still had no intentions of leaving just yet. The gift was nice, but there was still plenty of stuff to look at and mess with in this hive. She had made herself quite comfortable where she was.

The yellowblood paid no attention to the orangeblood and let her go about her business as her own fingers continued to riffle through the contents of her prize. Here was a tangled mess of wires. Should she bother untangling it? Nah, she had plenty of wires back home. These wired weren't anything special. On with the search for a diamond in the rough! Huh, what was that she said? Something about a drink?

Looking up Minist blinked and said, "Hm? Well sure! That's awfully nice of you." She was pleasantly surprised by the offer. While it was true she didn't feel like leaving she had at least expected to have to put up some sort of fight to remain where she was. Abrila seemed to just accept her presence and move on without making a scene. As nice as it was it was also somewhat boring. She'd take the drink and learn more about her new acquaintance. It really was about time she started learning more about this somewhat interesting troll that she had intruded upon.