Expired: Orchard

[ze_arteests]

Orchard
    The orchard is located out the western exit of the gallery.  It is notably rough and unfinished looking, heavily ravaged by scribble pixie gangs.  Many trees have faded to monochrome, and some reduced to scraggly black and white outlines.  The least dangerous of all the areas, it’s also not particularly useful because of heavy competition for resources from the pixies.  If teams want to rely on it, they’ll need to find some way to deal with them, or at least keep them out.

    Of note:
Locations:
    Pond: While the pond seems all right looking at it, those that can sense auras and magic can tell differently: glowing green mana streams identify it as toxic.  The water is heavily infused with magic, and drinking it without purifying is dangerous, and falling in or going for a dip might just kill you.

    Cafe: A small empty cafe.  There’s tables and chairs outside to sit and talk at, some tables covered in white tablecloths, others not.  The floor is hardwood, and it seems to have been pulled out of the early Edwardian era... or maybe an extended Victorian.  A grand piano sits inside, apparently for would-be customers to listen to...  Though if one were to check the kitchen, they’d find it non-functional, devoid of anything a cafe would need.  Instead in the shelves are anachronistic video game consoles, completely useless without access to any televisions or games.

Stawberry Hill Wine: Found beneath the counter, bottles and bottles of it tucked away, helpfully available for anyone to raid after a bad game.

   
Flora:

Fruit:  The trees that are still producing fruit bear round, white, utterly indistinct fruit.  They’re inoffensively, mildly sweet.  While they won’t fill you up much, they’ll help make sure you get your vitamins.

Lemons:  If yellow pigment is taken from the moths and rubbed on the plain fruit while still growing, it will mature into a lemon.

Blueberries:  If blue pigment is taken from the moths and used to paint a plain fruit while still growing, it will mature into a cluster of blueberries.

Pitcher plants: Clear, colorless pitcher plants.  They grow inside tree knots and beneath root hollows, in other fairly well protected places where Pixies won’t get at them.  Their nectar, when diluted, can be used as a spicy flavoring.  Alternatively, can be concentrated to work as a poor-man’s pepper spray.

Pumpkins: These things grow enormously large, but don’t leave them on the vine too long.  If they’re left to grow too long, they’ll develop a large sharp toothed jack o'lantern grin and face, and mobility.  The mobile ones will probably chase you around trying to eat you in revenge for their brethren.  

Lacerta Grove: A wild grove of Lacertan trees! The trees produce a very sweet little pink fruits not entirely unlike persimmons and the shockingly bright yellow wildflowers below them have edible greens and petals (both have a mild pretty basic Leafy Green flavor).  Any part of them eaten is mildly relaxing.  Their seeds can be refined into an opioid.

Tea plants ( Camellia Sinensis ) Small, scraggly shrubs with small, yellow-white blooms.  Those of you who have experience with them from back home might recognize them as tea plants.  You probably know what to do with them from there.

Black Roses: These hedges surround the pond in a thorny semi-circle, with curiously natural black roses.  Are roses supposed to come in this color?

Fauna:

Moths: Colorful moths whose wings are, upon closer inspection, actually bits of chipped off mosaic stone.  They’re attracted to the pitcher plants, and are useful as an indicator of where to find them.  Can be ground down to use as pigments.

Cats: Soft pettable cats in various shades of graphite grey and charcoal, blending into the sketchy feel of the orchard.  Their default is friendly, hoping for scraps, but they’re probably learn who to stay away from if people take to using them as an easy food source.

Scribble Pixies: Exactly what they sound like.  Messily scrawled fairies that steal color and lines from other native areas of the world, to try and complete themselves.  However, they don’t really have any skill in this, so the most they can use it for is to construct new scribble pixies.  Pests.  They make their home in the Orchard, but can be found flitting around the rest of the world too.  Occasionally even seen in the gallery, though they’re unable to steal from anything inside a picture frame.

Pixies: The completed cousins of the scribbles, brought in from someone’s world.  They look the stereotype, tiny with insect wings and long ears, when they’re visible.  They frequently choose not to be, staying invisible.  They’re not really bad, but they do enjoy playing tricks: leading travellers astray, pinching skin black and blue, and stealing invaluable items.  Some have made their home inside the non-functional kitchen of the cafe.  If they’re less harmful than the scribbles, they’re definitely more annoying.

Squidrats: Helpfully imported from sabra to steal your food.  Found not just in the orchard, but most everywhere except the upper levels of the tower, which they’re smart enough to keep out of.

Bullfairies: Small harmless herbivores, that look like bulls with wings, with a dreaded cuddle attack.

Fish:  The magically toxic pond also contains fish, utterly mundane in every way aside from their magic immunity.  They are perfectly okay to eat!  Just be careful how you go about catching them.

Spiders: Spin webs between the branches to catch the moths, most noticeably, but if any place is left alone too long, it won’t take long for the spiders to move in and start making their homes.

Bees:  You might see these around the orchard.  They’ve made a hive in one of the trees.  Be careful about how you do it, and you might be able to get some honey out of them.

Turkeys:  The variant breed of turkeys found in the orchard mostly stay around the pumpkin patch, and are bigger and more vicious than the domestic kind you’d probably find in your home worlds.  Occasionally team up with the pumpkins to drive people off from the patch.

Worms: Squishy thick leech-looking worms around six-inches long that usually just inch along. At the smell of blood though they go absolutely nuts, lashing out violently in an attempt to drink up the blood. They get bigger and more tentacle-y dangerous and vicious the more blood they drink.  Found beneath the black rose bushes.