Begin notes:
Curious about these elfish spears, I sacrificed at the disused shrine to Embylos at the Rist border and covered my face and hands with the sap that oozed from the shrine. I entered the forest with some trepidation, feeling eyes on my back wherever I went. The pine trees were giving way to oak when a small voice near my ankle told me to stop. I did as I was told and looked down to see a bush stand up and look at me. Startled, I realized this must be a runner. The creature pointed in front of my feet. Seeing nothing but ground cover, I looked back to the creature questioningly. It picked up a rock, which it tossed inches in front of my feet. I barely had time to hear a whistling before a spearpoint smashed the rock to shards. As the spearpoint slowly lifted upwards, I could see that the spearbutt was grounded in the center of the ground cover and that the green shaft had sprung downwards to strike the rock.
Entranced, I almost took a fatal step forward when I heard a liltingly accented voice behind me. "Human, you do not learn." Turning, I saw what I now know to be a green elf. "Why do you come here?" he asked. "To learn of your ways" was my response. "To cover your face and hands with the sap of Embylos, you already know much. Come with me." So began my sojourns among the elves of Rist.
The plant I had nearly died before was a spearplant. It grows in a broad circle, with a single flower (the spear) in the center. The flower is always about half again as high as the distance from the edge of the ground cover to the flower. The elves explained to me that the ground cover can sense heat in contact with it. A foot (or a rock warmed by the sun) pressed against the shoots or leaves of the spearplant will cause the flower to bend rapidly toward the contact. When the spearpoint enters the victim, it ejects a seed. The wounded creature runs away to die as the seedling spearplant grows into its body. Thus do spearplants propagate themselves broadly.
In fact, there are now two varieties of spearplant: wild and cultivated. Wild spearplants rarely grow taller than two meters. Cultivated spearplants easily grow to four meters. Each variety prefers open sun in which to grow.
Elves harvest spearplants to provide their spears. Because elves produce no heat, spearplants ignore them. The elf simply walks to the base of the spearplant and (after singing the food song) digs out the flower at the base. This does not harm the ground cover, which quickly grows a new flowers. These flowers, especially the cultivated variety, can survive for months after harvesting if properly cared for. Proper care requires planting the spear, base down, at night. This is fairly easy because one only need to press the butt (or root) of the spear against the ground for the spear to become straight and hard. The spear soaks up water and nutrients from the soil, which it uses during the day.
The rear portion of the spearpoint is hollow. This is where one finds the normal anatomy of a flower. Elves cause the spears to curl up by tickling the spearpoint underneath. Apparently, this reflex prevents rodents from wending their way to the flower and crawling up the stalk to eat the flower, which smells lovely. The flower appears to be insensitive to flying insects, perhaps because they are small, perhaps because they partake of the cold rune, perhaps because their wings dissipate body heat sufficiently.
One last note: never ask elves for permission to dissect a plant.
Comments?
Chris Lemens
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #305
Powered by hypermail