ORIGIN

Like a pale gray comet Bremen had slid through Tunnel M, had leapt the rooftops of ruined buildings across Orion, and had sprinted along the smooth path of Tunnel J. By the time the hybrid had reached his destination even his abundant stamina was reaching its end. The winds whipped the feathers on his face and neck as he slowed to a walk and breathed hard as plans rolled around in his head.

This was a room of constant noise and activity, but not one that may gembound would associate with treasure. Most of them would probably actually be going to Eridanus for berries or Polaris for gems, but of all the cave sections this would likely be the best one to try to find minerals to grind into dye.

That someone else could grind into dye... as many nice qualities as Bremen had from his heritage brute strength was not among them. Perhaps he could tinker around with objects to make smashing stones easier?

No, not now. He had a job to do. He had to actually FIND minerals before he could even think of processing them. Leathery gray wings upon his back opened up to their full length and within a split second the hybrid was yoinked off the ground by the brisk cross breeze.

Though the ascent was rapid Bremen managed to keep himself steady, welcoming the chance to be on the move again with relatively little energy needed. From here he would be able to follow the winds in a circle around the room and keep an eye out for possible mineral deposits in the crags below.

The loud winds around Bremen drowned out almost all other sounds, but that was okay; rocks didn't make noise after all!

Well, they did when they fell or were thrown or were clacked together but the kind of rocks he was looking for probably wouldn't be doing any of those things. No, the important thing here was color- the more colorful the better!

As the small creature sailed wherever the winds took him a fairly large figure became visible behind him, though he was focused too much on the ground to bother getting a very good look. It didn't seem to be one of the gembound form Fornax so he probably didn't have to worry about losing his advantage. Not that having company to help him carry the dozens and dozens of rocks he'd probably find would be a bad thing. For now he just regarded the figure as another creature riding the relaxing gale-force breeze swinging them around the room.

A short time passed with no results. All the rocks looked just like rocks to him. Had this been the best place to start after all? Perhaps it would have been better to go to Canis and ask some of the Marrowbound if they had any dyes. The king liked him after all. How was the king anyways? It had been ages since he'd visited them.

A glint below! Something was glowing faintly in one of the trenches. Having had time to catch his breath a bit now Bremen brought his gaze and fight trajectory straight down. The ground raced forward to meet him as the wind whipped against his body. The glint became a glow became a lit tunnel entrance as he dropped from altitude.

Jackpot!

Bremen flared is wings as soon as he entered the crag, muscles straining as he slowed down from his free fall and landed right outside the lit tunnel entrance. This was no natural formation... an abandoned den perhaps? The edges were smooth as though someone had carved it out of the sheer cliff face and the beginning curved so it wasn't immediately obvious what inside was causing the glow. He didn't hear anyone inside though, at least no one who was louder than the winds above.

The hybrid's long heron-like neck bent completely backwards, allowing him to rest his horn on his back between his wings and look at the inverted image of the gembound who had apparently though him interesting enough to follow.

"Welcome to Bremen's Bananas and Bones and..." he started chiming out on autopilot before realizing that his shop greeting wasn't a proper greeting for being out in the rest of the caves. Still facing backwards, he twisted his skull so it was at least upright looking back between his wings. "I mean... Hi! I'm Bremen. Is this your home?"

What luck! Not only had Bremen managed to find a place in Monoceros that probably had a lot of dye ingredients but the owner of the place was moving out!

"I can really keep whatever I can carry? I'd love to help you move then!" he squealed loudly as his body hopped around to match the orientation of his head.

Not for a moment did Bremen suspect that the imp might be telling anything less than the truth. Why should they lie about something about that after all? After all, if the thing that had carved out the den still lived there they would probably be too powerful to want to mess with. Or at least diligent enough to stick to a task for a long time. The thing had probably spent cycles making then den and then decided they didn't want to live with all this noise all the time and moved somewhere more comfortable.

Unless the lizard-bat had carved it out and was just bored of it now? If that was the case Bremen would have to keep a good impression. "I'm a good planner." he spoke again, this time much more softly than before, "I'll go ahead and look inside to figure out how we want to move everything"

The entry tunnel was fairly short as the hybrid snaked through the large opening. A couple twists, enough to almost completely get rid of any remaining wind from outside, followed by a sizable room with another tunnel in the back.

The room was mostly empty- a bed of now-decaying plant matter in the corner large enough to accommodate a lion, a shelf etched into the wall upon which rested a wooden box, a bunch of square white rocks stacked into a pile, and the source of the light- a brightly baubled quartz orb resting in a carved outcropping of the wall.

"It looks like this shouldn't take too long at all." he yelled back toward the creature behind him, "It needs to be cleaned up a little but there isn't much to take"

As the lizard-bat rushed toward the shelf Bremen took a moment to pace around and make a plan for cleaning out the rest of the stuff. The straw would be simple enough- he could just use wind magic to blow it outside where the rest of the wind would take it away. The orb could probably stay on the wall for a while to keep the room well-lit until everything else had been cleared out. The rectangular white rocks though were small enough that they'd probably have to make multiple trips to take them all away. What had lizard-bat used them for anyways?

Bremen lowered his head as he approached the pile and poked one of the sticks with his horn.

It promptly broke into two pieces as a small cloud of white dust rose into the air.

That's not a normal rock... I wonder what it's called? he thought to himself as he reached out a flexible forepaw to grasp at one of the halves. As he did so a single word came to mind;

Talc

Actually, that was perfect! He could probably use the talc as a dye ingredient to make other ingredients lighter shades. it was also soft enough that he could probably crush it into powder without having to invent some big heavy tool to do the hard work for him.

"I'm glad you still have your important thing." the little hybrid called up to his new friend with genuine glee as he held the talc rod in his paw. "Take a look at what I found!"

With a single motion Bremen swept the bar across the floor, making a solid white line. With the bar still on the ground he got up and began to dash back and forth along the room, drawing big squares across the space dividing it up into sections.

"See? Now we can clean the place up one section at a time so it doesn't seem like as big of a job. Do you want to get started from here or do you think it would be better to head into the next section of your den and clean it out from back to front?"