Pesudocereal

Civilian (Farmer) Featured plant: Salvia hispanica (Chia)

Biography

Pesudocereal is a regular farmer in Everbloom Forest. She grows crops for local people and businesses like Everbloom Resort. Her sparkling sweats rain on the soil and infuse the produce with her magic that improves the quality. While the farm is quite small, it still takes her whole day to finish each day’s work.

There was a period of time where a bird with glowing eyes came to her farm every day, ate some of her fresh produces, left a bag of treasure on her porch, and flew back to the direction of Pox Consulate. She tried to keep it as a pet, but it was smart enough to get through any catching devices she had.

One day, the bird is glowing all over its body. It circled outside the farm frantically. Before Pseudocereal could approach it, the bird exploded. Instead of a small puddle of blood, there was a dashing young dragon in the center of the explosion. The dragon was Pseudokeeper, a Tree Warden in Pox Consulate. He thanked Pseudocereal for the food she provided, and would continue his daily patronage.

Having a common tongue gives Pseudocereal someone to talk to. She soon has feelings to Pesudokeeper and confesses to him. While Pseudokeeper likes her as well, he says this relationship will be more of an affair. His romantic feelings to others are fleeting between lifetimes. He has been through several partners because of this.

Right now, their relationship is stable and prosperous. The inevitable future of Pseudokeeper disappearing in a puff of smoke saddens her sometimes, but at least their growing kids will stay.

Owners of Everbloom Resort Featured plant: Hibiscus syriacus (Hibiscus)

Spring and Seedling, two of the “Gemini” quadruplets running Everbloom Resort, were busy shutting down the windows and doors. A tropical storm was coming. Even if a Wind or Lightening dragon would enjoy a natural shower, the insides should be comfortably dry.

From the back door at the kitchen, an Obelisk wheeled in a cart full of food ingredients. Chef Tom the Longneck saw her and helped her unloaded the goods. Right when they finished, a curtain of storm covered the outside world.

“Hey, Pseudocereal?” Spring perched on some crates to be on the Obelisk farmer’s line of sight. “Why don’t you stay here for the night? We’ll only charge you one crate of chicken meat!”

“Ehhh…” Pesudocereal looked outside. The rain was so dense that she couldn’t see anything more than ten metres away.

“Come on! You’ll have all the services we provide! Well, except for the outdoor pool... For just a small fraction of your goods!” Seedling joined the rally.

“Didn’t you two say that you are understaffed?” Pesudocereal looked for another excuse, but was already brushing her mane with her fingers. She accepted the room key when Spring dropped it on her palm.

“That’s during the busy season, which won’t come until next month. We don’t need Sprout, Spud, or the part-timers to serve you and the only other visitor we have at the moment.” Seedling said.

Tom offered Pesudocereal the dinner menu. He needed some time to prepare, and would bring the meal to her room once it was ready. Pseudocereal thanked them and went to her room.

---

Pesudocereal stepped out of the shower, she never smelled this good in her cottage. Staying in a resort was a luxury she never had much of a chance to enjoy. She sat next to the window. The storm showed no sign of dying down yet, but listening to it in a safe place was relaxing.

Frantic knocking woke Pseudocereal from her drowsy state. “Is dinner ready?” Pesudocereal asked as she opened the door.

It was Seedling, who had nothing with them. “Dinner? Right, we will bring it to you as soon as possible. Just stay in your room and lock the door for now.” They slammed the door shut before making any explanation.

---

The Gemini stood in the lobby. Someone pushed the front door open and let the storm in. There were water, mud, and dead leaves everywhere. Annoying to clean up, but not that big of the deal. The problem laid with the one caused the scene. He sat in a corner and wasn’t moving. On his chest was a piece of metal that shouldn’t be there.

Most important of all, that was their other visitor.

“Oh, come on. First it was a shady event runner who lost our key, now we have a murder in hand?” Seedling whispered loudly.

“No time for complaining, we need to deal with this quickly before our reputation is tarnished!” Spring circled around the body. It was far too big for two Talonoks to move.

“What’s going on? Are we under attack?”

The Gemini almost had a collective heart attack when they saw Pesudocereal holding a broom for large dragons as a weapon. They looked at each other mortified for a moment before hatching a plan.

“Alright, Pesudocereal… How about this? You help us find out who caused this.” Spring pointed at the body. “Without telling the press, and we will wave your bill, plus some bonus!” Their beak was so close to Pesudocereal’s face that it could peck her eye out.

“That depends on if you two did it or not!” Pesudocereal retorted. Although she had the size and muscle bulk for a farmer, Sprouting Gemini were more than capable of fighting someone like her. Both sides knew this.

Spring backed off. “Of course we didn’t! Why would we attack our dear costumers?” As business owners, making money was more important than making enemies.

“How about Tom? We haven’t seen him after our kitchen meeting. Also, the size of this metal piece is similar to his knife…” Seedling sized up the shard with their arms and shared a cautious look with the others.

---

“Stop right there, Tom!” With Spring as lead, the three charged into the kitchen.

“Woah, boss! I swear this is just an accident!” Tom waved franticly with a handle of a broken kitchen knife in hand.

Spring pointed at the broken knife. “Aha! We caught you red handed! Now tell us why did you attack our guest?”

Tom’s jaw dropped.

Pesudocereal butted in between them. “Hold on! Look at this!” She pointed at a piece of salted game on the counter, which had another piece of metal in it. She carefully pulled it out and it was a perfect fit with the broken knife.

“My knife was caught between the bones and snapped.” Tom explained himself. “So what is this ‘attack’ the guest are you talking about?”

“Our other guest is lying on the lobby floor dead. We thought you did it because of what seemed to be a broken knife in the scene.” Seedling clamped their hands together and pointed at Tom. “Good thing you seem to be innocent, it would suck to fire you.”

Spring rubbed their beak. “Hm… If the piece of metal isn’t a broken kitchen knife, what is that? Pesudocereal, you are not afraid of blood, aren’t you? Come with me for a bit. Seedling and Tom, you two do some room cleaning. Our guest might have business with some unsavoury people.”

Seedling sighed. “And we thought Lionheart was the worst. Let’s go, Tom.”

---

Seedling unlocked the other guest’s room with a spare key. It was a single room for a large sized dragon. There was a puddle near a window, which was unlocked.

Despite not being much larger than a Fae, Seedling flew around the room and put everything back to its place within minutes. Tom, who didn’t have room cleaning service experience, was asked to stand at the door awkwardly as a guard and eye witness.

“It’s strange for an Emerald Cave Jewel to speak fluent Dragonic, and request a room this spacious. But hey, they paid good money for this room, who was I to refuse service?” Seedling said. After tiding the room up, they pulled the guest’s luggage to an open area.

Seedling callously pulled out the items one by one, with Tom watched mortified. “Tree Warden… So this guy works in Pox Consulate…” Seedling put a badge aside and lined up the apparels. “Wait what?”

Not only did the Cave Jewel pack his uniform inside, there were multiple sets, each one of them was in different sizes.

---

“WAIT WHAT?” Spring screeched in the lobby. It was still a mess, but the body was nowhere to be seen. Only the metal shard was left.

Spring wore a pair latex glove from the supply cabinet before picking the shard up. It wasn’t from a knife. In fact it had a blunt point. There seemed to be some kind of carving on its side, but was hard to tell with the layers of contuse wrapped around it.

Pseudocereal noticed a track of mud leading out to another corridor. She peeked at Spring, who was focused tracing the carvings with their fingers, and decided to check on it alone. She leaned down her body, landed on the paws to reduce footsteps, like ambushing an intruding rabbit in her field. Slowly, she found her way to the big dining room.

There was an Imperial in the dining room, with a dirty hood way too small for him. He looked at the empty buffet table and turned around.

---

Spring squinted at the broken skyship component. If this was what they thought it was, the fact it was here had a bad implication.

A scream pulled Spring’s attention away. They looked around and were shocked to see Pesudocereal missing. They flew in the air when they heard multiple sets of footsteps coming.

Several entities entered the lobby. First was Pseudocereal running from another hallway. Spring moved to the side and guided the startled Obelisk to the space behind the counter. Second was Seedling and Tom coming for Spring when they heard the scream. Tom had an actual kitchen knife this time. Third and the last one was an Imperial walked in from the way Pesudocereal entered. He saw the alerted staff and made his distance.

“Who are you, and state your purpose before we ask you to leave,” Spring said with a hostile tone that wasn’t used in years.

The Imperial folded his wings and raised his front legs. “I’m Pseudokeeper, one of the visitors here…”

“Nice try, you don’t even get the species right.” Spring stretched out their talons.

“I know this is hard to explain, but hear me out. I’m sort of a shapeshifter. I came here as an Emerald Cave Jewel.”

Seedling flew in front of Spring, and pointed at the dirty hood Pseudokeepeer was wearing. “He’s telling the truth. We found several used Uniform in different sizes in his room.” Seedling then bowed to Pseudokeeper. “We are sorry for checking your luggage, we thought you were dead.”

Pseudokeeper put his front legs down. “Don’t worry, this happens.”

“This only answered one of the questions.” Spring showed Pseudokeeper the skyship component. “Where did you get this lodged in your chest?”

“I was resting in my room when I saw a skyship struggled to stay in the sky, so I left through the window to see if they needed help. It fell down the sky just as I approached. I cushioned the ship with multiple layers of contuse, but some of the pieces still managed to hit me.”

“And what happened to the passengers?” Spring asked again. They stood on Pesudokeeper’s snout, while their talons were still out.

“They are safe! Though the ship wasn’t going to fly any time soon.” Pseudokeeper gently picked Spring off of him so he could wink at the Gemini. “Your other pair of twins asked you to make room for them.”

Spring went limp in Pseudokeeper’s hand, and Seedling jumped in rejoices. “Sprout and Spud are coming back! This calls for celebration! Free room and dinner today!”

Pesudokeeper looked outside of the window. The storm had calmed down a lot. "Let's go pick them up. Nobody deserved to be left out cold today," he said.
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