Harvest Moon: Alchemy and Agriculture

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Laggy Lagiacrus

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Hazanuki Town - a place renowned for its community, its prosperity, and its festivals. Though not particularly big, to those who knew it, it would frequently rank among the best places they'd visited. However, the townspeople have but one thing that they are worried about - the farm.

For years, Melodic Farm was a prosperous establishment. Everything from turnips to wheat was grown on it, animals were raised, and the whole place seemed to be one of the crown jewels of the town. However, it couldn't last - Melodic Farm's products' quality began to fall, and the animals grew more and more unhappy. Eventually, the farmer threw in the towel, leaving the farm to fall even further into disrepair.

Without the farm, the town wouldn't be able to keep going - they needed solution, and fast. But, prosperous though they were, they weren't rich. So how would they solve it?
The answer, to them, was simple. Hire a budding alchemist to examine the area, and a farmer to work the land. Two young, eager faces, ready for the world.

Archie stood at the farm's gate, wondering if it was fine to enter. Not because he didn't have permission, but because the gate seemed to be quaking in the light Spring breeze. Tentatively, he pushed it open, afraid that it would break off of its hinges.
"They really need to get someone to fix this..." he thought to himself, as he headed into the barren wasteland formerly known as Melodic Farm.[/hr]
 
Aria Melody came right behind a young man who was headed into Melodic Farm, she wasn't sure if he was friendly or not so she hollered at him to get his attention. "Hey! Who are you? I'm Aria Melody I came here to help out with this farm." She stops at the gate and examines it with a careful eye muttering a little under her breath. "This looks bad...best to just take it down and fix it brand new then attempt to save this awful thing." She gives it a hardy push and it falls apart almost instantly causing Aria to step back slightly. "Don't freak out I'm here to help fix it up, you have to get rid of the old to make room for new don't you think?" She was talking to him without even blinking or waiting for his name, she seemed almost impatient to get to work.
 
Archie flinched at Arius' sudden introduction, but composed himself and turned around, hoping to make a decent first impression.
This lasted all of five seconds, once he saw her knocking down the gate. He did his best to suppress an exasperated sigh, and gave a rather formal-sounding introduction to her.
"Quite... Gates aside, my name is Archie. Archie M Edyss. It's a pleasure to meet you."
Archie held out his hand, a cool expression on his face. Though he acted more formal than was completely necessary, Archie hoped that she wouldn't take it the wrong way. It was obvious, from how natural his movements and mannerisms looked, that this was what he was used to.
 
(you confused Arius for Aria. XD though I suppose I can see how; want me to change her name or refer to her by last name instead?)

"Sorry sorry!" Aria calls and giggles a bit taking his hand and shaking it hardily; she had a strong grip and she seemed to be tan; how he couldn't be sure since winter had just ended not that long ago. "Anyway I grew up on a farm so this isn't something totally new to me. Also it's wonderful to meet you Archie!" She seemed awfully cheerful and the first impression one got from her was that she was more play than work.

She releases his hand and instead of allowing him to gain the time to recover she pats him on the back. "You're the other guy they told me about right? The Alchemist, they said I'd have help so it looks like we'll be working together from now on, hopefully you can handle it." Aria grins before she wanders onto the fields and whistled. "This is way worse than I had thought, we just arrived today though so hmm...Should we get to work right away or look around town?" It was question obviously meant for him, which meant she had the intention of keeping him around, or following him around; at least for today so they could get to know each other better.
 
((It's fine. It's just, you seem to have a habit of making character names similar to your username, so I got confused.))

Archie did not seem to appreciate how Aria was treating him, judging by the rapidly-souring expression he was now taking on. He tried to hide it as best he could, but Aria seemed to be shaping up to be someone he didn't think he'd get along particularly well with. When she allowed him to withdraw his hand, he did so with haste.

Archie almost exploded when Aria patted his back, and it took every fibre of his being to not rip into her with his best quiet-angry voice he could muster. Instead, he put on a deceptively convincing fake smile, and answered promptly.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I was thinking about unpacking my things, and then setting off into town. If you'll excuse me, I'll start now. I'll be taking up residence in that shed over there, if you hadn't already been informed."
While he had decided to stay in the converted shed for the sole reason that he was going to be doing experiments, and would need his own space for it, he was now glad that he would be able to avoid Aria.
"Just endure it, Archie," he thought to himself, "You've handled more obnoxious people than her before. Just deal with it, and think of the pay."
 
Annoying she may be but stupid she was not. It didn't take Aria long to realize that her company wasn't entirely wanted but she grinned anyway. "Okay have fun then! I'll stick around and get to work, I didn't bring anything but my dog with me anyway, I don't have anything else." Speaking of her dog seems to call it to her side, a large blue-gray furred pitbull runs through the gate barking at her. "There you are Jazz!" The big dog runs forward and knocks Archie down as it runs between his legs causing Aria to laugh aloud. "Oh dear...s-sorry about that! I suppose you'll have to be careful around her!"

Aria turned her back on the shed; she would be sure to avoid it unless necessary, people who couldn't particularly deal well with her personality didn't really seem to be all that worth her time, at least not in the way of friends. She had to work with him either way so she doesn't leave the farm, she goes to work right away instead beginning to pull up weeds with bare hands. Normally she'd wear gloves but she didn't have any today, she'd need to work and save up some money to get a pair eventually but she'd deal with the cuts she got from the thorny weeds later. She would walk around later, it was probably best to use up her energy to work anyway, she wasn't here to make friends anyway.
 
"What do you - OH F-"
Archie was cut off by Jazz crashing into him, sending him crashing to the floor. After getting up slowly, he turned to Aria with a look so venomous it alone could have killed off most of the weeds. But, before he went off on a tirade, he managed to catch himself, and address her in a far more civil tone. It wasn't without its angered undertones, but he was a lot calmer than he would have been.
"Miss... Melody, was it? Please keep that... thing... under control, if you can. My work is precise, and the things I use for it are delicate. I can't afford to have Jam - or whatever its name is - barrelling into me every five minutes. I would be willing to help invest in a leash, if it keeps it from ruining my experiments."

He turned abruptly on his heel, after he was finished, and left in the direction of the shed. The way he glanced at Jazz would be evidence enough to show that he obviously wasn't particularly fond of her already. Or its owner, for that matter.
"Not even ten minutes in and I'm already getting a headache..." he muttered to himself as he entered his dimly-lit lair.

After his instruments and tools were set out, and his other things stowed, Archie emerged. He did not, however, make any attempt to socialise with Aria, or even acknowledge her existence. He looked to be quite eager to ignore the fact that he had to work with her at all.
Archie began picking weeds, but much more delicately this time around. And only certain ones too. It would have looked odd to anyone else, but he didn't really care that much.
 
Jazz kept running around the farm, she wasn't leashed but she was also staying away from the grouchy alchemist who wanted nothing to do with her or Aria, who kept thinking that he was not the type to like someone quite as outgoing as her, on a day when she hadn't made the alchemist angry she would possibly try to talk to him again, for now they worked in mutual silence with Jazz occasionally barking at some odd bird or rabbit in the area. Eventually Aria gets tired of the quiet and mutters under her breath about the unnecessary quiet before she starts singing quietly to herself in order to break the unending silence with some sort of sound other than barks.

They work in the quiet for awhile before she sighs and glances around, she need a few tools to make this quicker but how the heck could she get a hold of some tools? Aria gets up from the ground and in an effort to break an endlessly repeating pattern she crosses her arms and stretches. "I'm gonna go into town now...I need to get a hold of some tools or figure out a way to earn a little bit for fixing the farm up..." She spoke to Archie, even though he probably wasn't listening and gently rubbed her hands cringing a bit. Her hands had gotten pretty cut up from pulling the weeds out bare handed including those cursed thorny ones. After a few moments examining her hands she waves and starts to head off towards the town.
 
Though he would have been annoyed by Aria's singing at any other time, Archie managed to ignore her for the time being. She was far away from him, he was engrossed in his work, and he didn't want to get worked up over what he knew was nothing. That aside, he had more important things to do - not the most exciting of things, but examining the weeds and the soil samples in the area would give him quite a lot of information. While monotonous, the work was peaceful, and that was all he really wanted from it. Just peace and quiet.

Eventually, once he had all the samples he needed, he headed back into his shed - without even knowing that Aria had left for town. They were all kept in separate airtight containers for the time being, and he decided to look into the town's history to see if there was anything that could possibly have affected the farm. He didn't even notice Aria had gone, even after passing by where she had been working.

Archie quickly found out one thing that hindered him greatly, however.
He had no idea where he was going.
It wasn't as if he hadn't studied a map of the town intensively long before he came to it - he was just terrible with directions, and it showed, by how his head was moving back and forth more than a grandfather clock's pendulum.
 
Aria had looked over the map on her way to the Farm; that's why she had arrived after Archie, so she knew where she was going and introduced herself to most of the townsfolk before making her way back. On the way back though she happened to notice Archie swinging his head back and forth like a pendulum and crossed her arms. "Are you having a problem Alchemist?" She didn't sound all that pleased with the way he had been talking to her but she was only showing her displeasure, she didn't expect to form a relationship of any kind in one day; not even a full day yet. "You didn't check the map did you?" Aria rolled her eyes at the ditzy alchemist and sighed. "I can take you anywhere in town, what are you looking for?"
 
"Nowhere."
While he didn't remember much about the town's paths, he at east remembered few landmarks. He figured he'd use those, even if it took him longer to get to the library than he'd have liked. That aside, his ego wouldn't allow him to accept help - not from Aria. Which, in itself, was strange. The person he was supposed to be working with was the last person he wanted to be helped by. He didn't want to dwell on it, though. She annoyed him, plain and simple. He knew he'd probably remember where he was going a lot better with a clearer head, than if he constantly had her on his mind.

Archie strode off, hoping to lose his partner.
 
Aria wasn't pleased at all when he strode off on his own; he was an alchemist so he was probably interested in the library. She made the connection quickly but threw a pine cone at the back of his head and pointed to a brick building that had a sign that read 'library' above it. She didn't like this person, but he was supposed to help her, "when you're done being an ass Archie the Library is THAT way!" She sort of yelled at him and glared before storming off back to the farm. Normally Aria wasn't so short tempered but this guy he seemed to rub her the wrong way entirely, his attitude was what had set her temper off. It reminded her of that person...the one who pushed her away from her home town. As the memory crossed her mind Aria's expression grew a little dark before she crouched in her fields again and began pulling weeds again, making her cut up hands much worse, though she didn't seem to care too much.
 
Archie didn't say anything. He didn't need to. He had his directions, and didn't need anything else from his partner. He turned to the building, and entered it,.

The library was by no means huge, but the amount of books contained in it was still quite impressive. Even Archie stopped for a moment to take it all in - as harsh as he was to people, there was a majesty to books that he couldn't quite describe. He certainly liked them a lot more than other people he'd had to deal with.

Just as he was about to start looking for what he needed, someone popped up from behind the counter. She looked slightly panicked, but for the most part, retained a composed manner.

"Oh, hello. I don't believe I've seen you here before."
Archie looked over to the stranger from behind the counter. She wasn't what you'd expect from a stereotypical library-goer - she was tall, her blue eyes sharp, and her white hair had been cut short.
"No, I don't think you would have. I just moved in, you see."
Archie's reply was blunt, but it got the point across well enough. The stranger acknowledged this with a brief nod, and extended her hand.
"I'm Jessica. I'm the librarian here. Its a pleasure to meet you."
"I'm Archie. Archie Edyss. An alchemist. It's a pleasure to meet you too."

Already, Jessica was seeming far less irritating than Aria - and it showed. Already, the stony look on his face was fading, to be replaced by a more placid expression.
 
Aria was trying to keep working through the pain that was now blooming in her hands and the trickles of blood slid down her palm a bit slowly, when it got too bad she finally realized she needed to quit and decided she would check out the clinic so the wounds on her hands wouldn't get infected. With a sigh Aria stands up and goes into the empty main house, there was nothing but a small bed pressed against the wall and literally nothing else furniture wise, but there was a pack on the bed, she'd had it sent here before she'd arrived herself. In it held her most precious and fairly rare books, despite her normally loud nature when it was a nice day she would take a book outside and read quietly. She stares at the bag for a little bit before wrapping her hands sloppily and picking up one of the three books in her pack and carrying it off back into town with her.

Slowly she followed the paths glancing up from her book only occasionally to check and make sure she was headed the right way towards the clinic, along the way she passed by the Library without a glance, she had the books she wanted the library probably didn't have the information she was seeking anyway. When she arrives at the clinic she shuts the book lightly and marks it with an odd book mark that looked hand drawn before heading inside. Once inside she bows politely and smiles at the doctor inside. "Hi, I came by earlier, but I'm actually here because I've got a small problem at the moment." Aria sets her book down and smiles as she shows the doctor her hands.

(Okay...sorry it took so long to answer this, Hopefully you haven't lost total interest but I'm just curious....do you happen to remember the gender and name of the doctor? XD I can't find the PM from before.)
 
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