CASSI'S GREENHOUSE
Despite its size, it's a humble house, set back from the road with a straight driveway in need of re-paving. As you reach the door, it opens, and a smiling young woman greets you. She's a bit overweight, but cute, with blue eyes and brown hair, which she tells you she dyes often but claims is currently natural. Almost as an afterthough, she introduces herself formally as Cassandra Diane Peterson, and says you can just call her Cassidy or Cassi.
She has a sly look on her face as she asks if you came to see the greenhouse, and seems triumphant when you admit that visiting the greenhouse was indeed your goal. She lets you in and tells you to leave your shoes by the door. Leading you down the hall, you can smell the moist air of the greenhouse already. Cautioning that it may be a bit humid, she opens the door between the house and the greenhouse, picking up a small bell and clanging it loudly for a few moments. A flurry of splashing and rustling are triggered by the instrument's noise.
Cassi turns to you, smiling. "I had to warn them we were coming, so they wouldn't be underfoot," she explains. She steps through the door, then motions for you to follow. At first, it seems like an unkempt mass of flowers and other plants. The stone floor is covered in puddles of water and mud. The ceiling is high, with several sunlamps and some simple but sturdy sprinklers. Then you notice that despite their seemingly wild nature, the flowers are carefully grouped by color.
And then something else catches your eye. A tiny pink blob is peering up at you from under a purple flower. A large, fierce-looking grey blob is in the shadow of that same flower, while a green blob wiggles beneath a blue flower. Cassi smiles as she holds her hand out, letting the green one bounce into her palm. "This," she tells you, "is Captain Wigglemeister. The ones under the purple flower are Lord and Lady Squishington. They're Silky Slimes."
Setting Captain Wigglemeister upon her head, she leads you down the aisles, introducing you to the Slimes she has and muttering vaguely about Slimes she may purchase in the future. Every color flower has its own group of Slimes. "Aside from the flowers, there are many fruits and vegetables for the slimes to eat, and plenty of puddles for them to splash in. They're all very self-sufficient, so as long as the greenhouse is in good order, so are they. There's also grass growing in many of the flowerpots, so they can choose their 'environment' to some extent." She nods, looking satisfied.
Near the back door, panels of thick plastic hang from the ceiling. On the other side of the 'wall' implied by the panels, the pots are full of sand and cacti instead of soil and flowers. "Some of my slimes prefer a drier 'climate', so to speak. The panels block the spray of the sprinklers, and the sprinklers beyond the panels have been disabled."
"And, uhm, I'm not quite sure how, but some of them even have, er... little boomboxes." Grinning in confusion, she points out a couple of Slimes who are indeed bopping away to hip beats on miniature boomboxes. "I don't know where they came from, but so long as I give the Slimes a place to shield them from the sprinklers, they're happy."
She shrugs, setting Captain Wigglemeister back down where she'd picked him up from. Lord Squishington is now settled by to his wife, watching her fiercely as she rolls back and forth on a fallen petal. Giggling, Cassi pets Lord Squishington, and turns back to you, asking if you'd like to meet each slime personally now.
She has a sly look on her face as she asks if you came to see the greenhouse, and seems triumphant when you admit that visiting the greenhouse was indeed your goal. She lets you in and tells you to leave your shoes by the door. Leading you down the hall, you can smell the moist air of the greenhouse already. Cautioning that it may be a bit humid, she opens the door between the house and the greenhouse, picking up a small bell and clanging it loudly for a few moments. A flurry of splashing and rustling are triggered by the instrument's noise.
Cassi turns to you, smiling. "I had to warn them we were coming, so they wouldn't be underfoot," she explains. She steps through the door, then motions for you to follow. At first, it seems like an unkempt mass of flowers and other plants. The stone floor is covered in puddles of water and mud. The ceiling is high, with several sunlamps and some simple but sturdy sprinklers. Then you notice that despite their seemingly wild nature, the flowers are carefully grouped by color.
And then something else catches your eye. A tiny pink blob is peering up at you from under a purple flower. A large, fierce-looking grey blob is in the shadow of that same flower, while a green blob wiggles beneath a blue flower. Cassi smiles as she holds her hand out, letting the green one bounce into her palm. "This," she tells you, "is Captain Wigglemeister. The ones under the purple flower are Lord and Lady Squishington. They're Silky Slimes."
Setting Captain Wigglemeister upon her head, she leads you down the aisles, introducing you to the Slimes she has and muttering vaguely about Slimes she may purchase in the future. Every color flower has its own group of Slimes. "Aside from the flowers, there are many fruits and vegetables for the slimes to eat, and plenty of puddles for them to splash in. They're all very self-sufficient, so as long as the greenhouse is in good order, so are they. There's also grass growing in many of the flowerpots, so they can choose their 'environment' to some extent." She nods, looking satisfied.
Near the back door, panels of thick plastic hang from the ceiling. On the other side of the 'wall' implied by the panels, the pots are full of sand and cacti instead of soil and flowers. "Some of my slimes prefer a drier 'climate', so to speak. The panels block the spray of the sprinklers, and the sprinklers beyond the panels have been disabled."
"And, uhm, I'm not quite sure how, but some of them even have, er... little boomboxes." Grinning in confusion, she points out a couple of Slimes who are indeed bopping away to hip beats on miniature boomboxes. "I don't know where they came from, but so long as I give the Slimes a place to shield them from the sprinklers, they're happy."
She shrugs, setting Captain Wigglemeister back down where she'd picked him up from. Lord Squishington is now settled by to his wife, watching her fiercely as she rolls back and forth on a fallen petal. Giggling, Cassi pets Lord Squishington, and turns back to you, asking if you'd like to meet each slime personally now.
