Role

Chapter 3

First you take a Stoneseed. They are about an inch long, and rock-like. Dig
you a small hole a few inches deep and plant your seed. Everything in
Stonefarming is grown by heat, not sunlight. (Which until it's final form,
will kill any stage of Stonefarming in a matter of minutes, to hours,
depending on how far along you are) After four to six months, you have a fully
grown Rockplant.

The Rockplant is stony in appearance and color. They are about three feet tall
when fully grown and wield small, rock-like pods about the size of a fist.
These are the plants fruit, called Rock-sphere. Like the Rockplant itself,
Rock-spheres are stone-like in color and appearance. They have a tough outer
shell that houses a thick, metallic liquid inside. (Think of a thick, or
pudding-like version of Mercury)

While waiting for the Rockplants to grow, it's a good time to build your
gemfield. Once it's complete and the Rock-spheres are ready for harvest, you
empty their metallic juice' into a small bucket. To fertilize the gemfield,
you dip your thumb into the juice' and pop your thumb, upside down of course,
right into the earth. Place your other hand, like an assassin's tigerclaw,
around your thumb and hold the earth in place as you pull your thumb out of
the ground. This ensures the juice' stays in the dirt. Repeat this process
every foot or so in complete rows across the entire field. (This is where the
Gemthumb family gets it's name. Over time, the juice of the Rock-sphere
actually stains their thumbs it's metallic color.)

After one year, Shellgems have begun to pop-up all over the field. At this
stage they will be about six inches tall. After two years they will be roughly
a foot. They continue to grow until they are between four and six feet tall.
The Shellgems grow white, and without a shine. Once they reach a certain size,
they stop growing and begin to glow. Their outer shells conduct heat from
Thera's belly that activates the inner Gem, and gives the Shellgem it's color.
The inside will go from white to pink, purple, blue, green, or red, and so on.
(Only one color, not all of them) This lets you know what type of gem it will
become. The color and glow continue to grow inside until the entire Shellgem
is glowing brightly. At that point it is no longer a Shellgem but has matured
into it's final form, a pure Gem. Now it's ready to dig up and process.

Once fertilized, a Gemfield will continue to produce Shellgems for
generations. Over time though, it'll produce fewer and fewer with each
harvest, and will need to be re-fertilized every few centuries.