Sherah and the Saplings: Gem experiments

Sherah spent the next week recovering at the Hooman camps after what happened when she tried to embrace the call of Fauna. Even after using some of her own gems to recover, there was a noticeable scar on her ass and her tail was considerably shorter.
Regardless, she was determined to go back into the forest and do her part of the trade. Saplings use gems as mere decoration and this was baffling to the Risuners who knew what they were capable of. They had no idea what powers lie within the rocks they wear around their heads.

By this point, the rest of the crew were curious themselves about their powers and some of them even tried it for themselves, sadly to no effect. They had also gained most of the knowledge about Saplings as they could obtain and were simply living normal lives and treated the expedition as a vacation. A few of the risuners were even curious enough to visit more of the Hooman areas. They had heard of the "fun parks" and were eager to try them out for themselves as a break from Sapling life. Only 3 of them actually got in as they realized that its quite a pain to deal with Hoomans due to regulations and such. Fortunately there were no major incidents and most Hoomans near the border have gotten somewhat used to seeing the fluffy tailed people.

Deeper in the forest, Sherah was once again preparing for the magic exchange. She would take every gem the Saplings had and show off their various powers. Emeralds in particular had the power of growth acceleration so she was sure that they would be fond of it. As she entered the home of Visus and everything was settled, they once again went to that small clearing they used previously and every gemstone was laid out for the upcoming demonstration. Right before Sherah was about to demonstrate, Visus had an interesting question.

"So these gems all come from your land and are imbued with your magic. What do you think would happen if they were from ours? Would the effects be the same"?

Sherah had this question in mind but had yet to ask. She simply responded.

"It would probably be different, we can try it out after if you like. I'm actually curious to know"

"One thing at a time of course. Lets see your magic in action"

Sherah then started with the grape agate, shooting the fireballs up at the sky and then one at the walnut tree that she made a week earlier. The fire was put out shortly after by her before moving on to the other ones. Next was the emerald, which Sherah at first was excited to show off but seeing as how fast they can grow plants with their own magic made her realize its the same effect. Regardless she showed it off to the walnut tree and regenerated the parts that the fire damaged. She proceeded to show off all the different powers so Visus could take notes. All that was left to do was discover how Saplings could use gems like the Risuners did.

"You did say you grow these gems out of the ground with special gemtrees correct?"

Sherah confirmed this fact and then wondered if something similar can be done with Saplings. The fusing of nuts and gems was a Risuner magic that Saplings did not seem able to do for some reason. However Visus then told her magical friend a secret.

"I am keeping your secret so I assume you will keep mine. Deep within our forests we have golden apples. Even I do not know how they are made but I do know they have amazing magical abilities".

She of course agreed and once that was revealed to her, Sherah had a brilliant idea. Perhaps it was possible to combine gems with apples instead of nuts? At the very least it might be possible deeper within the forest. And so months went by, until Visus finally came back with the news.

"It worked! We are able to grow trees out of the ground that produce different kinds of apples that each have a power when you eat it."

The two hugged it out and spent the next year learning about different magic from both sides until it was time for the Risuners to depart.