That wasn't there before

Unsurprisingly, the stick was not an efficient chisel, but a few determined prods were able to break smaller, weaker portions of crystals off the obelisk. However, what got attention was the heat flooding his mouth. Unnoticeable at first, but then each poke and prod got it a little warmer. The sensation traveled up his teeth and into his gums, warming his muzzle like a warm drink in the dead of winter.

His original "purpose" of clearing the crystals was gone, simply poking to feel the heat spread in his mouth, wondering how the crystal was doing such a thing. Was it magic? Probably not, but everything else going on couldn't be explained easily by natural phenomena either. It was weird, something that needed to be dissected and understood. Burning his tongue was not going to achieve that though.

He had managed to get about three small 'spikes' of crystal off the stone obelisk before the stick became too hot to bear. He dropped it and stepped back, his tongue lolling out of his mouth for a moment in a desperate attempt to cool the heated flesh. "Apparently the damn things just don't like to be touched. It didn't affect me too much, but it started heating up the stick." He prodded the stick with a paw, confirming the heat wasn't just in his head when the wood warmed his pads. "How do we get rid of them if we can't even touch them? We can't just leave them here." More excuses to investigate the crystals longer. It would be logical to just give them a wide berth and ignore them, but then he would have to walk off and go back to work. He would rather burn off his tastebuds with this useless task than do anything he was tasked to do.

"Maybe if I..." Theron trailed off as he nudged and packed snow overtop the crystals, making a crude snowball with the dangerous shards within. Then, picking up the stick that had cooled in the winter air, knocked the snow a few paces forward. He wasn't touching the crystal, surely it couldn't judge intent.

"Speech"