revivalproject | The Silk Road

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The Silk Road

WHO: Moonshade and (in no particular order) Lark, the Factory-Dwellers (Tony and Catra), anyone who answers the network post
WHERE: The town center, the Southeast side (primarily near the factories), the network
WHAT: Getting silk production going
WHEN: Early July
WARNINGS: None yet, will warn in subject lines as needed

1. [Closed to Lark] Examining Our (Moral) Fiber
Moonshade has messaged Lark to meet her at the fountain near the town center. While she didn’t give a specific reason for the meeting, even over the network video she seemed excited about something. When Lark arrives at the meeting, Moonshade has a simple bag that seems stuffed full of something waiting at her feet (and a wolf splashing in the fountain, but don’t mind him).

As Lark approaches, Moonshade raises a three-fingered hand in greeting. “Shade and sweet water. How have you been?”

2. [Network Post, video] Can’t Do Everything Alone
Someone’s finally shown her how to properly aim the camera at her face, so she doesn’t look quite off-centered, or like she’s just one big pointy ear.

“I’ve discovered a couple of colonies of silkcloth spiders, one in the caves near the beach and another in one of the large abandoned buildings full of machines. This is very good news, because the webbing the spiders create is possible to process into fiber that can be spun and woven.”

She reaches down to grab a hank of faintly shiny grey-white fiber, holding it up to display for everyone.

“While I can definitely take on the work of gathering and preparing the webbing, it’ll certainly go quicker with more hands. If there’s anyone who’s using the agriculture datapoint, there’s two main tasks I could use help with: preparing spider repellent salve and working with the gathered webbing--washing, drying and getting it ready for spinning. Lark’s agreed to help with the spinning and weaving end of the process. I’ll take charge of the gathering myself. With the salve, it won’t be too dangerous.”

Putting the fiber back down, she looks back at the camera, her dark warm eyes somewhere in a deep murky space between purple and brown, not unlike untreated purpleheart wood.

“I’m claiming one of the other abandoned buildings with the machines for production--both for the salve and for treating fiber. With this process underway, I’m hoping we’ll be able to outfit anyone who needs lightweight clothing for the warm season.”

There’s an awkward pause for a moment, before she fumbles with the device, trying to remember how to turn the camera off and end the message. There’s a lovely shot of the ground, and a flash of grey fur before it cuts out.

3. [Open to anyone in the Orange District] Moving Day
Those who live in factories and The Tower Residences may be used to a relatively quiet existence. But it seems the peace may be disturbed as Moonshade begins moving into the factory at “Orange 25” (not that she can read to know that’s what it’s called, and 25 is really something she’d parse as three-eights-and-one, but that’s not the point). Between the grey-furred wolf who’s helping carry supplies, Moonshade bringing instruments that’ll help with the salve-making, and occasional clattering coming from the factory itself as she tries to make room around the machinery, it’s a busy morning in the area.

Perhaps you’ve stepped out for a breath of fresh air and got the sniffies from Steadypaw, who’s still Just! So! Curious! about everything around him. Or perhaps you glanced out a window to see the elf carrying a basket of leaves from something in the greenhouse. Either way, it’s time to say hi to the new neighbor.

X. Wildcard

darkersolstice or darkersolstice#9463 to hit me up and plot. I’m always open to anything.

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Wait, we have more big spiders?

Depends on what you consider big. [She angles the phone at the floor and uses her spare hand to gesture 'dog-sized'.] Most of them were smaller than Steadypaw.

Well, I'm not sure, but I think the ones that got aggressive here, right before I arrived, were bigger. They certainly aren't as big as the ones around a base camp we had for a while back home. Those were two to three time taller than me, and could be really aggressive.

I can help make the salve. I might be able to, uh, keep them calm is not the right way to put. Keep myself calm enough that they're less likely to notice me? That worked with the ones back home.

Both of those would be helpful, Ezra. I'd be glad for the help, if you have the time. The salve will help the rest of us get into the spider dens safely, but if you can be still enough that they don't sense you, that's very useful.

Definitely have the time to work on the salve - or, well, unless something comes up. And willing to give very quietly walking into their nest and see how it goes.

The three fingered hand most definitely caused Lark half a moment of pause as she approached the other woman. So, though, did her size and her ears. Yes, this woman she had met over the network was decidedly not human. What an interesting place she has come, to meet people such as this.

"Mila's blessings upon you," she said as she approached. The woman's greeting seemed formal, so Lark wished to share her own. "I have been lovely. There has been interesting things to learn. Cayde and Keith have been instructing me in 'electricity' which seems to give light and energy, and I have some furniture now. The loom is still... Well, in progress."

"I'm glad to hear you've made some progress. I've had a few discoveries of my own in recent days. Here, I want your opinion on something."

She reaches down into her bag, pulling out a cloud. No, not a cloud, just a handful of soft grey-white fiber. With a crooked smile, she hands the webbing to Lark.

"Could you work with this?"

Discoveries? Lark is intrigued. Her eyes go down to the bags, presuming it is that. And there indeed the woman pulls something out. Lark gasps and steps forward when she sees what it is.

"This looks like raw silk," she said, taking it in hand. And she can feel her magic reaching to it. Oh yes, that was a good thing here. "It feels it too. Silk has a very strong personality, and this I can feel that in. While I've never done it myself, I know how to wash the silk so that it can be spun.

The excitement that danced in her eyes was undeniable.

"I think this will take well to magic, just like glownie wool. Except this will take better to strength spells."

The experiments Kaz had suggested would benefit so much more from layered and bespelled silk.

"This is a wonder, Moonshade. Where did you get it?"

"It's not moth silk, or preserver silk. It's spider webbing that's been washed and treated. And I know where two colonies of the spiders that weave this webbing live. With a little cleverness and daring, we have almost an unlimited supply to work with."

She offers the whole bag to Lark now. "I trust you to take it from this point to cloth, once the loom's set up. I have told Kaz that I'd work to try to get him a lighter weight shirt, but beyond that, we can figure out our needs as we go."

Already washed? Oh yes, when she pushes her power deeper she can most definitely feel it. Lark's free hand delves into the pouch always had her side and she pulls out a drop spindle.

"May I see if it agrees with spinning? I think it should."

Kaz... Yes, Lark smiles at that.

"I would happily help you make something for Kaz, after that there is a woman named Natasha who is in very heavy clothing. I think that, until a loom is ready, I may have to expend magic energy to make cloth. I don't know how long we can wait for good materials."

Which will be a problem. She will have to risk being too weak to defend herself.

"Go ahead." Moonshade nods, settling in against the fountain to watch. "I've never known anyone who uses magic to weave, but those I've seen do magic don't have a limitless pool of energy. They grow exhausted, if they work too long. Is that the same for you?"

Her mind turns to the healers in particular, Leetah and Mender, whose fight begins after a physical battle ends.

"If so, we will need to prioritize and manage expectations. There's good uses for thread, even if we can't make large amounts of cloth immediately."

"I most often prefer not to use magic to weave," Lark answered as she moved to sit on the fountain as well. "It is often best to do by hand instead of relying on magic, for as you say, there is a limit to power. So yes, it is true for me. I am what is known as a Great Mage in my world. My reserves and what I can do with them are very different from normal scopes. That does not change the fact that I must have caution, for if I use all of my magic or even the greater part of it, I can be unable to defend myself if a true emergency arises."

But there might be those here she could ask for assistance. Safety in exchange for getting people on a starting path for clothing wouldn't be too bad.

"I would need a length of cloth, a shirt sacrificed to serve as a pattern most likely, to magic cloth. And spools of thread. Which I could make."

Speaking of. She assembles the spindle, gathers the material in her hand, and sets the spindle to twisting. Slowly she feeds the silk to the feeder and smiles as she releases the spindle into a slow drop. Sure enough thread starts to form. Lark has to smile.

"Yes, this will work very well."

"I don't have a shirt to spare, and Kyle reacted very strongly to me not wearing clothing at the beach, so I'm afraid that piece of the puzzle may need to be solved by someone else." She's still a little confused by the whole nudity taboo thing, but has decided at least to wear clothes when practical.

"But I can ensure you have the material to make thread, and the process of spinning it looks simple enough to teach to others. You did want everyone to make you some, anyway."

"He must not be used to mixed sex public bathing. It happens. I might be able to sacrifice something for the ends of making more cloth," Lark mused. But she didn't know if that was a good choice. There must be balance found. Maybe someone has more clothes and could spare a single item to serve as a pattern.

"I do not want everyone to make me some, but to carry some. If they can spin it themselves all the better, but not everyone can easily learn. Often it is a block in the mind."

She does keep the spindle going. No reason to stop when she can make a goodly amount of thread now.

"Thank you, Moonshade, this shall truly be a gift."

"Good. I'm glad it'll be useful. I'll be asking for help with some of the work necessary to safely get the webbing, but I plan to do most of the gathering myself."

She glances over her shoulder to see what Steadypaw is up to. He's still in the fountain, his chin resting on the lip of it, relaxing. "Yes, you can bathe nude anytime you like, furball."

"I hope you find help. I would offer it, but I think we would both prefer that I be busy with the spinning."

Her hands would ache from it, but there were balms that might well help. But the comment the woman made to the wolf left Lark laughing.

"I grew very used to communal bathing houses, so I could not understand the... restraint many showed.

"We only ever had rivers and ponds to bathe in, but we simply never saw a point to being weird about one another's bodies. We're all just bits of flesh in the worldpool, at the end of the day. Our spirits touch and mingle, even after the flesh ends. They're what matters more than if someone sees our skin."

She looks thoughtful. "I remember sometimes I'd take advantage of when people were bathing or dancing without their leathers to deliver new clothes to them. Take away what was growing worn or what had holes and lay out a fresh set for them to wear. Just to remind people I had a little of my childhood mischief still in me."

Lark smiled and nodded in agreement. That sounded quite well like the wisdom of the Living Circle, even if by other words and names.

"You did them a kindness," Lark offered with a smile. "One I quite approve of. There is no greater gift than giving to those who need it, even if the need is merely for the kindness of your skill."

The forge was always hot. Over the winter it had been a refuge, but the weather had changed enough in the month they had spent in Billy's construct that most days were a challenge, and Tony had slowly moved more and more of his unfired work outside, to the stamped patch of struggling grass, where the speeder had been attempted and left its lingering impression of scrap and paint to build around anyway. Luckily, there wasn't much left of his bed after covering the tent and the parasols to post at the beach, so he could easily drag his nest when it got too suffocating to sleep, too.

Less luckily, that meant that as Tony approached the pile of fabrics gathered up against the side of the building, he found a large beetle that had beaten him to it, making him recoil at first then try to gather enough courage to pluck up the blanket that it was clinging to to try to shake the whole thing off. This did not leave Tony's skin crawling any less, so he dropped the blanket just as quickly in case the bug hadn't been dislodged and meant to exact its revenge, and went slinking away back to the front of the forge where he met his potential rescue. The big dog wasn't entirely unfamiliar, it had been hard to miss at the beach, but as it came sniffing around Tony's door he still crouched cautiously a few feet away, waiting to see what it did. Maybe if he was friendly enough, he could convince it to hunt beetles. "Hey," he greeted, sitting on his heels with his arms draped over his knees, slowly tugging the bandages meant to protect him from the scorch of the fire from one hand. "I'm looking to employ a highly skilled extraction technician and am willing to negotiate competitive pay. I'll have you know, I'm a highly desirable employer back on Earth, this would be an incredible opportunity for you."

Moonshade's not far behind Steadypaw, and she catches Tony's offer. Well, kind of. "I think most of those words mean even less to him than they did to me--and I only caught about five of them, to be honest. The rest...either didn't translate, or don't have an match in my language, I think."

You know, because her people don't have pay or employers, or technicians. Or Earth.

"But if there's something the two of us can help you with, I know a little about negotiation, at least!"

Meanwhile, the wolf--not a dog, clearly a full-grown wolf--sniffs at Tony's hand, ears perked. He's not used to humans yet, though his experiences with them here have been quite educational. Humans, he's found, are oh-so-willing to offer belly-rubs and snacks, if he behaves in a certain way.

Snacks weren't likely around here, Tony had a hard enough time feeding himself, but with that inquisitive sniff Tony did venture to give the animal's ears a scratch in what he hoped was a friendly gesture because he was quite intimidating up close. Definitely big for a dog, but not the biggest that Tony had met, and as long as he didn't start projecting voices into Tony's head or teleporting him suddenly, they could come to an understanding. Maybe Tony would even figure out that he's a wolf.

"Don't worry about it, you caught the important part," he assured Moonshade--quick check, yeah, that was exactly what the network thought she was called, he wasn't remembering that wrong. "If we ever run into trouble, I'm willing to explore a variety of communication options. How do you feel about interpretive dance?" That one probably wasn't going to land, either, but Tony did her the favour of waving it off before she felt compelled to work it out and give an answer. "You're the one that's been making all of the noise out here," he continued quickly, shooting a glance across the road then back at the forge where he had been reliably alone most of the time. "I thought it was Catra trying to take the place apart again." Most of the time.

Actually, the joke about interpretive dance brings a wry smile to her face. "Pointing and grunting is usually about as far as humans get with us. A proper dance would be an exciting alternative. It'd show you're more clever and talented than most five-fingers."

Clearly, this is how one makes friends with the new neighbors.

"But yes, we're probably a bit loud as we move in and set up in that building over there." She points to indicate which factory she's claimed. "We're going to work on spider repellent salve and washing the fiber for Lark to spin. Eventually, we'll be able to make silk cloth and then silk clothing. Dyes will come later, once we're set on the cloth. It'll take a while."

As someone who considered himself one of the most clever and talented of the five-fingers, Tony placed a delicate hand on his chest demurely like he would be embarrassed and unaccustomed to being so admired for his skills. Then he said, "What, pointing and grunting isn't how you dance? That's a mating display in some boroughs."

Stretching back up onto his feet, Tony pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead to squint across to the factory again like it might help him see this spider-based manufacturing, then down at the dog curiously because Moonshade did keep saying 'we'. Evidently, he had been trying to poach a valuable employee. "Clothes are pretty rare around here, and you'd probably drown in anything the Agrii left behind," he observed, and reached a hand up over his head to indicate just how tall they tended to be. "But if you know you can make reams of the stuff, a sail or enough for an air balloon would save me plenty of pain. You're going to have a big market cornered, sweetheart, believe me, the demand is off the charts."

"Lark's going to be responsible for the actual spinning and weaving, so you'd have to explain your need to her. I'm just getting the webbing into fiber." Not only would Lark have more chance of understanding the ideas, she also comes from a culture that has an actual economy.

She pauses, pointing to the factory, so near both of theirs, that the spiders have infested. "They're here, mostly--though there's also a colony in the caves by the beach. I don't recommend trying to pet them like Steadypaw--I don't think they're as weak to the scritchies."

The idea that there had been a growing spider colony, big enough to produce a volume of silk worth starting an enterprise over, that close and perhaps this whole time had Tony staring out at the indicated space with a lip raised and sunglasses resolutely back in place in defence. He would ask how difficult it would be to transplant a spider colony, but absolutely did not want to be involved in the process. "You said you were working on a repellent...?" he asked, eyebrows raised and clearly ready and willing to slather it all over the forge if they needed a test subject. He didn't appear to be in any way likely to try to offer any spiders friendship. "How are you, uh..." he continued, twisting a hand in the air to produce the question he meant to ask without making too many assumptions. He still landed on, "Can you just do that?," because just about everyone around here seemed to do some kind of magic and that sounded like the broadest possible approach.

"Just do...?" There's a moment of confusion before she wrinkles her nose. "Oh, no, not by magic. I only know about the spider repellent because of the agriculture data point. It seems the Agrii may have made the same sort of silk themselves at one point."

She is, in fact, decidedly one of the less magical members of her tribe of elves. But there's no shame in that fact; her own talents in the realm of the creative are still worth something to the Wolfriders.

Tony went, "Oh," and for a moment didn't seem to quite know what to do with this information, looking back to the factory that all of the noise had been coming from and wondering if the machinery in there that he couldn't identify had been for making silk-fibre all along. Understanding that didn't mean any of those machines worked, though, and in the unlikely case any of them had survived the apocalypse, Tony had stripped them liberally for parts by now. Tony's delicate hand went back to his heart as he realized with horror, "You're doing it by hand?" The bulk needed to produce something usable couldn't have been a reasonable job for one pair of hands.

"Yes, by hand. That's how I do everything--tanning and dying is my usual work back home. It's slow work, but the sooner started, the sooner something gets accomplished. Though Lark's planning to use magic for some of the weaving, until Shiro gets her a proper loom."

Moonshade seems confused as to what alternative she'd have beside magic. She is, to be honest, a little bit of a primitive elf.

"If you have any ideas to make the process quicker, everyone would benefit from it."

"That would be my pleasure," Tony said, more than happy to improve efficiency through technology if there was a chance he could understand the process. And how much harder could it be than building a rocket? The loom likely wasn't the most logical last evolution of that process, either, but that would only matter if they could be producing enough to keep up with the work. "If you want to show me how you do the work, I'm sure we could come up with some automation to streamline it. Machines, you know, like..." he tried to demonstrate, but without anything immediately nearby to indicate, he was left gesturing vaguely toward the door to the forge where the heat of the fire rolled out.

"...machines?" She repeats the word like one utterly unfamiliar with it. "Do you work metal, like a troll? How would that help with making salve and processing fiber?"

The beginning of that question was easy to handle, simple confirmation and they could have been moving right past it, but the qualifier had Tony's mouth snapping shut with a click and looking to Moonshade, then Steadypaw quizzically, hoping the dog could help him out here. It didn't sound like Moonshade was trying to insult him, but Tony hadn't met a lot of trolls that he found particularly pleasant.

Tony had to clear his throat before he could actually respond, but still looked baffled as he said, "Sure, like a troll. And I'm not sure yet, but--where I'm from, we've got machines--metal things, that work on their own so you can walk away, to do that sort of thing. Anybody that does do it by hand is, like, an eccentric artist who lives in the mountains, so I can probably figure it out." This was all far less interesting than figuring out, "Do you mean, like a dwarf?" Most trolls came from Asgard, after all. Maybe Moonshade was a more familiar kind of alien than Tony had been assuming.

"I've never heard of a dwarf before. But the trolls live underground, and they're the only ones who can make weapons out of brightmetal. They're lumpy and green and unpleasant, and for some reason my father and brother both used to seek out their caves to go and gamble when they were looking for some excitement." She never saw the appeal, especially when the men going out to poke the trolls were both chiefs, men with responsibilities that should have come before such idle amusements.

Okay, no dwarves, but trolls lived underground, that tracked. And Tony could give a jerky nod, sure, he would probably have plenty to talk about with the trolls and he had to give Moonshade credit for being particularly astute about the weapon thing. So as she continued, Tony's shoulders had to drop as he wilted and tried very hard not to pout at that judgmental tone she took, and he tried to very surreptitiously give his sweat-soaked shirt a sniff to source the bad impression. It wasn't exactly his best look, he had to admit. It wasn't like he had been expecting the neighbours to drop by.

"Well, uh--Listen, if you need some help over there and want me to take a crack at it, you know where to find me," he offered with less confidence, indicating back toward the door and making like he might slink back into the oppressive heat to escape this introduction he had already somehow messed up. "It's--I'm Tony, by the way. Pleasure," he maybe could have led with, that was a mistake, so he did his best to make up for it with another pat to Steadypaw's ears and the other hand out to see if he knew how to shake.

Steadypaw takes that as an excuse to lightly nom on Tony's hand. He's clearly being gentle, but also clearly hasn't been taught to shake or even be particularly polite about how he invades personal space.

"I'm Moonshade, and he's Steadypaw."

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The Silk Road

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Moving day!

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