Tony Stark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
in_extremis) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
revivalproject2021-07-12 11:41 pm
in_extremis) wrote in revivalproject2021-07-12 11:41 pm
Succession
WHO: Anyone on the first train out of Temba!
WHERE: Not-Temba, the Not-Transport Station
WHAT: First look at the new city! Tony has some specific things in here he's doing, but you can make it your own first impression experience.
WHEN: As soon as possible after receiving Ga Re's message, time to Ex Floor.
WARNINGS: I'll let you know if this gets weird.
a. Arrival! [OTA! This is a mingle option, so display your preferences accordingly]
The last time they got an urgent message from the Agrii about travel plans, they were headed to space to fight a war. So when Ga Re said far, Tony was not expecting to be standing at the train tracks, staring at the vehicle with some bewilderment. It hadn't been that long since the last time Tony had come this way, and it hadn't looked to him like this station was going to be in service for a good, long time at that point. Even now, as he looked down the tracks to where they disappeared into the woods, he wouldn't confidently say they looked serviceable. Even if the train itself had the juice, it very much looked like a rusty bolt and warped metal was its first and last destination.
That was a problem to solve when they got to it. Tony wasn't the only one ready to find out what was going to happen, and he glanced around the platform to the few people who had dropped what they were doing to come see Ga Re's train with a faint, wry smile, before turning back toward the city to watch for Jon with a flurry of encouraging text messages to spur him on. They had plenty of time already to hang around Temba, it was time to go forward.
The train itself was a sleek tube, like a subway car, lined with seats on the inside that weren't particularly comfortable or inviting. It wasn't giving a long-distance impression, without much room for luggage or travel comforts that a long-haul vehicle might. It didn't even appear to have any kind of control system that Tony could find after some frustrated investigation; just walls and windows and a button to open and close the door, that swished enough times to be irritating before Tony fully gave up on it. He was about ready to apologize for not solving the go puzzle when the car gave a rattle and lurched forward of its own volition, starting its slow roll toward the woods. From there, while Tony bounded for the window to watch Temba disappear behind the foliage, the train rapidly picked up speed, until the leaves were whipping by and then they were suddenly plunged into darkness.
An hour, when you don't know when its going to end or where you are even going, is an incredibly long time.
Abruptly, somewhere deep in that dark tunnel, Tony could feel a snap at the back of his neck, a tingle that numbed the base of his skull enough to touch it gingerly as he realized with a pitch of dread that he couldn't reach out to the network anymore. He reached for Jon's hand first, waiting for a steady breath as he stared distantly out at that endless darkness before he stood to get the rest of the car's attention. With his communication device in hand, he announced, "We've been bricked."
It was possible that Tony should have better prepared for this. It was possible that he should have been ready for the rapidly mounting anxiety as the train burst back out into the sunlight, lashed from all sides once again by the dense, untamed growth of the abandoned planet. And he should have been thoroughly anticipating stepping down from the train as it sighed into the strangely familiar station, and looking back over his shoulder with the realization that they had no control interface, and no way to contact anyone back in Temba.
Were they stuck here now?
b. Transport Station [For Bucky, but you're welcome to join!]
If they were meant to be here for the foreseeable future, the immediate experience wasn't what Tony would call hospitable. He never experienced Temba as it was when the He Rows first arrived, only coming to know it well after some progress had been made and there was clean, running water, and he hadn't realized how thankful he was for that small mercy until he disembarked the train in this new abandoned city. If he didn't have the map to orient himself and assure him that this place was a strange mirror of Temba, he wasn't sure how quickly he would have recognized the shape of the transport station obscured as it was under the tangle of vines and enthusiastic bushes. It took Tony some work to pick his way out of the snarl of it, thorns managing to catch in the seams of his heavy, metal boots and snagging where they met the nanoweb on his thighs, to turn and take in the structure as a whole, looking for a place to start. Where Temba could be shockingly quiet, here Tony could hear a whole cacophony of life calling and chattering high up in the branches of the expansive trees. The air itself smelled sweet with the overripe rot of lush fruit that hung heavily everywhere Tony looked, and littered the ground where more plants yet would grow. Tony wrinkled his nose and planted his hands on his hips. The train wasn't broken, that much was clear. There had to have been a way to make it run.
WHERE: Not-Temba, the Not-Transport Station
WHAT: First look at the new city! Tony has some specific things in here he's doing, but you can make it your own first impression experience.
WHEN: As soon as possible after receiving Ga Re's message, time to Ex Floor.
WARNINGS: I'll let you know if this gets weird.
a. Arrival! [OTA! This is a mingle option, so display your preferences accordingly]
The last time they got an urgent message from the Agrii about travel plans, they were headed to space to fight a war. So when Ga Re said far, Tony was not expecting to be standing at the train tracks, staring at the vehicle with some bewilderment. It hadn't been that long since the last time Tony had come this way, and it hadn't looked to him like this station was going to be in service for a good, long time at that point. Even now, as he looked down the tracks to where they disappeared into the woods, he wouldn't confidently say they looked serviceable. Even if the train itself had the juice, it very much looked like a rusty bolt and warped metal was its first and last destination.
That was a problem to solve when they got to it. Tony wasn't the only one ready to find out what was going to happen, and he glanced around the platform to the few people who had dropped what they were doing to come see Ga Re's train with a faint, wry smile, before turning back toward the city to watch for Jon with a flurry of encouraging text messages to spur him on. They had plenty of time already to hang around Temba, it was time to go forward.
The train itself was a sleek tube, like a subway car, lined with seats on the inside that weren't particularly comfortable or inviting. It wasn't giving a long-distance impression, without much room for luggage or travel comforts that a long-haul vehicle might. It didn't even appear to have any kind of control system that Tony could find after some frustrated investigation; just walls and windows and a button to open and close the door, that swished enough times to be irritating before Tony fully gave up on it. He was about ready to apologize for not solving the go puzzle when the car gave a rattle and lurched forward of its own volition, starting its slow roll toward the woods. From there, while Tony bounded for the window to watch Temba disappear behind the foliage, the train rapidly picked up speed, until the leaves were whipping by and then they were suddenly plunged into darkness.
An hour, when you don't know when its going to end or where you are even going, is an incredibly long time.
Abruptly, somewhere deep in that dark tunnel, Tony could feel a snap at the back of his neck, a tingle that numbed the base of his skull enough to touch it gingerly as he realized with a pitch of dread that he couldn't reach out to the network anymore. He reached for Jon's hand first, waiting for a steady breath as he stared distantly out at that endless darkness before he stood to get the rest of the car's attention. With his communication device in hand, he announced, "We've been bricked."
It was possible that Tony should have better prepared for this. It was possible that he should have been ready for the rapidly mounting anxiety as the train burst back out into the sunlight, lashed from all sides once again by the dense, untamed growth of the abandoned planet. And he should have been thoroughly anticipating stepping down from the train as it sighed into the strangely familiar station, and looking back over his shoulder with the realization that they had no control interface, and no way to contact anyone back in Temba.
Were they stuck here now?
b. Transport Station [For Bucky, but you're welcome to join!]
If they were meant to be here for the foreseeable future, the immediate experience wasn't what Tony would call hospitable. He never experienced Temba as it was when the He Rows first arrived, only coming to know it well after some progress had been made and there was clean, running water, and he hadn't realized how thankful he was for that small mercy until he disembarked the train in this new abandoned city. If he didn't have the map to orient himself and assure him that this place was a strange mirror of Temba, he wasn't sure how quickly he would have recognized the shape of the transport station obscured as it was under the tangle of vines and enthusiastic bushes. It took Tony some work to pick his way out of the snarl of it, thorns managing to catch in the seams of his heavy, metal boots and snagging where they met the nanoweb on his thighs, to turn and take in the structure as a whole, looking for a place to start. Where Temba could be shockingly quiet, here Tony could hear a whole cacophony of life calling and chattering high up in the branches of the expansive trees. The air itself smelled sweet with the overripe rot of lush fruit that hung heavily everywhere Tony looked, and littered the ground where more plants yet would grow. Tony wrinkled his nose and planted his hands on his hips. The train wasn't broken, that much was clear. There had to have been a way to make it run.
no subject
Some people are born fighters. She can see some of that in Jon. He doesn't strike her as a push over.
"Would you like to stick together in this new city?" she offers. "We both intend to see the library after all. We can go together. Unless you have other plans?"
no subject
But then he shrugs and shakes his head, casting these thoughts aside. "We will have to see whether there even is a library in that city. For now we can expect a train station. This city we are headed to might be noticeably smaller than Temba. Maybe Temba is the town the Agrii went to for education, but... I wouldn't mind an different set of experience and knowledge should we find something. Though I will also do some exploring on my own." Or with Tony, if he's lucky.
no subject
The Darkness only won when they stopped fighting. Ikora believed that.
"Most cities are built the same way. If ours has a library, chances are this one will as well." She feels her logic is sound. The chances of no library feel slim. Unless this other town is built more towards being a military complex. Then it may not have a library but it would have records. Ikora will take any information she can find.
"I'm certain Cayde will pull me away to explore something with him." Which would let Jon explore by himself.
CW for..... nightmare stuffs including hospital nightmare stuff
"A different Eris was clinging to a ladder. A ladder she has been climbing for what has felt like weeks, months perhaps. Then the ladder had stopped and she could climb no further. Neither could she climb back down, since the rest of the ladder had disappeared. So she clung to what ladder she had. She knew she could let herself fall, she had done so before, several times. She would fall a literally unmeasurable amount of time before hitting the ground and not dying. But once the pain had faded, she would find herself on that ladder again, climbing..."
He falls silent for a moment, then shrugs. "You may not believe me and your experience may differ, but I have seen the suffering of an entire planet. Every single person on it trapped, wishing for nothing more than their torment to end."
no subject
"I haven't seen suffering on a planetary scale," she admitted, "But I know it exists. There's a race called the Hive. I believe I've mentioned them to you. The more suffering and pain they cause, the stronger they become. Thrall, to Acolyte, to Knight. The only different is how much pain they've fed on. And they will cause it on a planetary scale to grow their armies."
"They would get along with that entity you mentioned, I imagine. And yet... every planet they've devoured people have fought back. It took a very long time and a lot of suffering before the Hive snuffed out the spirit there." Ikora knew the Darkness. It echoed in her mind every second of the day and haunted her sleep. She had an intimate relationship with Darkness and knew the spirit was stronger. At her heart, she was an optimist.
She shrugged. "But we could argue metaphysical solipsism or other subjective idealisms for this whole train ride I imagine."
no subject
"Ever since meeting all these people I met here, learned their stories and about their worlds I... I have been wondering if my Earth would have stood a better chance had they faced a truly external thread. The Fears, in the end, are entities that came into existence and evolved because living beings feared things and the things they feared changed over time. Nothing truly came from the outside. The monsters ending up torturing people and the people being tortured in the end all were human. Every avatar trying to summon their respective patron used to be human. In the end, we created our own suffering and it only could escalate the way it did because it happened slowly. Subtly. In ways that appeared perfectly mundane. A door that should be there appearing in different places, a crate that feels a little too warm to the touch than it should, a circus that gives you the odd sensation that something isn't right..."
He casts a somewhat apologetic smile up at Ikora. "I'm aware this all sounds very pedestrian. But in the end.... That's why it still worries me. I know the Fears are still out there and I know they are again lingering and bidding their time because I failed to end them. Because the only spirit left on my Earth after I destroyed it was not focused on fighting the Fears, but to make them someone else's problem instead." Plain self preservation. Jon may not be a brave person himself, but he didn't agree with that decision and still feels guilty for how it played out. Because now more people will suffer. Because of him.
no subject
That was why fighting it was so important. Why there had to be a spark of fight, of spirit no matter what. The Darkness may reach a place first but the Light would always push it back.
"The Traveler, which gave us the Light, abandoned many races before it reached my Earth. It left them to their ruin. We know this about it because of the Fallen, the Eliksni. It left them to the destruction of their planet." Ikora spoke of this like she was lecturing students. She had accepted the flaws of the Traveler a long time ago. "It is a great hero to us and saved us, but it doomed others. Just like you have. We are all Light and Dark. We all make choices we are not proud of. I'm sorry, Jon, you're not special in that way."
He could feel guilty, if he liked, but she didn't judge him as harshly as some others might. Did she think he should have found another way? Yes, absolutely. But she knew that great people made great mistakes. He was still, in many ways, human.
no subject
Jon's tone settles into a tight expression on his face and he looks down before him. "I dare hope that being here allows me to find a way to track them down and destroy them. I know a lot of you are much more knowledgeable in traversing the multiverse, have the technology or wield powerful magic to make it happen and I- I will need that help." Because she is right. He isn't special. Just extremely unlucky and at least in certain ways rather stubborn.
no subject
"If there is a way I can help, I will." She inclined her head towards him. "Though, I won't help you end a whole world. We're meant to save places and people, not end them."
He was right, though. This was an opportunity for them to help each other. They had gone to an old galaxy of some people. They could visit his world. They could visit hers. There was a chance to change things.
no subject
Yes, it was a harsh plan, but an effective one.
"I... I don't believe that particular plan would work on a different world anyway. Not without an apocalypse. It set rather specific rules, bent and altered the laws of physics and time in certain ways... But- Thank you. I appreciate it."