Not Temba But Pretty Close

[doubled_speed]

WHO: Tommmy Shepherd and People
WHERE: Not-Temba Agricultural Center, Quarry, Forest
WHAT: Explorations and Investigations, Maybe Even a Little Getting saved.
WHEN: First day to end of July
WARNINGS: Possible violence, Possible arguments with his brother, definite flirting with Kyle, fear of dogs and reactions caused by this.

1. Plants for the Plant Guy OTA
Tommy had been working the greenhouse in Temba since about day two or three. Every planet they went to he tried to find more food options. The few times he used the replicator, it was always to make things that would make the work easier, or allow him to manage plants out of the glass encased walls of the agricultural center in Temba. While he'd started the work because of an awareness that they needed food, he'd kept at it over a growing love for the work. So really, was it any surprise that Tommy was here?

The first day in Not-Temba he had raced off of the first train, eager to see if there was something like this, and his first day would be filled with Tommy slowly moving through the wildly overgrown greenhouse. No work yet, just Tommy moving slowly through the space, hands reaching out to touch overgrown tangles here, runners for beans there, and always pausing to marvel over the towering fruit trees that dominated this space in a way that even the Temba greenhouse might envy.

"This place is beautiful," he found himself saying as he moved through the different areas of the green house.

Starting from the second day on Tommy moved through the area with purpose. He'd brought a collection of pots and hand trowels and the like. A lot of these he left in the entrance with a sign

Tommy's gone exploring for plants. Grab a pot and join me up on level three if you're interested. Just harvesting? Check the fruit trees on five, I think they're mangos.

Any who might go seeking him out would find Tommy elbow deep in a bed of what looked like short grasses with feathery tops, trying to dig some out with his fingers. Or maybe they might find him further along in two, frowning as he tried to juggle a pot filled with dirt, a watering can, and a pungent smelling vine that seemed to actively be trying to curl around him.

"Will you please stop growing on me? I'm trying to get you to a new home!"

[OOC: Please also feel free to find Tommy anywhere else in the greenhouse, or your character somewhere for him to stumble over]


2. Quarry Queries: Line One OTA
There was a lot of the city to be seen. And, not just the agricultural center. Just north of it, back in Temba, there would be the massive hole down into the mines, something Tommy had never wanted to look at because fuck that mine was a massive hole. But here there was a serious difference. Tommy moved to the top edge of it, frowning. At last he shifted, sitting on the edge of the quarry rim, looking at the stone scooped out of this area.

"This is wrong," he said, frowning as he looked at the stone. He didn't know why it was, it just... It felt wrong. "Aren't quarries supposed to be away from where people live? Don't they get noisy or some shit?"


3. Forest Giant Closed to Ronan
There are adventures to be had here. Tommy definitely intended to have them. And, given his experience with the Agriculture database, his entire attempt to explore was really having a lot to do with plants. In this case the forest. There was something... familiar. No, not really familiar, but it still felt interesting. As he moved through the area he found himself pausing when he caught sight of a tree that was a bit pushed over.

"Shit, what did that?" Tommy found himself saying aloud, his hand settling on the tree trunk. The one with gouges worn into it.


4. Brother Where Art Thou? Closed to Billy
See, the problem with being Tommy and exploring places was that, well, trouble was BOUND to happen. sooner or later. This, apparently, was the sooner. Or was it later? Honestly, it didn't matter. What mattered in this moment was that there was absolutely a bit of a problem now, and one that Tommy hadn't been able to help.

The problem? Tommy had caught sight of the brother, and still upset he'd tried to avoid Billy.

Super speed and unstable rubble didn't go together well. Tommy tried to duck behind a wall. Too much speed, too little structural stability, or something else. Either way even he didn't have to react before an unstable wall was coming down over him, pinning Tommy down under rubble. And shit, that was not good. He immediately started to vibrate to get loose. Except... No. Tommy cried out in pain as a large piece of stone started to press down on his leg.


[OOC: More custom starters can be made if anyone wants, just PM me here for easiest talk, or hit me up on discord or plurk.]

Comments

Quarry

[fatedsacrifice]

Noctis hadn't worried about being out here. He'd been in stranger places like the Mines back home and had dealt with far worse things like mindflayers which made him sick. Then there were those ever present Iron Giants that popped up everywhere.

Truthfully there seemed to be no end to the enemies back home and he figured they'd been lucky up to this point to not have encountered anything but rocks.

"Quarries usually are, but nothing about this place has seemed right." The king dusted the gloves on his hands off against each other and then they went on his hips as he looked around. Coming back from the dead was a thing in itself, and investigating the quarry seemed to be something out of a dream.

"We're going to need to head down there if we want to find anything else out though." Fortunately they weren't being chased by Niflheim troops overhead or something silly like that.

[doubled_speed]

"Oh, you're so wise in the ways of the world now, Nocty?" Tommy asked. "You'll have to enlighten me as to what's seemed wrong. For now... Catch up?"

With that Tommy pushed off the edge and fell into the quarry. Fell far. He landed easily on one of the lower levels, like he hadn't been just been many tens of feet higher up moments before. He didn't fall faster than other people, but he sure took the land without having to roll without being in any pain.

"There's a down ramp over that way!" Tommy shouted, pointing toward a path down into the place. Should take Noctis a while to get down there, right?

[fatedsacrifice]

Noctis wasn't sure what to do with these nicknames. First one was Fishy and that was cute.

But..Nocty? Really?

As Tommy moved, Noctis moved to watch the other land on his feet like he imagined a cat would. Looking at the place the other mentioned, Noct nodded. And then he materialized his father's sword and sent it flying through the air. It landed on the sand not too far from where Tommy was and Noct appeared next to it not a moment later.

That didn't feel too bad to do actually. So he dismissed it and nodded. "Ready when you are."

[doubled_speed]

Yeah, Noctis, you'll have to adjust to nicknames. At least he hasn't called you Salt and Pepper or something.

Still, he wasn't expecting a sword to think into the ground not far from him, or from Noct to appear moments after. What?

"Dude, what just happened?"

Sap for the Sap Lord!

[holtfinder]

At some point when Tommy's on the third floor, working on his transplants, he'll hear someone else bumbling around the plantlife. No, two someone elses, one on four paws instead of two feet. Really, Moonshade's not that loud, it's the wolf who's wandering everywhere and sniffling and snuffling at everything.

For her own part, Moonshade was never interested in the cultivation of plants before arriving here. She's a hunter, not a gatherer, really. But having the Agriculture datapoint has made her more thoughtful about secondary and tertiary uses for these plants.

[doubled_speed]

Tommy wasn't all that bothered by someone coming to help him. He'd left the sign after all. What he wasn't expecting, while struggling with the vine and not wanting to hurt it, was a wolf coming around the corner.

The speedster had a lot of time to process the thing was a wolf. This is important because he had time to process it and didn't. He just saw a large, dog-like creature, and yelped. The yelp was immediately followed by motion, because that's just how phobias tended to work.

One second Tommy saw a wolf. The next the young man was literally up the nearest tree and cursing as he tried to keep the vine from tying him to it.

"Oh fuck today," he grumbled.

[holtfinder]

Meanwhile, the wolf is followed by woman-in-miniature, who notices the human (...ish) scrambling up the tree. "Are you alright up there?" Even calling out, the tone of her voice is mild, gentle, as she waves up at him.

[doubled_speed]

Hey, he's more human than she is. The ish is just rude.

"Oh, you know. All normal. Giant dog, angry vine, big tree. That's just what life is about," Tommy said.

And he was getting annoyed with said vine. Fine, no more gentle guy. He glared at the vines and just pulled his arms apart quick and hard. Maybe he wasn't properly 'super strong' but he was still way stronger than most humans especially his size, so breaking free of the vines was fine.

Plant Bois

[kyley_b]

If you were going to be friends with Tommy, you had to get used to him just rushing off. Between the actual physical time Kyle had in Temba as his friend, and then the memory of much longer in the Billyverse, he was pretty used to being left in the dust so it didn't bother him. Billy would have had more than enough time to do a preliminary exploration of the Agricultural Centre by the time Kyle managed to walk there.

It was a surprise to find Billy moving at a human pace inside.

"Yeah, really pretty," Kyle agreed as he walked down the natural aisle between fruit trees. He grinned at Tommy. "The trees are nice, too."

It's okay, I know you meant Tommy

[doubled_speed]

Kyle was there. Tommy grinned, moving to his boyfriend and throwing an arm over his shoulder.

"Check this out, dude, look at all the trees. Climbing for fucking DAYS!" he laughed, trying to guide Kyle forward. "I think I found a mango, sorta kinda."

oh my GAWD wowwwwwwwwww WOW me

[kyley_b]

"Sortakinda is good," Kyle said, being herded along. "Probably not wise to just go biting into them, mind you."

The trees really were vast, towering high above them. But most of them looked pretty climbable. Still...

"We should look for a ladder. You see anything else on your first run through? Nothing dangerous I'm guessing."

Don't cheat on him with his brother, bro

[doubled_speed]

"I mean, I don't need a ladder. I can just run up the thing. But I haven't run through yet. I've been strolling so far."

He had to appreciate the space in it's natural state.

Brother Where Art Thou?

[wearingthestars]

Billy had barely had time to process that he might have seen Tommy when the wall came tumbling down over the blur that was probably his brother- all before he could begin to react.

Billy swore, half running, half flying over, muttering a frantic spell under his breath as he did, landing and guiding the rubble up off of Tommy, the wall reforming like time had been rewound.

"Stay still-" Billy was instructing before Tommy could get it in his mind to try and run off again, brow creased with worry as he crouched by his brother's side, "Let me look-"

[doubled_speed]

Well, good thing his brother was good at seeing him and had magic. But once the rubble was back up, Tommy couldn't even move. So, you know, perfectly fine that he was told to stay still.

He reached for his leg, whining from the pain.

"Shit, it's..."

Well, he doesn't need to say it's bleeding. Because that's obvious. A big cut. Fuck, he's an idiot.

"Fucking. Hate. Rubble."

[wearingthestars]

"I know-" Billy tried to sooth, brow creased with concentration. He tried to keep a calm look on his face, like seeing all that blood didn't send him instant panic.

He magicked some scissors to help him open up Tommy's pant leg and see what they were dealing with. It didn't look good. "How's your head?" he checked, trying to keep Tommy talking as he conjured up a towel, pressing it firmly against the wound to try and stop the bleeding. "Anywhere else get hit this bad?"

[doubled_speed]

"I liked those pants," Tommy noted, but he was definitely hurting over all of this. The pain was enough that he was already sweating from the stress of it.

"No, my... My leg is the worse. B, you've gotta fix it."

He can't help the momentary panic in his voice.

Plants~

[hadthehighground]

While he doesn’t have the agriculture data point, despite thinking about it, Obi-Wan is still curious about the plants. Which is what finds him exploring the greenhouse one day after doing plenty of scouring around other locations in Not-Temba.

Of course he comes across Tommy’s sign. Deciding to seek out the young man he makes his way up the levels until he finally spots him diligently at work.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find you here. Could you use a hand?”

Re: Plants~

[doubled_speed]

"Where else would I have been?" Tommy asked. FOr now he was working with the grass that he'd determined had seeds good for oil. He shifted his clump into a pot and considered Obi-Wan.

"I've been managing plants since I got to this world. You any good at transplants? I need help getting up a bubble-olive tree."

[hadthehighground]

“Bubble-olive tree?” That’s a peculiar name if he ever heard one. But despite that the Jedi walks closer and rolls up his sleeves.

“I think I can manage. The AgriCorps taught me a few things while I was there.” Even if it had been brief and he had been less than enthusiastic.

Forest Giant! ...very late.

[beochaoineadh]

Ronan was definitely looking for adventure, but he was also-- a little bit lost. He'd gotten distracted and wandered off and next thing he knew he'd turned around and Kavinsky had been nowhere to be seen. So in theory: he's exploring. In truth: he's looking for a dark-haired teen while trying to look like he isn't actually bothered by it or anything. This is fine.

At this exact moment he's picking his way through the trees carefully when he hears a familiar voice and jogs towards it. It's not the person he's looking for, but a familiar face is better than nothing, anyway. "Tommy?" Killing one of his horrors put him pretty firmly in the good people category, so he's pretty casual about it.

He wandered over to the fallen tree trunk, frowning a little as he noted the gouges, reaching out to touch fingertips against the edges. "Uh... something angry?"

[doubled_speed]

Oh, cool, it's the dude that got attacked. That doesn't bode well for what might happen. Well, no reason to borrow trouble.

"Hopefully something angry that is really far away from us, right?"

Don't be a jinx, man. Or do, Tommy will have to figure it out if it goes wrong.

"You really out here wandering all on your own?"

[beochaoineadh]

Ronan absolutely does tend to manifest trouble, so Tommy definitely isn't wrong about there being a certain sort of layer to the teen popping up in what was already a questionable display. He laughs at the question, though, and manages to look hopeful to that point.

"Yeah, for sure. Angry on the total other side of the forest, away from us."

He's trying not to jinx them. Results still t-b-d.

He shrugs his shoulders at the question. "Not to begin with. I'm sort of looking for my--" There's an awkward sort of pause there, a slight fluster like he doesn't quite know what word to fill the blank with. "Friend? We went to the same school together before this place. I guess I sort of wandered off, and then I couldn't find him."

Yes, friend. The sort of friend you kiss. He's still figuring out what to feel about the other boy.

1. Plants for the Plant Guy

[heeeyadora]

Catra didn't bolt off for Not-Temba straight away surprisingly, it was a few days before she finally got around to exploring the city. And while she more or less stayed out of the Temba greenhouse, she found herself wandering curiously around this one. So much plant life. It wasn't really a thing in the Fright Zone, she still wasn't really sure how she felt about it.

Her nose wrinkled at the strange smell as she happened upon Tommy wrestling with the vine.

"Maybe it doesn't want to go."

Re: 1. Plants for the Plant Guy

[doubled_speed]

Does it smell strange? Tommy doesnt' even know. His nose isn't as sensitive. But he's definitely not WINNING the fight right now.

"But I want it to go," he protested. Oh wait, there's Catra. Hey there. "Help?"

[heeeyadora]

Oh no. She shook her head, taking a step back and eyeing the plant warily.

"I'm not touching that," she protested. The thing was moving. Plants weren't supposed to move unless certain Princesses were controlling them.