revivalproject | One Guardian & Ghost in Not-Temba

WHO: Ikora Rey & OTA
WHERE: Not-Temba
WHAT: Exploring the City
WHEN: During the event
WARNINGS: None yet. Will update if necessary.

I. The Library

It was very disappointing to walk among the empty shelves and empty buildings of the library. Ophiuchus floated a few feet ahead of her, scanning things here and there but it didn't even seem like there were electronic records hidden away to resurrect with power.

But that left a mystery and Ikora did enjoy a mystery. Why have a library and what appeared to be a university with no written material? There appeared to be nothing to study which did lead to some interesting questions.

What did they teach? How did they teach it? She had suggested the idea of psychic communication to Jon on the train but the more she and Ophiuchus wander the more it seemed possible. Of course, there was no evidence of that either.

There was emptiness and ruin.

Ikora stopped in a well preserved lecture hall, hands folded behind her back as she studied the room. If only walls could talk perhaps then she could get some answers to how they taught.

II. The Quarry

Ikora stood on the edge of the quarry and considered the long, winding path down to the bottom. It would take hours to walk down there.

"Ikora..." Ophiuchus said with a note of warning. "Don't."

"It'll be quicker," she said with a little smile and a glance over to her ghost floating by her shoulder. "And I will go down in stages. Not at once."

She liked adventure and exploring but was well past her days of dying on purpose to see what was beyond the veil of death. There might be answers to how and why everything here was carved stone at the bottom as Earth quarries kept machines and tools where they were mining out. It might also have some sort of deadly threat at the bottom but she felt stronger with the Light after practicing and meditating regularly.

"Well, at least you've thought this through," he said dryly. Then he sighed, resigned to his Guardian's choice of getting down.

Ikora walked a few steps back, took a deep breath, and then ran forward for a flying leap off the edge. And she started to fall, faster and faster until she started to near the first winding path down. She called on the light and slowed. She kept slowing and slowing, gliding through the air until her foot touched down and she landed with just a slight puff of dust.

III. Wildcard

Want something else? Simply jump in!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ophiuchus was clearly a bit confused by all this talk about dolphin language and if it would prove useful or not. He floated back to Ikora because while the kid wasn't dangerous he was strange.

"He's been haunting me for quite a long time," she said with absolutely seriousness. It would be hard to tell if she was kidding about that or not. Things were complicated between her and her ghost.

"I traveled some but it has been awhile since I left Earth. I was on the moon recently." It hadn't been a very pleasant vacation. "Saturn is the planet with rings. Jupiter has a lot of moons."

He tries his best to pass off as an average person but there were many things about the human's world that Alberto found curious and odd. The cultural differences made themselves known the longer he spots to people (or to Ghosts, in this case).

Alberto huffed lightly in amusement at Ikora's reply because it did sound like a small joke to him, the same kind he would use with Giulia, trying to tease and annoy her but without malice behind the words.

"You were on the Big Fi---The moon? Luca would have loved to see that! What was it like? It's still shiny and white up close? Oh right, then it's Saturn the one he likes best."

"It's very grey, actually." Ikora folded her hands behind her back, amused by the child's curiosity. He had also been about to say something and stopped himself. He was hiding something, clearly.

At the moment, it didn't seem dangerous.

"And in my world, we've somewhat settled it. There are also many tunnels underneath it," she explained. "I wouldn't call the surface shiny up close but the buildings up there are."

"Really? Maybe it's dusty..." It looks very shiny in the sky, how odd that it would be all gray when you see it in person. But it's so impressive that Ikora has been there, he doesn't know anybody back in Portorosso who could step on the moon. Or anybody in the whole world who could do that.

And yeah he was hiding a few things, none dangerous to her, but that time Alberto backtracked before because he had to remind himself that the shiny orb in the sky was a Moon, and not a really Big Fish. He still liked his version better, even if Luca corrected him about the stars.

He eyes went wide at the mentions of buildings so high up, and he looks briefly at the sky.

"That's incredible. Do you have buildings on the sun too?"

She motioned for Alberto to follow her as she started walking. Ikora didn't mind if the small child follow her while she continued exploring. It seemed like he was eager to explore as well.

"At one point, we lived on every planet possible in the solar system. We never lived on the sun but we lived on Mercury, the planet closest to the sun." That was a long distant past for her. No one but Osiris' followers lived on Mercury now and they had heavily shielded buildings.

"We live mostly on Earth now but we travel between planets in ships. Smaller than the ones in the hangars."

The boy seemed pleasantly surprised that she wanted him to tag along, and quickly fell into step with Ikora. Exploring around with a Warlock is bound to be interesting, no doubt, and given how she has the same jumping skills Cayde showed Alberto the first time they met, moving around the quarry shouldn't be a problem.

"Wow, talk about love for traveling. You mentioned shiny buildings, so I guess those planets are not like Agra? All ruined and abandoned? Were there humans in them before you visited? Or it was all aliens, like the Agrii?"

Will the questions ever cease? Most likely not. Not as far as Ikora and her ghost keep being interesting. So, probably never. Unlike Luca, Alberto at least asked calmly and waited for an answer without jumping around.

"I think I'd miss Earth if I spent a long time away from it, too. I've been here only a couple of weeks and I already miss it. Well, I miss the people, more likely. You and Cayde...have you know each other for long?"

Ikora wasn't going to leave him to wander on his own. Alberto might get hurt on his own even though he seemed very comfortable alone.

"Many of them are ruins, actually. There was a great catastrophe in my world. We call it the Collapse. We don't live anywhere but Earth now. We only visit other planets."

There were a few who lived elsewhere. Brother Vance on Mercury and the few Vanguard outposts but the majority of humanity and its allies lived on Earth. Civilians didn't live off planet.

"Cayde and I have known each other for a few hundred years now." It was a long time but Guardians were long lived. Practically speaking, they were immortal.

He was comfortable on his own, but getting hurt was always an unpleasant possibility, more so here where strange creatures he had never seen before roamed the city. Alberto might not say it with those words, but he really appreciated having company.

"Oh...that's terrible, I'm sorry." With that name, whatever happened in Ikora's world must really have been awful. He didn't want to pry too much, lest he made her sad or upset. "But there's no place like home, eh?"

Alberto almost tripped on a rock at that last bit, but managed to catch himself at the last second, arms flailing.

"That long? You must be the best of friends! And know everything about each other. You're very lucky that he's here then."

If the kid's voice was anything to go by, he was missing someone badly. Rather than keep thinking about how much he wished Luca was here with them, Alberto looked around and pointed towards a group of really strange debris a few feet from them.

"All the rocks here looks wrong, like they're melted together. That's not normal, right?"

"Home can be many places and with many people. I believe we'll learn to make a home here just like we did after the Collapse and like everyone did in Temba," she said with confidence.

Ikora reached out to help steady Alberto, though he caught himself rather well. "Cayde and I know each other very well but I don't know all of his secrets. He doesn't know all of mine. We trust each other."

She missed him back home though. Spending time with him here made all that time without him around the Tower feel longer and lonelier than before. "It's a very strange way to mine a quarry to melt it."

One Guardian & Ghost in Not-Temba

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oops sorry, I didn't get this notif

No worries, they've all been butts lately.

/for real, ugh. It's an ongoing issue that DW can't fix properly

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