revivalproject | 06 | In every building, every street sign

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06 | In every building, every street sign

WHO: the Soldier (

sinistral) and you
WHERE: Sh'Ka
WHAT: sh'kananigans
WHEN: throughout December; no particular timing
WARNINGS: n/a; will update if that changes

NETWORK
→ Video;

The video opens to show one of the small marsupials that seem common in Sh'Ka. This particular specimen has a scrap of green fabric around its neck and is eating what appears to be half of a ration bar.

The Soldier's voice narrates the scene: "if anyone has misplaced this creature, respond and I will return it to your keeping."

The video ends after that short message.

SH'KA
→ Agriculture Building;

The Soldier does not possess a green thumb, and has no interest in touching the data point that would give him knowledge of the planet's botanicals. But he does recognize that falling temperatures and ice accumulation can harm plant life — and that said plant life could provide needed sustenance. As such he walks steadily through the building, keeping close to the outer walls and moving slowly to both listen and feel for drafts.

Every now and then he stops to update a crude map he's made of the floorplan, to track his progress in his examinations. Around the middle of the day he stops for longer, sitting with his back against a wall and writing in the journal while eating a simple meal.

→ Outdoors;

When not engaged in exploration of the agriculture building, the Soldier moves about the wintry streets. He keeps to the shadows of the landscape where possible, using buildings and trees for cover. Now and then he crouches to examine the remnants of tracks where the snow is soft enough to take an imprint, but never seems happy with the little information he can glean from the marks.

While sneaking up on a prowling assassin isn't impossible, it would probably be smart to announce one's presence before approaching too closely.

ELSEWHERE
→ Wildcard;

Bring your own adventure. Feel free to hit me up via PM or at

sometimesamuse for plotting if needed. I default to prose but am happy to match brackets if it's your preferred format.

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Poe continues to ferry people back and forth between Temba and Sh'Ka, even as the seasons shifts. He takes time while he's there to explore, becoming more familiar with the city with each visit.

He's about ready to head back to the ship and warm up when he notices BB-8 isn't by his side.

Instead- the droid is stalking after the Soldier, trying his best to be stealthy. Which works well enough until a suddenly icy patch on a hill has him sliding past the Soldier, screaming as he tumbles comically into a snow drift. It takes him a moment to right himself, shaking his head plate to clear the snow and looking up at the man and giving a chirp!

Droids have taken a bit to get used to, but between BB-8 and BD-1, the Soldier has become less wary about them. He still isn't sure where they fall in the realm of personhood — they certainly seem to have their own personalities — but he isn't as bothered by them now as he used to be. He even expects them now and then, especially when Cal or Poe are around.

That being said, he hadn't anticipated a droid to go screaming by, sliding on ice and snow and general winter mess. The Soldier straightens up, the noise loud enough to no doubt alert anything that might have been in the area, and watches as the droid extracts itself from the snowbank. Then he blinks when it chirps at him, not expecting the acknowledgment.

"Are you undamaged?" he asks finally, not even sure if he'd understand any response the unit could give.

The droid's head tilts a little, seeming to do a self assessment before nodding his head plate and beeping an affirmative string of binary. He attempts to roll back up the incline, but the slick sends him sliding back down, even when he tries a rolling charge.

He brandishes is arc welder at the slippery surface with an annoyed chirp, and warbles something inquisitive at the Soldier.

He probably should consider it weird, how much personality the little unit had. That train of thought ran down a slippery slope however, one best avoided. He doesn't really want to consider the idea of personhood and what — or who — qualifies. Better instead to watch the droid's attempts to make its way back up the slope.

There can be a metaphor in those unsuccessful attempts too, if he really wants to find one. The Soldier decides that he doesn't.

"I'm going to have to rescue you, aren't I?" Well, he's done worse. And to that end he starts making his way down the slope. At least he can admire the attitude; he'd also turn a heat source on the landscape if he thought it would help.

Soldier isn’t the only one concerned about the plants. It wasn’t as often that Tommy was making his way to Sh’Ka these days. With hands down at the diner he had a lot more work to do there, but sometimes you had to get your ass over for harvests and waste the time on the train whether you wanted it or not.

What Tommy hadn’t been expecting was to be making his way through with one of his harvest baskets and seeing, well, a Scruffy.

He paused, staring at the man briefly, his eyes flashing over that arm so he could confirm which one it was.

“Yo, Frosty, what you doing here?”

With all the snow it's only obvious that it will be used for ammunition sooner or later. And while a better target could have been chosen, one can't say that the Hunter isn't accustomed to living on the edge. He'd seen the Soldier from afar and decided to make a game out of his apparent tracking. You aren't a Hunter if you don't recognize the signs of a tracker in action, after all.

Cayde is cheating, however, even if he wouldn't say he was. Obviously the clearest thing to do is to not leave tracks in places where they can be found. Also don't let your target know that they're a target. So while there are traces of footprints on occasion, they end up vanishing abruptly after leading nowhere. Hunters don't necessarily fly, but they're notorious jumpers and can leap twice again in midair to gain distance. It might be a long way around for a short prank, but the Exo is dedicated, and after hopefully leaving the Soldier pondering over another pointless set of tracks, he's run across a roof and dropped down the other side just to circle about to come around from the man's blindside, snow scooped and packed, readied...

And launched!

"Buddy?" In the distance Poe calls for BB-8, and the droid whistles, trying again to for his way up through the snow.

He nods at the Soldier and warbles mournfully.

The Soldier sighed to himself. The droid's body shape doesn't lend itself to ascending icy hills, that much is obvious. As the Soldier gets closer he can see that the only problem seems to be the incline combined with the ice. He had feared some damage that the little unit tried hiding; it is good to find that's not the case.

Coming within arm's reach, he considers the round body. Round makes rolling easy, obviously, but also presents a clear lack of handhold. Well, maybe it's best if he lets it solve that particular problem and to that end he holds out his flesh-and-blood hand.

"Can you hold onto me?" If not, he'll just have to figure out something else.

BB-8 considered a moment, headplate tilting as he cycled through several options in his tool bay before shooing out a grappling line to wrap around the extended hand. He gave a questioning chirp, unsure if this was all right.

Good thing the Soldier wears gloves on a regular basis, a thick leather-and-kevlar combination like the rest of his tactical gear. It means that he can handle the cable wrapping around his hand with only minimal discomfort. And with the droid so secured he starts up the icy slope, in the direction of the earlier call.

"You stop me if something doesn't feel right," he tells the mechanical unit. Otherwise he'll just keep walking steadily up the slope until they reach more stable ground.

He had not been unaware of another person entering the building, but considering that his self-appointed task had nothing to do with harvesting anything, the Soldier hadn't bothered to make his presence immediately known. After all, he had work to do, the other person likely had work to do, they could go about their respective tasks. But with the greeting — such as it is — he straightens from his crouch, turning to face Tommy head on.

"Checking the walls," he answers after a long moment of consideration. "Structural damage could be detrimental to the plants."

There's nothing more frustrating when trying to track an unknown being, than for additional tracks to appear and disappear. And for those additional tracks to confuse the evidence of what the unknown being might possibly be. But the Soldier is determined, and not easily dissuaded by frivolous distractions.

More to his loss, that last fact, because the considerations of frivolous distractions might have led him to the possibility of snowballs launched in his direction. As it is he has hardly any warning before the missile hits, cold and wet and with the sting of a firm pack.

He looks around until he finally spots Cayde. Unimpressed describes both the look on his face and the intonation in his voice. "Enjoying yourself?"

"Iiiimmensely!" Cayde pipes, grinning from where he stands by the corner of the wall, tossing another readied snowball up and down in his hand. He's been working out the reaction times of his arm since the repair, but it's hard to really tell if there's any lingering lag from the soldered connections in casual activities. Of course he'd consider this casual.

"You looked like you could use a break. You're working too hard."

That… honestly hadn’t been what Tommy was expecting to hear. Granted he’d had no idea as to what the Soldier could be up to at all so this really was that impressive of a bit of news to hear about.

“How… would you check something like that?”

Honestly the Soldier was as surprised as anyone else by his own caring. He passed it off as practicality.

To Tommy though he just shrugged. "Looking for cracks in the walls. Feeling for drafts." Maybe someone with better knowledge of building construction would have better methods, but he could only do what his instincts told him might help.

Well, neither of them were people who knew that stuff and Tommy didn't know anyone who could do that for him.

"Oh man, this would be bad. Cold air would hurt a lot of these. Uh, I guess I should add that to my normal work."

"If you think it necessary." He could hardly tell another person what to do with his free time; that was Tommy's choice. Very probably the Soldier wasn't even the first to think of this chore. But as most people seemed to stay in Temba and not here, he thought he'd take the opportunity to attempt the task himself when there building seemed empty.

Here with another person though he just felt out of place. How did one socialize without feeling exhausted by the interaction? He didn't know.

The Soldier has always considered Cayde strange. He respects the man's skills, but doesn't understand his attitude. It's seemingly so far outside what he himself can be that interactions always feel awkward to him.

"I am not," he replies, keeping an eye on that next snowball. "There have been strange tracks in the streets here. I do not trust that it is not a predator." And not everyone who was brought here is combat ready all the time.

The Hunter shrugs a little before nodding. "Always a possibility, I'll grant that. But then it's winter so food's probably scarce, and that'll always make even the shy a little bolder."

Seemingly oblivious to the Soldier's wariness in his still being armed with a snowball, Cayde bounds over closer to take a closer look at the tracks the man had been following. "Well at least they're not from the big pig-bunny things. Oh-ho, you don't wanna run into those when they're having a bad day."

"I do. I have to care for the plants, right? I help make sure we eat," Tommy sighed, rubbing the back of his head.

Still...

"If you're willing to do it regularly, that's no skin off my back."

"I don't presume to know what you consider your priorities." Either self-assigned or otherwise, for the community or for personal gain. The Soldier didn't take much advantage of the community resources as a whole, just given his personal discomfort with regard to community events. He didn't feel comfortable, so he took care of his own needs. Self sufficiency remained important to him.

As such, Tommy's question was more complicated than it perhaps should be. "If you are asking if I am here regularly, I can consider it."

Dude, don't be difficult. Tommy just sighs and shakes his head.

"I think I would appreciate it if you did. Getting over here is a long trip no matter how it happens for me, and it involves a LOT of being closed into small places, either the train or ships."

So he didn't like coming over unless he had to. And so he wasn't here as often.

One man's difficult was another man's only option, or something like that.

After another moment of consideration, he nodded. "I can check the structure at regular intervals. Unless someone else decides to assume its upkeep." Tending the plants would have to fall to someone else.

"It could be something as simple as an animal looking for food. They've had this place to themselves, we're the trespassers." People coming into the city no doubt disrupt the wildlife. Even the wilds around Temba could be dangerous; that surely extends to the less-occupied Sh'Ka.

"The concern is whether or not such an animal would consider trespassers in its territory a viable food source." He can't be the only one who thought of such a thing.

That's very true, a point Cayde concedes with another nod. The place had been a testament to itself as to how long it had sat abandoned. The local wildlife that had taken up residence certainly didn't need people wandering around their territory. They were here far longer.

"I'm surprised nothing's wandered into Temba on the same premise." Not that there haven't been things already within the city that had been problematic at some point or another, but nothing aside from the big walking heap of boulders had done anything to draw anyone's concern, and even that creature hadn't moved much since, probably going into hibernation or something once the snows had set.

Hopping back up onto his feet, Cayde promptly dismantled his snowball, tossing it up in the air over them to create a fresh if brief flurry. "So! Tracks're still fresh. Let's see what turns up."

Shit, that's nice. Tommy couldn't help but be slightly relieved at that.

"Any chance you can show me some of the things you haven't found, just this once? So I can start practicing for the other greenhouse?"

"I'm not an expert in buildings," he cautioned. Did the Agrii even have a data point for that? He didn't know. And he certainly wouldn't touch one if it did exist. "But I can show you what I've checked."

The Soldier jerked his head in the direction of the wall, specifically toward a large window. There, he crouched down to indicate the lower edge. "The glass is cold, but there's no moving air around the joints. That must mean whatever seal it has is intact."

"Temba has had people there for longer." A beat. "And it's where the Agrii bring new people. So that could be their doing as well." Or perhaps not, but the Soldier considered it a possibility.

One eyebrow raised at Cayde's abrupt shift from play to hunt, but another pair of eyes could be useful. And Cayde at least knew how to take care of himself, should the thing at the other end of the tracks prove dangerous. "It may not even still be within the city."

Cayde grins knowingly over his shoulder then. "But you're not gonna let up just because of that possibility, are you?"

Because if the Soldier was just going to up and call it a day then he wouldn't have been following those tracks for as long as he has. The Exo dusts off his hands, glancing around for the rest of the trail.

"Thanks," Tommy said, clearly ready to follow and learn. So when Soldier squats down, so does Tommy, and he holds his hands near the joints to focus on it. He'd have trouble telling if it was or not though.

"Any idea on how I could maybe check that out better? Without having to feel for the air flow? My senses sorta make that hard to do."

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06 | In every building, every street sign

Outdoors

omg why is this so cute

(^▽^)♪

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Agricultural Building

Outdoors!!

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I read "notorious jumper" and my brain went I WISH YOU WOULD STEP BACK FROM THAT LEDGE MY FRIEND

I WOULD UNDERSTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYyyyAAaaaaYYAaaaaND

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augh I keep switching tenses sorry x.x

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