Beat Your Plowshares Into Swords and Your Pruning Hooks Into Spears

[tyrants_son]

WHO: Lord Felwinter and yooou
WHERE: Temba
WHAT: Never send a warlord to do a gardener's job
WHEN: During event
WARNINGS: N/A



I. Pruning

Whatever's happened in their absence, it's an annoying setback. Clearly it's more than a case of overgrown weeds.

Stepping outside of the hangar, the warlord looks almost distastefully out at the transformed landscape. His hand curls into a fist before he forces it to loosen. No, he'd have to go about this more cautiously or he'd wear himself out.

"The Agrii were foolish to have us leave everything behind," he says lowly. Yet he's unsure what good any weapon that he currently possesses would do, but he'd still feel better having something.

Without looking back, he begins to step right into the midst of the overgrowth. He'll rip things apart by his hands if he has to, if it'll help to keep the hangar entrance clear for others. Carving a way back to the city and more importantly, the security tower, will likely take more creativity.


II. Trimming the Hedges

Night falls, and not all is peaceful. He can see the movement below, the strange plantlike creatures that prowl. He's unsure who else has become aware of these things, but then that's what brings him out along the rooftops. It's not something he needs to do, even though Tony's words come back to him like some unbidden mantra, but he wants to. Plants cannot stop metal, nor can they stand against fire and void. He has no great designs to think that he alone can drive away these invasive growths, but if he can whittle them away or keep someone from falling prey to these particularly threatening plantlife, then that is good enough for him.


III. Connect the Blocks, La-la-la-la

"I've seen this before..."

As much as he disliked troubling the Exo Hunter for something more suitable than a sidearm, Felwinter hated feeling indebted to him. Or maybe it was the grin that the other always wore whenever he came to ask about a weapon, an expression that came enviably easy to the Exo's face.

Just as quickly as the look of surprise when Felwinter took up the strange bit of painted stone that the Hunter had there on a table. There might have been some strange sense of pleasure in wiping the smug look off of his face, but his thoughts are mostly elsewhere.

His hand closes tightly around it, and he's out the window without another word even after Cayde's "HEY!", greatcoat fluttering after him as he drifts from the old clocktower and to the ground below.

"Who else has these," Felwinter asks himself, allowing himself another look at the piece before he begins to move onward.

Comments

[crystalmaster]

Radley stares, it occurring to him that this guy must be strong. These are thick vines.

"Don't you think we need to tell them if they're not aware of it?!"

[tyrants_son]

"Their position might not change so much from what it is now. I have phrased it poorly- they are probably not aware of whom their enemy is, and even if we my have an idea, we do not know how to meet them directly to be dealt with. It is a complicated issue that I do not understand completely."

His delivery is almost matter-of-fact, as though he's reading from a report, his voice bearing a faint metallic tinge to it, although that could just be the helmet's filters. He pauses, staring at the mass of plants. At this rate, it will take forever to clear a proper path. He looks ahead, calculating.

[crystalmaster]

Radley sighs in frustration. He hates not knowing who the enemy is. That makes it almost impossible to plan how to deal with them.

He stares at the plants too. "Isn't there something in the hangar or on the ships we could use for this?!"

[tyrants_son]

"The ships don't seem to be equipped with weapons," Felwinter replies with perhaps the barest hint of annoyance. It's not difficult to pick up on the other's growing frustration, and he can hardly blame the man for it. It really is a dismal position for them.

He casts the briefest look back towards the hangar. "I do not know. Most likely nothing adequate for this sort of problem. I'll have to gauge myself."

Looking back out at the expanse heading towards the rest of the city, he tries to make out the thicker areas. At least there's a good amount of nothing between the hangar and the rest of the northeastern quadrant, but that is also what makes it difficult to get anywhere.

He raises a hand, violet light swirling around his curled fingers. It threatens to grow before he closes it in a fist, and the light seems to go inward, pulsing through him briefly. Not wasting a second more, he thrusts it towards the frontmost plants, watching them briefly engulf in the same light before they shrivel. Felwinter continues to move forward, sweeping his hands at whatever plants are in reach, leaving them to the same fate. The devourer won't last long, but it makes more progress than ripping things up by hand.

[crystalmaster]

Radley stares in amazement at this. Is this magic or some other kind of power? He watches for a while, staying back so as not to possibly get accidentally caught up in it.

"... Have you always been able to do that?" he asks at last.

[tyrants_son]

Felwinter continues forward, repeatedly withering plants as he siphoned their life from them. "That is a vague question," he says, not pausing as he wants to get as much done while he can. At least this isn't as tiring as his other abilities, but it will still take time before he can use it again.

"I have been able to for some time though, yes."

[crystalmaster]

"... It's pretty useful here. It's something you learned on your homeworld?"

Or is it the result of something here? Radley has heard about the Data Points, but he really doesn't care to have a bunch of information downloaded into his brain so he suddenly knows how to do something he couldn't before. It feels very intrusive.

[tyrants_son]

"It is not as effective here. My connection is...strained. But yes, I learned, back on Earth."

The warlord gives one more thrust of his hand at the plants before him, the glow fading from it as the vines join the rest of those blackened and withered there in a trail of death behind him. With his helmet turned to look over his shoulder he makes for a striking silhouette of someone who probably shouldn't be crossed.

[crystalmaster]

Radley is surprised. "That's my planet too! But ... I'm not familiar with anything like this there...." Is he from a futuristic Earth? Or maybe an alternate Earth?

He can definitely see this guy shouldn't be crossed. He's glad they're on the same side.

[tyrants_son]

"Perhaps it's better that way," Felwinter replies. "The Earth I know is not what it was. But you wouldn't be the first to hail from Earth and yet not be of the same as another. I'm sure there are at least several instances amongst a number of people here."

He flexes his fingers, looking out at the rest of the overgrown field, feeling taunted by how much of it there is. It's so tempting to bring out a flaming sword.

[crystalmaster]

Radley frowns. Now he really hopes it's an alternate and not that this guy is from the future. It sounds like a dystopian Earth, which makes him depressed. He doesn't want to think his will fall into disrepair.

"Really? There actually are other dimensions?" It sounded so sci-fi at home, but now it seems to be fact.

[tyrants_son]

The thought isn't at all far from the truth. Felwinter decides to save him the additional cause for concern.

"We may be in an entirely different one as it is," he says. "I don't believe this is a system we are familiar with from our own, and even if it were, the people here come from alternate or different points of time from a given world in some cases."

[crystalmaster]

"... So the Agrii can reach out through both time and space to find the people they want?"

That's intriguing, but terrifying, especially when they don't know much about these Agrii. Or Radley sure doesn't.

[tyrants_son]

"The technology that they have been using does, apparently. From what I've heard, they aren't exactly sure how it works and have little to no control in where it connects and whom it brings in."

To be fair, Felwinter's knowledge of the Agrii is secondhand, and the direct contact that they've been making recently has been rare and haphazard at best, for as helpful as they seem to try to be. He's still not sure what to make of them.

[crystalmaster]

"... They don't know how it works, but they're using it?!"

The more Radley learns, the more appalled he is.

"And I thought they were choosing specific people. It's completely random?!"

[tyrants_son]

"When you are desparate and have no other options, you use what's available to you. Is this not so?"

Terrible as the idea is, Felwinter can understand the reasoning. "They had no one else to turn to, and this technology provided them hope. I have never seen the equipment they use, so I can't say I know how it all works. Maybe they input certain parameters and the machine does the rest of the work."

[crystalmaster]

Radley sighs. "Yeah...." That certainly fit with what he had done back home, trying to overthrow his sadistic rival Malcolm in their mining town.

"... Maybe it's weird, but it kind of made me feel good to think that they specifically chose me," he said. "I do have some skills that might help in rebuilding a planet. It makes sense to me if at least they tell the machine things they want."

[tyrants_son]

Felwinter looks back at him. "I do not mean to say that just because it is at random does not mean that it is without meaning. The people that have been brought here are undoubtedly skilled or knowledgeable in some way."

The most he can figure is that it worked something like an enhanced search engine. Opportunity to have a look for himself has not arose, and so far as he's heard, only a few of their current number have actually been aboard the Agrii's home ship.

[crystalmaster]

"I'd hope so. The more skilled the people, the sooner we'll hopefully have this fixed up for them."

And the sooner he can get home....

He's really worried about these mysterious enemies, though.

"So what kinds of problems have their enemies caused before?"

[tyrants_son]

Felwinter kicks at the dead vines at his feet. "...difficult to explain. The storms, for one. They are far from normal. The most recent we had experienced hardly seemed a storm as one would think to classify one as. I have heard that they differ to some degree, but that would be the first I'd experienced one."

But there had been something even before that, hadn't there? That event seems even more difficult to explain.

"Our powers- if we have them, would be cut off. Although in that last storm they would go out of control whenever the moon screamed." Yeah, that was a thing. "I don't understand the capacity nor capability of those who watch us outside of the Agrii, but that they can affect the very space we dwell in is more than a little concerning."

[crystalmaster]

"... That is really messed up."

And then he processes the weirdest thing in all of that.

"... The moon screamed?!"

[tyrants_son]

"...yes."

Felwinter shifts uncomfortably. It sounds insane just to be saying it, but he knows what he'd seen and heard.

"...it had a face."

[crystalmaster]

"... So there really is a man in the moon here."

Just much weirder would things get?

[tyrants_son]

"...not necessarily. It was just for that particular storm." His shoulders droop with a sudden weariness. Weird did not even begin to cover things.

[crystalmaster]

"... It couldn't have been some kind of hallucination brought on by the storm?" Radley wonders.