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

[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.

[tyrants_son]

Felwinter shakes his head. "It's difficult to link that sort of response to a hallucination. Hallucinations can't possibly induce one to lose control of their power."

[crystalmaster]

"... Yeah, that's true. So I guess it was some unexplainable science-fiction turned fact or a magic thing." Which isn't satisfying in the least.

"How often do bizarre things happen?"

[tyrants_son]

"Too often."

Which in truth isn't terribly often, but when it does, it's more than enough to make up for when it doesn't.

Felwinter turns back towards the rest of the city. "...there is little between here and the rest of the northeastern quadrant. I think I will risk it. But beyond that, I'll leave it to others."

Fingers flex at his sides.

[crystalmaster]

Radley would likely agree with that assessment.

"Okay. Well, good luck. I'd ask if you need any help, but you seem like you have things well in hand."

[tyrants_son]

"It should give you at least some clearance enough towards the main roads. I can't be sure how much has overgrown the ruins, but it's best you make your way to the city square when you can."

Felwinter turns, looking up towards the hangar itself. Height would be best for this, especially if he wants to clear a larger area. He glances briefly at Radly before he leaps up and drifts towards the vine-covered rooftop of the hangar. It's not as high as he'd prefer, but it's better than nothing. Turning back towards the city itself, he makes some quick calculations.

[crystalmaster]

"Great. Thanks. Is that where everyone's planning to go?" He doesn't want to make that journey and find he's alone.

He stares in shock at these new power revelations. Well, that's definitely handy....

[tyrants_son]

"It is where everyone will eventually head. Most of the inhabited and used buildings are there," Felwinter replies.

He gives Radley a nod, and then launches himself into the air again, drifting up and up as though letting a breeze carry him. Raising a hand to his side, he begins to gather a ball of dark energy, like an inversion of light that begins to expand and crackle. By the time he sweeps his hand outwards to cast it off, the void sphere is enormous, easily half as large as their shuttles. It travels a lazy path towards the ground some mid-distance away before erupting into a large swirl of chaotic energies that surge through the surrounding plantlife.

When it finally dies down, it leaves a large swath of blackened plants and patches of the ground beneath it, visible.

Felwinter lands heavily from his earlier hover, dropping to a knee. There's a reason he doesn't use Nova Bomb so haphazardly, here.

[crystalmaster]

"Maybe I'll go with a group then." It's probably not safe to travel alone anyway.

He watches in shock and awe, and then concern when it wraps up. "Are you okay?!"

[tyrants_son]

Although clearly exhausted from the effort, Felwinter does not seem to be struggling to catch his breath. He does remain on the ground, a hand on his knee in an effort to stay upright. To Radley's inquiry he gives a curt nod.

"I...am fine. Or will be. I told you that my connection was strained."

[crystalmaster]

"You mean at full force it can do even more than that?!" Radley says in shocked amazement.

[tyrants_son]

"From great enough a height, ye. And I do not normally use this maneuver on plants," Felwinter says flatly.