revivalproject | Beat Your Plowshares Into Swords and Your Pruning Hooks Into Spears

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Beat Your Plowshares Into Swords and Your Pruning Hooks Into Spears

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.

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"Rocks..."

Felwinter might have been amused at whatever this creature's attachment was with Tony, but they had things to do and places to go, so he made no argument as he sought some out. Which...took some doing given all the extra greenery. If he'd known it was going to be this much trouble he would have opted for using the Void, although in the long run perhaps this wasn't such a bad idea.

Throwing rocks was a lot less tiring despite the time it took to mow down the path to their destination. Finding more rocks along the way to replenish their already scant supply took more of the effort, but soon enough they were by the edge of...well, what was supposedly the memorial site. With the amount of greenery it made it difficult to tell how the space inclined. That is going to take a bit more care than sending a giant rock beast to trundle along ahead of them, he suspects.

Edited 2022-08-25 03:02 (UTC)

The path was much less troublesome than the one Tony had beaten himself with a stick, so he came to stand beside the rock animal feeling fairly pleased with himself, idly juggling the last few stones he had gathered and surveying the leafy garden that used to seem much more ominous. Without walls to climb or tall trees already grown there, the memorial plot seemed more open despite the thicket crowding the ground and leaning against the stones that Tony knew where there somewhere. He gave the animal's side a pat, and asked, "What's your rate? Should have asked before we started, honestly, that's on me, I'll work that out. You can go back to sleep now. If that's your thing. However you do that. We're good. Hey, Cal's up here somewhere, probably, you like him, this is great."

Talking more didn't seem to be the way to get the animal to understand. It huffed, and turned a slow circle, not sure what to make of this noise that Tony was insisting on, so Tony backed away toward Felwinter, still talking, "Yeah, great, good, fair point." It was still circling when Tony looked over and prompted, "You can thank me after we're done here, I'd rather a sit down affair, much more romantic."

"...." Well, far be it for Felwinter to interrupt Tony's chat with his rocky friend. He looked back to the middle of the greenery, or at least what he could make of it.

"You are setting up an outing with the creature?" He glanced back at Tony once the man came over towards him. Never mind, he wasn't going to wait that long for an explanation. He was already fixated back on the subtle depression of the very plant-ridden memorial.

"It is located in the center. The rows of stones are actually a path that spirals downwards," he explained, pointing. He'd already decided he wasn't going to waste his energy tearing through each level towards a path, instead considering his options in a direct...assault, as it were.

"No, you, you're the one thanking me--Forget it," Tony said, mostly to himself as they both looked out over the unrecognizable field. Even if getting them here had deserved the thanks, it didn't look like the journey had been all that worthwhile to Tony, and he gave Felwinter a skeptical, sidelong look as he explained the layout like that helped Tony understand any better what they hoped to get out of this excursion. "'It'," he echoed dubiously, only to then nod and repeat, "Okay." It wasn't like he could come out of this understanding the box-rocks any less. He wound up with one of the stones he still carried for leading the rock creature, pitching it over the leafy site where it disappeared soundlessly into the embrace of the growth like sinking into a lake.

Felwinter started to trace out the general path, where he recalled the starting point to roughly be, and outlined the rough shape of where things supposedly lay. It was not a trip to be carving through carelessly, not when everything looked almost deceptively level rather than reveal just how low things gradually sunk.

As tempting as it was to lob a Nova Bomb down into the center of it, he wasn't sure how well the old stones would withstand it. He seemed to sigh, lifting a hand then. Back to the Devourer, then.

"I'll be right back," he said, leaping high into the air, coat aflutter, drifting almost gracefully towards the center of the depression. As he descended he held one hand out, violet light growing in the palm of his hand before twisting in an inversion at its core. Before it could grow any further, he squeezed his fingers around it, the motion seeming to force the building power into his hand itself as it absorbed, coalescing in a faint glow around it.

Oh, that was what Felwinter had meant by 'aerial route'. Tony stopped his restless juggling to watch Felwinter float away with raised eyebrows, and a faint wrinkle of irritation before he called out, "You just let me do all of that?," with a splay of both hands toward the now dozing rock creature. Muttered to himself, Tony went, "Unbelievable," and started impatiently into the tangle of growth himself in a much less elegant stumble.

Well what else did Tony think he meant? Felwinter merely ignored Tony's complaints, drawing his hand back. He squeezed his hand around the growing orb of energy as though to crush it, the resulting seeming to force it inwards that he absorbed it.

He let his descent pick up speed, throwing his glowing hand forward to sweep through the plantlife there. They shriveled and blackened, disintegrating like dust, little by little giving way to the large stone centerpiece beneath.

Tony might want to be careful on his way down. The levels were not exactly steps, meant to be taken in a gradual path down, spaces wide enough along the stone-lined way for small gatherings of a sort. In any case, once Felwinter had expended the devourer, he leapt back over in Tony's direction to grab him so he could bring him down to the memorial's center.

That whole display really made it seem like Felwinter had let Tony mess around with the plants for fun, drawing Tony to a slow stop where he found some footing on top of some densely packed leaves and was still staring with his nose wrinkled with some fascination and a polish of irritation when Felwinter yanked him up. This did not help Tony's sense of being a plaything.

Nor did it answer a whole lot of questions. Standing clear of the plants for once was a surprising relief, though Tony could already see some creeping in around the blackened fringes, slithering through the ash and reaching for the bounty of sunlight now without competition. That was gross, and Tony was happy to ignore the progress to consider this stone that Felwinter had deliberately revealed, blindly searching in his pocket to produce the small, painted one that had been found on a distant planet.

It wasn't exactly a great place to stand, but as the plants that had previously covered it continued to fall apart, it was becoming easier to see what they had hid, and eventually some of the actual ground beneath. It was a large stone pillar, uneven in its form likely because of time, weather, and the plants that had previously gripped onto it before its barbarous cousins had moved in. Leaving Tony up top, Felwinter dropped down once there was space enough so he could work at ripping away the plants that threatened to reclaim their space and those that yet clung around the sides of the pillar, more tightly than the ones that had sprung up around it.

Maybe it wasn't the best perspective to view the monument from, up top, but Tony would be able to glimpse the sides, the surfaces not completely smooth due to the vague engravings although they can't quite be made out, but might have once been words. Felwinter gave a final vicious yank on a plant before looking up towards the man. "Can you manage, or shall I carry you down here as well?"

While Felwinter tore at the vines, Tony crouched, tilting his head to try to see, like maybe he could read these impressions if they just weren't upside down, leaning over the edge of the pillar precariously up until Felwinter taunted him. "Careful, I might get used to that treatment," he warned, his teasing lilt not quite matching the stubborn frown that insisted he could manage a little pillar, thank you. It might not have been Felwinter's easy hop, but he managed, turning to lower himself slowly around the scraping elbows of the pillar, and gave a searching kick of his feet before bracing to drop heavily the rest of the way to the ground.

"I thought they didn't write anything," he murmured as he found his footing, reaching back out to the pillar like he could feel his way around the impressions easier than he could read them.

"Who, the Agrii?" Felwinter asked, tilting his head as he looked at the pillar carvings. "True I have not seen any other samples..."

Whatever they might have said, it was far too faded to tell much of anything aside from that there had been something there in the first place. While most of it is worn, there were other carvings around the edges of those lost phrases that still remained detailed enough to show images of what appeared to be Agrii going about their daily lives.

Felwinter stepped around towards the western-most face of the memorial, gesturing towards it. Here seemed to be the most damage, if it could be called such. It almost looked like pieces had been broken off, all no more than a foot off the ground. There were nine of such instances, eight of which were roughly the same size, below a longer missing strip.

That wasn't the strangest thing about it either. The rest of the stone surface that hadn't been broken off was smooth and applied with paint. A familiar style, now that one had reference, and a strange place for a mural, if a very small space for one. Parts of it looked considerably newer than one might expect for an old monument in an abandoned city, clearly touched up in some recent time, if before the explosion of greenery.

Maybe Jon would be more able to parse what wasn't there anymore, though Tony took his time following Felwinter, still feeling along the stone and studying the images of the Agrii in hopes that they might help him with context. This alone was something strange enough to report back, anyway, until he was following Felwinter's lead, and left staring at the paint near the ground. That was weird enough on its own, too; it definitely wasn't part of the original structure, even if Tony didn't have a fragment of it to hold up that he had found on a different planet.

"There were eight of us," he reported abruptly. "With the boxes." He crouched, twisting his rock to find where it might fit briefly, abandoning that impulse quickly to run a finger along the larger strip of damage.

"Not a coincidence, I suspect," Felwinter said as he looked down at the marred mural in this new light. He brought out the piece he had taken, turning it in his hand as he tried to find its place just as Tony had.

"But what is its significance?" he mused aloud. Being sent off world to find pieces that were... what, stolen? Surely they must be for some good reason.

Stretching back up on his feet, Tony frowned thoughtfully, painted stone balled in his hand while he scratched a finger through his beard. "The Agrii wanted us to find them, that's what we were there for," he laid out first, certain of that much. It was vanishingly unlikely that the intent was to find other seek rats on the strange planet. "So--it would be...unlikely that they were the ones to remove them. Someone else thought it necessary to conceal this..." He waved a hand, not exactly sure how to quantify what they were looking at, and landed on, "Information. That was already pretty well hidden. Kind of. I mean, why else is it down there?"

At the very least, what Tony could do immediately was suddenly crouch again, phone in hand and brushing away the ashy remains of the plants around the base of the pillar to capture some photos of the paint, and the damage. It didn't seem like something worth hiding; what images remained were of plants and animals, all reminiscent enough that Tony was scrolling through the resource they already had of most of them that he could see, picking out 'funfronds' and 'star blooms', and nothing looking remarkably out of place. There was even the Agrii, as Tony held up his rock again, squinting one eye shut to envision it in position on the painting. "Someone...wanted to take the Agrii out of the story?" he proposed. "Not very effective. Kind of hard to miss all of the other Agrii stuff around here."

Edited 2022-08-27 17:10 (UTC)

"...I understand less of this," Felwinter murmured at Tony's observation, even as he nodded his agreement. "Perhaps that isn't what we need to focus on at the moment."

He pointed at the little plant creatures prominent in the mural's decor. "Hm. The Agrii have been gone for some time. They have been removed from this image. But these have been here, and the city has never completely overgrown. Are they...have they been taking care of the plants?" There was a hint of disbelief in his tone, but the suggestion surely wasn't the strangest thing they've ever come across.

Even as Felwinter spoke, trying to direct Tony's attention, Tony was muttering, "Is it symbolic, the Agrii have literally been removed?," but by the time Felwinter was done he seemed like he might be able to focus on the plant part. That hadn't seemed terribly important, and it didn't seem like a logical leap to connect some rocks they had found in space to the overgrowth they found when they came back. It was just...plants.

"Okay," he accepted for now, hand out flat to work from that foundation and construct the story. "Then, here, they're here at the centre, they're doing their plant thing, everything's great. Then there are Agrii, and the city gets built--and it's not an evolution, they're literally put here, like the Graq at the other end of the train. And like the Graq, they're also taken away, gone, and the plants are still here, doing their thing. Are they also gone now, these guys, taking care of the plants?"

The warlord would admit it was something of a leap. They could have been sent anywhere, and yet it would not have particularly explained why such a place had these particular pieces to a monument all but overlooked. Felwinter offered nothing else immediately, content to hear out Tony's thoughts.

"This...isn't their world of origin then? This makes even less sense...." He reached out as though those faded carvings would somehow just reveal what they're trying to decipher between the ancient lines and crusty mural.

He turned his head towards Tony then. "You haven't seen them? These ones-" Felwinter tapped at the mushroom-like ones, "-they're about. I've seen them here and there, but they appear to be skittish."

"We already had a theory that might have been the case," Tony admitted, back up on his feet to stare accusingly at the mural from a distance, as though that might reveal more of its meaning to him. "And that there are even more cities out there, designed for different lifeforms, but with the same patterns. Some kind of indoctrination. Less advanced species, that don't have their own space travel, maybe some kind of controlled evolution."

He pursed his lips at the image of the mushroom, clearly not very familiar, and offered, "I think they're in the guide, on the network. Funfronds. It says they're intelligent, that they communicate. Maybe they can even paint."

"And then displaced? Left of their own accord? This makes less and less sense, more so with the specifics of the Agrii, unless everyone was made to leave this place on purpose, and the Agrii were just too stubborn or had not thought to look for their kind elsewhere that they've made themselves a problem."

Felwinter supposed that too was grasping at straws, but at this point it seemed like anything was likely.

"Have you tried speaking to them?" This in regards to the fungi as he looked back at Tony.

"Uh, no," Tony replied, slightly defensive, feeling like it should have been obvious that he wasn't likely to have been befriending mushrooms and songbirds. Belatedly, he realized he had to defend, "That's--different," with an arm flung out toward the rock animal that did seem fond of him and he knew how to control, and it did feel like a very weak argument for his pride and he should switch gears to not linger too long on it. "Do you think they'll talk to us? Why haven't they before? It says there's some by the greenhouse, that's right downtown, we've been neighbours this whole time."

The question had been an innocuous one, but if Felwinter caught on to the defensive shift of the other, he made no obvious response to it. If Tony had some kind of qualms about being known as the rock whisperer than that was hardly his concern.

"I have no idea. But if it's been mentioned specifically then perhaps it was formerly common knowledge." He straightened from studying the painting. "Do we need to reestablish this communication between us?" Despite the fact that they were talking about speaking with mushrooms, Felwinter was obviously serious as usual.

This question appeared to require some thought, Tony's focus wandering up toward the sky as he worked his jaw, then muttered, "I don't know, I thought it had been going pretty good, nobody's pointed any guns and I thought we'd been kind of on the same page, except for the flying thing, I guess, we could talk about that..." Both of his arms dropped bonelessly, all of their animation melting out of them as Tony trailed off, and slowly brought his gaze back down to Felwinter.

Clearing his throat, he concluded, "We can try. Can't hurt. Looks like they'll know what's up with these plants."

That, he could agree on. Felwinter nodded as he cast a look around. "With little other obvious options, I think it's worth looking into."

Which meant finding the little things. "The greenhouse, you said..?" he murmured, looking back towards the center of the city. Maybe they could retrace their path if the thing hadn't been overgrown already.

Pressing his lips together, Tony gave a sharp nod, then glanced up the slope of rustling leaves toward where they had left their hibernating friend. They had already done the work to get through the density, so it shouldn't have been a huge issue that the rock beast seemed to have rolled onto its side, all of its legs kicking slowly in a way that made Tony frown with concern. This was a new behaviour.

"Come on, before we find out why he's doing that," Tony suggested, starting for the snarl to climb his way out of the memorial, stamping on the young vines that twisted disconcertingly at the edge of the ashy patch that Felwinter had made.

"...." Tony's comment forestalled Felwinter's inquiry as to whether that was normal behavior. "Did he tip over..?" he wondered, even as he took a step away from the memorial and then turned to watch Tony pick his way through the plants.

He'd give him minute or two before grabbing him to make his ascent back to the top of the depression's edge.

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