Harrow

[in_extremis]

WHO: Tony and Celty, feat. Cayde, Echo, Jon, Dustin, Gladio
WHERE: Wherever you can be found!
WHAT: This is another delivery post. Some characters are getting gifts! If you want them instead of whoever's name is on the tag, you can try to intercept. Celty's delivering now, though, so you better be clever.
WHEN: As the plants calm down.
WARNINGS: None.


The forge wasn't in such a terrible state. It wasn't all the way out here, at the edge of the city, where Tony was stupid enough to have encourage mutant plants to take over the whole place. In fact, it seemed like some of the work had already been done for him when Tony started his pruning, and what was left was easily fed into the kiln or the furnace as he got them roaring again. It was only natural then to get distracted by what was uncovered as he swept out tangles of brambles and withered flowers. There was a lot more cleanup for him to do than just the housekeeping.

By the time he sent a message to Celty (offer still stand?), there was a pile of packages already gathered by the heavy, metal door of the forge, looking disappointingly small in the reddening light of the sunset to Tony's critical gaze. Back to work, then.

...to Cayde
Bundled in a waxy banana-type leaf, tied with its own stems, is a neat stack of long, slim bullets that look like they belong in a rifle. There's no way that diamond shape debossed into their pointed tips is functional. Right? With them is a tube that looks like it has some rifling in it, that the bullets fit into. Maybe there's a way for Cayde (or a curious thief) to find out.

...to Echo
While this is folded up tightly like a fist inside of a clay box, it's not a hand exactly. There's way too many silver fingers, and a plate of flat glass for a palm. It does look like Echo's scomp link will fit into it.

...to Jon
Tony must be really confused about hands, because this glove doesn't have enough fingers. It could be an archery glove. Is the right name on this silky net of petals? It's not leather, but a very fine, gold mesh that knits denser together along the underside of it.

...to Dustin
In a small, paper box is what might be the worst deck of cards. There aren't very many of them, and they are all made of brass, slim enough that it seems like they might fracture. Their backs are all imprinted with NO FUN, and only one of them appears to have anything on the other side. It looks a lot like braille. As soon as the package is opened, they all vibrate.

...to Gladio
This is a flat package, folded in papery leaves. It's a slim, silver frame with filigreed edges along the pane seated in the centre, where Tony appears to have given Gladio...a picture of himself? Wait a second, and it turns out to be two. Three. He's visibly holding his communication device in all of them, so he must have used a mirror. Maybe it's a suggestion.

Comments

voice

[beholding_archivist]

[ Meanwhile Jon has been wondering why Tony hasn't returned to the library with him, but in some way this new present explains it. While not explaining it. Because if it's an explanation, then this explanation will either be that Tony's new workplace in the library is lacking or imply that he doesn't intent to return.

Pondering these possibilities, Jon turns the item over before trying it on, which quickly draws the attention of several mothcats that were helping him clean out the library in their own way.

The message is send a few minutes of mothcat wrestling later. ]

I don't suppose this was intended to be a cat toy?

[and yet, its a text]

[in_extremis]

I was wondering what that was. I should have guessed.

I am nothing if not enthusiastic about unintended usage cases.

[Jon remains voice]

[beholding_archivist]

...what's that supposed to mean now?

[they are both very stubborn]

[in_extremis]

Which part?

They were not the intended audience, no. I had only considered you playing with yourself.

Hey, there's a thought. Don't tell me if you start, let me see if I can figure it out.

[beholding_archivist]

Me playing with m- Tony!

[ It may not be visible, but the tone should be enough to give Tony an idea of exactly which shade of red Jon's face has just assumed. ]

You didn't seriously send this to me for me to--

[ He cuts off there. Pensively, perhaps...? ]

[deal_me_in]

There were drying and wilting bits of plants here and there around the Deep End, swept in varying piles that sat around on the floor, the broom abandoned against one of the tables as someone had decided to take a break or had simply gotten distracted. Knowing the owner, it was most likely the latter.

Cayde was parked on the other side of the bar counter, perched on one of the stools with the leafy wrappings spread out in front of him as he studied the strangely thin bullets, inserting one experimentally into the tube. He wiggled it around before holding it up to peer into, you know, as one does.

[in_extremis]

Cayde probably should have known better. Tony did occasionally gift him with terribly dangerous things, and the bullets should have been a strong indication of the danger level. Luckily, the tube doesn't seem to do anything on its own, even with the bullets that fit in it. Maybe it needs something else...

[deal_me_in]

He probably should have, but Tony should also have known better. Therefore responsibility had been thoroughly cancelled out.

Thankfully Cayde did not lose an eye as he lowered the thing with a thoughtful frown. He gave it a shake just out of principle before he set it down, fingering his chin as he studied the tube. Sundance merely drifted nearby just in case she had to do any healing. It was a fair possibility, knowing her Guardian.

Cayde pulled out his hand cannon, eyeballing the barrel and the tube, chuckling to himself as tried fitting them together.

[in_extremis]

That definitely should not have worked, and yet. So far, it was really working in Cayde's favour to have left that gun with Tony for a minute. This modification only gives him one shot at a time, the whole thing has to be disassembled again to reload, so it must be a shot that counts.

[deal_me_in]

"Hah!" The laugh that escaped him was louder than he anticipated, and even Sundance gave the slightest twitch in the air, saved only for the fact that she was already floating.

Cayde wasn't entirely sure he'd actually expected that to work. He was both pleased and amused by how ridiculous having an extension on his Ace of Spades was, but no less intrigued. It hadn't been too difficult to set up, just as expected of Tony. The Exo studied it, and then picked up one of the bullets from the counter. There was no way it was going to load into Ace as it was, but did they work in conjunction with his existing bullets?

Well, only one way to find out!

He straightened his arm out, taking aim at the dartboard on the wall across the room before he pulled the trigger.

Okay But Tony Why?

[ziedrich_bearer]

A package. It wasn't something Gladio had been expecting when he had been setting himself up as Noctis's roommate. He offered the woman in the helmet a nod in thanks for the delivery and then opened it. And was left staring. What. The actual. Fuck?

So Gladio sighed, made his excuses for delay, and found his way right to the forge.

"What the fuck man," he said as he entered.

[in_extremis]

Typically, when someone didn't particularly care for something Tony had left them, he just never really heard of it again. Or was that when they did? He didn't get a lot of follow up in general, so he was unprepared for any of the recipients of his deliveries to actually show up. He was braced by the anvil, one foot up on the iron, drawing out wire that was wrapped around his glove where it was cooling into a coil, and felt suddenly very trapped by this decision as Gladio appeared to swear at him.

"In general? I don't know, that's kind of a theological question, not really my area. You could try Felwinter, he's probably got some interesting answers for you," he said, using his free hand to push his glasses back in his hair and squinting in the light from the door.

[ziedrich_bearer]

Ah, actually working metal. Well, Gladio can tone down the cursing for now. But he is frowning.

"It's not theological. Unless I'm asking what the fuck is going on in Bahamut's mind, and Astrals know I'll never be pleased with that answer. But you know what I'm asking about."

[in_extremis]

That might have been a mistake to bring up. Gladio seemed to have a complex relationship with whatever the people of his planet believed in and/or worshipped and/or feared, and Tony started to grimace for him and the conversation that he was even less prepared for. Maybe the swearing was okay, familiar territory. He dropped his foot, and considered the wire, that didn't seem to be glowing hot anymore at least and could be worked off of his hand.

"It's not a big deal, you didn't have to come all the way down here," he said. "It's, uh, normal, on Earth, to give people stuff. Forget about it."

[ziedrich_bearer]

Oh a very complex relationship with his Astrals. Especially given the fact that the leader of them had seen fit to create a fate where Noctis must be sacrificed to save the world.

"Yeah, it's not a big deal in Eos to give someone your pictures in a nice frame either. You know, if they're family or you're dating them."

Which was why he put them down on a clear patch of space here. It should go to Jon, not to him.

"And given Jon is definitely dangerous, I don't imagine that I'd come out on the good side of an exchange if he got jealous."

wtf Tony (starting out with network shenanigans)

[quark_assassin]

It takes more than a day for Dustin to start to investigate Tony's 'gift' for him in earnest. Not because he doesn't recognize that there's more to it, or because he's missed it somehow - no, he definitely got that package from Celty, and even was comfortable enough with it coming from her to open it in a controlled environment several minutes later. It's the fact that he's found himself genuinely wanting to figure this out that has him so thoroughly distracted for the next thirty hours.

Not a mystery: Who it came from. The packaging and contents mirroring a deck of playing cards makes the culprit obvious, and the embossed text just rubs it in. Tony, the only guy who caught him at the Eorzean version of a casino. Dustin would assume an elaborate prank, considering that opening the package makes him nearly drop it when the cards start vibrating, but this seems entirely too high-effort for that. Plus, there's some kind of...pattern? On the back of one of them? It takes a bit of mental cycling for Dustin to recognize it as a delicately-stamped QR code, of all things. He could take the time to decode the sucker by hand, and starts to do so for a bit before realizing, with a jolt, that it would take way less time if he just made an app on his tablet that would do it for him. It isn't until dusk when Dustin puts together that the knowledge for how to do this isn't entirely his, and the compulsion to solve this puzzle is likely playing exactly into Tony's hands. Neither discovery dissuades him from putting the finishing touches on his impromptu QR-reader app when he wakes up before dawn.

There are no bells and whistles or security measures taken in this bare-bones program; if Tony had the inclination to trick him into installing malware on his tablet, not only does Dustin not keep any documents on it nor conduct any conversations through it (save one, done anonymously), but he also has no attachment to the dumb thing anyway. Worst case, if he can't scrub it after, he'll just toss it into the mineshaft. Good fucking riddance.

Ever so gently, Dustin takes the thin, shivering plate of brass with the code on it, clips it between two electronics clamps to hold it still, and holds up his tablet to scan it in.

[in_extremis]

It was probably a very good idea to take plenty of care until one figured out just how malicious Tony could be. An entirely unprompted gift, lovingly crafted and personalized, was a terrible act of cruelty. This one started singing.

It was a rudimentary sound, and perhaps a difficult song to recognize in its distortion; a clicking that might have been the device's camera shutter to keep time, and Jon's voice, already programmed to dictate messages, grumbling through the lyrics. It might have been a stretch for Tony to think Dustin would recognize Iggy Pop's No Fun at all. The lyrics weren't so complex that the message would be lost, anyway.

[quark_assassin]

The message is received loud and clear.

It takes a few days for Tony to get his response back. It comes in the form of a wooden box - the wooden box, from Eorzea? No, on closer inspection it's an expertly-carved replica; the brittle timber from Temba's overgrown plants gives it away. Dustin leaves it himself on the doorstep of the Forge and doesn't stick around for Tony to find it.

Inside isn't a mural piece, but five of the brass cards tack-welded on top of each other, such that they whistle and rattle alarmingly when disturbed. A similar, but notably different QR-style code has been imprinted on top of the stack.

[in_extremis]

Dustin would have ample time to get clear before Tony arrived at the forge again, and if he had figured out the patterns, plenty of warning as well as the Iron Man's engines echoed through the hollow factories. The box was intimidating. Iron Man stopped where he landed, watching the door, then scanning the area for anything else that looked out of place before he approached to crouch and nudge it open right there with one finger. The return of his cards, mangled as they were, was a much more explicit statement of intent. He frowned, looping his arms around his knees, partially in dejection, partially trying to calculate the meaning of the effort it must have taken to make this box just to tell him to fuck off. Did that just make it a bigger Fuck Off?

The cards were set off in their annoying jangling together again as he moved to pluck them up, and he had to dredge up the patience to keep still enough and stop their alarm for long enough for the Iron Man to get a good scan of this new code. He had the advantage in this particular conversation; he was already prepared not only to read it, but to isolate it to see what it might be doing before unleashing it on his suit.

[quark_assassin]

The end result is not nearly as intricate as what Tony had sent Dustin originally. The code just opens a gif, and if Tony allows it, this picture will splash across the inside of his Iron Man visor.

[only_an_echo]

What is this?

[That's the main question that first comes to mind as Echo takes a break from whatever it is he's doing, scrutinizing the clay box Celty hands over.]

[tsundullahan]

[The dullahan can only shrug at that. She's just the messenger. Her helmeted head tilts in curiosity as she studies the box as well.]

[only_an_echo]

[Another pause passes before glancing back down at the delivery. His brow remains furrowed as he shifts the box to open it, careful to not drop anything so that they can both take a look-see at what Tony has gifted him.

So of course there's another long and thoughtful pause after the gift's reveal.]

[tsundullahan]

[More staring. Celty finally glances up at Echo before bringing out her tablet to tap out a question.]

[What is it?]

[only_an_echo]

[Between trying to guess and looking up to read Celty's question, Echo's nose wrinkles slightly.]

I'm...not sure. [A second glance then leads him to try taking it out of the box.] Hold on, here...