revivalproject | Beyond the Boundaries

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Beyond the Boundaries

WHO: Dustin, Felwinter and Link
WHERE: Westward, ho!
WHAT: Felwinter finds himself in...interesting company as he finally sets out for a long put off expedition beyond Temba's city limits.
WHEN: Later this month
WARNINGS: N/A

Organic beings needed preparations, supplies, for a trip. Felwinter remembered these things when he contacted Dustin. 'Star roof', probably wasn't much of a message, but he knew Dustin would understand. He left a more detailed message there, penned and folded under a rock: 'I plan to set out in five days' time. If you wish to join me then pack accordingly and comm your confirmation. Several days out and then back, unless we find any reason to extend our venture. If you have anyone you trust to come along, then so be it.'

He wondered if he was being too generous.

Link would once again find himself under much scrutiny by the helmet-wearing warlord. This time they're at least not on a rooftop, but the mood is probably very much the same. Again, there are questions, and again, Felwinter isn't certain where to even begin. Or rather, he knows what to ask, but he has a feeling that he's better off not knowing. That unseen gaze shifts to Dustin with the impending sense of a query and yet none forthcoming.

And then finally, Felwinter turns, shouldering his pack as he starts on towards the city's outskirts, pausing to cast an expectant look at the two as it seems he's going to accept this extra company after all.

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Not that Felwinter would be inclined to let that happen. But Dustin's relocation does force him to stay his hand. His shotgun while its most optimal damage was done closeup still had range, which at farther distances made it difficult to contain, and he isn't going to risk the safety of the others by making use of it.

He tenses as he sees Link shield himself, or rather the strange figure that briefly coalesces. Some conjuration of Link's? It does not seem to be an additional problem, so he won't make it one.

The creature scrabbles to its feet as it meets the resistance of the shield, only to screech as Dustin's shot finds its mark, revealing pointy teeth. It definitely bears similarities to familiar creatures, and now that they have a better look at it it's clear how it had managed evade immediate notice for the lichen and moss that have become part of its already greenish coat. It growls as it whips its head about between them before once again throwing itself at Link, but it's clearly lost its advantage now that it's on the ground.

The creature might be lunging for him, but Link lets his makeshift shield - and the glowing red sphere - drop.

Mainly so he can strike back, with a vicious sweeping strike of his blade. It carves into the creature, the force of the blow pushing it back.

Link doesn't hesitate. He darts forward, perusing it swiftly as he jumps after it. As he lands, he swings the blade down.

"Hyah!"

Dustin's bolt lands, and there's a moment where the realization that he's just shot an animal, its obvious shriek of pain, makes his gut twist with remorse. He hesitates - but only for a moment.

Then it lunges for Link again and his brain switches back on. Movements are unoptimized, even considering the injuries, Dustin realizes. It's arboreal - must use ambush tactics to ensure quick death of its prey. Fights shouldn't go on this long. Starving? Sick? Territorial? A distraction?

The idea hits him suddenly; the creature on the ground is already dead, probably, but they haven't ruled out the possibility that these things hunt in packs. Dustin's eyes widen and he sharply look up into the nearby trees.

Dustin's assessment is right on the mark. The marshbear doesn't have much of a chance, really, disoriented by Link's first blow before being finished by the next. It falls without further resistance.

Felwinter still has his hand pushing back the length of his greatcoat, settled upon the grip of his shotgun, but with Link dispatching the creature on the ground, he's already glancing around the rest of the area. He catches Dustin's look.

"...Felspring does not detect any further creatures in the immediate area," he offers. "But that does not mean that there won't be more."

Link nods, taking the information in stride. They'll just have to keep an eye out, and fight anything else that tries to eat them.

Now that the creature is dead, he moves over to crouch right next to it. Looks it over. Is there anything he can salvage from the corpse? Maybe some meat they can cook for lunch? And...what about those teeth?

He reaches out to poke at one of the large canines, pushing back the animal's lips to get a better look. He considers them a moment. They do look impressive...

Dustin doesn't seem to believe him. Keyed up on adrenaline and general paranoia, he keeps looking around the treetops for a few more moments, eyes dancing as he tries to pick up on similar patterns to the creature's moss-covered fur, signs of movement or disturbances from the last time he scanned the area. But, much like Felspring, Dustin finds nothing. He takes a shuddering, steadying breath.

"...Right," Dustin murmurs. Another bolt is loaded into his crossbow, unconsciously but with shaking hands. "Link, do you know what it is?"

Felwinter's of the same paranoia, if only because he never trusted anything in open or unknown territory. Oh, he trusts Felspring not to lie and to have his back, but he will always be on edge.

He remains where he is, even as he pulls his shotgun from his side finally, deciding he's not going to let one of those things get the drop on them again.

"I have not seen such a thing before, but it may be exclusive to this terrain," he observes, glancing back to the two as Link inspects the body.

Link shakes his head. The Agriculture data gave him a near instinctual knowledge of the plant life - but nothing of any animals. But that doesn't mean he can't find out.

Opening up his communicator, Link flicks through to the Dick Shun Airy, scanning through it until he finds an entry that matches the dead beast at his feet.

"Marshbear," he says, reading out the name. Then he reads the distribution, and deflates with disappointment. "...Toxic to eat."

So much for hoping this might be dinner, then...

Dustin's gaze continues to anxiously dart around the clearing and the trees surrounding them, but he spares a glance or two back at Link to see how he's coming up with his answer - and his attention is thoroughly ripped away when he realizes that he's found one at all.

From the communicator? Dustin's eyebrows shoot up into his scraggly, sweaty mop of bangs. But that would mean--

That they've updated since they left with non-Temba and non-Sh'Ka fauna. Flustered, Dustin forgets the crossbow as he scrambles for his tablet, flicking one-handed through the menus and skimming over the 'Dictionary' entries at a glance. Marshbear. Krahbs...

"...'The Great Western Marsh?'" he murmurs. "How the fuck are the Agrii getting data on any of this? Did they already know?"

Felwinter may be staring at Link at the obvious disappointment in not being able to make a meal of the dead thing. He stares for a completely different reason once the other appears to find a matching entry to the creature on the tablet.

He looks at Dustin then before slipping out his own communicator to have a look as well.

"I...am not certain."

Meanwhile, the fact that the update happened doesn’t phase Link at all. If anything, he’s nonplussed by their reactions.

“…It’s like a Compendium?” Link says, looking between the other two. Isn’t that how this should work?

Even though he doesn't fully understand what Link is referring to, Dustin ends up brushing him off anyway. "The information has to come from somewhere," he huffs, shaking his head in frustration as he shoves his communicator back in his satchel. "Someone has access to all of these files and is uploading them when they become relevant. Has to be. I'd assumed it was the Agrii at first, but if their influence never extended outside of Temba or Sh'Ka, they shouldn't..."

He doesn't finish that thought at first, in favor of sloshing over to the fallen Marshbear and looking over it next to Link. Regrets are had quite quickly; Dustin winces, then backs away to the other side of the clearing, not even bothering to retrieve the crossbow bolt still lodged in the creature's lump of a body.

"...The Atroma, you think?" A curious glance is cast in Felwinter's direction.

"Hm..." The warlord adopts a pensive pose as he rests a knuckle beneath the chin of his helmet, propping his elbow with his other arm.

"There is not enough information to be sure," he finally says. "Even if it were a case of automatic updates once we reached a certain region, it still means that someone has ventured out this far or is intimately familiar with the territory, or at least to enough a degree to be naming areas and its local fauna."

He moves to slip out his tablet to tap through things and see the entries for himself. "What it does suggest is that these regions have been explored previously to some degree. Felspring..."

His Ghost compiles in a shimmer of light, giving a spin of her rear vertices before she floats over the tablet. A light beams from her core, playing across the tablet.

Link listens. He's not as familiar with all of these groups as Dustin and Felwinter are yet - but he pays careful attention anyway.

He does, however, pull out a knife and start using to wedge out some of the Marshbear's teeth while the other two talk. Since you know, he might as well get started on that.

Dustin's eyes narrow in on the little Ghost first, then he decides that this isn't a good enough location to sate his curiosity, so he cautiously steps over and cranes his neck so he can look over Felwinter's arm at the tablet. "What is she...?"

There's a sickening pop from the bog. Dustin's attention is snapped away, looking in alarm at Link - which rapidly morphs into unfiltered revulsion.

"--Ugh--seriously?" In spite of Dustin's obvious disgust, he can't look away. Like watching a car accident in slow motion. "Come on man, do you really need the fucking--" Pop! "--Please--please tell me there's a use for those. Holy shit."

Felwinter is either unfazed or ignoring Link's current task at hand, a toss-up, really. He waits as Felspring works, his helmet only turning slightly as Dustin comes over to observe.

"I'm trying to find the source for the entry updates," the Ghost speaks up, even as she continues to tend to her scans. Given Felwinter hardly injects any flavor into his own tone, hearing Felspring speak might be a refreshing surprise.

"That's...strange. The paths are there, but they go absolutely nowhere. It's a lot of work to throw someone off a trail." She sounds mildly annoyed.

Link looks at Dustin. Looks at the teeth he's pulling from the dead animal. Why wouldn't they be useful? Sure, Link doesn't know what they can do yet. But he'll find out eventually. Probably.

And if not, well. They still look nice. They're sharp, and pointy!

He shrugs, and extracts a few more teeth. Though he does look at Felspring as he does so, listening to what she has to say. Maybe they need to find the source?

Hearing Felspring speak is more than just a pleasant divergence from Felwinter's tacit nature - for Dustin, it's an excellent distraction from continuing to watch Link harvest teeth from a dead animal. Still looking deeply uncomfortable, he wrenches his gaze away, desperately trying to ignore the sounds of their companion's work continuing in the foreground.

"Proxies," Dustin mutters. "You don't set up a layered redirect like that unless you have something to hide, and you have the resources to do it. The Atroma would have access to more than enough off-planet networks to bounce off of, and they have plenty to hide from us and everyone else, so."

Felspring eventually stops her digital digging. She swivels in midair to glance over at Link and his work, staring for a good two seconds before she turns back to Felwinter almost judgmentally. Not that she can say she's surprised at the company he keeps.

"If we weren't so limited in our resources here, tracking them down wouldn't be a problem. But there still has to be some network or system that's local or within range to do all this. I'm sure they've hidden that well, but if we can locate that, then we'd have a more direct means of being able to trace the source, if not the Atroma themselves."

"Hmm..." Felwinter muses. "I suspect it might not be anywhere terrestrial. Or if it is, then the relays must be well-hidden. Strange that the database can update itself, and yet in Sh'Ka, network communication was not established until we took it upon ourselves to do so."

Link notices Felspring watching him. He pauses in his work momentarily, to give her a little wave. But thankfully - for her and Dustin's sensibilities - he's soon finished extracting the teeth.

"Networks look like...?" he asks the other two, head cocked to one side. He does do a lot of exploring. He could keep an eye out for this secret, hidden network or system.

Unfortunately, he has absolutely no idea how to identify one in the first place.

Dustin dips his head into his hand, rubbing his lightly-fuzzed chin. Felspring and Felwinter both bring up good points; whatever - or whoever - is maintaining the Network has to be somewhere nearby, or there has to be a local relay for it that they can discern, in order for it to function the way it does. Assuming that wireless communications via the Network are at all analogous to what Dustin knows from Earth, anyway.

He's opening his mouth to try and quantify those thoughts when Link interjects first. Dustin pauses, quietly thankful that Link has stopped mutilating a corpse as his eyes automatically snap to look at him. His first thought is that this is a stupid question - the Network isn't a physical thing that can be found, obviously, duh. But a moment's consideration later tells him that that's not the spirit Link is asking the question in, and slapping his curiosity down entirely wouldn't do any of them any favors.

Dustin sighs, shifting his hand to prod at his temples. "I know what relays look like where I'm from, but we can't assume that the ones used for the Network will resemble those at all," he admits. "What was involved in setting up the Network in Sh'Ka, Felwinter? Do you know if anything like that had to happen to get the Network working in Temba?"

A network would be difficult to explain without getting into some background. Felwinter considers how to do this, mentally trimming down unnecessary details.

"Networks do not necessarily have a physical presence outside of the connections it manifests through. The ability to communicate through these tablets is through the connection of a network. But there is usually something transmitting- sending the information, but these can vary in form."

He glances from Link to Dustin then. "I believe it was a collaborative effort by Stark and Cal Kestis. Such relays had to be made and then installed in Sh'Ka, but I do not know further details than that. The network prior had already been established, as with many things in Temba, so I am not sure of the early state of the network or whether it was something that was also built from the ground up."

Link looks from one to the other. He's not entirely sure he follows the explanation. They need to find a thing that doesn't physically exist - except for the bits that don't?

But - maybe they have a lead?

"Tony will know?"

"Stark probably would," Dustin acknowledges, delivered with the same level of enthusiasm as a slowly deflating balloon. "Cal too. Either way, the relays might not have the same kinds of security protocols as the communicators do - they could provide a backdoor into finding the source. Or we could build one that's meant to do that specifically."

Felwinter hums thoughtfully, the nods at Felspring to dismiss her. The Ghost decompiles in that same shimmer of light, folding into some space between spaces.

"Regardless, we will likely not be finding out anything more in regard to a network or a system here. I am not sure if further travel will yield anything else useful, but I leave the decision to the two of you as to whether we should continue or not."

He turns his head towards the deeper marshes. It was already proving more dangerous than their earlier trek with just the drastic change of terrain.

Beyond the Boundaries

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