revivalproject | March Catch-All

Entry tags:

March Catch-All | Network/Action

WHO: Dustin, Barrys, various people
WHERE: Network, Sh'Ka, Temba, all over the place
WHAT: Dustin discovers some stuff and complains about it. Also, he's building things again.
WHEN: Through the first half of March
WARNINGS: Dustin. Will add as needed.

1. Network | Video/Text | OTA

[It's nearly impossible for Dustin to think of a situation where broadcasting his location, live, over an Agrii-monitored network, could possibly be a good idea. Nearly impossible. But this planet is always full of surprises.]

[This is one of them. The camera cuts on to show Sh'Ka's iconic palace - or where it should be, based on the unusually large patch of short grass growing here amidst the massive trees. What remains instead is a giant pile of rubble. The camera pans around it for about thirty seconds, in complete silence, to show the scale of the destruction before shutting off.]

[Captioning it, in Dustin's characteristic pithiness: ]

What the fuck happened here?

2. Sh'Ka | Closed for Barrys

The Palace had been an incidental observation on his way to a greater project - something that Dustin has had in the works since last fall, actually, and was forced to put on hold when the winter's snows kept him isolated to Temba. Barry intel.

The 'hive' of Barrys he's been focusing on seems to be an especially active one that lives in the walls of Sh'Ka's Agriculture Building, and Dustin is pleased to note that the colony's drones are still alive and stomping around after Agra-10's deep freeze. His offerings today are perhaps lackluster compared to the ones he's left in the past, but unfortunately he has to make due with the small winter and early spring berries he's scavenged on the way here, with a handful of dried summer fruits to supplement. The small pile is left next to a trail Dustin has observed the workers frequently using.

Then there's nothing else to do but sit back several feet away, crouched in the shade of a young fruit tree, and wait.

3a. Workshopping | Closed to Donatello

The lack of snow and warming temperatures mean that Dustin isn't nearly so restricted in where he goes and what he gets done, but that hardly means he's avoiding his typical haunts. If anything, his workshop requires special attention right now; his telescope motor needs to be finished and installed when the nights are still cool and clear, while still avoiding patches of ice or snowmelt mud that could hinder its transport. That window is rapidly approaching and won't stay open for long.

It's one of those days of harried work, when he's spent hours fiddling with the code on his tablet, napped, snacked, then coded a bit more, losing track of what time of day it is save the little streaks of daylight streaming in through the boarded-up windows of his shop, when Dustin gets a single knock on his door. He straightens abruptly from his shrimp-like hunch over his communicator and waits.

Three seconds later, there are two more knocks.

Ah. Dustin hops out of the chair behind his workbench - what used to be a checkout counter - and strides to the door. "I hear you," he announces, loud enough to carry through the thick masonry walls. "Gimmie a sec to unlock the door."

A few extra manual locks have been added since midwinter. There's a series of at least five clicks, scrapes, and pops, then the door cracks open and Dustin peeks around to make sure it's Donatello on the other side.

3b. Demolition | Closed to Link

Finally, finally, the motor is complete. That just leaves the part Dustin had been dreading the most: Getting this fucking massive thing installed back in the stadium light he took it from. Getting it out and into his shop last year had been a production in itself, which is a lot of the reason why he'd been anxious about repeating the process in reverse. At least then he didn't have to worry about breaking it in transport last time - the thing already didn't work. But now it's got all kinds of delicate bits on it for precision lens movement and rotation, and Dustin's spent a lot of time on the initial calibrations while pairing it to the tracking program he wrote on his tablet.

He could have moved it again on his own, yes. Though the more he thinks about that process now, the more he's thankful for Link's offer to help instead.

Link will get that call in the early morning, about an hour before dawn, in the form of a picture of Temba's map sent to his personal inbox. The intersection between buildings Orange 8 and 9 has been circled in bright red. This, rather than his workshop proper, is where Dustin waits for Link to meet him, leaned against the rubble of Orange 8's walls and shivering against the lingering evening chill.

3c. Construction | Amphitheater | OTA

Once he and Link have extricated the motor from his workshop, rolled it to the Amphitheater, and reset it in the modified spotlight housing he left behind last fall, that just leaves getting the newly-minted telescope working again. Dustin spends the next week more or less living here to get this done. A decent chunk of that time is spent just cleaning up the old observation room he stayed in last year, and scrubbing the rust and debris off of the spotlight after three months of neglect.

Then, testing. Hours upon hours of testing. Some of this Dustin can do during the day, where he calibrates the motor and lenses by sighting in distant objects at the edges of Temba, but a lot of it has to wait for nightfall. Then he can start combining his mental star maps with his makeshift tracking software to have the telescope follow stars across the sky. This is a more passive process, where he sits back, takes measurements of the telescope's current position, checks the sighting scope and compares it to the observation piece, sometimes makes adjustments to one or both, then breaks to scarf down some dried Baconroom and wait for another thirty minutes in silence. It might seem like tedious work, but the entire time Dustin is practically vibrating with excitement, even if someone unexpected shows up in his workspace. Eight Agra-10 months of planning and naked-eye observation are finally paying off.

5. Spores | Various Locations | OTA

Dustin's final task for spring is one that happens between all the rest, generally when he's going from one location to another. The shortest path is always the preferred one, of course, but this month he's been going out of his way to take odd routes, circling areas that people don't frequent often, where he spots new plant growth starting to sprout with the warming temperatures. And where he goes, Dustin carries a jar with a sieved lid, filled with a powdery, partially aerosolized red substance. He pauses periodically to tap the jar over these islands of greenery, makes sure that a fine mist coats wherever he stops, and then, apparently satisfied with his work, continues on his way.

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It's almost two hours before there's motion. They are cautious things, the Barrys. A pair of scouts appear, see the pile, and then flee. In another hour they return with a larger party of scouts who immediately start to scoop up the gifts into their baskets, and a handful of warrior Barries, their weapons of sharpened thorns in hand. These warriors watch the watcher, glowing eyes narrowed, as the scouts go about their gathering of supplies on quick feet.

It's nothing new, it's how most things have gone when Dustin left gifts for the colony, though there's less hostility now than there had been at first. Sure the warriors watch, ever attentive, but the scouts had been so quick to come back with the party, and the scouts didn't even seem to pay Dustin any mind at all. No one looked ready to attack Dustin for being close unlike the first few times. Really, it's as peaceful an exchange as has ever occurred.

[Keith was another that tended to go places where people didn't often go. Being a bit of a loner, and also having decided that his fight skills were best used hunting for food around town and making sure more dangerous creatures tended to stay out of areas that people needed to feel safe.

So, spotting someone walking around sprinkling weird stuff on plants was kind of concerning. After all, finding stuff to eat wasn't always easy, even with the agricultural buildings in both cities.

Keith paused.]

What are you doing?

"Sure you got enough locks there?" Donatello greets. While there's a lot less snow, the weather's still chilly enough that he's glad he's invested in replicating a coat (purple, of course), pants and boots. He's also wearing the sweater Dustin had managed to scavenge for him early on, the end of it ragged from where the turtle teen had decided having two feet extra material was getting in the way and trimmed it, but despite the unravelling look, he kind of liked it. Fashion.

Hands stuffed into his coat pockets, he pushes away from the wall he'd been leaning against, casting a glance around before looking back at Dustin expectantly with a quirk of his brow.

Link gets the message, but he responds to it with the kind of urgency that you might expect from someone who doesn't really pay much mind to things like 'schedules' or 'regular waking hours'. In Hyrule, people show up when they show up. And Dustin's message didn't specify any kind of time.

So Dustin's in for a bit of a wait. Link's gotta make himself breakfast first, of course. Pick a few mushrooms. Get distracted by a few Geoff's hopping through the city. Open up any crates or boxes he might find along the way, just to see if there's anything in side.

Eventually though - several hours after Dustin probably expected him - Link arrives.

"Hi," he says.

Yeah, that's something that is going to need some explanation. There was Gladio, a large sack over his shoulder from some game he was bringing in, and he had to stop. Because what the actual fuck.

"You being a magical glitter bestower or something?"

This is a familiar reaction in more ways than one. Dustin understands this level of paranoia on a personal level; if he had the sorts of protections the Barrys have for their queen, he'd behave the same way, and in a lot of situations he already does. Their caution is understandable and Dustin respects it. He lets them have their space.

Their relative comfort around him, however, is also notable. Maybe now he'll have an opportunity to speak with one of them? That same paranoia has kept him from observing too much of the Barrys' language, but he has the Communications expertise to fill in the gaps. He can almost feel the information slipping into place as his index and pointer fingers gently touch the ground, like instinct.

Dustin waits for the last batch of scouts to start loading up food. Then he taps his fingers, in the imitated 'stomp' of their language.

[Need to talk.]

The motion earns the warriors lowering their thorns at the new behavior, as if to threaten him to return to the norm. And then he taps. Everyone, including the scouts, freeze. There is consideration, concern, looks shot between them.

While perhaps their language required less motion and dancing than the Funfronds, their more expressive hands and eyes meant there was a touch more body language in the hive, and there was no doubt there was concern. At last one of the warriors, one with an extra large and just hinted with red leaf in their cap, tapped out a tentative reply.

[What would you speak of, Gifting Giant?]

[The hair on the back of Dustin's neck bristles, but only for a moment. He'd been so focused on the routine of his task that he hadn't noticed Keith show up. But at least it's Keith, and not someone more...suspicious. Plenty of those to go around.]

[Mental note: Pay more attention to surroundings.]

It's complicated. [Dustin finishes inspecting his most recent coat of artificial spore distribution, then halts, turning to face Keith with a raised eyebrow.] Are you sure you want the details?

"No," Dustin answers immediately, deadpan; given the returned quirk of an eyebrow and the slight tug at the corner of his mouth, it might be difficult to tell if he's being serious or not. "Plenty of space to add more."

Either way, he pulls the door open enough for Donatello to let himself inside, waving over his shoulder and wandering into the mess. And it is a mess. Organizational efforts have gone by the wayside in the face of an impending deadline, tools and partially decomposed scrap and electronics littering the floor, sometimes haphazardly stacked into piles to maximize floorspace, other times just abandoned if they aren't in the way. Two particularly notable work areas seem more tornado-like in their states of disarray: The very obvious giant telescope motor taking up the front wall, the rollers swapped for sturdier jacks that allow Dustin to test its movement before installation; and a weird, skeleton-looking machine against the opposite wall, human-sized, with obvious holds for hands and feet. Some kind of suit, perhaps? It's been opened up in places, wires and circuit boards strewn out for examination.

Winter's chill hasn't completely left Temba, so the space heater next to the motor is still on, radiating a pleasant warmth throughout the workshop floor.

"Come in I guess," Dustin calls without looking behind him. "Close the door behind you, it'll lock on its own."

Dustin can be patient about very specific things. Meticulous observation to learn patterns, or to witness a statistically unlikely but notable event? Easy. Sitting down for hours straight to sift through code, line by line, finding and correcting mistakes? Barely an inconvenience.

Twiddling his thumbs while waiting for someone to show up for a task, however, is something Dustin finds absolutely insufferable.

By the time Link decides to arrive, Dustin has abandoned waiting for him entirely. At least the meeting spot isn't at all far away from where the work is taking place; Orange 9, the seemingly abandoned store that he's turned into his workshop, is already showing clear signs of activity, with several piles of bricks knocked out of the front wall and set aside. The sounds of Dustin knocking out the masonry with a hammer probably carry for some distance.

Link's voice doesn't, but at least he happens to announce his presence when there's a break in the banging. Dustin pokes his head out from the gap in the wall, looking flustered, sweaty, and extremely irritated.

"Took you fucking long enough," he barks. "Thought I'd end up doing this shit myself anyway. Quit staring and grab a goddamn hammer, we're wasting time!"

Huh. Dustin's angry again. That seems to happen a lot, with him.

Though Link doesn't see why Dustin was expecting him to arrive sooner. It was still morning, after all. And Dustin didn't know where Link was, when his message came though. What if Link had been even farther away?

(No one in Hyrule would ever expect Link to show up quickly. And there, he had the Slate. Which could teleport.)

Still, Link's here. And apparently they're knocking down a wall. So he picks up a hammer. Gets a feel for the weight of it in his hands. And then swings.

The amount of wall Link knocks down in one single hit is probably more than Dustin's done all morning.

Edited 2023-03-10 23:04 (UTC)

Kind of. [Keith frowned a bit. Anytime he was asked that question by Pidge, it had always turned into some very overly scientific explanation that confused him more than it answered his question.] I'm wondering what's the point... like, is that supposed to help something? Like, make the plants grow or something? Or are you keeping the paths around town clear?

[Or is this going to be a problem? Keith kept that to himself, even if he had a feeling it could be picked up on.]

[Radley has never been to Sh'Ka and doesn't know what he's looking at, except that it's a mess. And that maybe it wasn't like that before, judging from Dustin's reaction?]

What the ... ?! What was that?!

[And if it's something that recently happened, was it naturally occurring or not? If not, who would have done it and why? They're supposed to be restoring, not destroying!]

"Guess adding a secondary vault door would require more resources," Donnie notes, eyeballing the area around the doorway once he steps inside, mostly out of curiosity to see how possible that would even be. He pushes the door closed, nodding once he hears it click shut before turning to properly take in everything.

...and it is a lot to take in.

Donatello prefers a more organized workspace himself, but who is he to question the obvious chaos left in the wake of progress? And progress stands very noticeable there in the form of that beautiful motor. The other machine? That's an unexpected bonus, a curiosity that hasn't been divulged to him. Yet.

The warmth is welcome and already comfortable enough once the chill is locked outside that the turtle starts shrugging out of his coat and pulls off his hat, looking for somewhere near the door to leave them where they won't get swallowed up in the mess before he carefully wades between piles to get closer to the motor.

"Is this it? Impressive..." And he does mean that, because he's already noticed how slim the pickings are in the city for something like this, as well as acknowledged the fact that one doesn't simply slap together telescopes or their motors without having some idea of the inner workings of them.

Even with as focused as Dustin is on his task, Gladio is too large a figure for him to miss or ignore; he's already warily tracking the man out of the corner of his eye by the time he enters his space, expecting some kind of interaction, but not sure what. Curiosity? An attempt at a pleasant greeting? Snark?

The actual response he gets is somewhere near the intersection of all three of those things. Dustin puffs a sigh.

"Sure, why not," he tuts, already exasperated and annoyed at himself for how petulant that sounds coming out of his mouth. He decides to roll with it anyway. "That's what I do, right? Sprinkle glitter bullshit on random things for shits and giggles?"

...Perhaps he was too forward? Dustin resists the temptation to pull his hand back; if their more aggressive reaction had been towards sudden movements, then retreating is just going to make them warier. Those little thorns probably won't kill him, but being pincushioned by them is also a deeply undesirable outcome.

Thankfully, the answer he gets is workable. Dustin lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

[Ancient history,] his fingers tap back. The Barry language is much easier to formulate than the Funfrond one, which is a pleasant change of pace, but it requires some careful spacing and percussiveness of stomps that demands a lot of brainpower to moderate, at least until his muscle memory kicks in. His words are, therefore, a bit slow and halting at first while he gets the hang of things. [I have many questions about it. Was sent by the...mushroom hive? Translation debatable.]

Nothing to say, as expected. Dustin huffs and ducks back inside the building to keep tapping away at the cement holding a single brick in place. He should probably spell out what they're trying to do before Link gets too ahead of himself.

"Need to take out a third of the front wall," Dustin explains, blissfully oblivious to his helper weighing the spare sledgehammer he left out like a deadly weapon. "I've started at the easternmost edge. One more row and we'll need to--"

Dustin is frequently angry, yes - and it's also, always possible for him to get more angry. Or angry in a different way. What Link accomplishes, cutting Dustin off with a mighty CRASH and the scattering of brick shards and dust into his workshop, is the latter; he's initially too stunned to be properly mad. And then the panic kicks in.

"--Careful!" Dustin yelps, rushing over to inspect the gaping hole in his wall. "I-I don't have the supports up yet! It could--shit."

Too flustered to explain what he's up to, the boy spins and starts furiously sifting through a pile of scrap wood that he'd gathered for struts.

"Wow, you trying to start a dust-up with me?" Gladio asked with a smirk. He can't help it, he's a punner. "Seriously, what shits and giggles you getting from this?"

Again there is quiet and some consideration before the Barry raps back an answer.

[Frond-brothers. Send you for history. We keep better history. Tell history instead of draw. What history do you want?]

[Thankfully for both of them, Dustin continues to be dreadful at noticing social cues, and he's too trusting of Keith to try and study him for any subtext. His questions are, therefore, answered earnestly, if with a slight hint of exasperation.]

First guess more than any of the others.

[Dustin tilts his head down for a moment, brow furrowed. How to explain this in the simplest way possible...context would be a good start, probably.]

...You remember the storm this past summer, that happened while we were visiting Eorzea? The one that made all of the plants flip the fuck out?

A building.

[...Okay, Radley probably needs more background than that. Dustin rolls his eyes at his communicator and continues typing a moment later.]

The Sh'Ka map has it marked as "The Palace."
Have you ever been?

[Radley smirks at this first comment.]

Haha, oh really? I never would have guessed!

[At more helpful information, he sobers.]

No, I haven't. A palace?! That should have been pretty sturdy. What would bring it down like that?

Observation would show that adding an interior vault door would be a tight, but not impossible squeeze, although it seems that Dustin has gotten just about as close as possible to having one without it. There are lines of physical locks at different points on the door and wall next to it, with at least one electronic lock that seems to activate the primary deadbolt. That's the one that clicks into place when Donatello closes the door behind him.

There is not a place to hang a coat. Dustin's own coat - the now somewhat tattered-looking gathering gear from Eorzea - is draped over the back of his chair at his workbench, and he doesn't seem to have considered where guests would put theirs. Why would he? Except for Omega and the occasional unexpected cat visit through the flap built into the workshop's back door, he doesn't have guests.

Dustin walks straight towards the giant motor; it's what the turtle had asked to come see, after all. "Real bastard to transport here," he grunts, as an acknowledgement of Donatello's awe. "Not looking forward to moving it back."

At least Donnie comes prepared, not that he'd ever anticipated having to provide his own coatrack at someone's place. He pulls out his familiar tech-bo, extending it with a switch and with another tap has the lower end split into a tripod and the upper separate into something of a hook-hangar, which he promptly stands by the door and takes care of his coat business.

"Oh, I'll bet. At least you're not trying to haul stuff into a sewer. Getting stuff to my lab back home could be a real pain sometimes."

He stands in front of the heater to warm up his hands. Gloves were one thing he hadn't been able to replicate in his initial round of replications, and fingerless gloves, while stylish and supportive where it counts do not really do much for keeping your four fingers and two thumbs warm. "Well, at least you know it can be moved back since you got it here in the first place. But looking at this baby I definitely can see your concerns re: mud. Any idea how long the seasonal shifts usually are? At least the main roadways are more or less paved. Hey, how lame is it that we're on an alien planet and they don't seem to have any sort of hover technology we can retrofit?"

Link stops. Looks at Dustin. And feels...confused. And maybe a little bit irritated. This is what Dustin wanted isn't it? He asked Link to smash the wall, so Link smashed the wall. What else did he expect Link to do?

He looks at the hole, as Dustin yammers on about supports. What - is he worried it'll collapse? It seems fine to Link. But just to make Dustin feel better, Link reaches up, and holds the bricks at the top.

See? Can't fall down. Link's holding it up.

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March Catch-All | Network/Action

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Spores

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3b Demolition

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