revivalproject | April catch-all

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April catch-all

WHO: Link and Dustin, Tommmy, Radley, and you!
WHERE: Various places in and around Temba and Sh'ka
WHAT: Link goes hunting, bothers Dustin, makes some dubious drinks and attempts to contact the Funfronds
WHEN: In the weeks after the Ah! Real Monsters! Event
WARNINGS: animal murder

i. Senseless animal murder aka Hunting [open]

Link's hunting more frequently these days. Mainly because he learned, much to his dismay, that without his korok-enchanted pack he doesn't have a good way to keep meat long-term. So rather than doing a lot of hunting at once, he needs to head out regularly for smaller kills that he can cook that day.

So he can frequently be found in the forests outside Temba - or Sh'ka, if he happens to be there instead - moving swiftly and silently, his compound bow at the ready.

Between the trees, he spots one of the small, dinosaur-like Gallies. Crouches down, and inches further. Before drawing his bow, aiming right for the creatures head, and letting the arrow go.

ii. You can never have too many shields [closed to Dustin]

Dustin had made Link promise not to tell anyone about the Workshop, or where it was. A promise he had absolutely taken seriously, and had kept.

What Dustin had not done, however, was make Link promise not to show up there whenever he felt like it.

The challenge, however, was getting in to the workshop. Dustin had evidently left a puzzle for Link, because he soon found that the door was locked and the windows boarded up. But there was this little square flap at the bottom of the back door. If Link takes of his Sword and bow and makeshift shield - and carefully lays them next to the flap - he might be able to squeeze through.

Which he, of course, immediately proceeds to attempt to do.

iii. Making The Frog Drink [closed to Tommy and Radley]

This wasn't Link's first time cooking at the diner. He'd become a bit of a regular, actually - though he was always happy to cook for everyone else around too, when he was there. Sometimes making unusually elaborate dishes using whatever new and interesting ingredients he'd managed to find.

Today, however, it was a bit different. Today, Link was experimenting.

Thanks to the Agriculture datapoint, he knew how to make something close to the elixirs he made back in Hyrule with local plants. But the datapoint didn't tell him anything about using animals, or insects. Which meant Link had to figure out what he could make by pure trial and error.

The end result of this was Link cooking up an increasingly odd series of concoctions, using things like butterflies, beetles, lizards, crabs, grasshoppers. And, of course, frogs.

Link had a good feeling about the frog. This one, he was sure, was going to do something.

iv. Are these the new Koroks? [closed to Funfronds]

Link had heard about the Funfronds from Dustin. Knew at least a little of what they were, from the Dictionary. But hearing about them was one thing - Link wanted to see them for himself.

And he was so very, very curious.

So, he's staked out the ruins near the greenhouse, late one evening. Thought a little about how he might indicate he was friendly to them. He ended up combing through the ruins, and leaving an apple or other piece of small fruit whenever he found a little nook or cranny. He didn't know if the Funfronds were anything like Koroks, but if they were - well, maybe they'd appreciate the gifts too? Course, Koroks also liked thinks like Link picking up rocks, and shooting balloons, and jumping into circles of lilies in the water...

...Maybe he'd try those later. If the apples didn't work. For now, though, he just sits in one corner in the ruins. And waits.

V. Wildcard!

[[OOC: Choose your own adventure! Let me know if you'd like to set up anything not covered by the above]]

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Link nods, and then immediately heads outside. For the rather obvious reason that shield-surfing really isn't something you should do inside.

(Well, not usually inside. There might have been a few Shrines he tried shield-surfing in.)

Fortunately, street outside is on an incline, so they don't have to go any further. Link just waits until Dustin is outside, and looking at Link. And then he grabs the piece of wooden door from his back, jumps onto it, and starts gliding down the street on it like it's a snowboard.

Of course, it's not really much of a hill. And the door isn't a great shield either. So he doesn't get too far before the door starts falling apart, and Link has to jump off.

Dustin isn't sure what he expected to observe when he followed Link outside, but he's not really surprised by the demonstration, either. That...that's just surfing, but on dry ground. Deeply inefficient. How did he even learn that this was an effective mode of travel? Dustin's eyebrow rises precipitously as he tracks Link's short journey down the main road, although he holds his tongue until Link starts wandering back towards him, leaned up against the closed side entrance to his shop.

"What did your old shield look like?" he asks slowly, but his mental protests are too loud, so he ends up interrupting himself with a baffled shake of his head. "--What kinds of situations did--Why? When was shield surfing useful for you?"

"I had lots." Because of course, Link's hoarding tendencies extended to weaponry an armour as well. "Wooden. Metal. Circle shaped. Kite shaped. Pointy at the bottom."

As for when shield surfing was most useful, Link just looks at Dustin. "When going down mountains." That was always fun.

"Naturally," Dustin mutters, letting his head drop into a hand so he can knead the bridge of his nose. Link would have to have a bunch of shields if he's doing...that to them. Taking them down mountains like a snowboard on dirt. Maybe he has access to some kind of strange supporting alloy in his world that's durable enough to put up with that sort of punishment - or maybe he just goes through a lot of shields. Probably the latter, based on his descriptions.

He glances back up, looking tired. "There are..." But the protest dies in his throat. Yes, there are definitely better ways to navigate getting down from a mountain than riding a flat piece of stylized debris down its slopes. Will Link actually listen to that advice? Dustin thinks, not likely. And if he's willing to put his armor through this level of abuse, what other, horrible things will he do to something Dustin makes for him? He's got to keep that in mind, and prepare for it - make something that will stop it from taking a beating in the first place, so that Link doesn't just roll up to his doorstep again in a few days with a destroyed shield and a pair of broken ankles.

Stop it from taking a beating. Dustin's eyes light up with the spark of an idea.

"--I can do it," he says suddenly with a quick, firm nod. "Give me...a month. Involves some components I haven't worked with before, need to test them."

Link most definitely goes through a lot of shields. And sure, there might be better ways of getting down mountains. But they're not as fun.

He nods. A month. He can wait a month. Who knows when he'll find what Tony needs, so he'll just have to make do with the makeshift shields until then.

"You need something?" he says. Because if Dustin's going to all this work, Link should obviously do something for him in return.

Also he might just be in need of some new quests.

Dustin's never going to turn down trade - especially when there's such an obvious offer he can make.

"Replicator rations," he answers immediately. "The more you can give me, the faster I can build this for you."

Link nods, agreeing easily enough. Link doesn't actually use his replicator rations all that much. Sure, he'd been excited by it at first - but then it turned out he could only replicate five things a month. Which when compared to what Link actively collected while out and about on a regular basis, wasn't much at all.

Although there was one small problem.

"...How do I give them to you?" Link knew how to go to the machine, and get it to copy a thing. But...how did he transfer that over to Dustin?

That's a fair question. "You don't," Dustin shrugs. "I'll send you the blueprints for what I want you to request, and you feed them in instead of me."

A beat. It occurs to him that Link might not know how the Replicator works, exactly - or not in the way that Dustin would want him to use it. He might ask for a copy of the blueprints or something. His gaze narrows, curious and preemptively critical of the response he's expecting to get.

"...Do you...does that make sense, at all?"

From the blank look Link gives Dustin, no. No it does not make sense.

"Blue...prints...?" he says, slowly. What even are 'prints', and why are they blue?

That tracks. Dustin's shoulders slump in a sigh; at least he adjusted his expectations first, so he's not too disappointed by the fact that he's going to have to do some on-the-fly tutoring.

"I'll just...here." Dustin abruptly spins on his heels so he can check that the external deadbolt on his workshop is engaged, then paces quickly towards Link and past him, gesturing for him to follow. "Come on - we're going to the 'Welcome Center.' It'll be easier if I just show you."

"Okay," Link says, and dutifully heads towards the welcome centre.

For the most part, the trip will - unless Dustin decides he actually wants to initiate conversation - silent. Link is not a talkative travel companion.

He does, however, frequently veer off for a moment to pick a flower. Or a mushroom. Or a curious looking herb. He seems utterly unable to see something with vague potential use, and just leave it there.

Having traveled with Link on a much longer journey, Dustin is, at this point, well accustomed to how his companion operates. There's no point in trying to engage the guy in conversation, or to worry about if he'll come back after being distracted by a cool lizard on the side of the road or whatever. Link knows where they're going and Dustin trusts him to make it there at his own pace.

Besides, this gives him time to work on the actual blueprints. He could draw them directly into the replicator and have it store them for easy printing later, yes, but storing that information in the replicator means someone else could do the same. Feeding in temporary files is much more secure. So Dustin spends the walk staring down at his communicator, systematically tracing out lines on a custom painting app while he lets his muscle memory of the path to the 'Welcome Center' move his feet around obstacles. He doesn't even look up until he's directly in front of the door, and that's just to check if Link made it there first.

Link does not make it there first. Though at least he arrives only a short while later, rather than being drastically late.

He has apparently decided at one point to climb on the Welcome Centre though, as when Link re-appears it's by dropping down from right above the door. A bit like that creature that jumped them on their little exploration trip. But with less violence.

Link gives Dustin a nod, and then walks in.

Oh, well, no surprises that Link is late. Dustin doesn't even blink as he steps inside - though he does noticeably jump and spins around with obvious alarm when he hears, soon after, the sound of something heavy dropping to the ground behind him.

The fuck did he come from? Did he just--? Dustin's eyes flicker upwards briefly before settling back on Link, nonchalantly striding through the door after him. His gaze narrows. Of course he was on the roof. Why wouldn't he be on the roof? That's just a normal place for Link to be.

Dustin breathes a quiet sigh and gestures ahead of him. "You've used the Replicator before?" he asks, jerking his head towards the back of the room and the quietly, almost anxiously vibrating bit of horrifying steampunk technology waiting for them there.

"Yes." Although mostly just to replicate things he'd found while here. Some mushrooms. A few flowers. One interestingly-shaped rock, which he now had an inexplicable five exact copies of. But that had been the extent of it so far.

"...Not with blueprints." Or anything he didn't immediately have on hand. But presumably Dustin would show him how that works?

That's one less thing to explain, at least - especially when that explanation might involve knowing that the menacing-looking device isn't going to chop off any fingers by using it, no matter how much it clicks and groans when people approach it. Dustin never quite figured out who modified the device to be this way, or how, but he's determined that whoever they are has an incredibly irritating sense of humor.

"Figured," he shrugs, narrowing his attention in on the device while rubbing his hands together. The Replicator lets out a hiss of steam, like a frightened cat, but Dustin ignores it. "It's simple - if you want to replicate something that you don't have a physical copy of, you have to tell the replicator how to make it. Hence, the blueprints. There's an interface, here--"

And Dustin goes through the process of explaining how to input a set of schematics into the Replicator, while simultaneously doing so with the designs he drew up on his communicator on the way here. He does not skimp on details, nor does he water anything down for Link's benefit.

"--Then you just press the button like normal." Dustin takes a breath and steps away from the panel. "You specifically, since we're using your rations. It can tell, because of course it fucking can."

Link’s relationship with technology is a little complicated. On the one hand, he comes from an essentially medieval society. On the other hand, there’s all this ancient technology just lying about.

The end result is that Link is weirdly comfortable interacting with strange devices that he absolutely does not understand. He just shrugs, and rolls with it.

If anything, it’s kind of nice to get a detailed explanation for once. So Link listens attentively. Nods at the end, to indicate that he at least got…most of that. More than half, anyway.

Then he steps forward, and dutifully presses the button.

Link is a guy of few words, as expected. This would be concerning if this was a complicated thing that Dustin needed him to replicate, but since it's just Pushing A Button, he's feeling pretty confident that it can't go wrong somehow. Thankfully it doesn't; the Replicator shudders and does a lot more agitated hissing and clattering for several moments, flashes with blue light, then rather anticlimactically stills as its front panel slides open. A device, about the size of Dustin's palm and covered in various wires and open circuitry, sits in the bay. Dustin hurries to pick it up and gently inspect it for any discrepancies.

"...Alright," he murmurs. His tone doesn't properly convey how excited he is to have his hands on this type of tech, but maybe the glimmer in his eyes, like he's holding his first-born child, says a bit more. "We'll do another one of these. Then I'm going to swap out the blueprints for the second section, do that twice, and we'll replicate the overall casing last."

A pause - then Dustin glances up with a sharp realization.

"--Last chance," he says suddenly. "Are you absolutely sure you want to use all of your rations for this?"

Curious, Link looks at the device. He has absolutely no idea what it does. But it looks interesting - like exactly the sort of thing Zelda would love to research.

(He wishes she were here. There's so much in this place, that she would want to see...)

He looks at Dustin. The seeking of confirmation isn't really necessary. Link doesn't really need his rations. And Dustin wants them. It would help him. So - why not?

So Link nods, and then - just to make it extra clear - presses the button again.

Link will hear absolutely no further arguments from Dustin on this front. A smirk cracks his face as the Replicator shudders through another copy of the antigrav generator's core circuitry, which turns into a grin after he loads in and replicates two of the modified projection units. His eyes are glossy by the time the casing to join the two together ends up in his hands.

Antigravity technology. A year ago (Agra-10 time), Dustin would have assumed that this kind of device would live in the realm of science fiction, or maybe in a future that he would help build towards, but never see himself. Having the fundamental blueprints rattling around in his brain, and the resources to realize them - that's a completely different level of ecstasy.

Reverently, Dustin deposits the streamlined plastic case into his satchel to sit next to the other parts. Then he glances up, sees Link, and is snapped back to reality when he's reminded why he had the opportunity to snag this tech in the first place.

"--Just need to make the actual shield part of it now," he explains, somewhat abruptly. "A few weeks. Mostly for testing the generators, make sure they work the way I expect them to. I'll let you know when it's done."

Link watches, silent as usual. But he can see that Dustin's happy, in a way that's rare for the other teenager.

It's nice. Being able to help. Knowing it's appreciated.

And they've only used two of Link's rations. He nods, eager to see the new shield when it's complete. But surely, Dustin will need the rations for other things as well?

"You need next month?"

Edited 2023-06-03 23:22 (UTC)

Dustin halts mid-turn towards the door to the building, his brow furrowing. Is he interpreting that question right? No. Surely not. Best ask for clarification.

"...Next month's replicator rations?" he ventures, quirking a suspicious eyebrow. "Mine or yours?"

"Mine."

Dustin seemed to need a lot of stuff, after all. Not to mention, he was one of the 'smart science people', who might be able to figure out the storms. Helping Dustin meant helping the Agrii.

Dustin stares at Link in silence for several long, awkward moments, processing that. All of them? Rationally he understands why - Link seems to prefer to find things rather than make them, so the Replicator wouldn't have as much of an appeal - but to Dustin, each ration is such a precious commodity, that it's difficult for him to wrap his head around someone else just throwing them away.

So, perhaps more clarification is needed. "I-I don't need any more for your shield," Dustin explains quickly, tripping over his own words. "Is there something else you were expecting me to make? I've got a lot on my plate, you know, I can't--I can't just drop everything to make your shit because you've given me the resources to do it."

Link shrugs. "For the storms?"

He doesn't really know what Dustin plans to make, so he doesn't really have any expectations. But - he figures something Dustin's doing will probably help with their quest to stop the storms. So - why not help?

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