revivalproject | Connect This Space Between

WHO: Donnie and you..?!
WHERE: The Warrens
WHAT: Taking things one step at a time...
WHEN: Post volcano eruption
WARNINGS: N/A
NOTES: Will match tag format.

i. hanging in there
The trip down had more or less been a mechanical process. Just follow everyone down, one foot in front of the other. For all that he's observed, the whole matter of a volcanic explosion happening somewhere overhead was still a difficult thing to process, or perhaps it was just everything else with that just topping it all off. He'd traveled in uncharacteristic silence, just waiting for that last straw that would possibly make him snap.

Thankfully he's been able to hold it together. Fresh water helps, and having other things to mind has kept his thoughts from spiraling completely out of control. It might be an odd sight to see a humanoid turtle carrying a makeshift tank with some kind of local alien turtleish creature in it, but Donnie's clung to it like a lifeline. And then there's DATA, Tony's strange little robot-spy-camera who's apparently been demoted to a cantaloupe as Donnie's chosen method of carrying him along is by a net-like bag. But now there's space and they can rest, so they're set down while the teenage turtle tries to get some feeling back in his fingers as he slowly allows himself to start assessing their new surroundings. Data collection usually helps him relax.

ii. like mapping out dungeons
Being underground isn't really a problem for him. He's more or less lived underground all his life, and compared to the sewers of New York, this is far less complicated to navigate.

Donnie takes to mapping things out, wandering the strange tunnels. He hasn't yet managed to cobble together a replacement computer for the one he sorely misses wearing on his arm, so he's doing things the old-fashioned way, with pencil and paper. He's tackling things in sections, intent on working out every possible direction down one way before he'll commit to the next. Which will explain his absence from the main area at given times. This may not be some technical project to work on, but he's approaching it the same way, completely caught up in his findings.

Someone might want to make sure he remembers to eat or you know, sleep.

iii. no time for idle hands
If he'd been completely without some sort of access to tech he might have lost it by now. At least here the atmosphere is much more inviting than Calibrations. But it also means there's no doors he can close when he wants to keep to himself and work on things. Not that he's finding himself too bothered by people.

His main concern is potential fire hazards, and what with moss and mats everywhere, at times Donnie gathers up some of his things and relocates himself down some tunnel or another where there's less of a risk of burning anything when he tries to do some circuitry work or welding.

iv. aces wild
Choose your own adventure! Throw me a starter or whatever.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Mm." Keith nodded a bit and then considered that.

"I don't know if it was running down here at all beforehand, but, when we first arrived, there wasn't much power to anything at all," Keith explained. "We had to get the plant up and running again to get power to all the stuff here. If this place didn't have power already on its own, then that would be when it came back up."

Buuuuut...

"But, if its not relying on the main power plant, then I don't know. I mean," he sighed, "I would guess that means it's got one of its own." As for the rest of that, though... the same could be said for most of this place. How long was it here? Who built it? All of that.

"I don't know if this place is connected directly to the city. It might be its own independent structure. Dustin said it reminds him of some of the structuring of the shuttles, so we wouldn't be surprised if this was some kind of ship." Donnie sighed again. "Which just brings up even more questions."

"Oh, yeah. Like the Calibrations tunnels... or the Marsiva." Not that Donnie would know what the Marsiva was. "When the ships were back in the Drift Fleet, we had a massive escort ship that the smaller ships were sort of... 'tethered' to. We weren't on it very often. Just during Calibrations, or just after arrival... or... after we... died, and... came back." Keith had seen some people do that. He'd been lucky enough to avoid it himself, but not everyone had been.

"Eyew, wait- so you've experienced the Calibrations thing even outside of here?" Donnie blinked, and then he had to stare. "...what do you mean, died?" And apparently didn't stay dead... He wasn't sure which was more concerning, both, probably.

Keith nodded, and then took another deep breath.

"People who died in Drift Fleet were brought back. They'd wake up on the Marsiva in the same way we woke up on arrival." He swallowed. "There was... Looma. She died when a massive meteor hit a planet we were trying to evacuate. She was one of the ones that didn't make it off in time. She woke back up on that ship a few weeks later."

Donnie's arms snuck up around himself as he tried to hold back a shudder. "Oh, a meteor strike sounds so much worse than a volcanic eruption," he groaned. They would have been very much dead if that had been the case here. Even though he didn't know who this Looma person was, it was still troubling to hear.

"Did...she remember?"

Keith looked thoughtful for a moment.

"I'm... not exactly sure... just how much of it she remembered," he said. "Like, she was aware of what happened, but I don't know what details of the actual incident she remembered." He shook his head a bit, but more to clear it than anything else. "She wasn't the only one, either. There was a guy... Max. He lost his leg. Looma lost an eye. Like, some injuries weren't just magically healed when they came back."

The turtle hugged his arms more tightly around himself. He hoped they didn't remember the specifics of... well, dying. Those poor people...

"But...could they have been? Was it on purpose? I mean, if they can bring people back from being dead, bringing them back whole doesn't seem any more difficult. ...okay it's still disturbing either way, but my point stands."

"I don't know," Keith said. "They usually spent about a week or so on the Marsiva after waking back up... and were kind of sick for a bit, like... recovering? From death?" He scrunched his nose a little. "And someone mentioned this sense of cold and dread with just... black." He shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know anything about how they were brought back. We just knew that they were."

"That doesn't happen here, does it..?" It seemed the logical thing to ask, even if Donnie felt a little sick himself contemplating it. He'd rather avoid the experience and certainly wasn't about to try it, even for science. But it seemed more like something was trying to preserve them more than let them test too many limits.

He thought of how Tony and Sonic both ended up teleported back to the fountain when they'd tried to go out too far, or get out of the city with the impending eruption of a volcano hanging over their heads.

Keith shrugged.

"I haven't heard of it happening here, but I also haven't heard of anyone who's been brought in like us dying here."

"Hmm... Well, maybe that's a good thing..." Donnie wasn't sure about anything though, which was the most unsettling thing. What could you trust around here?

"Yeah... probably." Keith frowned. "Whether someone comes back or not, that's..." He took a breath. It wasn't something he'd want to test or find out. He'd lost enough people in his life because of death.

"But, yeah..." He looked back down at their maps, noting where they'd matched up their differences to complete things. "We should put a copy in the main common area so everyone can see it."

That sounded like a good idea. At least if he couldn't figure out whatever puzzle these tunnels presented, (a point that really did not sit well with him regardless because he hated leaving things unsolved), then he could at least leave some reference for people. Map-making seemed a minor contribution at best, one drawn on paper and not properly programmed digitally just seemed such a low-tech solution. But given how the network was out, low-tech was probably the most reliable thing right now. And it wasn't like he had a proper computer to do things anyway.

"I'll start copying things out," Donnie said, flipping his notepad to a fresh page.

"You want help?" Keith wasn't tech savvy, but drawing things out the old fashioned way? He was good at that.

The offer had Donnie hesitate. It wasn't often he had anyone interested in helping, so he was torn between the novelty of the idea and the want to make sure it was as close to perfect as possible.

Finally he started tearing out extra sheets of his graph paper, holding it out.

"Each square is a foot. Make sure each edge matches up with the original page otherwise it won't line up with the rest when they're all laid out," he explained. "You can start on the bottom half."

Keith nodded. The graph paper helped to establish scale. He crouched down over the papers and started working.

The overall look of the place wasn't really all that difficult to replicate. It had straighter lines than a typical set of roughly hewn caverns might, thanks to the fact that it was all lined and smooth with those walls. That made it easier to keep things accurate.

And, for someone who didn't exactly look like he'd be into drawing and art, he was actually pretty good at it...

Connect This Space Between

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