revivalproject | A Diving Expedition

Entry tags:

A Diving Expedition

WHO: Cal Kestis, Jonathan Sims and Tony Stark
WHERE: The Flood Plain
WHAT: When one has rebreathers, one does underwater exploration
WHEN: A few days after being freed of Calibration hell
WARNINGS: N/A, will update as necessary

It was decided rather unanimously, and perhaps unsurprising given the time that had been spent in confinement. After being cooped up indoors with little place else to go, the opportunity to finally go elsewhere is a welcome one, and there seems no point in waiting. Besides, Cal can use the distraction. While he's not certain of exactly how many of their number have been sent away, it's difficult to miss at least one presence, strong in the Force as Altair was. Hopefully he would be back where he was meant to be.

Cal's looking forward to the outing, however, eager to be about and exploring with friends. Given the chosen venue, one might never guess from the way he's prepared. He's dressed as he usually is, BD-1 perched on a broken bit of wall, both beside the shallows of the eastern-most inner curve of the large lake that's taken up a good portion of the southwestern corner of the city.

It's a lot of area to cover, and the more he looks at it, the more he wonders just how deep it can be. The couple of times he's gone in probably haven't even covered very much of anything, and with so many places to look, he'd been practical and stuck to where he could make out the remnants of buildings. That seemed to be the most ideal place to find anything, anyway.

Glancing at his droid friend, he tilts his head. "They should be here soon. You ready, BeeDee?" The little droid borbles, wiggling eagerly, making the padawan laugh. "Yeah, it'll be a nice change of pace after all that." He turns, looking out towards the main road again for any signs of Jon and Tony.

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Those ghostly buildings drew Tony's attention, and he twisted around to gesture for Jon to keep one illuminated with his newfound speed while Tony felt his way alongside it, looking for a sturdy entrance. If there was anything useful to scavenge down here, it would be trapped inside the structures, if it wasn't entirely overtaken by the sharp coral that Tony was having a hard time knocking away even with his gauntlet. He tried to communicate this with a quick sign for cut, clumsy with his tools and redirecting instead to draw a sharp line across his throat with his thumb, then for Jon to stay as he beckoned Cal closer. He made another questioning OK sign to ask if Cal trusted his experience not to get blood in the water, then ducked through the open window he found to drift into an exponentially alien room. If Tony could have recognized its purpose before being submerged for however long, was hard to say; now it mostly looked like mossy cave. There looked to be a door beyond a lump of heavy furniture, though, so with his golden foot braced against the jagged coral, Tony wedged the pole under the green mass to try to heft it out of the way. It gave an inch, releasing a tide of trapped gas that blinded him briefly and burst out of the window they had slipped in through, and with his eyes closed Tony could feel a bunch of hard, panicked bodies knocking into him as they rushed to chase the bubbles out.

A second source of light joins Jon's, not as direct a beam, but it provides enough to see by as Cal drifts after Tony. BD-1 just has to make sure he's looking in the same direction they move in. With a nod at Tony, the padawan waits before following Tony through the window.

There's just enough space within to fan out a little, so while Tony inspects the blocked doorway, Cal looks along the floor. Nothing much of interest catches his attention, so he's swimming over where Tony is when bubbles erupt from the space the man had opened up. He can sense the life that follows it more than see it, feeling stray forms sweep past him. He can also hear BD-1 beep in panic.

Jon..! he realizes, hoping the man has seen the sudden movement and not been too close to the opening. Better means of communicating would definitely have come in handy now. Cal extends his senses, trying to make out Jon and Tony's statuses as he swims closer to the latter once he's able to see him.

Edited 2020-07-13 22:49 (UTC)

Being told to stay put while the others move on into the building gets a small frown from Jon, but he does as requested of him and remains at the window, hovering before it and shining his light inside while letting his eyes inspect the surrounding bits of the structure as far as he can make it out.

There isn’t really much to be seen, Jon concludes when the sudden stream of released air hits him from the window before him and half a moment later he is hit by a wall of fear in one of its most primitive forms before some tbh big much more palpable rushes into him as well. What may be an entire swarm of underwater dwelling creatures knocks into Jon and the air out of him and if he were later asked what exactly happened next, he would have trouble putting it all together again properly.

All at once he is being pushed away from the building Tony and Cal have entered and being dragged further down into even deeper and even darker parts of the lake by the fleeing mass of bodies Jon can’t even get a proper look at as his very presence seems to only increase their fleeing instinct. And he must have let go of his torch at some point, for once he hits something that he presumed to be the base of the lake and the countless bodies scatter off in all directions, Jon is left in darkness. He also must have screamed, which, while understandable, is a little foolish underwater. But the rebreather is in his hand rather than between his teeth. At least he hasn’t lost that one and can use it to take a few hopefully calming breaths while trying tonfigure our where he is and how exactly to get back where he should be.

And yet despite the utter darkness, Jon is certain he can see something move...

Tony was shaking his head like he could clear it as Cal approached him, the mass he was trying to lift dropped heavily back into place by then to send a tide chasing the bubbles and creatures out of the building. BD's beam was misleading then, and Tony was trying to mime lobsters or crabs to Cal to dismiss any harm, it was nothing, just weird water cockroaches, as he searched the sea grass for his pole again, only to realize he was having to squint to try to see Cal through the murk without Jon's light coming through the window. Jabbing a finger back the way they had come, Tony didn't wait for Cal's answer to that or the crab-mime before grabbing him by the arm as he pushed off from the floor to propel them both back out of the building, letting his undersuit scrape against the coral so he could shove Cal clear quickly.

This didn't really solve the problem. They were floating where they had left Jon, and Tony was casting a searching look around the dark lake, hands open and at a loss. He wheeled on Cal again, tapping under his eye to ask if he saw anything. There were four of them, they should have had a better buddy system. Jon couldn't have been that appetizing looking, he didn't eat. Tony probably shouldn't have disturbed that nest.

Checking on Jon is next on his list, although Tony helps to propel them along as Cal really wasn't catching onto whatever it was he'd been trying to convey, save that he otherwise had seemed all right.

Once they break back out into the open waters, BD-1's light beams about as the little droid looks around. Cal's a little alarmed to note that Jon's nowhere in sight, but going off blindly wouldn't help them, not where they are now. He sees Tony look over at him, signaling a question, and in turn Cal brings up a hand- difficult under such anxious circumstances, but give him a moment.

And he closes his eyes. He needs to be calm, he needs to use the Force. The lake around them is teeming with life, but Tony and Jon are distinct presences, and he reaches out, seeking Jon. It's not like finding another Force user, but between people and the local underwater life, it's not impossible. Opening his eyes again, Cal gives Tony a nod, pointing off towards the deeper waters before he sweeps his arms around, kicking to propel himself in that direction. He can potentially move faster, but he doesn't want to lose Tony too.

Further down in deeper and colder waters Jon is growing more and more anxious about the darkness surrounding him and his own inability to locate his flashlight. And a light really is the one thing he really wishes to have at this moment. He knows there are creatures around him - He can sense the fear of several living beings. But whether this fear is directed at him or something else, that he can't say.

He drifts around aimlessly for a short while, with each direction offering the same unpleasant darkness. But then he spots the flicker of a light a little away from his location, causing Jon to let out a breath he hasn't been aware he has been holding. This must be his flashlight! Relief urges Jon towards the light source and he is almost within its reach when he notices something off about it. The light sways and flickers gently in a way that seems much more organic than the artificial light of his torch.

For a moment, the image of an angler fish comes to mind and Jon pulls away an arm he hasn't quite noticed has been reaching for the light already and somehow he wants to laugh. That has been one of the first statements he had to record on tape, hasn't it... He tries to hold that thought, but finds his attention drawn back to the gentle light before him. It may be a trap, but it's so soothing. So inviting. He just wants to...

And just as he keeps staring in growing fascination, another light sprouts from the darkness beneath the first one. This one a soft green tendril slowly uncurling from the darkness and adding its own light to the present one. Several more begin to unfurl. More different colors and more light and Jon can't help but appreciate the fact that they illuminate the darkness he has found himself in.

Okay, okay, Cal just prayed for direction or something and they were both going to trust that, which Tony only acquiesced to because he didn't have a better plan. Maybe Cal's aquatic adventures had made him particularly sensitive to the disturbances in the water that Jon flailing around with a bunch of lobsters must have caused.

The further they go, though, the more this feels much, much too deep, there was no way Jon was alone down here in the dark, and Tony tried to kick up alongside Cal to get his attention and try to make sense of this path. Down here, his whole gauntlet seemed to glow faintly, and with a hand on Cal's shoulder Tony started to use it to signal that they should go back up, maybe Jon went back to the surface, when he spotted the slow bloom of multicoloured light a few feet below them. The signal Tony made became a slow question, as though Cal could tell him what they were looking at, before the interruption of the glowing pattern resolved itself for Tony as a distinctly humanoid figure.

The gauntlet illuminated his path as Tony dove, both arms outstretched before him, and grabbed at the first surface he collided with. It was a soft body, dark and far too pliable under Tony's grip, that had to be some kind of upper lip of whatever was unfurling those glowing tendrils because it reared back as Tony hauled at it, more ropes bursting upward in a flailing panic.

The sensation of anxiety is also a good focal point. Cal continues stolidly onward, deeper, glancing at Tony only as the man starts to come alongside him. Thankfully he doesn't need to do some underwater charades to convince Tony that they're on the right track.

However as that anxiousness fades into calmness, it doesn't much put Cal at ease, and as they get closer he can sense that there's something else lurking down there.

He sees it as Tony does, and they both move. Tony's aimed for whatever the colorful creature is that's blossomed in the depths but he the padawan swims forth and reaches out his hand, even while he's still meters away. The Force however knows no bounds, and it's through the Force that he intends to pull Jon away from the potential threat.

Suddenly Jon gets pulled away from the mesmerizing light and he barely can make out a shape hurling itself against the creature behind the tendrils, but what follows is hard to truly see from his angle.

As Tony seizes the creature and it rears up, all those little glowing tendrils abruptly explode away from it, shooting off in an expanding cloud of light only to reveal themselves as an entire group of smaller creatures that quickly flock together to form a pulsing cloud of multicolored light. For a moment the actual creature they had been attached to for whatever reason becomes well illuminated, revealing it's tangential resemblance with a sea anemone - Only with rows of large, jagged teeth surrounding a single bright light near its center. And as the swarm visibly disappears with those countless tendrils ceasing to glow, the creature Tony has thrown himself against gets swallowed once again by darkness.

Jon blinks at the returning darkness. Only the small bright light beneath remaining for a moment before he turns and catches sight of BD-1's approaching light as well. Now this one is a true relief.

The light in the gullet of the goddamn water shai-hulud had Tony staring through the dancing rows of teeth until it abruptly made its own retreat, snapping downward fast enough that Tony was jerked forward with his gauntlet hand locked around the slippery surface. It folded itself impossibly and easily to disappear through a tiny hole that made a squealing, groaning protest of metal on metal that vibrated through the water as Tony punched through it, dragged relentlessly down until he was buried to the shoulder and his head smacked against the floor before the anemone ripped itself free of the gauntlet's grip to make its escape. Tenderly navigating the sharp edge of the twisted metal, Tony drew himself free to check the damage to the gauntlet as he held his tortured arm with the other hand, flexing his glowing fingers and finding no mobility problems despite the runnels gouged out of the metal surface.

Metal?

That was a mystery to put on reserve while Tony pushed away from the surface to join the group, the pair of men illuminated by BD's bouncing light. He reached Cal first to ruffle a hand through his red hair and pull him in for a butt against Tony's head to thank him for his reliable Jon-GPS that they were going to have to talk about, the mysteries were mounting. Reaching for Jon, Tony caught him under the arm to tug him into a similar move, bringing their cheeks together in apology before signing with his glowing hand to ask if Jon was okay. That didn't have to be a long conversation; Tony was quickly pointing to Cal's hand, then grabbing it insistently to put into Jon's. Buddies.

Cal grabs Jon's arm the moment he's close enough, looking him over to make sure he's fine before he looks back down where Tony's gone. BD-1 manages to keep his own light directed where Tony is, looking anxiously towards whatever sort of creature (creatures??) that the man has thrown himself into a fistfight with.

About to head down himself, Cal lets out a rush of bubbles in a sigh of relief once he sees Tony head back towards them. He grins around his rebreather, giving him a pat on the shoulder. So much for an eventless diving trip. While he's glad everyone's fine, the glance he casts between them is an inquiry as to whether they want to continue or not.

He won't argue at Tony's insistence in having him hang onto Jon, and hopefully Jon won't object either.

Jon on his part may not be sure just how exactly the two managed to find him this quickly, but he also isn’t one to complain about thee rescue. He gives Cal a short nod before turning to observe Tony’s struggle as well, grimacing a little when the creature pulls him down as it retreats.

Though he’s glad it does retreat rather than try to make a meal out of Tony and makes his relief known with a short squeeze to whichever part of Tony’s arm he can reach once the other man pulls him close for a moment. Tony’s gesturing is answered with another nod and his currently free hand gives a brief pat to the gesturing gauntlet in hopes of being reassuring enough. That very hand is the one Tony puts into Cal’s, causing Jon to look over to the Padawan with a short, apologetic shrug.

Unfortunately neither of em seems to have picked up his flashlight.

Jon looks from Cal back to Tony and then points back down to the hole Tony has pulled his arm out of just moments ago. That’s not normal soil, is it?

Less clumsy with his own tool lost and both hands free, Tony tried the sign for 'shipwreck' on them, but even as he did was tilting his head, unsure. This wasn't a natural lake, and the sort of metal, hulking masses they might find underwater were probably not the kind they would expect back home, but he didn't have a better way to describe the brief discovery. Didn't matter, better to do than float around not talking about it; no one seemed to be traumatized, so he didn't even address Cal's consideration to abort. Tony didn't linger any longer, diving back down to where he had made a hole in whatever the thing was, then keeping a hand on it as he skimmed along, looking for an edge or any other defining feature, his glowing hand keeping his progress visible as he slipped away over the cliff of it.

The surface was less sturdy than it seemed, held mostly fast by the amount of growth on it that embedded and adapted it to this new environment; a relatively slim sheet of metal that appeared to house a bunch of wiring on the underside, or at least that was what Tony guessed it was after rubbing some of the clinging algae free from a mass of plastic-feeling tubing. That glowing worm symbiotic relationship hive must have felt at home with the insular casing that Tony stripped away to test his hypothesis, finding the metal underneath. Huh. He kicked to push himself further into the metal cave, feeling his way forward with the gauntlet.

Shrugging back at Jon with a faint smile, Cal then looks towards where the Archivist indicates, and where Tony is soon diving back down towards. With a glance at his safety-buddy, Cal starts swimming down once Jon's aware of the plan.

His eyes widen as he catches a better glimpse of what all Tony had found. That's not the standard ruin material they've thus far found, and he can hear BD-1's muffled hoot of curiosity as the droid's light envelopes the metal that had been revealed, and the opening that Tony's gone through.

Cal hesitates, if only to make sure that there's nothing potentially hostile awaiting nearby, but the clump of creatures that previously filled the space seems to have effectively blocked anything more of a threat from claiming territory within. Nodding at Jon, he gestures with his head towards the opening before following Tony within.

...it's definitely not a ruined building. Compared to the broken structures and things in the city, what they've just come across is decidedly more alien by comparison. There's something vaguely familiar about it, but at this point it's more like a niggling thought at the back of one's mind that doesn't quite click into focus.

Water and time have definitely taken its toll here upon whatever this metal housing used to be, but under the build-up of minerals and algae, protruding shapes and sunken alcoves can be found, further inspection revealing consoles of some sort, long eroded with no clear indication of what they might have formerly been a part of. Here and there thin, palm-sized and nearly transparent fish of some sort flit and float lazily about, for the most part ignoring the intrusion.

There is no objection from the Archivist about following Tony. He is just as curious as the others regarding what they have found and this time he follows the others inside, yet again wishing he hadn’t lost his light.

Making sure not to let go of Cal, Jon runs his other hand over the surfaces nearby. Shipwreck, indeed. He does feel a little reminded of the ships up in the hangar, but has no way to share that thought properly. But then again, unlike his companions, Jon isn’t very versed with machines and space ships, so Tony and Cal May be the more appropriate judges for this case.

So Jon lets his attention be drawn to the creatures around them, faintly illuminated by BD-1’s light. Some of them swim close enough to brush past his arm and hand and one curious looking long species even briefly winds the top of its long tail around his fingers. He actually might like these.

This would have been a profoundly useful bounty if any of it looked anywhere near salvageable; there was a whole construct that Tony crawled his way across to make sense of that he would have called a birthing bay if it sat next to his workbench, with a vice rusted permanently and pointlessly to an otherwise thinly eroded plate, bolted through with what might have been a pair of positioning arms, if Tony extrapolated correctly from the baseplate that remained of one. Glancing up to the meandering wires, then around as though he could see through the darkness that his gauntlet didn't really penetrate, Tony tried to place any of this in space, and found himself quite at a loss. The factories around the forge didn't house anything like this, and he was pretty sure they hadn't somehow gone inside another building. It was just...a mechanic in an open basin?

The dark made Tony back up, searching back the way he had come for the other two with BD's light to guide him, only to frown at Jon getting intimate with the locals again. Gesturing to Cal to get his attention, Tony tried to sign 'make', then 'construct' to get Cal's professional evaluation of what else they might run into with that in mind, hopeful that he could figure out what the machines Tony was feeling around might have been used to make. He hadn't come across what might have been an end product yet, but it might have been too small to survive the submersion.

Cal brushes the walls with his free hand, trying to get a sense of what they've found. He looks over at Jon amusedly as the man can still be friendly with the fish despite his earlier experience.

He catches Tony's movement, nodding before giving Jon's hand a light tug, jerking his head in Tony's direction before following once the Archivist is prepared.

BD-1's light illuminates the space better once they move to where Tony is, and Cal looks around, brow furrowing as he tries to understand what he's seeing. He moves his free hand towards BD-1, inviting the little droid to grab onto his arm so he can bring him around. Time for the droid to engage in his favorite pastime! Doing all the scans!

Cal looks expectantly at BD-1 once the droid seems to finish, but the latter's response doesn't seem promising as the droid tilts his head, giving a low borble. Frowning, Cal looks around for himself, glancing at Jon and their clasped hands before loosening his. Surely they'll be all right if they all stick together in here.

Once he has his hands free, he'll further explore the strange machinery that Tony's come across, but it doesn't seem like he's got any better ideas of what they could be used for. Compared to the things he's salvaged around the city, it looks like nothing by way of design or structure that he's come across before. He frowns more, shaking his head as he rubs at some of the growth clinging to the old contraptions.

At Cal’s quiet request, Jon lets the young man go to help Tony inspect what they have found. The Archivist stays at the edges of BD’s light, poking at various alien findings that may be tools or just extravagant art. A couple of those long underwater creatures follow along, zipping in and out of the light cast by Cal’s droid and offering Jon something to inspect he has an easier way to make sense of.

They lack fins like most fish Jon is familiar with and rather seem to move via intricate movements of their long tails, which appears to be at least two tails tightly wound around one another most of the time. And while they somehow seem to be aware of where the droid’s light shines, Jon can’t make out any eyes on what he assumes is their head. But they do appear quite fond of circling his hands when offered or his feet when Jon inspects some of the odd pieces around.

He does make sure not to lose sight of Tony and Cal, however. And whether or not they find something worth noticing while he picks through bits of broken debris, wondering if maybe they can find remains of some of those data spheres down here as well. Or maybe even another data point.

This micro inspection wasn't producing any strong theories, apparently, so Tony shrugged and turned to dart away more quickly instead of lingering over a new ridge or component as he passed, trusting the other two to commit to the buddy system as he went searching for the limits of this scrapyard. Placing it in space, like he had tried to before, might be a better start than trying to identify individual components of alien hardware. The data points were in Tony's head, too, as one of the pieces of Agrii technology, as far as he knew, that he had worked with the most, considering maybe that was what had been made here, but nothing he was finding looked much like how the spheres were constructed. The dark, the erosion and the overtaking plantlife could have been skewing that estimation, to be fair, but the closest thing any of this appeared to have in common with the data points was the level of destruction-- it was a lot like looking at the far flung debris that had cluttered the library when he arrived, not a single component left entirely intact.

When Tony came swimming back toward BD's light again, it was to gesture for Cal once more, beckoning him closer to deposit one item Tony found while searching the sand the make sure he had reached the edge of this find. Based on the rest of what he was seeing, it was entirely possible that it was a nail- or heat-gun by the shape, but Tony cocked his head, glancing only briefly to make sure Jon was still nearby but distracted enough by his fishy friends.

Looking it like one would art isn't exactly a bad idea. One would have to be familiar with local styles to be able to find a point of contrast, and in this instance, it's not exactly style so much as design. Cal tries to picture things without the extra overgrowth, but it still doesn't tell him much for its purpose.

When Tony comes back towards them, Cal turns to Jon, giving him a wave before starting after Tony, glancing back to make sure the Archivist is following.

BD-1 still clings to his wrist, feet clamped around the rim of the padawan's glove, his light trailing across the floor as he looks down and then where the fourth member of their little diving group is before twitching down towards whatever he's found. Coming alongside of Tony, Cal's eyes widen at the object. Now that's definitely something they've not come across anywhere in the city so far. He reaches out with his right hand, brushing at the object, pausing abruptly in the motion, fingers twitching away from it slightly as though burned, and again his brow furrows, uncertain.

Jon meanwhile seems to be attracting his own entourage of eyeless fish friends. They seem perfectly happy with trailing along with him, riding along with his movement the way that remora do with sharks, save that they're not there to snack on parasites, thankfully.

Jon doesn’t necessarily require the nonverbal invitation to paddle over, only remotely noting that the fish that seem so curious about him seem less interested in Tony or Cal. He reaches the others just in time to see Cal’s reaction on reaching for the item - And he can well guess where it comes from. The lingering anxiety down here is even stronger than outside in the dark. And it seems to get even denser the further one swims inside. Wherever Tony has picked up this thing can’t be a pleasant place.

Which makes Jon a little curious.

But he resists the impulse for now, despite casting a prolonged look in the direction Tony has returned from. Though instead of swimming away, Jon pulls forth another odd piece he has found between the pieces he has been inspecting and places it in Tony’s hand, right next to the thing the other man has brought with him. This one looks much rather like a hilt of sorts. Though one that hardly fits to any sort of knife Jon can imagine.

Edited 2020-07-15 02:36 (UTC)

The amount of attention that Jon seemed to be accruing and brought over with him was weird enough, and combined with Cal's physical reaction to the potential weapon discovery when the city seemed to have been deliberately swept clean of them, Tony finally considered that maybe this had been a risky idea. With some frustration, he tapped at his mouth and the rebreather, sure that he wasn't going to be able to make a convincing argument to send them both back to the surface to let him continue the map on his own with this gag in the way, only to shiver at the bolt of panic that went through him as he realized he would be left alone, gagged, in the dark. He shoved it down quickly, this was fine, he was ignoring it so far and they were trying to accomplish something here, and Jon was kind enough to hand him another distraction.

Either all of the Agrii's secrets of creation or destruction happened in the bowl of this basin, or it was where they threw the things they didn't want found. The hilt could have been for any tool in this workshop rotting at the bottom of the pond, cutting or binding, but next to the gun-shaped object, underlit by the gauntlet, it didn't come off looking friendly.

Handing them both back to Jon so that Cal didn't have to touch them, they didn't seem to agree, Tony twirled a finger for the pair to search for more, maybe they could place the objects in context with further examples, then signed 'map' to explain where he was going before kicking off again. This wasn't really getting them anywhere right now, mostly Tony was feeling frustrated and freaked out, but if he could at least pinpoint the outer bounds of this trove they would know where to send a second expedition when they had more information.

Troubled by what he'd sensed from the strange find but unable to really explain it at the moment, Cal can only try to reassure the two that he's otherwise fine. Being so close to the other two, the sudden spike of emotion from Tony does draw his attention. The padawan reaches out a hand, grasping Tony's shoulder firmly, reassuringly. They're here. No one's leaving anyone behind.

His eyes look back towards the other item that Jon's brought along, the fine blue line of BD-1's scanning light playing over both items as he too does his own observations before his ambient light switches over again. So weapons did exist here, or at least they looked more like weapons than anything else that Cal had ever seen. It's strange enough finding them in this place. Was someone trying to hide something?

Nodding at Tony, Cal glances over at Jon to make sure the man's all right with moving on again. Resuming exploration, he begins to move in the direction opposite Tony, trusting BD-1 to alert him of anything he might notice first. The droid had the tendency to find some interesting things.

And things there are. At the droid's high-pitched hooting, Cal swims closer to the floor, peering beneath the edge of what might have been some sort of counter space. Reaching in, he pulls out a disc-shaped object, flat on one side and slightly rounded on the other, the center depression housing a mount for something that was otherwise broken off. The housing of the attached cables had been eaten away, the wires frayed, any signs of where it might have been previously hooked up either long since covered up by decades of overgrowth or somewhere else completely.

The sudden panic coming from Tony also isn't missed by Jon, who casts the man a concerned look and for a moment places his free hand over Tony's and gives it a quick squeeze as the man places their current findings into Jon's other hand. No. There is no way they will leave any of them down here alone.

He takes a moment to look after Tony when he swims away again to resume mapping out the place, then eyes the two items once more, his posture seemingly inviting some of the creatures surrounding him to circle around his hand and arm again, tails brushing against him lightly. Jon has stopped counting them, but is pretty sure they keep getting more. Closing his hand around the potential weapons, Jon swims off to the site opposite where he has been looking before, the fish of course following along.

This site has hardly any debris to offer for Jon to look through, but he notices a few of the fish straying away from him to circle around an area covered in sand. Willing to take the hint, Jon begins to search through it.

Meanwhile, Tony wasn't lingering anywhere for very long, only occasionally searching through sand or seagrass to make sure he wasn't missing some notable construction marking a larger territory for this dump site, coming away with a few of his own bounties that looked like circuit boards and chips that, if they were too beyond waterlogged to give up their secrets, he could strip of their copper and platinum. He made quick work circling what felt like the outer boundary of the bulk of the find, skimming his free hand over pieces that looked like arcade cabinets, long since disemboweled with wires floating like guts in the water above them, and small particle detectors, or maybe jet engines; there wasn't much difference after a while spent dissolving, really.

He came upon Cal first, hauling his...satellite dish?, and just the sight of it was enough to make Tony finally swim to a stop and let himself sink down into a seat of weedy coral on his knees, shoulders slouching and releasing a hefty sigh of bubbles back up into the duckweed far above them. They were swimming laps down here; Jon might have looked goofy, but he did spend that replicator charge wisely on those fins. Collecting his boards against his chest, Tony offered his gauntlet palm up again like he had displayed its records above water, this time to show the 3D rendering of the map it was collating so far; a strange, jagged trail of their path downward that widened into his more thorough scouting at this depth. The sensitive readings sketched out the larger structures that were sitting throughout the circle Tony had traced, highlighted in a range of colours where the read was less positive, like the incrementally more red edges of the whole map.

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