revivalproject | treasure

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treasure

WHO: Tony and...I don't know, there's some predetermined stuff, and some ambiguously open stuff in here. Check in at the Shenanigans plotting post if you're feeling unsure and need a formal invitation.
WHERE: The forge, the not-library
WHAT: Tony has a gift for Jon, and is trying to make a much more misguided gift for Poe. Some early speeder bike development catch all, if you like.
WHEN: Early February, Agrii Valentines Celebration
WARNINGS: Glitter?

a. The forge [OTA! If you just want to bring your own project, this is a good place]
The first shimmering fleck that caught Tony's eye fell onto his cheek, making him wink with his face twisted in surprise before carefully retrieving it with a finger pressed to the...plastic? It stuck easily to his skin, but Tony could only frown at it, baffled, and glance back toward the forge curiously, expecting the chimney to be pouring out some foreign element among the plume of dark smoke. He was on his back under the body of the vehicle that Cayde had called a sparrow, Poe had called a speeder, and was probably neither of them, really, as Tony slowly brought it together, the Iron Man kneeling in the grass next to him to Jack up the whole assembly for Tony to rework the fuel array again. Eventually, he would get this thing working.

As more of the strange precipitation began to flurry through the sky, clumping together against the seams of the Iron Man and through the bricks of the forge, Tony had to sit up and consider very seriously that this was...glitter. As he stared at the armor, he could see some of the more fanciful details--the heart shapes, the stars, making him raise a lip in confusion, then glance around again, seeking a source. It just seemed to be, warm and shimmery and catching the early light in a dancing array over the skyline.

By the time the sun had properly risen, he had disturbed Catra trying to sleep by the fire by clattering around in the forge, searching for empty vessels to collect as much of the strange glitter as possible. Impulsively, he had snatched at the bouquet of flowers he found by her head, only to have them burst in his hand and make him yelp, dancing away from the glitter bomb with his hand coated now in pink and red. He was much slower to pick up the card that had been with the bouquet, pinched carefully between two fingers until it didn't seem to be a bomb as well, the Agrii's pictures making him snort. Of course. It went up with the notes from Cayde and Jon that were clipped over his workbench, slouching against Cayde's map and funnelling more of the glitter throughout the day to gather in the folds of Jon's still designs.

By the time he was back to working on the bike, there were bowls and jars arranged against the walls and among the grass, incrementally measuring the shimmering downpour. This was going to be wreaking havoc on any meal production, Tony realized, so Tommy wasn't as likely to show up today, leaving him to grumble at the pile of tools and components that had been left around the weedy patch where he worked without the kid to find anything for him in this mess.

b. The library? [For Jon, but feel free to crash this party]
If Tony was going to try to understand the Agrii, and he would rather not, he hazarded a guess that whatever this glitter storm and gifting was about, it was something of an apology for the storm that they had come crashing into, or the giant pest problem that the Agrii had neglected to warn them about. Maybe that was just where Tony's head was, though, because he had plenty of his own apologies to make, and a misguided gift was historically how he dealt with that. Did he have something in common with the Agrii? Jesus.

Trying not to think too hard about that possibility, he came gliding slowly into the library on the Iron Man's skates, leaving rivulets in the dusting of glitter on the floor behind him. He carried what would have been a familiar shape to Jon, despite being wrapped as it was in what looked like a scrap of leather, against his armored chest; an acquisition from the replicator that he had impulsively requested just after replacing his sunglasses, then finding himself very overwhelmed with the amount of stuff he could really use at the forge. Taking the stairs down into the basement wasn't quite as smooth, producing a strange, very heavy thunk-thunk-thunk as he rolled carelessly down each step, the momentum depositing him against the desk that rattled with the lurch. He didn't really intend to stay, but had a quick look around for the Countess, hoping maybe she would display a tiny bit less annoyance upon seeing him so he could pretend Jon wasn't as annoyed with him as well. Yeah, that would totally work, Tony would feel great about that and all of his problems would be solved. He sighed into the mask when he didn't spot the animal, leaving the book on the desk and pushing himself back toward the stairs. It would be pretty obvious who it could have been from, Tony thought, even if Jon had no context for the author 'Reed Richards'--only a few pages into the forward of this physics text- cum-autobiography and it was already colourful with the caped heroes of Tony's world, and how they shaped the natural laws around them. And the library had just expanded exponentially, even if Jon wasn't particularly keen on the gesture and couldn't be convinced that Billy was clearly being very thoughtful.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The look if not the faint feeling he sensed from Tony was an understandable one. Cal was pretty sure no one would want to be anywhere near a thing like that. "I guess? It was convenient for the Scrapper's Guild and the Empire, since they took control of the place. And the Empire didn't care so long as the work got done. It was mostly 'everyone look out for themselves' out there. I was lucky to make a friend, he took care of me early on."

Given that neither the padawan nor BD-1 knew what a dinosaur was, they could only guess by context what Tony was suggesting, although they didn't seem particularly sold on the thought either. Still, with the Agrii, who really knew? Native species however?

"There's a whole lot of wilderness out there," Cal said as he nodded. He was sure everyone could do without biting, poisonous things. Especially large biting, poisonous things. BD-1 sat in the crook of his arm, not seeming terribly bothered by the notion although he tilted his head as he watched Tony maneuver the plush in front of him. Realizing input was probably required of him, he beeped a negative even as he shifted to reach for his toy with a ped.

There was no part of these answers that was turning out to be reassuring, only that Cal had evidently survived it and didn't think it was such a big deal that a child was risking his life at some kind of horror-junkyard, so maybe Tony didn't have to ask another upsetting question. Instead, he gave Cal's arm a pat, trying in vain to ease the frown creasing his forehead before Cal caught on that he was probably traumatized or something.

BD was welcome to take the fluffy thing back, but he had dashed Tony's suspicion that these toys were showing up to appeal to BD specifically because he had interacted with them once. With a distracted-looking glance aside, scrolling through the provided 'dick shun airy', Tony reported, "There's something that--if it wasn't pink and cute, might look kind of like that in the records. Think opposite of cute, though. Maybe that's the trend. Maybe they're switching it up, warning us before they send in the spiders, or whatever."

Given the circumstances then, Cal hadn't much choice. He'd been alone, stuck on an unfamiliar planet and the rest of the galaxy had been convinced that the Jedi were traitors. The years had worn away the risks that most would balk at, and although you never forgot about the obvious dangers, they had become expected ones. He realized it was probably bothering Tony a lot more than he'd thought to consider, and at the awkward pat, reached up to squeeze the man's shoulder in turn, looking at least apologetic for bringing such things up.

He helped nudge BD-1 back up over a shoulder, the plush dragged along with it. In afterthought Cal lifted the plush squid, but even as he wondered how the droid would manage to hold them all and still hang onto the harness, BD asked if he'd hang on to it for him.

"Hm?" He looked over at Tony then. "So there is some kind of creature like that?" Despite having half anticipated the droid's reaction, Cal still had to sigh when BD-1 beeped excitedly and popped his head up over his shoulder at that. "I....don't think we want to go purposely looking for something like that, buddy."

On Earth, Cal would have been heading off to college to surmount the most difficult challenge of his life: learning how to do his own laundry. At least, Tony hoped that was the kind of life he would have had. It was a much smaller one, but he was still a kid, and the vastness of his experiences felt as unwieldy to Tony as Cal's strange magic. His smile was still sad as he watched the juggle of the toys, and he muttered, "Got more love than you can hold, sweetheart. Going to need some new arms."

More curiosity, too, making Tony snort more genuinely, then pat down his pockets to actually find his communicator and show the entry on the animal where they could all see it. "I don't know, might be enlightening," we was willing to admit. "Why, did you come down here with something else in mind, or did you just hear the rumours of my brilliance? I know, I've been hiding that one from you, it's time I come clean."

BD-1 seemed content to settle where he was, once he'd gotten a good grip on Cal's harness, his other foot clamped around the lizardy plush as he attempted to mimic Tony's earlier movements with the thing. Cal chuckled, both at his droid friend and at Tony's remark.

"If you really want to do a forest expedition some time..." he said, offering a shrug as he at least was open to the idea. It wasn't like he hadn't gone traipsing around worse places. Grinning at the man, he brushed the edge of his poncho back, tucking the squid into a vacant belt pouch before gesturing to the lightsaber hanging there off his hip.

"No more crazed animals and nightly spider raids, and all this aside, I think we've all gotten some better rest since then. So I came to thank you for this. Couldn't have come at a better time, all things considered." Its blade had been tested against many a multi-legged creature.

A forest expedition definitely made the concept sound less appealing to Tony, more like they actually intended to encounter some new, mean wild animal instead of discover more hidden, not-so-abandoned buildings like the control room like Tony hoped. Despite the grimace at the language, Tony suggested, "Yeah, put it on the calendar. Plenty out there to see, it's about time we blew this joint."

The reveal of the hilt easily turned Tony's grit teeth into a surprised grin. With a dismissive wave for the thanks, Tony just put Cal's pieces together and potentially disastrously, he said, "Yeah, who knew? I mean, I'm still not entirely convinced that wasn't a, uh, coincidence. Is it still doing...that?" Tony had yet to independently figure out exactly what had gone wrong enough to give a sword a blast area.

"If we do, it might be good to have something we're intentionally trying to look for rather than just aimless wandering in the wilderness." Like maybe if there were places those apparent transit stations were connected to. Cal wasn't sure how soon any of them might be up for doing such things, and while he was curious himself, there were still plenty of things to keep busy with in the city. More mysteries too.

For as simple a task as it seemed to just put a lightsaber together once one had the components, there was a lot that went into it, and yes, plenty of room for potential problems. That it hadn't blown up on any of them in the process of using it was a definite plus.

"Coincidence? What do you mean?" Had it triggered something? Cal frowned thoughtfully, but with the following question, he gave a nod. "Yeah. Any time power runs through it, it amplifies anything running on power around it. -aside from making metal glow," he added at BD-1's helpful reminding chirp. "I think that kind of worked in our favor considering that the spiders didn't like the light, but all the same, I might explore some other options for a focus crystal."

That kind of structured forethought was all very admirable, and Tony waved his hands very unconvincingly as he said, "Yeah, of course, a plan. If we see something, we go toward it." That kind of tactical thinking and revealed all sorts of mysteries to Tony so far, like big bugs, and some other big bugs. This place was overgrown pests all the way down.

"Catra freaked out right after I got the thing on for the first time," he reminded Cal, gesturing back toward the still damaged Iron Man kneeling in the weeds and not looking all that pathetic for it in its halo of glitter. "Maybe it...amplified," he proposed, trying to qualify what that actually meant with his hands pressed together then bursting away from each other, ending in a noncommittal shrug. Whether the lightsaber was some kind of trigger or not, these events were starting to feel inevitable. There was no obvious incitement for the glitter. "Have you tried it since the party started?"

Maybe it was for the best that he didn't touch upon the large creatures and things he'd encountered in his various planetary travels. Tony didn't need to voice his discomfort about the whole idea for Cal to sense it.

"Countess was going crazy too," Cal nodded, the implication not lost on him. "But what was it amplifying, if it was? It would have had to be, what, near here, right?" He looked like he considered switching the thing on at the moment, but glancing at the speeder he decided he didn't want to accidentally trigger anything, especially in its early stages. "I've used it, yeah. I go to the amphitheater to practice."

"This party, I mean," Tony clarified, with a twirl in the air to send the glitter swirling. There could have been more to the little particles than Tony could taste; the crystals in that sword didn't smell like much, either. What, exactly, anything that happened on this planet actually was remained an ongoing mystery, with only the most tentative boundaries to divide the natural laws of the place, already alien and bizarre, from the wilful acts inflicted on them, but those crystals were making something of a pattern for themselves, planet side. So Tony continued, "Those crystals, you said the larger concentration of them was intense, right? And they're natural rock formations, could be under the ground clear through the city. Near here, maybe everywhere. Kind of like that life force thing."

Cal frowned, nodding. "No, that's a good point." Inwardly he felt a little guilty for not having considered that when he'd gone back to lightsaber routines once things had quieted down. He'd felt more than a little out of practice when they'd had to fight maddened spiders, not that it required much finesse to deal with things in such a number.

"...I haven't sensed anything off though, following my morning sessions, and...I've been at that once we dealt with the spider nest. But if the possibility is still there, I'll have to look into an alternative power crystal."

Any alternative seemed farfetched, based on the way Cal had spoken of it and the very strange interaction of these crystals as it was, so Tony nodded slowly with a thoughtful pout before breaking into another dazzling grin. "Hey, I didn't know that was you, pest control. Good job, haven't seen hardly a daddy longlegs in days," he said, before sobering considerably. "You okay? Those things didn't fight fair."

"Not just me," Cal said, offering a faint smile. "I probably would have had to hang back if I didn't have a weapon." Relying on the Force to keep up a defense would have been even more exhausting, so he was all the more glad to be able to watch out for those with him with a lightsaber in hand.

"I'm fine. Thankfully they weren't poisonous." That was him trying to be reassuring. After how Tony was reacting to his talk of the daily dangers on Bracca he decided not to make mention of having to face spiders even larger than the ones here out in Kashyyyk. Then again, it felt like everything out in the Wookie world was bigger.

"We found...some kind of chamber. Filled with machine-operated cages of some kind, it was difficult to tell because they were all mangled, likely from when the spiders went crazy and broke free."

It hadn't occurred to Tony that there might be a class of the spider that was poisonous after seeing the myriad of ways they already had on offer to kill someone on the surface, so the reassurance had something of the opposite effect. He shrank away from Cal slightly, arms crossed like he was just very seriously considering something just over Cal's shoulder as he contemplated whatever warrior-type spider was guarding this nest for Cal to encounter.

"What...?" A nest, Tony could handle and understand, totally expected development. Cages and broke free did not fit neatly into that system. "You mean, they were being kept there, deliberately? Or--or they were being held back?" he tried, one hand escaping to mime a flat wall, barricade.

"I don't think the spiders were native to here." Cal folded his arms, his thoughts turning inward as he tried to remember the things he'd seen and sensed. He closed his eyes.

"I'm not sure how to explain it. There was this general...impression of some sinister intent when I touched the cages. I saw the Agrii...trying to get spiders back into the cages." A frown was still on his face as he looked back at Tony. "They were dealing with the same sort of thing that we were."

That was all so much weirder than Tony was prepared for that he stared at Cal then with a raised lip, only to repeat, "What?" He had obviously missed a very revealing part of this puzzle. Abruptly, he gestured for the pair to follow him back across the shimmering grass to bang his way into the forge, not any more protected from the glitter and hazy with the strange, pinkish smoke from the eager fire.

"Catra!" he called, not sure if she was even still skulking around to be shouted at, nor that it would be at all effective when he commanded, "Go get some coffee from Cayde!" Without Tommy nearby to boss around, the potential spectre of Catra would have to do.

Meanwhile, Tony had stalked over to the workbench to carelessly haul out what looked like a partially constructed D.A.T.A. system, most of its casing incomplete to expose the wiring within. It still blinked sluggishly at Tony as he dropped his communicator next to it with the map of the city displayed, then gestured for BD to join the arrangement. "That video of the Agrii, from the ship, you know," he instructed, twirling a finger impatiently as he tried to process this thought. "This 'sinister intent'," he continued to Cal, "you've felt that before, here. It wasn't from the spiders." And Cal seemed sure it wasn't from the Agrii, either, but Tony remained not entirely convinced.

Cal started after Tony, trailing glitter into the forge, not that it seemed to make a difference as the floor sparkled in the firelight. He glanced around when the man shouted at Catra, saying nothing as he continued to follow him to the workbench. BD-1 hopped off his shoulder, setting the plush to the side and making sure it was sat upright before he wandered over to the spread. With a tilt of his head, he then projected a version of his own map that he'd been slowly building up the more he and Cal explored, now with a lower level as it showed some of the sprawling tunnels from their sewer expedition.

"Not from the spiders. It was a strong enough sense that you could say it clung to the place. The unrest from the spiders is a lot different, more...unfocused. Raw, I guess," Cal tried to explain. "It reminded me of the feeling I got back when we split up to search the Agrii ship. That hadn't been in one place so much as just...spikes of a sensation here and there."

The map was perfect, making Tony stare hard at the projection as he leaned with restlessly tapping fingers against the bench, just didn't have the correct connections yet. "And the water," he pointed out, circling around the lake on the map. "You said you felt something there, like it was...sad, or something. And that stuff, it wasn't Agrii design, either, we thought, right? Like the cages. Like that?" Without Cal to tie the loose ends together, Tony didn't know if there really was a connection. He did, however, know, "And that stuff under the water, it's been there a while. Before the Agrii were airlifted out of here, according to that video, so maybe, are the cages from the same time...?"

The implications weren't a pleasant one, but Cal nodded as he looked at Tony again. Their little underwater diving adventure seemed like it had been so long ago for how much had happened since then. And still it was difficult to believe that he'd been here about a year now, recalling how hard it was to believe when others said at much during his earlier days. A year and what progress had they made..?

"I don't know if the time frame is the same. It's difficult to pin down through echoes- except for when saw things in the caves by the beach. The time frame was clearer then, maybe because of the crystals..." Had he mentioned seeing things in the caves to Tony? It was hard keeping track of things.

"-the machinery in the sewers reminded me of what we saw in the lake," he said, nodding at BD-1 then so that the droid could bring up the scans he'd made of the broken equipment. "...and if that's the case, then they're not Agrii tech, but Atroma design."

The same nagging awareness of their lagging progress might have been what was fuelling Tony's slightly manic energy as he pinned BD and his projections under his calculating stare, fingers tapping restlessly wherever he tried to make them settle, like they did against his lips then while he extrapolated those images of the equipment to their logical design. "It follows, then," he proposed tightly, around his hand, "that the Atroma had been terrorizing the Agrii for--some period of time--before manufacturing the storm, and posing as their rescuers. Where they could--better control the environment?" That last hypothesis didn't feel correct. The Agrii didn't make it sound like they were still being tortured, the whole experience on the ship seemed quite homey once the trouble was solved, unless the Atroma found the subtle dread of their ongoing displacement particularly satisfying. What Tony did feel more confident in declaring was, "The Agrii can't be that stupid," because they might have come across shockingly innocent, but this spider-caging situation seemed like it was willfully withheld context.

If Cal actually had any more answers for Tony, though, it sounded like it might have been a little withheld, too, making Tony cut a brief glance his way before encouraging, "What do you mean, what did you see in the caves?" It would be nice if there was some kind of verification for the details in the Agrii storm video.

"Control the environment to what end? Just to bring us in?" Continue their twisted reality show? Cal didn't like thinking along those lines, but there were far too many things linked to the Atroma to be a good thing.

"Not stupid. Unprepared. Naive. I'm not sure where along the line the spiders come into play, or all the other things I've caught here and there around the city, but the storms? They didn't start nearly as long ago as was claimed to be. I can't give an exact time, and it's hard to describe how I know, other than that it's what I sensed through the Force."

He rested his hands on the edge of the workbench. "I saw when the Agrii first took to the caves to try sheltering from the storms. They were desperate and scared, confused as to what was going on. Some of them brought supplies. They were dying and they had no idea why..." The padawan tensed at the recollection. He hadn't just seen what had happened, he'd practically relived the experiences of multiple Agrii, and some were luckier than others.

As resistant as Tony was to feeling particularly sympathetic for the Agrii from the beginning, it was clear to him that they had been victimized by what they had to assume was the Atroma, but he still grimaced his discomfort with assuming they really had no idea. They could still be very active participants in the misinformation being fed to their scavenging captives on their abandoned planet.

"That's a strange, long con just to bring us in. They still had their 'show' before and after dislocating the Agrii, they had the will and means to kidnap and manipulate people from the multiverse without the middleman gambit, and some of us came directly from there, full faculties, not even a secret. I don't think it's out of bounds to assume the Agrii made that choice on their own," Tony rationalized. "Bonus material."

He tipped his head slowly to the side, distracted then by Cal's unspoken suggestion that eventually prompted, "And the caves helped?" That was interesting. A built in resource to fight the storms, and they had already found a way to harness it right there on Cal's hip.

"Oh, I'm not saying they're innocent of their actions. The Agrii were given the means and after seeing a few recordings, probably even the idea of summoning people from elsewhere, yes. But everything still seems conveniently attached to the Atroma here and there. So maybe it wasn't a direct intent to have us brought in, but it was an open possibility. And remember that weird message that came up on the ship's internal comms? Whoever it was that was watching seemed pretty content to see what choices were made rather than direct outcomes."

Cal wondered what if there was any ultimate goal there, but he didn't think it would bode well for any of them. It seemed like there was little enough they could do otherwise, and as much as the Jedi teachings stressed patience, he didn't like waiting to see what would happen next.

"They thought it would. It wasn't as effective as they'd hoped. It was their first place to go for shelter when the storms started. A lot of them still experienced pain...or worse."

"Yeah..." Tony mused, scratching at his beard. "They're clearly enjoying it. I just think we'll make ourselves crazy if we assume it was their intent, there's a bigger game they're playing. But it's not unreasonable to assume that voice, and all of these pieces, belong to the Atroma." Sure, they didn't have solid evidence, but it was a rational working theory to Tony. He skimmed BD's map again, trying to see some pattern in the appearances of these puzzle pieces--the lake, the underground cages, the hangar, the light tower. The library? "The data points at the library were destroyed. All of them, deliberately," Tony offered, muttered half to himself, as though Cal could follow that thread without further context. There must have been more of these stray pieces throughout the city that no one had stumbled upon yet.

Cal's answer about the caves was not as optimistic as Tony was hoping, leaving him less confident in finding the solution in there, and it took him a moment to draw up out of the depths of his calculations to look Cal's way and actually hear 'or worse' and the tension in his voice. Tony dropped his arms to swing one over Cal's shoulders instead, but wasn't sure how else to express that support outside of clumsily asking, "You can feel that?"

That was something Cal wasn't going to argue. So many things pointed to the Atroma. Or was that just convenience? "-I was wondering about that," he said as Tony brought up the library. So many in one place, definitely couldn't have been coincidence, especially when there were choice few that remained in tact.

He almost jumped when the man suddenly threw an arm over his shoulder, an effective way to snap his attention fully to the present. He nodded slowly. "...if they're particularly strong echoes, yeah. I...witness things from the perspective of whoever's left them."

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