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.

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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."

That felt both morbid and invasive suddenly to Tony as he realized he could have been leaving 'echoes' like this behind in moments of pain and passion, and worst of all, death. That was hideous and humiliating, and all the more isolating with the idea that someone might witness it as a distant moment in time. Still, Tony heard himself asking, "How many?," because the terror of death must have been everywhere. Not just in a world-ending crisis. That wasn't something that ever came easily, he thought, and would give someone who could feel it a very unique relationship with death.

Cal shook his head. "I'm not sure. The caves were amplifying my usual ability to sense echoes and everything was overlapping." It was both a good and bad thing in that nothing particularly stuck but you still knew, and then he'd been so overwhelmed by it all that he hadn't been able to get back out on his own.

Under normal circumstances he was sure he wouldn't have been able to pick up on such vivid imagery, definitely not as much as he had. The sense that something terrible had happened, perhaps, but it was difficult to say whether having so much occur in one place would have muddied any echo into a generalized bad feeling when the properties of the cave were in itself unusual.

Tony had intended his question to be much broader, he didn't think the exact death count of the Agrii before extraction would be terribly meaningful, but Cal did distract him then with another question. "Your sword doesn't do that to you?" he wondered. Those were the same crystals, after all. Maybe if they were going to be a viable defence like the Agrii thought, they just didn't find enough.

"Thankfully no, it doesn't," the padawan replied, seeming more relieved to confirm that. It had definitely been something he'd had some concern about, but the crystal hadn't elicited nearly the same sort of output as those in the caverns. "Obviously it still has some effect when a power current is running through it, but it seems more attuned to metals and other powered equipment. Or droids," he added with a nod at BD-1.

"Makes me wonder what 'powers' the crystals in their natural state, if it's like what Cloud and Reeve described. Maybe there's some kind of resonance." And when that resonance was severed, it understandably dampened any effects.

"That is very much Reeve's area," Tony said as he released Cal's shoulders to swipe a hand over his hood instead, scattering the glitter that had collected there and mostly getting it stuck to his fingers. He was trying to pat it off as he continued, "That used to be most of his job, harnessing these energy sources to use. And he said that was how his magic worked, where Mini came from." That might not have been an entirely accurate account, but Tony wasn't the expert, and Cal and Reeve were the engineers. If the power rods really were the same material, they had an advantage. "Do you want to go ask him about it?"

That was a good point, as to which Cal nodded his agreement. Reeve had been the driving force in getting most of the city's power grid back online. "Explains why working on things here had most of his focus. I wonder if he knows about the caves..."

He tried not to flinch at the glitter that Tony dislodged from his hood, smiling crookedly as the man continued to do his best to dust him off. "Yeah, couldn't hurt. Might also be good if we could understand a little more about this place."

"And," Tony noted, finger in the air then pointing to the map where he was trying to find connections, "he would probably know about some of this underground stuff. There might be more traps hidden down there that we can get ahead of." That did sound slightly more interesting to Tony than wandering around in the woods, and it seemed fairly unlikely that there would be a second spider problem. Whoever was causing these problems had proven to be more creative than that.

"How many replicator charges have you got? We'll lure him out of that office with some cheesecake or something. Talking about the Life Stream stuff gets him all tense, we gotta butter him up."

True there was a lot of ground to cover below. They'd probably only navigated through a small area considering the size of the city, only narrowing down an entry point from where spiders had been observed escaping to. "It is a good place to hide things," Cal nodded.

He chuckled at Tony's methods for engaging Reeve in such a conversation. "I've got three free." Two had gone to making stims, which he figured weren't a bad thing to have in case of emergency. "-what's cheesecake?"

Cal made it sound like he was used to austerity, so it wasn't surprising but Tony still commended, "My god, you have incredible restraint," for not blowing through his replicator opportunities. With the amount of things Tony could be making, he was never satisfied by the time the replicator chugged miserably.

"You must have something like it. It's like a--tart, a dessert, with a cookie crust and sweet, creamy filling, and some other stuff on top," he tried to explain, layering his hands and finding himself quite at a loss to explain foods. "Now you definitely have to get one. Do you have a sweet tooth? You'll love it, it'll be great."

With so few chances to get things that would actually be useful rather than asking a box, Cal didn't want to waste them. He felt like the trial run once he'd gotten the replicator up and running again had been the most he'd ever really splurged, and even then most of those things had gone to others. And BD-1 really deserved an oil bath.

"I think the sweetest things I've ever eaten were back on the Agrii ship between their choice of food and what was at the party you and Tommy threw," he laughed. He wasn't sure how the Agrii could subsist on something sweet like peanut butter, but he supposed if it were an occasional treat, it wouldn't be a bad thing.

At first, Tony's hand alighted delicately on his chest, aghast that no one along Cal's life-threatening adventures was spoiling him with desserts, and feeling like this was something of a common story among the residents of Temba. Granted, Tony's sheer access to indulgence was an outlier on Earth as well, but he didn't think he'd ever encountered so many people who had never experienced a cake or a date. Still, he accused, "That's not an answer," with an expectant quirk of his eyebrow even as he continued, "Cheesecake is a New York staple. That's where I'm from, it's a city, best place in the galaxy. You, me and Reeve, we're going to have a date, I'll take you on a tour, show you all of the highlights." What kind of 'pizza' Tommy might be able to make or classic painting Steve attempted to reproduce might not be quite as effective as a trip to the Met, but it would certainly be fun.

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out_of_order - 2021-02-22 02:14 (UTC) - Expand

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