Scene #7940: Sargasso Startup

Owner	Pose
Kale Hearthward	EARLIER: Kale sets off into Secundus's flying islands. "... Should find a good spot to set up base camp..." he says, looking around as he flies amongst the sky islands. "Something defensible, or with a lot of resources, or at least something that'd make for-" He cuts off, and peers ahead, bringing a hand up to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sunlight as he looks. "... That... looks good..." NOW: Kale's put out the call, back to his allies at home. Fortunately, there's a warpgate not far from his find, and Arthur's claim of it being able to link up with the extant warpgate network turned out to be true. Those coming in find themselves on a floating island in the sky, one without much to speak of on it - mostly trees and rocks - but a short distance away... "Right over there," he says, at a cloud of flying objects. Large ones. "Airships. Like, some sort of ship graveyard, but for... airships instead of ships." "... Entirely wrecks, the lot of them, from what I can tell - but enough resources in there that this has to be the spot where I set up my base, right?" "Also, welcome to Secundus. Not much to look at yet."
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Do your thing Arthur's drifting through one of the nearby clouds, until he swoops down to land carefully on the bow of one of them. "Whole lot of FORGOTTEN-ASS VESSELS up in this bitch." He declares. "What'chu lookin' for in this AEROSPACE LOST AND FOUND, dawg? I don't got a CLUE." "Like, BIG SHIPS? LITTLE SHIPS? SHIPS you can turn into PERSONAL ISLANDS?" He kicks a carved beautiful woman's head off of the figurehead at the prow of the ship he's settled on, and it clatters noisily as it descends.
Hellwarming Trio	Rin: "How're those busted up things flying like that?" Utsuho: "Like us, probably." Rin: "But we're not busted up." Utsuho: "Then... Uh. Maybe that's what Kale wants to look into." Having already forgotten what Kale had asked for, Rin has to 'gently' remind Utsuho with a smack to the head as they glide through the clouds to land nearby, following Arthur's voice to get where they need to go. Utsuho: "All of it... Like back on the island?" Rin: "There's bound to be loads of cool stuff lyin' around!" Utsuho: "A lot of junk, too. We can probably put it together nice, at least." Rin: "Yeah! We can put together some food stalls, too!"
Lilian Rook	Kale puts out a call over the Paladins band. As far as Lilian is concerned, this is eminently the first meaningful thing he's done of his own initiative since the weird magic real estate island thing. She'd like to be at least a teeny bit supportive of that attitude. That and she's a little bit interested in what he's found. And . . . well, also technically on sassy strict healing orders from Tamamo. And . . . "This is Secundus?" Lilian says after abruptly arriving. Of course, she herself can fly, but it's not quite so effortless that she'd like to spend magical energy hovering around doing nothing, but it's aboard the neatest deck she can pick out near Kale. The high altitude must be the reason for her first ever appearance in thick stockings all the way over the knee outside of winter. Clearly. Right? "With the way Lowell speaks of it, I expected . . ." She makes a totally meaningless gesture with both hands. "A little more? It reminds me a little of the Cryptark from Sector Zero, but not in space." A beat. "And frankly, less nightmarishly shitty." Her hand falls on her messenger bag, traces around the outside, and then she glances down fretfully like she's just realized she can't feel her keys in her pocket. A moment passes, and she remembers. 'Can I ask something selfish of you, Lilian?' "Base? What in God's name are you hoping to do here? Jealous of Langstrom, perhaps?"
Kale Hearthward	"What am I looking for, Arthur? All of it. I can't exactly ask the Paladins to burn resources on a two week expedition..." "... So we salvage. Or - I salvage, I guess. Or... we salvage?" he says, looking at Utsuho and Rin hopefully (and a bit less hopefully towards Lilian, but you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take). "Sure - actually, we do need some food stalls, and lots of parts..." "... Yeah? You can say that?" he says. "Trying to build something here? If it's at all like the last couple of times Arthur has run this experiment, there's a lot of untapped resources, a lot of prime land, a lot of just..." He gestures out towards the horizon. "Basically a whole... other place. You know?" "It's got Wiremu, and Cantio, and Rrrrr-" Better not mention Rita. "...Rrrebels from the Watch already out there, trying to do the same thing that I'm doing - so they think there's something worthwhile here, even if you don't believe me. For those who want to go ahead and go salvage instead of hang out and talk: there's a couple ships nearby the muster point, that might be worth checking out - a large metal one that looks more like a starship than an airship... a fancy wood and gold one with vaguely imperialist markings, but that is looking considerably decayed... and one that looks like someone took a city bus and added an engine and wings. (It's still got tires attached, even.)
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Go hassle Lilian Arthur jumps at a nearby mast, dislodging it from its ship and sending it creaking and shattering down until he slams near Lilian. "I mean, just the one spot, yeah. Besides, there's a lotta building to be doin'! All the fallen world-chunks don't assemble themselves." Arthur does fingerguns, hops on his broom, and heads for the starship. Space folks tend to have great fuel and cores that last forever. Radioactive crystals, stuff like that. He'll go track one down to bring back to Kale, and surely he'll be able to rig it to a smaller ship.
Hellwarming Trio	Utsuho: "Whoa, really?" Rin: "Awesome! Okuu's been practicing makin' food, and I'm gettin' better at building stuff!" Utsuho: "Everything fell over in our place back on the island." Not quite getting that Rrrrr bit nor recognizing the other names Kale drops, the pair turn to Lilian while weighing the pros and cons of cracking a stupid joke. It takes all of a second before they're both already asking "Where's Firstus", then breaking into an uncontrollable snickering fit. That, of course, has them realizing that Arthur has some details on this place. They don't quite follow, of course, so they end up drifting off to begin the search for MATERIALS from the scattered wrecks. Rin in particular is keeping her eyes open for food storage areas, but the main focus is on sturdy-feeling materials to actually build stalls and signage with.
Lilian Rook	Lilian waits through Kale's vague and somewhat bungled explanation with the patience of a schoolteacher listening to a very young child attempt to explain to her the specifics of a cartoon she really couldn't care less about and that she expects he'll be trying to find words to describe for the next ten minutes. Then he mentions Staren and Cantio. "Oh. It's about beating them. Well why didn't you lead with that?" she sighs. She clearly hasn't quite gotten bored enough to poke around inside his head actively because his hurried attempt to conceal Rita's involvement actually plays out. She rolls her eyes at the duo, then points to Arthur. "Implicitly, he and his friends are the Firstus. Try to focus." Of course she's not prying up grubby salvage with her hands. She already has herself a seat on a railing and a book delicately opened in one hand. It's clearly 'spare time is spare time'. "Let's discuss your plan of attack then. Tell me what your strategy is so far."
Kale Hearthward	The airship-that-looks-like-a-starship is a multi-level affair, and while there's a couple means of ingress, they're all fairly far from where a drive core might sit, meaning having to traverse the interior a bit. The interior turns out to be more expansive than it seemed - not due to any hammerspace type shenanigans, but instead just simple architectural tricks to make it look bigger on the inside. The route to the engine room goes across the plastisteel decks, down the fancy staircase, across the rows of cabins... ... And as he goes past the cabins, there's the feeling of something watching Arthur. Something - over his shoulder? Or - the other shoulder? No, it's behind him - the other behind him. As far as raw building materials, there's a lot to choose from... there's plenty of wood, and plenty of metal, all on the wrecked ships that are orbiting the islands here. The task at hand would be prying it loose from the ships, though - it's not just free-floating where it's easy to grab.
Kale Hearthward	"Alright. My plan of attack." Kale doesn't sit down. He knows he's being judged here. "I'm going to build a power base here," he says. "Whatever I can find in the wreckage is a start, but I'll need to expand - from past expeditions here, we know that everything is warpgate connected, and it's not always cohesive - like the Quilt or the Tapestry in our world," he says. "So I'm expecting to find a variety of regions within easy reach, not all sky islands like these. So I intend on diversifying what power I can bring to bear - as opposed to someone like Cantio who is probably going to try to do everything with machines, or Wiremu who is... going to do whatever Wiremu is going to do. So - I'm going to try to build a fleet here, or at least a decent ship and a decent home base, and use those as my primary power projection, but I'm going to pull whatever I can from each world here. Recruitment efforts and political maneuvering in populated areas. Capturing local megafauna in wildernesses. Trying to set up mining camps where extraordinary resources are. Varying my efforts." "And then - being aggressive, but not expansionist. Trying to strike first without overextending. Wiremu is a cinnamon roll who wouldn't take the first shot. Cantio is passive and will assume she can bunker down. I don't know who else is here yet - but I'll have to come up with strategies for them when I encounter them." "... Though - as they say, play the board, not the players," he says, trying to throw some wit in there. "If I can disrupt their efforts to build up, while still managing to keep momentum on my own, victory is only a matter of time." He watches Lilian for her reaction...
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: You're being watched "Hello? Hello?" He tries to focus on walking to the core. No, no dice. <You can't fast-nav when enemies are nearby.> "Fucking WHERE, my dude, this shit ABANDONED." He rambles emphatically. "Is someone WATCHING?" He makes a loud "rrrrrh!" sound and holds up a very, very tiny cloud of cosmic gas. "Hey! Watch this." And then he slams it all together in his fist, creating a miniature pulsar that rapidly strobes its light aggressively, making it absolutely intolerable to watch him. He breaks for the core with the intention of carefully snagging it and then brutally crashing his way out the other side. Not even gonna bother finding out what kind of fucked up alien got this thing broken. Just gonna goooooooo!
Hellwarming Trio	EARLIER Rin: "Aw, sis. It's not as funny if you explain it." Utsuho: "But it's still funny." Clearly, these two are easily amused. NOW With so many wrecks to choose from, Utsuho and Rin are at a loss for what to actually pick from. They flutter around at first, looking in vain for free-floating pieces that are easy to grab before realizing that they actually need to put some real elbow grease into this process. Once they do, though, they decide on hitting one of the wrecks that's pretty far from where everyone else is. Utsuho does so because of strategic reasons. Taking materials from somewhere further away makes more sense for fliers like herself and Rin, especially if non-fliers need to come by and start gathering materials of their own. It might also be worthwhile to keep the nearby stuff intact for use as flooring later. Rin, meanwhile, just does it because it might be easier to pocket the shinier stuff that gets excavated.
Kale Hearthward	The presence stops watching Arthur a few seconds after the strobe light. Congratulations, you've manage to annoy a ghost? Is that on the bucket list?? The drive core is yanked out without issue, and Arthur exits explosively through the opposite bulkhead - Kale's conversation with Lilian is briefly interrupted as he turns his head to see what that noise was. The airship dips a little lower with its drive core removed, but still seems to maintain its orbit. Off on the other side of the cloud, the youkai pair pick a likely looking craft, and go to pull... ... And once they get a few pieces off, there's a squeaking sound from deep within the craft, that steadily gets louder ... and then a few seconds later, there's a solid stream of bats, flying through the hole they made, whether or not they're clear of the opening.
Arthur Lowell	>Arthur: Let's do some slamming And some jamming? No. Mostly slamming out the stern bulkhead of the starship, then rocketing off towards Kale! That drive core is held under one arm like a football, and it makes the worst noise anyone has ever heard when he lands on the deck and (lightly) spikes it like a disrespectful touchdown. "SALVAAAAGE, baybee." He declares. Looks just fine, though, as far as weird techy power-cores go. "Ya'll TALKIN' STUFF over here? I wasn't PAYING ATTENTION." He rambles to Lilian and Kale, then regards the ships. "But if you're lookin' for a PLACE TO CHILL, pretty sure you can PLUG THIS IN and get the LIGHTS ON, at least. Make sure it ain't HAUNTED."
Lilian Rook	Of course Kale is being judged. He's alone with Lilian who is disgruntled about her usual schedule being interrupted and . . . acting a teeny bit like an irritable smoker overdue for her next hit, actually. It's rough because she won't look at him while reading. Or maybe it's actually better that way? Otherwise he might be tempted to read into her stare. She flips the page just as he finishes, bringing up new arcane diagrams. A thoughtful noise follows. "You've actually put some time into thinking this through." she says. "Some. That's a very vague outline. More of a strategy than a plan. But you're working to your strengths using this as your central power base. You've thought about your competition, and have a reasonable grasp on their most predictable attributes. You aren't being an overconfident showoff. You're begun to nebulously internalize the concept of thinking a step ahead of them. Alright. Let's see." Pageflip. "Wiremu . . . hmm. Sure. Wiremu isn't a cinnamon roll, she's merely unambitious and conflict-averse with credible opposition. She likes the thought of conquering and exploiting well enough, but struggles to so much as lift a finger on her own time. Offloading decisionmaking onto allies and hirelings is what she does. Once she has them and asks for a strategy, she'll probably follow that. Furthermore, while she is appropriately terrified with me, she will probably attack you if you push her around or threaten her vestigially fragile machismo. You can use that to your advantage too, so I won't completely throw my lot in with yours until the time is right." "I doubt P-- Cantio has grown as much as she'd like us all to believe. She'll immediately gun for some utterly ridiculous niche opportunity that she gets into her head will afford her power, and try to develop it into a weapon capable of 'standing up to you'. That sort of gimmick will easily attract her. She's conflict-averse until she has a very strong upper hand, but she still works away in her dingy little lab while you're not looking. They're both Concord, so they'll come together if you dangerously outstrip where they are; running into each other's arms is likely, and even if stupid people and mediocre people are predictable, they become chaotic when they collide." She snaps her book shut when the others return. "Name a narrow group of scenarios, and I'll be so kind as to furnish you with a little divination. Free of charge." A despondent sigh. "Seeing as I don't have a lot to do right now. How does anyone stand being this unbusy?"
Kale Hearthward	"We're talking strategy," says Kale, taking the drive core. "And thank you, Arthur. I'll put it to good use, and return the favor sometime." And Lilian... doesn't judge him harshly?! Or - well, that was still sort of harsh, but it's a C+ when Kale was expecting a D-. Success? "... Huh. I wasn't expecting..." No, not a qualified success with the question mark qualifier. Kale's proven something today. Maybe it was something incremental, and it could be less than someone else would be expected to prove, but he still proved something. His future seems a bit more bright. "Oh - yes, sure, there's a couple things, if I want to try the 'political power' route in whatever cities I come across, there's a few things I'd want to foresee..." He gets into specifics with her for a bit, and takes notes. "... And thank you. Not just for the help, but honestly, even just for coming out here to see what I was doing. I know you're very busy." He offers her a hand, hopefully.
Lilian Rook	"You weren't expecting a useful answer?" Lilian replies, rhetorically, to Kale, one brow up. "If it's you against Wiremu and Cantio, I don't really mind. I might perhaps have been slightly less helpful if it were just you faffing about to indulge yourself, but checking the Concord's interests is . . ." Her hand taps her bag irritably, feeling that one spot. "Part of the job." Given she has the time, Lilian sets out the full space for a sequence of little rituals, trusting an airship deck should be fireproof and it being filthy is the ideal time to stain it more, before anyone starts cleaning it. Most of the results are broadly favourable, coming down to how well he represents himself as 'A Paladin from Sector Zero' and 'himself' as opposed to 'East Wind', and outlining political situations Lilian is reasonably sure he'd do best in; signs to look for, fortuitous timings and circumstances, milquetoast people to not bother with, radicals who'll love to side with whatever insane things the Concord spouts instead, and how much he can get away with going quid pro quo with house magic. Once she's run down the clock, Lilian excuses herself for something she can still actually do without upsetting Tamamo. She tells Kale that if he's made decent progress by some time later, she'll lend him some runes too. Also, she'd love an excuse to whap Staren in the face but . . . Well, actually she doesn't specify.