[Interim Two] Reprise

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ISS Down "bottom of the barrel" rider
Commons Area

Keith had laid in wait at the door to his own office to ambush Clef as he was to leave the Cargo Bay, fully expecting him to once again come out frustrated over not finding... whatever it was his group was after. Only, even after biding his precious time gazing through the sniper rifle's scope, the informant's target didn't come out. After some of his crewmates had rushed in to pursue the invader, he heard the sounds of battle coming from within, before a loud blast came from within and the commotion ceased. It was at this point that the ex-sergeant decided to tactically reposition to a more advantageous spot overlooking the Cargo Bay's door and some of the room's inside area---with rushed movements he trudged through the now-clearing sewage to near the ISS Downrider's side door, looking through his weapon's scope to analyze the current situation.

Thus did he witness Clef wielding the very air around him as a barrier against attack, a whirlwind of minor heat haze protecting Keith's target. There he also glimpsed an injured-looking Reman making his way out, and Nivara prone on the floor amid the sewage. He could still see Clef, he still had a chance to attack, but there would be no chance in hell of any of his darts finding their mark; not at this range, not through debris, and certainly not through that wind velocity. His gaze aimed lower, toward Clef's boots---the apparent source of whatever power he seemed to wield. An extremity and non-vital area both, so long as its bleeding was stopped, no one has ever died from being shot in the foot. And yet, why was Keith still reluctant to exact an injury in return for what this man did to his crewmates? Why, as his breathing grew ragged and he could hear his uncle's mockery, did his hands still subconsciously load an HEIAP shell into his rifle's chamber?

No, his uncle was a good man. He had never mocked his ex-sergeant nephew once in his life. Indubitably, even after he had deserted and was labelled an unpatriotic coward, his uncle continued to care about and worry over him---pull the bolt handle---continued to love his nephew he had spent so much time together with. Sometimes---account for whirlwind speed...---Keith wondered if his uncle had even looked for him. If, should they ever meet again---steady your breathing...---they'd be able to play chess, like the good old times. If he would forgive him---take aim...---for hesitating to even shoot an enemy's foot.

But an injured foot was a fair price to pay---fire.---for what Clef had done.

"Bang."
 
Still Tundra

While Juryrig is something akin to superhuman, the madman got a bit too caught up in the moment to react to a foxman to the face. Who knew it hurt to have a crippled furry thrown point-blank? Honestly, Juryrig felt like he should've known better. But he didn't, so as a result, the madman got knocked off his feet, flying off by a good few feet and landing face-first in the snow.

Despite the blunder, the madlad gets up on his feet and brushed the snow off of him before looking right at the Hag. He popped the Steel key out, and inserted the Blast key. The Blunderbass shuddered and whined like a jet engine, gaining a fiery orange color, and this time playing a looping beat. Juryrig cocked the two-handed cannon of a weapon, and pointed the fantastical death tool at the Hag, the Blunderbass adjusting its tune as it gets ready to drop the beat. Jury, anticipating this shot to be a big one, braced himself.

"Stop me if you heard of this one before, if you can!" Juryrig pulled the trigger, and a cone of red sound burst forth from the nozzle of the weapon; not even a second afterwards, the beat dropped, and a fiery explosion came forth from the Blunderbass; everything the sound touched, like the snow and the stone, became a explosive hazard that would go off under the intensity of the Blunderbass!

However, as Tom advised, Juryrig downplayed the volatility of all the matter; it'll be loud and colorful, however the admittedly small explosions will only take off a handful of millimeters of thickness off of any given material at the very most. The science is no different than explosive reactive armor; it's just a tad more dangerous than it should be.

Still Stinky Downrider

Horsie became prone AND pinned under the cans of soup. Munchie, who had thankfully not bitten Reman when he got thrown into it, had gone to dig Horsie out from the pile and assist.

Scout floated ahead of Keith, and opened fire some last shots; at this range, there's a chance they aren't going to hit anyway, but the aimbot could compensate for this disadvantage to a degree, anyway.
 
TUNDRA
Bashing his head against a wall and hoping for brick to break

The fuzzy male collided head-on with the lunatic inventor, finding himself tumbling off into a pile of snow like a used towel. His tail stuck up for a moment as he pulled himself to his feet, steadying himself in an attempt to regain his bearings. It's not every day you get chucked by some hag in power armor. Nor is it every day that everything seems to go wrong in one fell swoop.

He would turn around only to see Juryrig lay the beat down on the adversary, watching the snow and rubble get cast off like meager bits of dust. Not a bad weapon, as cartoonishly tacky as the blunderbuss design might have been. Where he stood, Deimos had no means of engaging the hag. All he could do was stand aside and wait for the moment when the beat finally comes to a halt to bang his own rhythm on that tin can chassis - though given what happened mere seconds ago, that may just be a lesson in the definition of insanity.

He clicked his scanner to life, the orange readout finding the hag's signature heavily distorted by the massive waves of air-weaving dubstep madness being cast her way in fiery droves of red, igniting the entire area in a bright white like he was staring into the mouth of a forge.

"Jury!" He yelled over the blasts. "If you can, try concentrating the blast on a joint in that armor! The moment we disable that gauntlet, she's out of commission!"
 
Ignored on the Chill
Thankfully, mind you



Aradia didn't need long to figure out exactly how outmatched she was, burning through energy after skipping a night of sleep while pelting a lava-armor-lady with icicles. Yeah, real smooth there, kiddo. She took the brief respite she'd gotten to actually look at the whole situation: aside from the fact that there's a war going on, Romulus seemed to be down again, the Downrider was damaged and filled with poop, and.... Okay it was a mess.

Arcane instrument at the ready, Aradia prepared herself for another large attack - only this time, using something a little heavier than snow. Something a little less efficient, too. Blobs of silvery, opaque fluid materialized around the smol, quickly growing from droplets to fist-sized, and then head-sized blobs. They whistled through the air harshly, hitting the hag with a lot more weight that one expected them to have, staggering - but not quite armor-crushing - impacts splattering ethereal mercury everywhere; one dispersed as such, it quickly evaporated.
 
Cargo Bay

Clef jolted as the armor-penetrating round tore through the air, but even he wasn't operating fast enough to circumvent the bullet. The man was impacted directly in the left boot, a small green explosion of heat flashing around it in the split second he was still in the bay. Clef was thrown back by the combined force, landing with a not-at-all graceful skid against the tundra ground.

The entire outside cover of the boot had been torn apart, revealing a shattered, smoldering crystal set into a now ruined rig of electronics. Smoke wafted from the boot as roughly half the armor on him started to distort and dissipate. The man ripped himself from the ground. Yelling, naturally."THAT'S IT! I'm done! And you're next!"

The yelling continued as he scurried around the other side of the Downrider. He was still fast, but quite clearly not as fast as he should be.

"Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one of these days I'm going to kick you so hard you'll lose a leg. You have not seen the last of-"


Tundra

Gallo rested on the ground, listening to the vibrations. It was about damn time. With no response from Marie, he simply looked up at the misty morning sky. "Your silence worries me, but that's not any of my matter."

The tech flopped his head to one side as the vibrations grew stronger. "Until next time."

"Clef Tagan! I will be back, and next
time I'm bringing a rifle too!" Clef approached at high speed, scooping the wounded Gallo from the ground without losing much speed. As the duo passed Marie, Clef barely missed her. Gallo, however, had a sneaky last lash. Hand wrapped in a purple mesmer, he drug it across Marie's arm and driver. It phased through, not doing much physical damage. However, the driver sparked and steamed as it came grinding to a halt. It wasn't long after that the armor surrounding Marie began to fizzle away as well. Behind her laid a fading streak of purple and blue cutting across the plume of smoke.



The Hag was not fully prepared for the two-sided attack. She was caught cleanly between the heavy-set fluid and the chain explosion unleashed by Aradia and Juryrig, sending even the heavily armored foe to the ground. The explosions ruptured the armor to a greater than expected degree, the fading armor distorting and shattering like glass as it evaporated into the air. The Hag backpedaled as her protection dissipated, trying to dig another attack from the ground below her. The attempts waned however, bringing up nothing but warm dirt in her gauntleted palm.

The Hag spun around to be greeted by Deimos, Juryrig, and OSC-01. The woman froze as a glaive was thrust down, gently pinning the large gauntlet between itself and the ground. The Hag grumbled, looking up at the trio. "I'm not going to let a one-man circus, a fuzzy toothpick, and a faulty keybot be my undoing."

OSC-01 ignored the last comment. "Romulus Aurum. What do you know about him."
The Hag chuckled. "Only a fool would put trust in that man. CLEF!"

"damnit Agatha and damned if it isn't that I have to do every little thing in this dysfunctional collective-"

The Overseer looked up and snapped into action, flinging an arm around Deimos and Juryrig as she rolled backwards from the oncoming rocket, bringing the two down out of the way along with her. Clef rocketed past the group, no longer carrying Gallo but still leaving an unhealthy plume of smoke in his wake. He snatched up Agatha with a grunt, circling around the group.

"I better get a god damn promotion for this." "Shut up, boy."



OSC-01 rose to her feet in a graceful hop, holding the glaive horizontally behind her as the grouping limped away at high speed. The two tripped and fell over the nearest hill disappearing from sight. A minor explosion followed, the boom of which could be heard echoing lightly back to the group.

The Overseer remained motionless as they gazed through that unknown purple filter once more. Not satisfied for another thirty or so seconds. She raised a hand, the glaive spiraling it as it folded once more into a feather shape. "Well then. I wouldn't call that I triumph but I suppose everyone's still alive."


---


Dahlia shook the dirt off herself, rubbing her arms as she eyed the now quiet battlefield. Caesar, Romulus, whatever, was down and pinned to the ground. Reman had hit the floor as well. The Captain turned slowly, looking back at her ship. It was in ruins. Knocked to one side, the hull damaged from a barrage of now missing projectiles, and- an ungodly stench.

The captain let off a curse under her breath as she fell backwards, realizing there was a gaping wound in her right leg from the attack. In fact, she had been streaming an unhealthy trail of blood along with her, oblivious from adrenaline. She had no words for the situation but a pained string of high pitched noises and curses. With a series of rapid footfalls, the Overseer was there to catch her, walking the disoriented captain in the direction of Aradia.

"Move easy. You're injured. There's still have a situation to-" OSC-01 was interrupted by a hyperventilating captain, whose anger was about ready to boil over like some self-destructing kettle.

"Who did this. To my ship, my crew."

OSC-01 didn't let the captain dwell on it. "We'll find out- I will find out for you." The Overseer raised their head, giving Juryrig a direct eye that stead 'now's your head start,' before returning to the task at hand. "You'll bleed out if you try right now."

The bloodloss-impaired Dahlia grumbled, letting herself be sat down near the medic. "Fine."
 
Tundra

Marie's eyes narrowed at the trio as they vanished into the horizon. The blue-purple cloud smelled of many conflicting things -- metal, acrid burning plastic, rust, and something inexplicably fruity. She pulled on the manual release lever as the driver popped off. It was time to do invento-

She snapped out of...something?

...Wait, why did her arm ache? Why did she think it was a good idea to throw herself at Romulus, and then the strange trio, especially the man with the weird purple key? She wasn't a good fighter by any means -- she could do some basic self-defense, but...actually being the aggressor in combat? Her vision swam, her senses complaining. Everything was suddenly too loud, the stench was unbearable, and nothing was making sense.

Migraine...ability overuse? But even basic math told her that being hooked up to Voltage shouldn't cause this level of overuse...

Fucking hell, it hurt too much.

Her vision went dizzy, and she faceplanted in the snow.
 
ISS Downrider
Commons Area

It was over.

After the invading trio left, Keith quickly propped the barrel of his sniper rifle against the floor of the ship, using it as a makeshift support to lean on while he caught his breath. That was the first time in nearly eight years he had shot an actual bullet at an actual person. He felt as if he had narrowly missed breaking his vow, to never shoot to kill ever again. Yet, as he played the scene again and again in his head, his shame was replaced by an overpowering sense of duty---as part of the Downrider's crew, it was his duty to protect his fellow crewmates and his captain, Dahlia, against incoming threats. That, too, had been the reason he agreed to be a soldier in the first place, many years ago. In order to protect those who could not protect themselves, maybe he would be willing to fire his rifle again.

Shaking himself off his respite, Keith took stock of the post-battle situation. Many of the crew were injured, the ship was a mess, and dear heavens was it hard to breathe. Someone had to do something, and so the ex-sergeant decided to take initiative. Pulling up his desert scarf to mask the lower half of his face and hopefully obscure the odor, he raised his voice to address the others in a calm but firm tone. "Those of you who can still stand, help me clean this mess. This is our ship, too, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let it be a pigpen," he said, moving out of the ship de facto for a breath of fresh air. He stopped a couple of meters ahead, looking around at the sparsely inhabited Southern Streak. "When we get back to the city, I'll see if I can't pull some favors and get someone to help repair the ship."

For now, it was back to work.
 
Tundra

Deimos trained his eyes on the battle-scarred tundra, eyes narrowed at the streak of smoke that the marauders had left in their wake. His gaze soon found itself trained at the dented, hollow steel bound to his shoulder. Against foes like that, the half-fox knew he would be outmatched no matter how much effort he put behind his blows. From here on out, this would be the norm. Stronger, more ruthless rivals all seeking the same thing as their own merry band.

As he dusted away the powdered snow scattered and melting in his hair, he watched Dahlia get carted off by the OSC unit - and Marie fall flat into the snow.

He could feel a pang in his chest from where he had struck the madman midair, but it wasn't enough to keel him over just yet while he trudged to where the engineer had landed. He took a hold of one of her arms, attempting to hoist her out of the snow.

"Perhaps this question might seem redundant, but..." He growled as he pulled himself up to his feet with Marie in tow. "...Who the hell were those guys? And how did they find us?"
 
Tundra

With the dust finally settling- physically and figuratively -Perry picked up his two, metal shields and folded them up. After sliding them into place on his backpack, he started to run to what remained of the ship, and to anyone closest to him.

"Oh crap! You guys alright?! I tried to come as soon as possible and-" he said, stopping close in front of OSC-01 and the captain, and whoever else might have been around that immediate area. Upon arriving closer to what was the ship, he plugged his nose, grimacing. "Oh geez.. the hell happened? Who.. Who farted?!"
 
Tundra

Reman was cold. His body was shaking from both the frozen snow, and the arm and infection kept climbing all over his frozen body. The snow itself bent and moved around the kneeling mechanic as if some greater creature was watching over him. The symbols rising from the snow were all that more obvious when Reman finally collapsed to the ground, semi-catatonic as his body went limp and he closed his eyes.

His dream was prolonged and vivid.

It was that tower, scaling and twisting higher into the sky than he could comprehend. The maelstrom in the background viewed over a large variety of islands and little bubbles of frozen space all with their own themes. The most notable was a mountainous forest lit with wildfire, accented with a huge indent in the side with a gigantic cavern meant for some sort of a gigantic dragon. Reman looked into the tower and started walking forward on a narrow bridge, glossy and looking like it could fall out into the nothingness below. When he got to the tower, all he could do was admire the top of this monolithic structure.

Atop stood a monster covered in black scales and fur, with wings like a bat and a tail that looked like the head of a snake. Though he couldn't properly see it, the heads of the beasts were staring down at the lowly mechanic, wistfully waiting for something to happen. As if he hadn't quite understood what the beast was waiting for.

"You know, we were once free."

Reman shook a little out of abject fear as a hand slipped onto his shoulder, slow and methodical.
"We're waiting for you to let us out. As am I, griffin. We want to escape, and I anticipate only you returning. Our time has run out. The dragon will prevent our progress, and a new creature awakens."

The man walked in front of Reman as voices and words of languages and dialects he had never heard spoke to him in unison. The cloak veiled his appearance, but the man was stout, stoic and quiet.
"Our next opportunity we will not pass up."

And then, there was darkness.
 
Tundra

"Phooey, and I didn't even get the chance to retort...!" Juryrig twisted and righted himself up, before shaking the snow off of him. "You know who those are? They're clowns, clowns that haven't even seen me at my full potential; I'd have them know I am a perfectly capable one-man circus, for the world is my stage as the stage is a world of entertainment! I could've opened that up with, I don't know, exploding her whole raisin body or something. That'd be just swell."

"That's great, now you can go fix the ship!"

"Uh, what? Fix the ship? Tom, I ain't fixing that thing, none of these clowns deserve my talent or generosity! They should be grateful I decided to be participating in half of the stuff that goes on here, like Reman's little dual personality crisis thing that he has no control over."


"You don't know that unless you take that first step, Jury; your little 'facade' isn't doing you favors in getting you people who could help you, you know."

"And what do you know about that? Nobody helped you back then, either."

"But you are. You didn't exist back then, but you're here now, and that counts, too...!"

There's silence between the two self-aware personalities within the host body. As the wickedly smiling alchemist walked to the ship, his true demeanor was a contradistinction; he was reflecting with a certain somberness. "... I'm telling you Tom, I don't trust any of them. They aren't just goons, they're all fully capable people. And robots. They're all hiding something, much like how I am; it's not giving me any confidence."

"I mean, yeah, true, but that doesn't have to always be the case; you should be helping people more!"

This gave Juryrig an idea; and the moment Osco gave him that fateful look, it was as if destiny had shown the true path to take forevermore!

"Yeah bro, I think I will." The mad alchemist cleared his throat, and as he passed the downed captain and the assisting robot, he made the following remark: "Yeah yeah, sure thing captain; maybe with a average crew it would take forever, but your crew isn't average! Just bizarre!"

While in full view of Dahlia and Osco, Juryrig took out that remote as he gave the two a passing shark-like smile, and pressed it. "We'll talk about it later! You, Scout," he says pointing to the jointless hoverbot of his own design, "round up the exhausted ones before they catch a cold." With a mad cackle, Juryrig seemed to entirely disregard the awful stench as he entered inside.

Upon that command, Scout zipped around the battlefield, quickly finding Reman, hoisting him and just carrying him closer to the stinkbox that is the Downrider.

Downrider

Upon Juryrig pressing the button, the Downrider stopped blaring about something related to a nuclear meltdown, and sewage had stopped leaking from absolutely everywhere. Juryrig took a mighty waft, and sighed. "Ah... Now this was some good chaos. Now then, time to round up the other two lovely contraptions and get to work fixing this up! Of course I ain't doing it."

After Juryrig's body visibly convulsed, Tom was forced back into the metaphorical driver's seat. "W-wha- Hey! Jury!"

Tom was left with Juryrig's sewage to help clean up, and the madman laughing in Tom's head. "... Aw poop..."
 
Area around the ISS Downrider

Aradia had to just... Wait for a few moments. She saw Marie attempting to become one with the snow, Dahlia looking far beyond pissed-off, Deimos and Osco trying to get themselves reoriented... And also some new guy who seemed to be approaching. The pilot looked over towards the captain, and made the decision for her. Last thing we need is Dahlia accidentally getting this guy's group on us because he came at the wrong time.

The little one stepped up to head off Perry as he approached the scattered crew, answering his immediate questions.

"In order: We were attacked by some goons for looking into what was probably forbidden knowledge seventy centuries ago or something. And Juryrig happened, or at least that's my best guess as to why our ship makes a college student's trash can smell good. My name is Aradia Sivins, and -" the pilot paused to take a deep breath "I'm the pilot for the ship and her crew. You'll have to excuse my manners, I missed a night of sleep keeping everyone here from bleeding to death already, and I'm not happy knowing that I'm about to do it a second time in a row...

It was true - for someone who hadn't been involved in the rougher parts of the fight, proverbially speaking, Aradia looked like a mess now; impressive bags decorated the underside of her eyes, which had momentarily lost their brilliant sheen that amplified and emphasized their dual colors. Her petite body looked like it was being held upright from a convenient few bones, rather than an attempt to stay standing consciously. Her hair was a mess - though to be fair, everyone's ended up that way after a battle.

"Why are you here? Are you looking to join us?"
 
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As Aradia talked, Perry nodded in understanding, then looking a little shocked as she explained further. At least the pieces were starting to get put together in his mind. Well, mostly. What the hell was a Juryrig?

"Man, that.. all of that sounds pretty bad. And.. it's no problem. About your manners. You guys came out of a big battle, so you're cool. I tried to help out, but I guess I came in late. Looks like you and everyone did well in the end, though," Perry shrugged, then saying. "Oh, and I'm Perry. Perry Ferguson. Sky and I, we were here.. well, we were here just 'cause, really. Exploring a little. Staying away from home. Nice to meet you, though, er.. Aradia. Right. Nice name."

After a moment, he then came to a realization, saying with some enthuisasm. "Wait, you said something about joining? You looking for more crew?"
 
ISS downrider- Cargonia

"I... think I'll just keep laying here, thanks." Rhea murmured, seemingly intent on having somone peel her off the floor. Yes, she COULD move. Did she want to? certainly not. Her fatigue wasn't as bad as last time, and her mind felt sharper too, but, her back hurt, and the air stunk almost too badly to even try doing anything about it. Say what you will about the snow covered wasteland she called home, at least the snow kept most of the smells in check. Now, it was cold AND smelly, and that was just terrible. She'd help, but... she'd rather put up a somewhat only barely passable 'act' that she couldn't move. The fact she'd been slammed into a wall, and the floor both, helped her case somewhat. As she lay there on the ground, she wasn't ENTIRELY idle, deciding to see if she could mimic that crystal armor she'd produced earlier. Who knows, maybe she could even manage a full suit next time she needed!

Of course, to anyone observing, it could very well just look like a girl too tired to move despite laying in filth, in desperate need of a shower and healing, being slowly encased in crystals. Not something you'd find to be a good sign, certainly.
 
Tundra

OSC-01 laid the Captain in a patch of dirt, the snow melted and ground dried from the literal heat of the battle that had unfolded. She was the first in the triage line, regardless. Dahlia mumbled weakly, her wounded leg propped up on a rock. "There's going to be a gap..."

The Overseer eyed the newcomer, pausing briefly to address them. The robot stood short of a foot from the Perry, her head hovering high enough to maintain a higher eye level with him. After a moment of silence, the Overseer addressed the man without introduction. "You want an impression, make yourself useful. Source some kindling."

The Overseer went about her way, pausing for an addendum. "And perhaps some chairs."



OSC-01 passed by Deimos, making no stop to scoop Reman off the passing Horsie and put the unconscious mutant into a firemans carry. These three would get their medical fix later. The Overseer waved Deimos to come along. "Follow me. I don't know the answer, but I'm sure one of them do." The robot nodded towards the unconscious "knights". Deimos could see clearly now a sparking ball of green energy floating in the cavern in the robots back, something not seen since the night Rhea broke into the cargo bay.

"They're not Arcadian, that much is for sure. But they're utilizing rift transport regardless." The Overseer raised a hand beside the glaive that pinned the unconscious Romulus to the ground, the weapon immediately folding back into a neat feather in her collection. The robot not-so-gracefully gripped the man by his shirt, pulling him along behind her with her weak arm. "And I think we've got the missing link."


---


Approximately How Long It Takes To Herd Cats, Act II
(Around 45 Minutes)


It had been under an hour since the marauders left the Downrider in dismay. To some felt like seconds, to others, hours.

A fair amount of activity had happened in that span of time- the two medics aboard the ship had been put through the wringer dealing with various injuries the crew sustained during the attack. Juryrig had been left to his own cleaning duties around the ship, but at some point the Overseer had thrown a headset to him at last, allowing him to experience - the audiobook - of the presentation given earlier.

A safe distance from the stench-ridden Downrider was the makeshift medical station that had been set up. Crew members, both injured and treated, had been gathered around a small bonfire that provided warmth to the otherwise chilly air. In reality, it was a pile of dried bushes and debris that had been set ablaze by a glaive. Cozy for the invited, nonetheless.

The people who weren't invited were Marie, Romulus, and Reman. The trio had been stripped of the entirety of their gear, being stored a safe distance away. Each of the detainees had been bound to the metal chairs by an impressive amount of insulated packing tape, giving them no wiggle room to work with. It seemed like they'd be out for just a bit longer, given their exhaustion.

The Captain had begun to recover, eyeing what crew had eventually stumbled back to the group. To the side of her was the rejuvenated Overseer, who was cursed to never use furniture. Instead, she stood there tinkering with her weak arm, the upper layers of fabric and black artificial muscle peeled back to reveal a cold, metal core of skeleton and hydraulics. A thin green band of metal ran down the arm as well, giving off an eerie glowing haze. The two had shared a brief quiet conversation, the most prominent word from it being 'Nepherian diplomacy'. It didn't bode well for the chairbound.


After a minute of nothing but the fire crackling, the Overseer cast a gaze over the Downrider crew. "It seems we have a moment to rest. Now would be the time for any questions about the- rudely interrupted- presentation."
 
Downrider- Cat Herd

Rhea sat outwith the others, still a bit sore, but being notably less smelly than before, hugging her knees to her chest as she thought on the presentation. She didn't really get much of a chance to absorb the information before, and, was focused on some parts that, would be insignificant to others of course, but to her meant a great deal, so she probably learned less than her fellow documentary watchers... Even so, some things stuck out in her mind. The overseer, implied at least, that it would be bad for them to learn these things... and even now, despite how big of a deal it obviously was, no one knew about it, so...

"Are... they still out there, trying to cover things about it up?" Rhea finally asked. She had other questions, that were much more important to her, but she was already slotted in for a talk with her later. "You were there when they made a new place, but... here you are, alone, and a long time later..." Maybe, somone came and ruined the future of the 'good' remnants? No, she didn't want to think about things like that too hard, and, honestly, she kind of found it hard to pay attention after seeing the 'echyllis benders'. What mattered the most of course, was why no one knew, what happened to the 'new' nation, and why the overseer was alone today... she could save some of those questions for the 'talk' later, she supposed. They might even be relevant to the topic.
 
Downrider

Tom Addison was the man actually cleaning the ship, feigning as Juryrig to mixed success. It doesn't change the fact that he still has a big job to do, which can be summed up as cleaning up Juryrig's mess. Literally.

Tom's solutions to problems, while solid, can be summed up as 'using a sledgehammer to put a nail in wood'; they're overly excessive solutions. He could just swab the ship, but... You know, no, he isn't going to just mop up everything. He made a invention specifically designed for the situation where a set area desperately needs cleaning. For this specific situation, he invented the large, bulky, industrial super cleaner that he called 'Squeaky Clean'. The inventor had fed a heavy portion of scrap into the jerry-rigged reactor that Juryrig and Marie had concocted together*, activating the Transmutative Restoration Protocol. A pulse of alchemical power occasionally radiated from the ship, removing one dent at a time in the hull of the ship.

With Horsie in tow, carrying the bulk of the Squeaky Clean, Tom slid around using magically augmented boots, and magically augmented goggles to measure levels of sanitation. If they were below 80%, he pointed Squeaky Clean's powerful hose and fired a geyser of industrial cleaning agent. Tom had taken the luxury to also crank the life support up a few notched, just to make the internal temperature of the ship to be high enough to let most of the water to evaporate out of the Downrider.

Tom was also blasting some tunes while he listened to the presentation; meme tunes, to be precise, because he unironically finds them catchy.

The information he gained was a lot; with some things in the documentary having parallels to his own life before becoming Juryrig's dependent. Yeah... Undo the damage he done, destroy The Curse. Deep down, he wanted to do it, too, but Jury never gives him the opportunity to do so.

Well, Tom at least gets to have fun for the first time after 5 years of being in a vegetative state in his own brain.

Tom/Juryrig also had the luxury of having Osco's question streamed to him. Tom, after listening to everything, decided to stream back a question. "Yeah uh, what even survived after all that?"
 
TUNDRA
Fireside

Deimos was probably the closest to the fire, doing all he could to bear the cold to the point where even his metal arm was detached from the empty stump on his shoulder so to limit the chances of frostbite. His amber eyes had settled on the flickering fire in front of his face, ears tucked back at the displeasure of once more being left out in the cold. To the Fox, the sooner they got off of this frozen wasteland of a planet the better. He reached for the bag on his lower back, fiddling around for the holographic tablet he had tucked away. It was a relief to see that, even after being thrown up against the Downrider's new Janitor that it was still decently intact, - though its projected screen had a noticeable flicker to it this time around.

He skimmed through all of the notes he had jotted down about the projections. The animalistic people, the massive war, the technologies that made their home planet's scientists look like a joke.

Of course for the fox-eared fellow, it was the foremost that stood out to him. All of the fuzzier or more feathery individuals among the many races that sprawled to Arcadia in its prime. The occasional fox that reminded him of his mother in some ways.

"What do we even need to obtain if we want to get to this place? As enlightening as all that was, I'm not sure how this info will matter if we can't find a means of getting to Arcadia."

Deimos wasn't impatient, but he was anxious. That last attack meant more than just that the journey to Arcadia was a race - it meant that there were other competitors who, as far as the Downrider Crew knew, were at the same point in their investigations. For that, odds were that other explorers could very well be much farther ahead in the journey. Perhaps Arcadia's borders had already been breached by the footsteps of another excavation project much like the one that was busy turning the Observatory into a landmark.
 
ISS Downrider
Commons Area (Cleaning Duty)

Swipe, swipe, swipe---Keith swiped a mop across the Commons Area with the self-imposed determination of a man whose house had just been defiled by drunk teenage delinquents on the night of All Hallows' Eve. Stopping for a minute to catch his breath after a good time of nonstop mopping, the informant watched wide-eyed as the crew's resident alchemist, Juryrig, went to town on the ship floors with one of his endless gadgets, cleaning the entire room in about half the time Keith himself would take to wipe a dinner table. He sighed, propped the mop up against the nearby wall, and left the ship proper to join the others in the makeshift medical station.

Tundra
Bonfire Lit

The ex-sergeant had arrived just in time for the questioning to begin. Taking a seat near Rhea, he draped his insulated military coat over the orphan child's shoulders, leaving himself with only his trademark nomad outfit and the fire's heat to stave off the biting cold. She needed the warmth more than him, he thought. His military training had accounted for stoic resistance to the elements, though he could still feel the frost numbing his extremities little by little.

Upon hearing Deimos' question, Keith mused it over himself, adding his own thoughts after a brief moment of silence. "Chasing the heart of Arcadia itself might prove to be a lost cause considering all the havoc wreaked, but... at the same time, simply pursuing their outskirts has proven enlightening." He then turned to OSC-01, addressing her with his own question directly. "Overseer, you mentioned to us a library before, during the presentation. What else do you have in store? Perhaps more about New Incipere and the Faceless Baron?" The informant gave a knowing nod to captain Dahlia.
 
The white-coated medic sat in her claimed space about the crackling fire, hunched over her currently detached cybernetic arm. After dealing with the injuries of the rest of her newly joined crew, she'd taken the time to remove her white armor-weave overcoat, as well as... well, most of all of her clothes, set aside nearby to later receive a thorough disinfecting. She now wore softer clothes, a simple shirt with a light jacket, a well-worn pair of boots, and a baggy pair of military-looking pants. It wasn't as well insulated as her coat, the occasional breeze sinking its icy teeth through the light fabrics.

Arms, however, were in much shorter supply, so she now busied herself with wiping clean all the nooks and crannies with a little personal disinfectant kit. Looking up towards the Overseer as she spoke, eyes sharp and focused, despite the earlier knock from the ceiling on her brainbox having left her temporarily out of the game. Indeed, she found she had no questions. Seemed to her she'd get far away from her current problems- and if she became lucky? Get some resources to solve them.

And so she returned to her work, wiping away the sewage that remained from the jury-rigged trap she'd found herself caught in.
 
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