EVENT | LANDFALL | EVIDET

[ironwood]

Characters: ALL!
Date: January 28th to February 11th
Location: Evidet
Situation: Tu Vishan has washed up near the coastal city of Khatronma.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.



The suddenness of the looming cliffs takes even the kedan by surprise, in spite of a number of them trying to plot their course with as much knowledge of the ocean’s currents as they already had. Tu Vishan makes landfall without any of the grace shown in previous times, bumping into the cliffs before finally coming to rest on the reef and rocks at the low tide around Khatronma.

Most of Khatronma's shores consist of steep iced cliffs, and once it becomes clear there is no threat, the residents of Khatronma oblige by establishing scaffolding across from the walls of their city to the turtle’s back. A customs area is quickly set apart, and the residents of Keeliai welcomed -- with some slight confusion. The Khatronmans are just as surprised by the unexpected docking as the kedan.

---

LINKS
Khatronma's Landmarks | Launch Day! | The Emissaries | Item Retrieval | Special Location (initially closed) | OOC Post

OOC
Please direct questions to the OOC post!

Comments

scrapyards; open

[inkulcation]

China is markedly out of place in the scrapyards, even with her hair up and her outfit simple clean-cut pants and shirt, slim concession to practicality over elegance. Nevertheless there she is, intent, picking her way through scrap like it's the most interesting thing in the world. What interests her mainly are the smaller pieces of scrap, broken bits of delicately machined metal or half-cracked lenses, and she already has a few sharp-edged pieces cupped in one hand for later examination.

Of note is that she's for the most part avoiding the scrap-sorters, preferring to look at the unsorted piles herself, and that she seems not at all bothered by the relatively cooler weather, despite not wearing anything like a coat.

---

[if this is the first time you've met China, you may wish to eyeball this; she does a passive magical Thing.]

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony is also rummaging around in the unsorted piles. He'd already scoped out the scrapyards earlier, and now he's back, in the armor, to gather up some stuff that had been too heavy to carry the first time around.

At the moment, he's got his sights set on a large piece of fairly high-quality steel sticking out of one of the bigger piles. It's wedged in there pretty deep, but it ought to just slide out without causing too much disturbance... He gives it a tug. Still stuck. He pulls harder. The scrap pile shifts, and as he pulls the metal free, it starts a minor avalanche of miscellaneous detritus. Oops.

Tony turns on his boot jets and launches a couple meters into the air, checking that there was no one in the immediate area who he just dumped a pile of scrap on. Oh, shit— there's a woman standing right there on the other side of the pile he just toppled. Er. At least it doesn't look like anything hit her?

"Sorry!" Tony calls. He lands in front of her and retracts the faceplate. "Sorry about that, I, uh, I didn't realize there was anyone over here."

Now that he's getting a good look at her, he can see that she's... well, gorgeous, for one. Also, not anybody he recognizes. She doesn't look like the locals, so, one of the new foreigners, maybe? Crap. Now he really feels bad. What a way to greet a newcomer.

"Are you okay? I didn't drop anything on you, did I?" She looks fine, but he's anxious anyway. What if she's hurt? What if she's mad at him? He really doesn't want her to be mad at him.

[inkulcation]

Some of the debris Tony had dislodged would have hit China, but the sound of shifting metal is warning enough, and she snaps her forearms together, producing a force field as the tattoos there line up. What would have hit her instead falls to the ground, and by the time the armored boy comes around to her she's lowering her arms again.

She does look a little bit irritated, despite the fact that she's visibly fine. "You did," she informs him, a little pointedly. "If you were trying to make even more of a mess of this place, you've succeeded."

But the irritation's fading fast in lieu of studying his armor. She hasn't seen anything like that before, and she's not wholly disguising her interest. "I will assume, however, that you did not pick a fight with the scrap heap for no reason," China allows, less grudging than she might otherwise.

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony looks stricken. "Shit, I am so sorry. I had no idea— god, that was stupid. Are you okay?" he asks again. He can't bear the thought of having hurt her, even accidentally.

"I'm sorry, I, uh, I saw that... piece of metal last time I was here," he fumbles, and gestures to the scrap in question, "and I... wanted it. It's... nice?"

Wow. Good job, Tony. Really smooth.

[inkulcation]

"It was," she says. Gives some of the newly rearranged scrap a pointed look. Others might not have been, though that's more relevant as a way to prod her new acquaintance. "Fortunately, I am uninjured. And is your piece of metal satisfactory?"

That certainly is a large chunk of metal he's found. China eyes it, then him again. Raw material, coupled with truly unique engineering work on the armor-- he's likely responsible for its creation. Awkward, but definitely potentially useful.

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony is hugely relieved to hear that she's uninjured, but he's appalled at his own carelessness. He withers under her disapproving gaze. She's right, of course, and he feels terrible for having put her at risk.

"I'm really sorry," he stammers again. "It's— um, it's okay, I guess. There's just not a lot of raw materials in Keeliai, and I wanted... I have a couple projects that I..." He trails off again. He can feel his ears burning.

[inkulcation]

When she judges that he's fumbled awkwardly for words long enough, China tilts her head just a little to one side, a politely curious gesture. "Of course," she says, all seriousness. "I've noticed the dearth of raw materials myself. What projects might these be?" This comes out almost innocently, like it's just idle curiosity, but if he's actually paying attention to more than just her looks he may notice her gaze is more speculative than idle.

[highprofilerichkid]

Tony instantly perks up when she expresses an interest in his work. It never crosses his mind to wonder if her interest is idle or not. He's just thrilled that she asked, and eager to tell her whatever she wants to hear.

"Oh, well, I'm always doing repairs on the armor - it's a lot harder to maintain, here, with the tech level what it is. And me and some of the other foreigners have a contract with the metalworkers setting up a video/radio broadcast system. Zanru hasn't contracted any of us for the tram, yet, but I've got some great ideas and I've been working on some prototypes that I'll show her if they work out. Oh, and some experiments with the hybrid magic tech that Anton uses in his hotel. Nothing functional yet, but I've figured out some pretty cool stuff already. I'm also working on how to duplicate some of the functions of my armor in stand-alone devices - I did a few, back before the Dreaming, but I'm trying to improve on those designs, come up with some new ones, amp up the power output of the batteries, that sort of thing." He beams at her.

[inkulcation]

Oh, he's feeling talkative, excellent. China absorbs information mostly for the purpose of determining how useful Tony's going to be, but the bit about the hybrid magic tech attracts her attention like nothing else does. "You've been experimenting with sigilwork?" she inquires, temporarily dismissing everything else. She'll come back to them, but this is her primary area of interest. "How much has Anton taught you, and what successes have you had so far?" If she finds out Shudder's left the boy completely on his own to experiment she may just have to take over. He's evidently very bright, and interested to boot; it would be a shame to waste that.

[highprofilerichkid]

"Yeah!" Tony still finds magic baffling and often frustrating, and he'd rather be talking about his tech, but if she wants to hear about what he's been doing with sigils he will gladly comply.

"He has me doing maintenance on a lot of his hybrid appliances, and that's what I'm building on. There wasn't a much he could tell me about the underlying mechanics of the sigils, but they have to exist, right? So I'm trying to figure out how the sigils relate to laws of physics that I'm familiar with. What kinds of energy they can generate, how their output can be modulated, what conditions they operate under, how long they last, how to integrate them into traditional mechanical and electrical systems, that sort of thing. Like, it's really easy to draw a sigil for light, so why isn't there an equally simple one to generate electrical current? And if there's a sigil for visible light, can you draw sigils that will generate other kinds of electromagnetic radiation? I mean, the big question is: where does the energy come from in the first place? Anton says he doesn't know, but it can't be infinite, or it'd break the laws of thermodynamics - and magic still has to follow some of the fundamental laws of physics, or else it would drastically change the nature of the universe. So it's got to be some kind of renewable energy source. But where and what is it? How do the sigils access it? How does it regenerate? And if it can be accessed with magic, there must be a way to access it with technology, too. Anyway, I don't know if I'll ever figure that out, but I've got a lot of raw data from my experiments, so I at least have a little bit of groundwork for some basic, practical applications."

You've got him started, China. Now good luck getting him to stop.

[inkulcation]

Why would she want him to stop? This is exactly her area of interest, Tony, she's been studying for centuries.

"The magic, such as it is, is in the world itself," China explains. "Sigils utilize a specific sort of geometry that attracts and shapes that force. Thus the language may be used even by someone who cannot themselves use magic, though achieving mastery will take more time than most mortals have available. Electrical current is more complex than light because light is one of the simplest and oldest ideas in human consciousness."

She looks at him thoughtfully, past mild interest and into the concept of discussing this with him seriously. "You're not the first, to theorize and experiment with the combination of science and magic. Your experiments-- elaborate."

[highprofilerichkid]

And that right there is what he's having the hardest time with: a system based on human abstractions. Because he's a scientist, he can pick apart the rules of how sigils are constructed - but because he's a scientist, he's resistant to the idea that subjective symbolic meaning is integral to their function. It frustrates him immensely that 'light' is a simple sigil only because 'light' is a simpler symbolic concept than 'electrical current' to most human beings.

He works with it, because Anton's guidance has convinced him that this is the reality of sigils, and at the end of the day, he can't ignore reality, no matter how illogical it seems. But it irritates him. It irritates him more than he wants to admit to this lovely woman who is so interested in his work.

So he smiles and nods agreeably at her explanation, and then launches into an enthusiastic overview of his experiments and findings. His scientific bias is probably obvious: his research is focused on trying to tease traditional physics out of the abstract magic of the sigils, and getting the sigils to efficiently interface with technology.

[inkulcation]

China smiles right back, and nods along, and prompts occasionally where she finds it necessary -- very little, because the boy might as well be falling all over himself to give her what she's asked for. He's bright, she'll give him that, and there is solid thought there, he's got more of a grasp than she'd have expected from someone so young-- but he's got a very set viewpoint, and that's probably hindering him.

"Have you considered," she says at length, still pleasant but a little cooler now, "that your attempts to force another world's magic to fall in line with your own paradigm may in fact be counterproductive to the understanding you're seeking? Magic and science aren't two opposing ends of some grand spectrum. You're trying to fly before you've even learned to walk."

Because I'm a glutton for punishment

[theideaguy]

Sokka is out in the scrapyards too, looking for good deals. It's amazing how much cheaper stuff on the land is, even though most of this, admittedly is slightly broken. But hey, Sokka will need some projects to keep himself sane, and there's plenty of stuff here that he could probably engineer back to working order given enough time.

But Sokka is a rather choosy shopper. He's extremely careful and tight with his coinpurse, so he's often really really unable to make up his mind. And so it just so happens that he's looking at a telescope at the moment. He's looking through it, and everything is completely blurry. But Sokka's trying to determine exactly how blurry the image is, how easy it would be to fix, and if it's worth the cost of actually buying it. After all, it could come in handy... maybe.

It just so happens that as he's turning around, he happens to point the thing directly at China's face. And the objects in Sokka's eyes are MUCH closer than they actually are, which means that he can't even see her entire face! He practically jumps back a bit before looking at China with the biggest and stupidest grin ever.

"Hi!"

[inkulcation]

If China could be trying any less hard, she would be. She knows that sort of grin. That's enthusiasm, raw and unfiltered, and it's all directed right at her.

Lovely.

She closes her fingers loosely over the small bits she's so far collected and turns her gaze on Sokka, decidedly cool. Another Foreigner she doesn't know yet. She does know it's valuable to get to know every member of this tiny, enforced community, but really, she was in the middle of something, and not feeling particularly charitable. "Do you need something?" China asks, brows raised, and gives the telescope a brief, faintly dubious glance.

[theideaguy]

Well, in truth, Sokka's got all the willpower and mental resistance of a dog trying ever so hard to not eat that biscuit right in front of its nose. Sorry, China. Unfortunately, right now, your best isn't good enough for a first meet-up here.

"I... uh, no... not really," Sokka says with a quite dumbfounded and confused expression. There's a subconscious undercurrent that's asking what in the world is even going on, but the rolling of something just keeps him from really listening to that voice. "I mean, I was just... uhm, shopping? In the scrapyard. Looking for... interesting things. To buy. Like... this, er, telescope! It's a little blurry, and I was trying to figure out if was the lenses that were wrong, or the alignment was incorrect or what." As Sokka's focus goes back to the telescope, his speech seems to become more fluid, and whatever effects that China was having diminish, but only so long as that distraction is present. He looks through it one more time. "How about you?"

[inkulcation]

"Raw materials," China says, like it should really have been obvious. She displays, briefly, the palm full of shine she's collected, before closing her fingers again. "I prefer tools I've crafted myself."

There's a long moment of consideration where she can feel herself having a moderately altruistic impulse and attempts to squash it. But cultivating connections is probably profitable, so in the end she holds out her free hand, palm-up, making the gesture an imperative. "Let me see it."

[theideaguy]

That actually surprises Sokka momentarily, and he takes his eye out from the telescope, and immediately he's hit with her passive art yet again. "Oh really?" he says, slightly stupid grin returning to his face. "I... wouldn't have guessed. A fellow tinkerer then? I do a bit of tinkering myself, among other things."

Though when she asks to see the little telescope, Sokka can do nothing but refuse, especially since it's an imperative. "Of course, here you go."

[inkulcation]

"A tinkerer," she repeats, skeptical. She is far more than just that. "No, not quite. A collector, more accurately. Occasionally an artist." Which is as good a way as any to describe her gift with sigils to someone who won't have any idea what she's talking about, and to whom she doesn't care to explain.

Her attention is on the telescope, though, as she turns it over one-handed and peers through it herself. When she's given it a thorough once-over China hands it back to him, and her gaze on him is a little more interested. "It's not hopeless," she pronounces, though doesn't seem inclined to offer any more than that. Rather, it seems like she might be waiting for something.

[theideaguy]

If Sokka's mind were thinking a bit more clearly, he probably would have questioned things a little more. One does not simply walk into Mordor collect raw materials and then do artwork with them, but then again, he also knew nothing of sigils or that magic present within that form of work. But because his brain is a little addled, his only quip is something more superficial. "An artist, huh? I do a little bit of that myself, too."

But he watches China carefully as she looks through it and gives it a brief once-over. Sokka awaits her verdict while doing his best to not froth at the mouth, but eventually her verdict... kind of doesn't impress. Well, it does because of her magic, though it certainly leaves him wanting more. "Not hopeless? As in hopefully something can be fixed? Worth my time in fixing it? It needs something else to fix it?" GIVE HIM THE ANSWERS CHINA HE NEEDS THEM.

He looks down at the telescope in his hands. "At least is it worth what I'd be paying for it?" If she's waiting for something specific, he's not quite sure what it is.

[inkulcation]

"I doubt very much we're in the same fields," China says, a little dismissive. She watches him a moment longer -- she was hoping he might show some spark of intelligence in identifying the problem himself -- but perhaps he's too distracted.

The day she admits Shudder has a point about her abilities is the day she decides she's going to let Scorn live.

"It can be fixed," she tells him after a moment. "Whether it's worth your time depends on what your time is worth, and I suggest you ignore the first price they quote you entirely."

[theideaguy]

Well, there is something of a distraction that is being a total hindrance to him, admittedly. If he can only get the telescope to distract him more, he'd probably have a reasonable shot at it.

"Well, if that's the case," he says, still looking at the telescope and less at China, "then it's probably just something to do with the lenses being off. I mean, that's the only thing that could make everything go wonky." It's a sound judgement, and it's only because of his focus being so... single-minded that he can get to that. But the moment he looks up again, yeah, it's gone.

"But no really, thaaaaank you for that advice. I was thinking it was a bit high. The price, I mean. I should probably haggle, that is." For once, he's not saying that with pure sarcasm. "But I honestly appreciate it! You know, you could be so useful in my shopping adventures, looking for good bargains!" Yes, he wouldn't mind tagging along... if she would let him.

[inkulcation]

Sokka wins a very few points with that analysis, which is the same thing China had concluded. It has to be the lenses to produce that effect, and she's reasonably sure it's the focal length, but she doesn't like him well enough to do his work for him. Instead she just nods agreement, looking very serious indeed.

"I do have an eye for a good deal," she agrees, still quite serious. And China does, it's just that at least half that talent for finding good deals is her, ah, charming talents. "And you should certainly haggle. But I'm quite happy here, and somehow I don't quite think our interests in shopping will overlap."

[theideaguy]

Well, at the very least he knows what he's looking for with this thing, and it should be a simple fix. Now the only matter is whether or not he actually wants to buy it, and that's still a long dilemma that thankfully China is excusing herself out of. Definitely good for her.

"Well in that case," he says with definite infatuation, "since your interests are elsewhere, I suppose I'll just have to see you another time. I'm sure our paths will cross again at some point." He grins broadly and then offers a wave. "Thanks for the tips though. They certainly will be helpful!"

[inkulcation]

"Ours is a small community," China says, which is something like agreement. She considers him for a moment, then offers him an actual smile in lieu of a farewell wave. It practically lights up her face.

This is mostly because she thinks the results will be amusing. "If you do fix it," she says. "Show it to me, when you do."