{VOICE OTA}

[rootandbranch]

[Today you feel a few strange pulses in your signets before you hear anything over Qri's network. It's fairly pleasant, exactly as the signet communications tend to be, and fortunately doesn't at all resemble the strange fluctuations that plagued everyone back on days 103-105. It's more like someone poking at the network to be sure it's stable and not going to do any more of that before they speak. They seem to conclude it's safe after all.]

Hello? Oh, hi-- hi, everybody. It's Geir. If you don't know me, I'm the dragon.

[He's very matter of fact about it. He's the dragon. You're probably aware, his tone seems to say.]

Listen, I don't actually care if you know me, you should just help me and Nines out! He knows all kinds of technology things, so I asked him what we could find out about the Hub with them. But the question is really, what does everyone want to find out? There's been a lot of weird to chew on!

Chew...on? [9S echoes this thought quizzically, for an instant quite distracted. But right, right, the matter at hand—] Er, anyway, like Geir said we’re lacking data on our surroundings. And to know what we’re dealing with, gathering more would be best, so I was thinking I can probably scrape enough parts together to build a pod for that job, once we know what kind of information it should collect. I mean, unless we want everything...

[Geir's tone is still bright and interested. he loves hearing about this, even if part of him is still skeptical.]

Nines isn't even the only person who knows how to build... robots. I know a bunch of you build stuff. Who wants to help?

[9S clears his throat, quietly tacking a little disclaimer on:]

...Not that pods should be mistaken for machines or anything.

[When your kind’s fought machines for millennia certain lines get drawn. Thin, confusing grey lines. (Geir doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just lets it stand.)]


((both 9S and Geir may reply to your toplevels, and also feel free to jump each other! this is the start of a player plot to get a little more technology on the island. ♥ more details here!))

Comments

voice;

[armigers]

Okay, I'll bite. What sort of info do you need exactly?

[ He's mostly volunteering because he stands to benefit from learning where all the technology is in this place they're trapped in. Also because he has nothing better to do at the moment. ]

voice;

[deem]

Oh, actually...we're wondering what you guys want to know about. Regarding this island, and all that.

[At least Noctis is familiar by now with 9S' readiness to help out]

voice;

[armigers]

I'm guessing I'm not allowed to ask for how can we get off this island?

[ That's probably been asked numerous times. He's pretty sure he would have found out by now if there was a way. ]

Okay, how about anywhere I can take a bath that's not a sink?

[ Sort of technology related. Clean, running water is a top priority. ]

voice;

[deem]

I wouldn't mind an answer to that one myself that didn't involve either deployment or drifting off into nothing, but...

[Well, more immediately there's something he can answer without even gathering data]

There's a bathhouse near base camp that should be usable now.

voice;

[armigers]

Think that would have been the first thing they'd have mentioned.

[ Okay, power stuff is also kind of important, but so is general hygiene. ]

How about a charging station?

[ Because he needs a better way to pass the time here other than getting stung by the local insect population. ]

[deem]

Yeah, you'd think they would, but we're kind of chronically under-informed.

[Not even kind of. Most definitely]

Don't think we've got something like that... Why, do you have one of those phone-things like Nazuna and Prompto?

[Those seem to be the common devices of concern]

[armigers]

[ He wonders if their 'overlords' are keeping things from them on purpose. That thought is interrupted by the sound of Prompto's name, snapping him back to the present. ]

You two met? Surprised he didn't take one step further and try to open you up. He likes gadgets and machinery.

[deem]

Oh, he does? He mentioned you guys lost your weapons, but he didn't ask me as many questions as you did.

[Actually he seemed in a hurry to stop talking, if anything...]

We weren't talking in-person though. Just remotely like this.

[armigers]

Ha-h? Really?

[ It's a cold day in any hell when Noctis actually talks more than anyone, especially Prompto. ]

Figured he'd be impossible to pry off, but he's right. I had-

[ Maybe he shouldn't talk about his armiger so openly since that would easily give away his identity. ]

Just a couple. Stored in our car back home.

[deem]

Huh... Well, I loaned Sir Flynn my lighter sword already, but if you want to borrow something, I don't mind.

[Don't talk about that armiger around this guy unless you want to see him imitate it with tech, Noctis]

I'd have to make guns though, if you and Prompto both work with artillery.

[armigers]

Couldn't hurt. I'd rather be armed this place than not, and 'least I have the Ultima blade handy.

[ Meaning he's good on the sword category. It's everything else he's missing. How is he even supposed to carry it all on him? Considerations better left for later. ]

What do you need for guns?

[deem]

So you use a variety of weapons too?

[That's something he can easily relate with]

I've got some spare parts still, although I'm running a little low...if they're not rifles I can probably manage.

[armigers]

A couple. You might even call me a Ray Jack of all trades.

[ Get it? Cheesy grin sold separately. ]

I'll take whatever you can make and throw in a few boar parts, crab shells... conch shells.

[ He's not sure what kind of weapon can be built from all that, but he doesn't have a whole lot of options here. ]

[rootandbranch]

The ideas we had already are all things like "how do the wind and water here even work?" No one knows. It's really, really annoying.

[Geir normally has an intuitive grasp of the air currents of wherever he's found himself, at least as much so as anything that flies would; but it's not so near the Hub. the air even seems to cut off at the edges of the island. it's bothered him since he got here.]

[armigers]

[ Man, does it feel weird carrying on a conversation with a dragon. On any other occasion, he'd find the experience to be fairly awesome and not unlike a certain character from King's Knight, but right now, he's trying hard not to look as uncomfortable as he is when he replies- ]

Is that really the big question right now?

[ Kind of lacking in imagination. ]

Were you always a talking dragon?

[rootandbranch]

Maybe it's just one of my big questions. I don't like almost flying off of the edge of the world all the time. I mean... there's a million weird things, right? What do you want to know most?

[he can't tell quite what the tone of Noctis's voice is from that short commentary over the network, but he tries to answer as best he can; he really is interested in what Noctis thinks the big question about the Hub island might be. as for Noctis's other question... his tone gets a bit drier.]

And no, of course not. When I was a baby, I mostly kind of squeaked.

[armigers]

That's not what I-... never mind.

[ It would take him too long to explain, and that's more effort than he wants to infuse into this. ]

I guess my big question is where all the technology even went. Has anyone actually covered the whole island?

[ Not that he's volunteering, but it would be nice to know if someone already did the hard stuff for him. ]

[rootandbranch]

[in honesty, Geir understood the question that Noctis was asking, but decided to answer teasingly because he's been asked variants of "are you REALLY a dragon?" a couple of times now. it's become equal parts comical and annoying, depending on how and when it's asked... but the mild tease seems to have gone over Noctis's head this time, and he decides not to pursue it further. it was probably a little ungenerous of him to react like that, anyway -- most humans seem very sheltered about the whole dragon thing. better to move on.

because Noctis's assumption that there was more technology is an interesting one, he instead asks what seems like the obvious question to him:]

How do you know that there was more technology than this here in the first place? I don't think all worlds must have it. Mine doesn't.

[in fairness, though, he doesn't know for sure that it wasn't so. who knows what happened to the people who obviously lived here...?]

But, no, no one that I know about has gone over every inch of the island. I think Jay is keeping track of where people have gone so far, if they tell him. Maybe there's more somewhere! It would be nice if we could find out more about what happened here.

[armigers]

You have a point. But don't people from the outside bring things with them all the time? I brought my phone here with me.

[ Not that he intends on leaving it behind, but others may have been more careless than himself. How do they know someone did come here with a blender or something useful? ]

There's probably stuff like that just thrown around everywhere.

[ Again, he's not volunteering to look for it but someone should. Maybe a talking dragon with awesome flying powers who can easily traverse the island faster than himself. ]

[rootandbranch]

I don't know what people bring with them. I didn't bring anything.

[he supposes that someone could ask the coven at large the way he's doing for this other topic, but surely if anyone had a piece of technology that would materially change everyone's lives, they'd just say something if they wanted to offer it...? he thinks about what Noctis is suggesting to do with that priority, instead.]

So if Nines made something to learn more about the island, that's what you'd want it to find out? What technology people used to use here?

[it's an oddly historical bent from Geir's perspective, but maybe Noctis just wants more technology stuff to use, and he thinks that finding it would be easier than making it. that does make sense. Geir has a vague idea that you need pieces of other technologies to make more of them, so maybe he can follow the logic, after all.]

I wonder how he would do that. We can ask him!

[armigers]

You don't really... have hands. I don't think you can carry much anyway.

[ Unless he has a dragon back pack -which is honestly kind of cute to imagine. He has to stop himself from smiling at the mental image, thankful this is only an audio feed. ]

But yeah, that's the gist of it. Was anyone in this place before we got here? The coven and all that I mean.

[ Or was this all uninhabited before their arrival? ]

[rootandbranch]

Oh! I know some people used to be. We found the huts and the mansions here already, I heard -- and there's a bunch of other things scattered around.

We just don't know who they are, or why they left. There wasn't any sign of them when the first few people in the coven showed up.

[and isn't that just ominous?]

[armigers]

[ There are horror movies that start out like this... and abandoned mansions aren't really an ideal hangout. ]

Doesn't exactly sound that inviting. How do we know what happened to them won't happen to us?

[rootandbranch]

I don't know that at all! But as long as I'm around, I'll try to protect the coven if something happens, and I'm pretty strong. So I feel like it'll be fine...

[Geir's tone dips almost into a cajoling range; as unreassuring as that might sound, he is trying his best to be. he genuinely doesn't believe that anything could just kill off the whole coven willy-nilly with him here to protect it -- and he's equally genuinely committed to doing so. he makes the statement without consciously acknowledging his own committment to himself, but it's undeniably there.]

[armigers]

[ He wishes he was as reassured by the dragon's words, but given present circumstances, he's not going to be sleeping easy any time soon. ]

I'll take your word for it. So I take it no one wrote anything down at all? Kind of weird they wouldn't leave records behind.

[ Unless they were certain nobody would come after them. Or just didn't write and spent their time communicating telepathically. ]