2020-04-01: The World Is A Busy Place

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  • Log: The World Is A Busy Place
  • Cast: Citan Uzuki, Fei Fong Wong, Elhaym van Houten
  • Where: The Thames - Upper Deck
  • Date: April 01, 2020
  • Summary: Citan checks in on events of late with Fei and Elly. Particular attention is had towards certain potentially anomalous events in the region.

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    Aside from applying himself to the matter of attaining access to Shevat, keeping an eye on Fei, generally obtaining information on recent events, and other matters besides, Citan has, in his spare time, been working on the surprisingly-difficult-to-crack problem of the faulty temperature control unit within his Gear. It's a strange thing: it had worked without issue in the warmer climate of Aveh, but the moment he had started using it in the colder regions of Aquvy, he had noticed it was not functioning quite right.

    And of course, since it just happened to be somewhat atypical to other excavated Gears from the era, that meant that his attempts (when he had the time) to locate an exact replacement had been for naught.

    So, he had settled on a different approach, one which has borne fruit: he had, with Gwen's help as it had happened, excavated the part in question from Heimdall, done some quick sketches...

    ...obtained the approximate materials he'd need to recreate it, if with modern-day components...

    ...and then gone and done just that.
    In his spare time, of course.

    The world has been a busy place of late, which is why in the space he's borrowed aboard the Thames he has only just put the finishing touches on the component and is in the process of cleaning his hands while he waits for Fei and Elly to arrive. Properly installing it and testing the component will need to wait for another day.

    He has something more important to attend to, now.

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei is always happy to visit Doc. Doc was important to Fei even before he became the only person from his hometown who would still talk to him, and now that he is, well, suffice it to say Fei admires the guy.

That being said, Doc is also one of those people Fei feels like he has to stick to high expectations for. And not just of the 'don't blow up another village' kind. He is trying to maintain proper posture and keep cool and collected. It's not that he minds the occassional Doc lecture or anything but he doesn't want to embarrass himself.

"Hey Doc!" Fei says. "Did we come at a good time?" Of course even after saying it he feels a bit dumb for asking since he was kinda asked for here.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly comes in along with Fei.

Elly seems to be in a good mood. IS THAT EVEN LEGAL WITH ALL THE PROBLEMS IN FILGAIA TODAY? Yes: because Elly recently had a very successful Gear operation and she did not even get killed or give herself another brain injury or anything. While Vierge did undertake significant frame damage and needed an Ether-Amp rebuild after THAT nonsense, it didn't get blown up!

This is great!!

Elly is enjoying the fruits of her mercenary mission in the form of a stick with colorful dumplings on it. She has already gotten through half of them as they come in, and as Fei greets, she looks over towards Citan - and pauses, as if realizing she did not finish the dessert in time.

With a squirt of social anxiety, she eats the green dumpling. There we go: back to normal. But her eyes smile!

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    Perhaps regarding in particular Elly's improved mood, Citan rubs his chin thoughtfully as the both of them come in. This is fine because he has just finished cleaning the machine oil off his hands -- otherwise it may have ended poorly for him.

    "Elly, Fei. I trust that the both of you have been well?" It's been perhaps a week or thereabouts since they last crossed paths at all; watching out for Fei (and by proxy, for Elly) is something he takes seriously but it by no means suggests he has to shadow them like a hawk. They're both adults.

    But as he had expressed to Gwen, he has his concerns.

    In particular, about Odessa...

    He pauses a moment before answering Fei. "You are right on time, in fact. I had just finished up work, here," he says, glancing once to the workbench. It's more than merely an application of his particular interest -- it's to their benefit to make sure there are no issues with Heimdall, no matter how minor. He's long since considered how someone else could have exploited the malfunctioning part in the temperature control/venting system, if they knew about it. And they are coming up against unexpected foes, lately.

    "I do not suppose either of you have had any unexpected, ah, breakthroughs since we last spoke? I am afraid I have learned nothing of interest, save for a story about an attack by bandits on a farming village on Kasutho..."

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei says, "Well there was a fight against some Veruni..." after a moment's hesitation. "They were trying to use wyverns to..." He hates to say it like this but he has no choice. "...do something."

Yep that's Fei's understanding of that battle. "I guess they were trying to do some testing? But it was causing some trouble so some Drifters came to lend a hand. Kaguya did a real number on my gear but Avril was there so it wasn't too bad. And Emeralda didn't get hurt or anything."

Not that...Emeralda really...gets hurt, usually. But still! Fei hasn't engaged Odessa all too much.

"Bandits?" Fei asks. "Oh geeze, I hope they're all okay."

He looks to Elly for a moment. Maybe she's had better luck.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.


                *gulp*

Elly smiles at Citan with just a tiny dab of caramel sauce on her lip. "Yes," Elly states. She takes a deep breath and lets it out... and twirls the dupling stick in her fingers, carefully. "Well, we interfered with an Odessa operation... pretty decisively, I would say, but I'm not certain what they were attempting to do. It wasn't wyverns, at least."

Elly glances towards Fei.

"Beyond that, I've mostly been - um, fishing, just to try and earn money, I suppose," she continues, with a faint smile.

She has to pause before sorting Fei's situation into a proper order of operations, and then asks Citan, "What made that report stand out? I know that there's been all kinds of things. I guess in a sense it's encouraging that people are 'trying' things, instead of fulfilling some kind of operation... it suggests they're scrambling for purchase on accomplishing their goals, and if those goals aren't good ones..."

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    Would it be kinder to mention that she's got a little dab of sauce on her lip? It might have to remain an academic question, since Citan doesn't comment on that at all.

    Instead, he comments on what Fei has to say: "The Veruni? Well now, that is unexpected..." He folds his arms over his chest, as if he is thinking over what Fei says about the attack. "Weltall was damaged, you say? I see... Have you brought it around for repairs? It is a shame the Yggdrasil is not here; I would feel more at ease having them work on it. However, I suppose it cannot be helped. At the very least, the workers here seem the honest sort..."

    He appears to digest the news about Emeralda being present and being unhurt (he doesn't know the particulars) with similar consideration.

    "Yes. I believe there were no fatalities... among the villagers, that is. ...Now that you mention it, it is rather interesting that you encountered the Veruni. The village in question was one under Veruni control." He glances over to Elly. "This is the reason it stood out to me: one fact about Veruni holdings is that they typically do not see much in the manner of marauders. ...The benefit, one supposes, of living under their thumb. Presumedly, most raiders do not wish to attract the Veruni's ire." He tilts his head slightly to one side. "Hmm... now, what was the name again..."

    He pauses for a moment as if in thought. "...Honeysday, I believe."

    Elly, meanwhile, has had contact with Odessa operations.

    "I see... with the Black Wolves, then?" he says, naming the mercenary group with which Fei and Elly are attached. "Would you be able to explain what you saw, then? I cannot say I have any great insight to their intents, but perhaps considering their professed aims..." He trails off, then shakes his head. "...Yes, an astute observation, Elly. It suggests that perhaps the Veruni as well as Odessa do not possess any particular plan at present. Of course, adhering too fiercly to a plan can also land one into trouble... I suppose it depends on which is in play."

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

"Oh, uh, not yet." Fei says, embarrassed. "I mean, it's with Hammer but the repairs aren't done yet and I didn't ask him to rush it or anything either." He rubs his neck. "Uh." Pause. "Are you expecting us to need our gears soon, Doc?" He is a little worried about that but if he has to use Weltall he'll use Weltall. There's a big difference between accepting Weltall and appreciating Weltall or even liking Weltall.

"Huh... that would make sense." He admits to Citan's reasoning. "Why would bandits attack the Veruni? They'd hit back super hard..." He frowns a bit. "But uh. I mean, maybe they have some reason they're not afraid of the Veruni striking back? Or they're uh... just not that bright? I mean...bandits can be pretty, um..."

He trails off a bit. "I think Kaguya at least has a plan." He adds that, though, a bit quietly.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

Elly is given a few facts about the Veruni, which she considers while eating her final dumpling, which helpfully removes the dab of sauce from her lip. Unfortunately it leaves another, unrelated dab of sauce elsewhere. Elly still doesn't notice.

"Yes," Elly says. "If I had to summarize..."

The camera sweeps upwards.

"The location was a Metal Demon facility. I believe it was producing large-scale Gears. Based on what we saw, it may have been isolated by the general military collapse that we can infer accompanied the end of the Metal Demon war period."

"The entity itself was called Ymir. That Hyadaen who keeps showing up everywhere, Zed, has a Gear or Gear-like entity which was able to provide me with more information... You know, that's a good question. I think it might have been a Hyadaen itself? I didn't have time to ask. Anyway, 'Ymir' was adapting to our defenses, even to the AERODs. So..."

                "..."

"... we blasted it until it stopped functioning," Elly concludes as the camera pans downwards, "and you know, Doctor, I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, but I was genuinely surprised that it worked out as well as it did. I imagine Odessa was trying to get control of it due to it being ancient technology... from what little I know, they don't have a lot in the way of Gears, and without Gears, their ambitions are probably going to be limited, because Kislev, Aquvy, and Aveh all have substantial Gear forces. And not just them," Elly says, before she kind of trails off on the topic of the Veruni.

The topic of Gears rises up again. Elly takes this opportunity to move over to the wastebasket and toss out her skewer.

"... A plan to do what?" Elly asks Fei.

As her arms fold, she muses, "Of course, they might not 'actually' be bandits."

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    Citan still doesn't remark. It may just be in his nature.

    He shakes his head at Fei's question. "No, I do not think so, but I would not like to be proven wrong," is the doctor's response. "I do not think that haste is warranted; nevertheless, if there are any adjustments to be made, you may wish to make them sooner, rather than later."

    There is the sense of something amiss -- some vague feeling, unaccounted for by anything he knows -- that has been troubling him lately, but he has yet to identify any particular cause for it...

    Perhaps it is merely a warning to be prepared for anything -- particularly any potential black swan event.

    He listens, as Elly explains -- the apparent goals, the operation, the thing that was destroyed in the heart of the facility.

    "A Hyadean machine... do you think that you could perhaps learn more? Or I suppose I might, though you would have to do introductions, I am afraid. From what I know of the Hyadean remnants, they are more likely to speak openly to someone that they know, and someone who can be vouched for. I have not had much contact with them, I admit, so I would be an unknown factor." He sighs, then shakes his head. "Their survival is a precarious one..."

    Elly concludes her tale with what happened to Ymir.

    "...Yes, I can understand that feeling, Elly. There are times when one wonders whether..." But he shakes his head, trails off on that particular subject. "But I am getting sidetracked. Now, that is an interesting observation, and may speak to Odessa's current woes, if accurate. If they are lacking on the side of military hardware, either Gears or equipment capable of handling Gears, that does put them at poorer odds, particularly if their intent is in fact to war with the entire world. The fact that they began this offensive with an equipment shortage of that nature does make me wonder... do they have an ace up their sleeve, so to speak, or did something occur to force them to act when they did?"

    He nods, at Fei's comment. "Yes, it could be simply blundering. Still, the Veruni are, ah... prone to making their areas of control known, to put it mildly." There are stories -- unverified -- of bandit routs in their territories, and the bodies being strung up as a message to any others. But perhaps it is just propaganda.

    Citan glances over at Elly, his expression a touch pensive. "What would you think they might be, Elly?"

<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.

Fei Fong Wong sits down in a wooden chair while Elly tells her story. Where did it even come from! Good question.

"I don't know." He admits. "What Kaguya is after, but she claimed she didn't have a choice. But I don't think she was... not working her own angle there. But maybe Kaguya just feels like someone who is always working an angle to me. He laughs a bit after saying this, cheeks flushed faintly because, well, he isn't sure why but he is kind of feeling like maybe he did something wrong by not pressing the matter further.

"Oh like... fake bandits? That's no good. If you're going to be a bandit you should be proud of it and probably wear an eyepatch, right?"

Bart... We miss you... Well, Fei misses you.

He sweats a bit when Elly mentions their secret technique to defeating an adapting machine. "Well...important thing is everybody's safe, right?"

He looks back to Citan. "Alright. I'll see Hammer about," He swallows faintly. "...Upgrades."

FEI'S POCKETBOOK: *'s days are numbered!*

"I'm honestly surprised they are even bothering with all this junk. Couldn't they just teleport everybody they didn't like to the moon? They kind of already did that once, why not just do it again? Maybe it has a cooldown period."

He grimaces at the idea of Veruni justice---but doesn ot comment.

<Pose Tracker> Elhaym van Houten has posed.

"Sure," Elly tells Citan. "In fact I can introduce you to Ms. Everstead-Ray - I kind of hope I'm not putting that wrong," Elly mutters to herself, still kind of unused to the entire hyphened thing. "She's had a difficult life and I know that she was involved in the project. While I didn't quite take it all in, I believe this was connected to a museum theft that her family was affected by..."

Elly takes a deep breath and lets it out.

"Unless you mean Riesenlied... and everyone there. I would be glad to introduce you - I just - well; it's a difficult... thing; but it's improving, now, and I think they're going to be alright. I hope." Probably. Will they be, Elly?

Will any of them?

"One of the Odessa commanders seemed to have emotional problems, but I've heard that's common," Elly says.

ELSEWHERE

Erzebet sneezes into her lace hankerchief. "WASH YOUR HANDS," shouts the horseman on the other side of the room.

HERE

"I think they have some kind of unusual ARMs... and I suppose they still have control over the Sorcery Globe."

Back to Fei, she smiles. "Yes. Exactly! But if they're either spies pretending to be bandits - something deniable - or else Veruni soldiers who are doing this to help 'remind' people of how much they're 'helping'... Well, I don't know exactly."

The question comes up with Upgrades. Upgrades... and teleportation to the moon.

Elly frowns in thought.

"I suppose that they might not know exactly where all of the leadership of Filgaia's nations are located... I mean, when they sent us, we were all more or less present in Arctica, right?" Elly speculates. "So, if they had everyone in one place... but then they could have just killed them. And you'd have to send a great many people to the moon... Most groups wouldn't fall apart immediately. If Bart was sent to the moon, Sigurd would have taken command of the Yggdrasil, wouldn't he? And if both of them were, there was old Maison, too..."

<Pose Tracker> Citan Uzuki has posed.

    Kaguya, Citan correctly ascertains...

    "A Veruni woman, correct?"

    There really is only one possible alliance, where the Veruni are concerned.

    "Hmm, and you have had contact with her. ...I must admit, the Veruni are perhaps the one nation -- on Filgaia, that is -- that Solaris knows the least about, due to the difficulty involved in infiltrating their society to any effective degree," he says, as if to suggest he doesn't expect this stance has changed very much in recent years since his departure. "Solaris had in the past several violent encounters with the Veruni, and I cannot say it ended particularly well for the Solaris forces involved. The Veruni may normally keep to the lands under their control, these days that is, but they are capable of fielding considerable forces. Of course, this was all some time ago... we did not encounter them personally while I was in the army," he adds, lifting a hand as if to brush the subject aside.

    "Ms. Everstead-Rey? Yes, I believe I have met her before, at least once. Hmm... she may be a good source to learn more about this particular incident. As I have had no luck in learning anything about Shevat, and this little side project of mine is reaching its end," here he gestures at the workbench, "perhaps it might be a better use of my time to see what I can uncover. I would rather we do not become entangled with Odessa, but I also feel a confrontation is inevitable. ...The more we can understand about what they are doing and why, the better our chances may be when that day arrives."

    He worked in Intelligence, once. What's that old saw about 'you can take the man out of the army, but you can't take the army out of the man'...?

    Elly names another name: one of the Hyadeans, Riesenlied. "Riesenlied... Riesenlied. Hmmm. ...Ah, yes, I recall her now. She was the Hydaean who had been..." He trails off, then shakes his head. "Well, in any case, I have met her as well, but a formal introduction may be appropriate. Perhaps she might be able to shine some light on what it is that Odessa was attempting to accomplish, and thereby give us some sense of their resources and capacity..."

    A tall order, but as long as they can work out something of their plans, it gives them an advantage.

    "I believe I did briefly see a trio of their commanders at Macalania Temple, but I did not have the opportunity to observe long, given what had happened soon after. Nevertheless, your assessment... hmm..."

    Fei makes his own best guess as to the nature of the alleged bandits. "Yes, perhaps something of that nature." Citan nods, then glances over at Elly. "Someone who had been present might be able to say more about it. ...It is in the scheme of things a minor incident, but still one that, ah, did 'stick out' among the rumors of late. I am afraid the rumor mill has otherwise been rather dry," he adds, as a sort of aside.

    Fei wonders then why they don't just keep using the Sorcery Globe -- why they don't just send all their enemies to the moon.

    "I suspect that Elly has the right of it, Fei. Something about that device is limited, otherwise they would have put an end to all those they saw as their enemies already. That, and simply beheading an organization does not necessarily spell its end." He shakes his head. "No, instead, what they achieved is a sort of 'delay'. But for what purpose?"

    Even Solaris had not been 'stopped' with Krelian's translocation to Spira.

    All he can do is offer a somewhat bitter smile. "I suppose what this means is that for now, we attempt to prepare and learn what we can. Ideally, again, I would rather avoid a confrontation altogether, but as long as Odessa's goal remains as such, there is one almost certain outcome."

    Citan pauses for a long moment. "And, to put it bluntly, if I may... I do not intend to lose to them."