sixthiterationlogs | [ MINGLE ] MINING EXPEDITION

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[ MINGLE ] MINING EXPEDITION

WHO: Tony Stark & Co.
WHERE: North West Mountain Range
WHEN: November 5th - 8th
OPEN TO: Open to all
WARNINGS: Language, canon typical violence

The Hike Up/Down

After sending a message out the day before to meet him in the fountain park at dawn (daylight is important) Tony packs up. Supplies secured and a path found mostly by working himself up (not that difficult) and following the blue path only he can see (still weird) Tony guides his modest expedition up a winding way over rivers and to a promising stony outcropping at the base of the mountains before needing a moment to 're-calibrate'. AkA get stressed out as to where to head next for optimal ore extraction. It takes a minute but- again, he's got a lot of anxieties to kick into gear and it should be easy enough to nudge their rag tag little group further up until they find the right spot. Making an easy walk down- well. That's also a trick. Finding a quick path back to the village before they lose the light- marking the way they've come so they can find it the next day? Kind of important.

Digging a Hole

Breaking ground is a matter of staring, trying to think back to what little he knows of geology (not fucking much), and waiting for the anxiety to get to the point where it'll hand him something specific. They need ore, they need a good starting location, and once they manage to pinpoint it? Pickaxes are handed out, a nearby cave explored, and Tony strips down to get to work. Crack stone, haul it out, rinse, repeat. Anything usable gets put in sacks made from stolen sheets to be hauled down- not the best system he's got but they're just getting started. Regular breaks are A thing, canteens of water passed around- he's pretty sure there's a stream somewhere that should help with the 'not dying of thirst' issue in the future.

Encounters With Natives

Somewhere on the hike up, during the dig, or taking a rest on one of the craggy boulders surrounding the cave where they're chipping away at stone, signs of native fauna linger. There's a patchy nest looking thing where one can hear the mewling of peakittens, blue eyed, tiny, and abandoned by the looks of it. Loping about the slopes a few curious mountain elk that bound in at the sign of food, keeping a cautious distance but wandering close should anyone appear friendly. Near the woods, though, just as they wind their way up- or make their way back down at the end of the day? Dust Moths have taken to the air, shimmering wings leaving powder in the air.

Environmental Effects

During the hike up in the predawn there's lying mist clinging to the sides of the mountain in thin curls, swirling in the air as they hike through it. Careful not to inhale too deeply, otherwise you might find yourself a little more honest than you'd like for most of the morning, and that could make the rest of the hike pretty damn awkward. In the caves proper there's stone and ore enough- and a dark, black powder that tastes of licorice and ash. Shadow dust. Maybe the next few swings don't do as much damage- or do any at all. Maybe they picking up stone becomes impossible till you're in the light.

In Too Deep

On the second, maybe the third day all their activity and digging catches some aggressive attention. A pickaxe sunk too deep, cracking through a cave wall and finding a den of snarling, hungry cave wolves that spill through the hole all snapping teeth and snarling claws, bursting out of the tunnels to scatter whoever's dared to come close to their home. A tree felled to mark their path startles a giant boar into charging, bellowing in the night, turning tusk and muscle to clear it's own way through their weary line.

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Jake hasn't figured out this isn't just Tony, if nothing else because the last time he talked to him he was baked and poking at his face. So maybe this is just Tony Stark, after all.

So when he adds that last part, Jake gets at least wise enough to let it drop. Except the one part he just can't.

"What I wouldn't give for this place to even catch up to where those couldn't pass for Commodores in the bunker weren't calling my name just for the need to get my fingers on keys," he sighs, pained and so much longing in his tones.

Altaïr looked one way and then the other, eyes slightly narrowing as he tried to judge such things as current, water speed, to see if it appeared to come in more quickly than it left - and he made a quick decision. "One upstream, one down. To go by these--" He lifted his left wrist in demonstration, indicating the device there. "--Fifteen minutes unless an absolute solution is found. Agreed?"

It seemed reasonable to him. A group the size of theirs couldn't traverse too far in half an hour. Not far enough that Altaïr wasn't confident that he could find them again. These people left a very noticeable trail.

The expletives were in his native tongue, and they were far from tame. That wound was far from clean and would leave too much of a scar. But what Bull had done was give him an opportunity. "Hold fast!" he shouted, and then he leapt once more, this time to the ground.

He rolled in, coming to his feet and running the distance between them. The beast's leg was purchase enough for his toes. It was built strangely compared to anything he'd ever seen, but he could bet that a killing blow would be a killing blow, no matter the origin. With his knees gripping tight to either side of the beast's neck, he took a necessary chance and gripped his knife with both hands, putting all of his force into a downward blow.

The knife found purchase in its skull with a sickening crack - but the beast didn't immediately fall. It squealed in rage and pain, using what it had of its life to buck, to twist, to try to rid itself of this troublesome attacker, and the blade, now stuck too firmly in bone, held tight. The man gripping the hilt did not.

Altaïr was airborne, unsure if he'd only angered it or if this was the monstrous boar's dance of death, but he knew that when he'd land, he'd have no air in his lungs and wouldn't be able to rejoin - not immediately.

Thankfully, his hands still had their calluses from years of fighting. Here, now, they were serving him well. He both mined and climbed without difficulty except for the aches of muscles that were underused slowly coming to life.

What he had noticed was that his energy had returned to what it had been when his body matched his mind. As others slept, he woke, and he came to join the current watch, looking at the growing mist with unease and making a deliberate amount of sound so as not to startle. "Has it been quiet so far?"

She watches the water as he assesses the flow, and then glances at his device as he motions with it. She nods.

"Agreed. We should find something by then, right?"

"Even if what we find is that this is our best chance," he nodded. "I will go downstream and meet you back here. Fifteen minutes out. Fifteen back." Half an hour in total. Definitely enough time.

7 nods, checks her watch, then heads upstream. The further she went up, the deeper the stream cut. The banks started to narrow in, but they were steep and muddy; she stopped to test the edge, and it gave way and almost pitched her in right there; jumping would not exactly be the best choice here.

She looks up at the trees; as the stream was closing in, so was the canopy. The branches were thin, but they looked supple. It might work. She continues following it upstream, where it levels out into a little pool that fed into the creek. A log had toppled over and looked like it may have created the barrier that caused the little pool before water strted bubbling out underneath it again. She put a hand on it and gave it a shove; it wasn't completely stable, but it seemed like it was going to take a little more power to knock it loose. For two relatively lithe people, it might actually work as a bridge.

7 checks the watch again, and turns to head back to meet him. There were a couple options this way, but each came with their own warning labels. Hopefully Alaïr had found something better.

In a fight, communication was important, but action was even better. Out of his periphery, he saw her take down the ones on the right, and grinning slightly, he turned his attention to the cave wolf in front of him. A pick axe wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing. It meant he had to get close the wolf, who had quicker reflexes than him. It took herding it into a corner to dispatch of it, but it had taken a lot more work than he cared to admit to.

"Don't suppose you have another one of those?" Ty asked, a bit breathlessly as he headed back towards her, gripping the pickaxe tightly.

"The spear? Or the bola?" She sets the spear against the wall and moves to unwind the bola from the downed wolf's mouth. "Tony made the spearhead, I made the rest ... for both. I can make you a bola, if you want."

She affixes the bola back to her belt, then looks down at the carcasses. "We should probably get these out of the way."

"Cats don't compromise." Offhand and easy, masks set aside in favor of...basking? Basking. In kitten snores, tiny mews, and the swath of warmth that is Bull on one side and Dorian on the other. "They huff, pout, and scream until they get their way. Like a needy significant other. A very needy significant other."

So, apparently- like Dorian. High maintenance, which he can see. Tony cracks an eye open in time to catch a flicker of something on Dorian's face but- it's not weird yet. He doesn't think it's weird yet, they're all adults, they're all comfortable, they're all fine, right? Right.

"Well. He is." A beat, he tips his face up to Bull, blinking. "You are. Had me pegged within, what, five seconds of meeting me? I'm not used to that."

"The lack of any kind of computer system here is fucking painful. I miss Jarvis." Shit, no, he misses Friday but-

No. Before her, he misses Jarvis first and foremost, that ache hasn't ever gone away. "Just A Rather Very Important System. AI Assistant, he'd help me keep track of everything a hell of a lot better than scribbling it on the wall of the forge."

"Pet...griffin." He's going to need a moment to unpack, or he would but one of the kittens starts nibbling on his fingertips and that- that is so damn cute he needs a moment just to beam down at the pale blue creature batting at his hand, all but attached. "People are crazy about cats, or cat adjacent things. Shouldn't be hard to find homes for these guys. Not sure how to go about inviting a colony into the village animals haven't ever really been a thing for me? So you're on your own there."

Center mass, solid hit- something cracks, maybe a rib? But his pick sinks in deep alongside or between two of them on the wolf's torso- when he wrenches his pickax
away it comes back red- the wheezing, wet, wrong sound that twists out of the still snarling beast he hit something vital. Maybe a lung? Fuck if he knows.

Tony squares up, keeping Squall's back covered, head cocking to get a better idea of any incoming wolves- and that is the sound of rock crumbling away, more snarling hounds scraping to force their way through. "Sounds like it-"

"You're not that hard to read Tony. I've met guys like you before. Usually, because I ended up working for them but yeah." He glances up at Dorian when the other swallows, catching the look and toning down his touch just a tad but also not letting go. He wants Dorian to get used to this, being touched in public, people being proud to be with him. "And I know for a fact that a lot of people who have to be in control all the time likes to let it go sometimes." Maybe that is a bit too much info but hey..

He glances over at Dorian. Dorian might be high maintenance but if you ask Bull he is worth it. They both are. Basking sounds good to him and that isn't just because of the cats. It has more to do with his two guys right here.

"And let's be honest, it wasn't just because I am good at reading people. I am also a very obvious reminder of the force behind the inquisitor. You and Josephine and Cullen and Leilianna can make people forget how dangerous you are. Not a bad thing if you ask me. But me, every time they look at me they see Qunari."

Jake winces, mostly because he knows how dumb it sounds, and yet...

"Cougar called it my power? I don't know. I just know that I can do this thing, where I could blast some of this out of our way. But I can't do it without kind of literally using another. I swear to you, Cougar was fine when it happened."

And he wouldn't risk Bucky of all people any more than he would Cougar.

"The rodent population boom alone should attract them. But we could try catnip," he considers, now holding his hand perfectly still as the little ball of feathers and fluff he's holding falls asleep, making chirruping purring sounds.

"Yeah, I don't think I can give this one away. I think I'm going to have to name her."

Speaking of people crazy for cat-adjacent things...

"It's a very mild effect," Alex says, with patience, but also a tiny bit of defensiveness as he cradles the young birdcat (chickitten?) in the crook of one arm.

"They're also really useful for pest control," he adds. "We're going to need something besides poison to keep mice and rats at bay for the winter. Especially with our sudden influx of grain from the cornfield."

"The bola." Ty said, nodding to it, impressed. "If it's not too difficult, I'll take you up on that offer. Or I can do some labor in exchange." He wasn't looking to have a reputation as someone who just took things. Besides, the weapon was fairly interesting, and it would be a lot handier than a pick axe in a fight.

At her suggestion, he nodded, picking the wolf up by the hind legs to drag it out of the way.

"You think these are edible?" Waste not, want not after all.

"Careful about skin contact," Alex warns, but doesn't make any motions to stop her, however- the more help he can get being the manny to a litter of kittens while on what he would call the camping trip from hell, if his family hadn't already subjected him to much worse adventures in the wilderness.

"They secrete something that has an intoxicating effect on humans. And possibly the non-humans." He'd have to hand one to Bull when he got home, and the Qunari isn't responsible for anyone's safety. Nevermind Alex's responsibility to tend to minor injuries and triage-ing anyone hurt beyond that towards someone more used to treating patients that talked.

"If normal cats could do this, they'd definitely be ruling us all by now."

"Mhmm, a little more quiet than I'm used to," Alex finds himself almost compelled to share. But he writes this off as just the effect of being in a place where his last name doesn't mean someone, somewhere, intends to kill him.

"It's funny. The weather, the plants- everything here is so much like home for me. But it's missing just enough of the right details to sell the lie enough for me to relax." He can smell the pine needles on the ground, and the smell of coastal air- but the constant chirping of the frickens in the trees is gone, not to mention the absence of the hymns of the mice.

Bull nods to the other guy coming up to fill water. He smiles slightly and points towards the stream "If you go down there it looks like an good place to fill those."

Then he smiles a little warmer and reaches out to offer to take some of the containers. "It does, as far as I can tell we don't have anything to be worried about, but we'll keep watch anyway."

Luckyily for Altair, the power that comes with Bulls scrubs extends to those around him. He slams the axe into the beast again, and though it isn't hard it is enough for Altair's knife to take full effect and the beast finally falls with a heavy thud. Bull falls to his knees with a heavy thud. "You alright brother?"

She hears that tone and watches the way he's coddling it. It's such a foreign idea to her; animals in general, and keeping them as pets.

"I guess ... I'm just not used to animals being ... I'm not used to animals." She gives up trying to justify it and lets him have that small bit of truth. "You people seem to like them, though, so maybe there's something to it?"

She grabs the front legs to help heft it out. "It won't be a too much trouble. Bring me linen for the rope and, I don't know, what kind of labor were you thinking?"

She wasn't planning on asking for anything in return, but it might not be a bad idea to take him up on the offer.

"Shouldn't take me longer than an afternoon to do, though." She tosses the carcass and she stands there looking at it for a moment, then squats down and starts looking at the head.

She stands and joins him to go get the others.

"They most certainly do not, and why should they?" If the Bull was going to compare him to cat, he was damn well going to fit the part. He did chuckle at Tony's explanation, shaking his head. "Bull isn't as talented as he likes to claim. It isn't as though he can rummage about in your mind and find your darkest secrets." No, that was a talent reserved for another member of the Inquisition and one Dorian believes Tony may have qualms with, at least at first. Dorian found him fascinating.

He turned his attention back to Bull, still uncertain, but trying to relax. "It's true, you are a hulking brute, whereas they see me and assume I'm a 'scary blood mage' from Tevinter. A snake in the grass. Did you no one spoke to be at that party? Whispered nasty commentary behind their hands certainly, but never actually spoke to me. If I were actually a statesman it would be scandalous."

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[ MINGLE ] MINING EXPEDITION

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Environmental Effects

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Re: The dig

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