Field Mission 2: Elegy Effigy Part 3

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I'm. I'm so sorry. NAVIGATION 1. ELEGY EFFIGY: THE FATE OF THE NETHERIL "The Adventure Zone - Crystal Kingdom Song [Complete]" (Watch on YouTube) A. THE OASIS TOWN, A MIRAGE With Terezi and Chiron at the wheel of a revitalized airship, they touch down in the middle of Vista Virs as the destruction winds up to a fever pitch. There's not much time left for this city as the Sandworms begin a final barrage against the bustling Oasis town. Destruction is imminent- and you have a choice. Help the Needlers and the Kitsune get onto the ship and wait for the torrent of attacks to die down, or stay within the limits and stall for as long as you can. For those of you willing to fight the good fight, know that the battle is a losing one. There are simply too many of them in number and size, and not enough power among the Reclaimers to successfully avert their ire. Do what you must; explode the topaz on the outside limits, take motorcycles and become the carrot on the stick, fire magic straight into their mouths to slow them down. It's only a band aid at this point, but every second you keep them away from Vista Virs, more lives are able to be saved. Anyone looking to stay within the airship can do their part as well. The area you're in is rather spacious, complete with several halls of military issued bunk-beds, a mess hall, an empty library, and, of course, the engine room. Some of the more famed Kitsune hunters (Suwa and Ishisaru) are nowhere in sight. True to their noble intent, they're still down there, doing everything that they can to slow the destruction down. They strike, and they destroy. From the airship's main observation deck, you see the long hanging archway of Vista Virs fall into the lake below. You see Stylosa trying to bring people together through an old jaunty tune, turning their attention away from their homes being dismantled piece by piece. All in all, the casualties are a little higher than anyone would hope for. But you've done everything you can. And just like that, the cold chill in the air dies. The winds cease to whip around. You can feel the dread in the air alleviate, and the sandworms all stop to stare off in the distance, as if a war horn has blared, calling them off. And all around you, the topaz that once glowed a sickly yellow return to a cool, cloudy saffron. You don't know what's happened, but you can guess it. The Architect's Pen has been retrieved, and the veil between worlds restored. After a while of anticipation and waiting for a signal of a secondary wave of attack, the airship lowers down. And it's a quiet, somber scene. B. THE LABORATORY Roxas, Futayo, Kenpachi, and Wash have infiltrated the laboratory compound and disabled the cosmoscopes that were allowing the mingling of worlds. Legion has been sucked into the Astral Plane, and with it, the rage of the Netherese Empire finally subsides, no longer trapped and stewing beneath the topaz of the desert. Bubbles are called down and the injured are carried away. For those of you who are a little bit more inclined to the... self-servicing side of the alignment scale, the laboratory is open for looting. There's a good deal of experiments that Lucas was working on back in here, and we'll leave it up to you in what you find. Just don't go too crazy; he didn't create a laser death ray, although- maybe that would've been a little helpful in the preceding hours. Lastly, if you have a grudge against Hodge Podge, now's the time to yeet that thing into the trash compound. The robots there have effectively overthrown their domineering manager drones, and live in a perpetual state of peace and communistic society. That's not to say that it's entirely smooth; there's still quite a lot of things to suss out for them and what that means. If you've got the spirit of leadership inside you, it might be worth it to try and help them establish at least some order. It might be helpful too, one day- when Vista Virs is eventually rehabilitated. Twocas, Lucas' doppelganger, eventually makes his way back to town with the help of Roxas and Wash. Pretty much everyone around here glares and tenses up when they see him. It's almost like they can smell the wrongness in his own nature. What happens next is, actually, somewhat surprising. They talk. Lucas and his twin have a heart to heart about their mother, and if you're paying attention, it's pretty heart wrenching to see. In the end, Twocas starts to cry, and Lucas, well. He gives him a really, really awkward hug. Like the reflections you saw in the caverns below, he fades away and becomes whole with his other half again. But the joining of the two hits him hard. "I created him to split my grief away from me. I know... now, of course, that... it was a really, really bad idea. I just couldn't live with it. It hurt... so, so, much and I just. I didn't know what to do with all that pain. I'm sorry, everyone. This is my fault. This is all my fault. There's nothing I can do to bring the town back to the way it was before. The only thing I know I can do is pay for my crimes. I'm ready to return to the Moon Base. Lucretia can decide what happens to me." Maybe you're happy with this outcome, maybe it's bittersweet. But eventually, Killian will slap a pair of arcane handcuffs on him, grab him by the collar, and call down a bubble to Vista Virs. Lucas was right. It's time for him to accept the responsibility of what he did. C. THE CAVERNS AND THE DESERT Now sealed off, the caverns remain home to no one but a sleeping God of Death. Sseth remains in there, his worshipers all sacrificed upon his birth into this world from the Celestial Plane. It's incredibly dangerous and ill-advised to return back in there, but we're not going to stop you. Several parts can be cleared away by hand with enough effort and enough moxie to Indiana Jones your way down. There's villages of Yuan-ti nests dotted throughout the caverns and ripe with various jewels, gems, and fine trinkets. If you can stomach looking at a giant reptilian god sleeping away, it's all yours. But note, the ever looming presence of evil strongly exists there. This is not a completed job, not by any stretch of the word. Although the god sleeps in the caverns below, his influence is pervasive. Spend a long enough time down there and you'll start to feel a malevolence touch your heart, like a black and oily hand clasping around your brain, whispering madness directly into it. Otherwise, the desert is rather calm. There are still monsters about, but it seems that the chaos has come to a halt. If you've got a heavy heart, you might be able to ride out and camp for a night or two before returning to base. Anyone who sleeps out there under the stars will have a peaceful, albeit surreal dream of occupying the body of an animal, traversing across the sands. It should bring you some peace, but maybe not enough to undo the trauma of meeting your reflection or any of the other quite awful things that have happened since your arrival in the Netheril. But everything comes back to Vista Virs. Return to town, or return home to the Moon Base, the choice is yours. But there's still stuff to do if you have the time and energy to spare. Some say that keeping yourself active helps you not dwell. We imagine some of you would be very keen on taking that to heart. 2. THE FIGHT, THE RETURN HOME For those of you who have not assembled to retrieve the Grand Relic, this still isn't the time to be sitting on your hands. There's so much to be done if you intend to make it back to the Moon Base. A. IN THE THICK OF THINGS With all the chaos unfolding in and around Vista Virs as the sandworms approach, there's little in the way of impactful support for the Needlers, merchant Kitsune and even your fellow Reclaimers who have been affected. If you're up to it, and if you're able, here are a few options. Of course, you are always free to have your character do what would best suit them. ○ First aid, or final aid: Healers, this is your time to shine. With the symbiotic relationship between the Kitsune and Needlers, and with many of them having never seen a conflict past Netheril survival, hunting and a bitter rivalry with the Kobolds, there's a dearth of effective healing magic. Will you be tending to the injured? Or will you be the one to hit that unfortunate button on the bracer to send a Reclaimer back home for revival? ○ Hang back and fight: Speaking of the Kobolds, you may run into one or two, looking to sneak their way into Vista Virs to pilfer some of those increasingly valuable resources. It's going to take yourself and a fellow Reclaimer to stop them — or an even wider-scale conflict with the Kitsune of Vista Virs. You may choose to fight, or if you've managed to befriend a group of Kobolds in the past, maybe you can reason with them. The choice is yours. ○ That's a morale: Maybe you can't heal. Maybe you can't fight, either. But you probably know at least one (1) good joke, right? Keeping the mood light while the plane of the dead literally creeps to your front door is not an easy task, nor is it any less important than the others. Park yourself at one of the kotatsus at The Succulent, grab yourself a glass of flavored water, and try to keep your mind off of impending disaster. ○ Fuck this shit I'm out: It's not like this can get any worse, right? Assuming you can find somewhere safe to bail, that is — keep in mind that if you choose this option, you may be subjected to a course even worse and more mandatory than Stop Dying 101 at the Moon Base. B. THE AFTERMATH It is, unfortunately, the way that a war with an unspeakably thorough destruction such as the Hunger occasionally plays out. Your efforts were not in vain. But collateral damage could not be helped. The tall, haphazardly constructed yet beautiful settlement of Vista Virs has been destroyed by the sandworms. Casualties could not be avoided. Among the wreckage, the shredded and splintered framework of the boardwalks you've inhabited for the past month and a half, a lone monument to the tenacity of the Needlers remains: A lake, pristine as ever, even if it's currently littered with debris. As the story goes, the Thorn that wrung out the nearby cacti to create Thorn's Thumbprint gave the Needlers the endurance, the strength they needed to survive in a harsh environment such as the Netheril. And Thorn's Thumbprint remains. They will survive, just as they always have. You may comfort those who have lost so much. You may help with rebuilding efforts. You may give them your word that you'll be back to help rebuild — which isn't a lie. Ultimately, though, you will have to return. C. HOMEWARD BOUND Your visit to the Netheril is over. After a month in the unforgiving desert climate, you return to your quarters on the base, where your bed's been freshly made, the water in the shower's warm, and the food is far more appetizing. It's time to rest. At some point past your initial return, though, a message appears on your bracer. It's not quite an acknowledgment of what happened at Vista Virs. That'll come later, and in a setting that's more formal than a message through the bracers. It has come to my attention that the Culinary Operating Official Kitchenmate, or the robot you all have affectionately termed Bender, is functioning exactly as intended, according to the man who constructed it. My sincerest apologies for those of you who have suffered collateral damage from Bender's more adventurous culinary forays. Terms of amends may be addressed in the future. Rest now. We will provide aid to the citizens of the Netheril. And we will discuss your efforts at a later date. 3. OOC NOTES Congratulations on obtaining the second Grand Relic! For those of you who participated in the Call to Arms, you can use this log to thread out the results. As a reminder, in order to qualify for a token to use in the Gacha, you will need to provide a link to your CTA thread from this log. There will be no RNG for this post. As noted in the third extra prompt, you are going home, and will be back at the Moon Base by March 10th. You may use this log for homecoming prompts as well. We'll have a proper Interlude plot for you and new Reclaimers in the coming weeks! We hope everyone enjoyed their visit to the Netheril! We're so thrilled with all that you've accomplished. blurb code by photosynthesis

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6. drinkng buddies on the moon

[blodsvorr]

[Qrow's theory, if a theory it can be called, is that if Wash is drinking with him, Wash will not try to take his alcohol away. It is a theory he is prepared to see dashed, but he has high hopes.

Okay, so they could go drinking at the Teakettle, but honestly, Qrow's week hasn't been the greatest, and he doesn't want to be drunk while chaos spirals out around him. At least if it's just Wash, it's a limited range of bad luck. So, being an absolute delinquent, Qrow suggested that they drink in his classroom. It was empty, and it had the benefit over the quad and Qrow's own quarters that none of the teenagers they were supposed to take care of were likely to come across them.

So, Qrow's classroom. A bottle of whiskey, with more in the desk, and a pair of glasses. Qrow's sitting on one of the desks—if given the choice between sitting and perching, Qrow will always perch—and not hammered. Yet.

It's nice to relax away from the children. Things had changed down there. Well, it's like Beacon taught him. Throw a group into enough mortal peril, and eventually your group is gonna turn into a team. That's just how people worked. And Wash and Qrow had been thrown into it enough that, in Qrow's measure, things were different now.]

You know. [It's almost out of nowhere, but not quite. He's lifting his eyebrows at Wash.] You get on me for being cagey, but at least you know what my old job was. Both of my old jobs, even. [Teacher and Huntsman! (Even now, Qrow is too cagey to allude to his other occupation.)] All I know about your old occupation is the crap anyone could see looking at that ugly excuse for a one-piece you've got. [Body armour. Not as cool as Aura.

Of course, Qrow has inferences he could and has made about Wash, pieces he has tried to put together, but that's not the point. Besides, Qrow has been pissed off to realize he doesn't have as much intel as he should by now. Wash had done such a good job putting him on the defensive in their previous conversations that Qrow had never been able to get anything interesting back at him. He's got Wash's initiation test, that mirror image, and the things he could glean from his personality, but that's it.

Not fair. Despite this line of inquiry, this particular alcohol-supported hangout session is not, in fact, an interrogation. Rather than a cunning move for more information, this is more akin to poking someone in the chest and going "Hey."]

[unrecovered]

[Wash's theory, for given values of the word, is that if Qrow is drinking with him instead of alone, Wash can curtail Qrow's tendency to drink too much. Whether he's able to do that without it turning into another fight is an entirely different question, and he's hoping it doesn't get answered today.]

[For now, it's been...nice, actually. There's so many kids around here - kids he automatically feels responsible for because of their age alone - that it's nice to relax with an adult, maybe even a friend, depending on how ambitious either of them feel. He's not sure, and he's not going to push it. As it is, he's sitting on another desk, nursing a whiskey, a drink or two behind Qrow and perfectly fine with it.]

Hey. Hey. You don't get to say shit about my fashion sense when you're wearing a cape. [Says the guy in jeans and a t-shirt, but hey, he's comfy and that's what matters. He's also wearing the beginnings of a smile, and that matters more.] Also, have you ever considered that you are cagey? Just throwing that out there.

[But a question is a question, and it's not like Qrow doesn't already know the answer.] I've been a soldier for most of my life - enlisted right out of high school. That's kind of what happens when the galaxy's at war.

[blodsvorr]

Hey. [Lots of "Hey"s here today.] There's nothing wrong with my cape. And I'm not cagey, I'm just... [He gestures with a hand in a manner that might have been a little less vague a couple drinks ago.] ...not gonna bring something unimportant up.

[Yeah, that's it. He's got it.

Huh, soldier right out of high school. The combat isn't the part that bothers him, but the militarism indicated does. Not important.] Whole galaxy, huh? [Everyone knows how to get into space except Remnant, wow. Well, everyone knew. You don't know much anymore when you're sucked up by a world-devouring entity, Qrow assumes.] Enlisted out of patriotic duty, or what? [Qrow's framework for war is limited to history, particularly that of the Great War, and the battle they fight against Salem and her Grimm.]

[unrecovered]

There's no reason for it. It's an easy chokehold waiting to happen in combat and I'm surprised nobody's tried to collar you with it already.

And you're either cagey or paranoid. Pick your poison.

[He speaks about the war entirely too casually - it's what you do when it's your day to day reality, especially when you aren't sure you're going to make it to the next day.] Nope. Enlisted because we needed people. The Covenant- [Hang on, context] -the aliens came right the fuck out of nowhere. We found out they existed when they started glassing human-populated planets. Evidently they decided we were against their religion or some bullshit, so they decided to wipe out the species.

So that lasted, oh, twenty-seven years, give or take.

[Turns out they've got Monsters Trying To Kill You in common!]

WELL I GUESS I HAVE TO WRITE A NEW TAG FOR THIS NOW

[blodsvorr]

Maybe I'm just too good for that.

[He is not. But also he loves his cape, so fuck off, Wash. Qrow ignores the comment about being either cagey or paranoid—he is neither, and his poison is alcohol, thank you—and moves on. A war against aliens. Not unlike the Grimm, no, but it's different. The war against the Grimm wasn't all out war. It was defensive, sure, but it didn't have the same level of constant engagement. There hadn't been anything like that on Remnant for eighty years, long enough that Qrow only knows about it as stories.

It sounds fucking terrible.]

Sounds nasty. [He is aware of the understatement in that.] What about year twenty eight? Did you wipe 'em out, drive 'em away, end up sitting at a real awkward peace treaty with actually genocidal aliens?

DREAMWIDTH GOT HUNGRY

[unrecovered]

I grabbed you by that thing my first week here.

[And accidentally tore it, oops, but let's not talk about that now.]

[Let's talk about genocide number one instead. Yay.]

They kinda wiped each other out. Infighting. [He shrugs.] We made treaties with some of them, and the rest are probably still fighting each other.

Or they were, I guess.

[Hey, time for more whiskey. Every time the Hunger-induced apocalypse comes up, take a drink.]

Anyway, that ended about five years ago. [He'd been decertified Article 12 not long after. What a momentous fucking occasion. He takes another drink.]

[blodsvorr]

That wasn't combat.

[It therefore doesn't count. More fun: genocide, whoo!

That sounds... really shitty. Qrow actually winces.]

And I thought wars that dragged in the whole planet were bad. [A whole galaxy? Nasty.] You leave the military when it was over?

[unrecovered]

Doesn't matter. I still got you.

[Just admit it, Qrow. It'll be easier.]

[He just shrugs at Qrow's comment.]

They are, when all you have is one planet. I've fought in one of those too.

[The question catches him by surprise, though.]

Why would I do that?

[Says the very definition of "career military."]

[blodsvorr]

[Qrow scowls at him and refuses to admit anything! He loves his cape. It's practical in anime!

He just kind of snorts, and rather than put his face in his hand, he takes another drink.]

Of course you didn't. Yet somehow you end up here with trust issues for the command structure. "Military to the bone" and "distrustful of authority" can't be an easy balance to hit.

[This inquiry is a lot more circumspect than the last one, which is less about gathering intelligence and more about giving Wash a way out of a conversation he might not want to have.]

[unrecovered]

[Wash is absolutely taking that as a victory.]

[But when they get away from capes, this conversation starts going in a direction he's not sure he likes - or, at least, he doesn't want to go it alone.]

Hang on.

[He puts his drink down and makes a time out gesture with his hands.]

If I'm going to be answering questions, so are you. We're doing this one for one.

[One cagey bastard to another. Wash will level with Qrow, sure, but only if Qrow will level with Wash.]

[blodsvorr]

[The gesture kind of makes him snort, but he waves a hand—he does not put down his drink—to accept it, like it's no big deal.]

Yeah, sure, alright. One for one. You know you can just pass on answering if you want, right?

[There is a degree to which Qrow is willing to level with Wash, but even as many drinks in as he is, there are some things that have been drilled into him as secrets to keep. Still. That gives Qrow leeway on a decent amount. He figures that after the caves, if there's something he just doesn't want to talk about, Wash owes him on accepting that.

So, one for one, but Qrow's not going to get on Wash's case if there's something he doesn't want to talk about, and he expects Wash to do him the same favour.]

[unrecovered]

[Somehow, he wasn't expecting Qrow to actually agree to those terms.]

[Huh.]

Same goes for you.

[Rules now in place, he picks up his drink again and gestures at Qrow.]

You first.

[blodsvorr]

[He decides against, "So. Trust issues?" and follows another route.]

Might as well keep the story going. Where'd you end up in the military after that ugly galactic war?

[unrecovered]

[Right into the thick of it, huh. If he doesn't set the tone of the answers, Qrow will, so he might as well steer this as best he can.]

Well, the project I was in crashed and burned about a year before the war ended, so around the time the first peace treaty was signed, I was working asset recovery and plotting revenge.

[Just enough to answer the question, not enough for the full story, and hopefully the exact right level of evasive to land in both of their comfort zones.]

Why were you really camping out by the topaz spires in the Netheril?

[He'd put the pieces together somewhat, but as long as they're giving straightforward answers, he'd like some confirmation.]

[blodsvorr]

[A project that crashed and burned? Hm. He actually kind of grins a little at "plotting revenge," not because it isn't serious—it is, he remembers what Wash's reflection said—but because of Wash's delivery.

And yet, the second Wash asks that, there's a tangible shift in Qrow's attitude, from open and comfortable, if careful, to absolutely guarded. Like Wash just jammed a finger in an old, festering wound and now Qrow's readying himself to get hit. It is not unlike the way Qrow flinched when Wash called him cursed.]

Try another question.

[Which, simply by not being an evasion, is an answer in itself.]

[unrecovered]

[Yeah, that's confirmation all right. No details, but still.]

[Wash takes a moment to consider his next question, and figures it's worth asking, even if it's...touchy at best.]

Is it really a curse, or is that just a bad name for it?

[Curses can be broken, right? If it's a curse, maybe it could be removed with Faerun magic.]

[blodsvorr]

[Touchy at best indeed. Qrow taps his fingers against his glass. Drinks the whiskey. Realizes he's finished this drink off and pours another for himself. He thinks about answering, and then doesn't, drinking again as he decides whether to shut it down or answer, how much of an answer to give or not.

He's not angry at Wash, not this time. This isn't digging into things that aren't his business just because he's decided they are. It's a fair exchange, with rules and everything. It's what keeps Qrow from outright deflection.

Okay, he needs a bit more whiskey first. Then he'll answer. So he drinks for the third time before he finally speaks.]

It's not a curse. Not technically, anyway. [He isn't going to say it's his Semblance. If Wash can't guess that yet, then he'll be able to sooner or later. Old habits still tell Qrow to keep everything to himself until he's forced to let it out.] But that's an easy thing to call it.

[That, Qrow thinks, counts as an answer, and one not too far off from the kind of answer Wash gave him earlier. So. Qrow's turn.]

Would you like this place—[he gestures more to the Bureau at large rather than the Academy they're sitting in]—more if it was more military in setup, or would you like it less?

[unrecovered]

[It's a hell of a reaction - evidently this answer is coating Qrow a lot. Wash can't blame him; he's going to have to steel himself if Qrow starts questioning the state of Wash's sanity.]

[This question, however, is easier. Wash shrugs.]

Less. I'd be more comfortable, but...kids shouldn't be in the military.

[He doesn't like the idea of the kids here having to fight at all; it's why he's doing as many individual hand-to-hand lessons with them as he can. The "ragtag band of heroes" atmosphere is about the only thing that helps make it mildly palatable. The kids here, regimented and drafted into an interdimensional war with no other choice-]

[No. Just because that's what he chose for himself doesn't mean he'd make that choice for anyone else. Too many shades of Chorus.]

So what is it, then? Is it a Remnant thing I don't know about?

[Does Qrow have another superpower?]

[blodsvorr]

[He agrees about the kids thing, although he wonders how old Wash actually was when he was recruited. But, interesting: whatever happened in that project, which Qrow is guessing is responsible for those trust issues, Wash still feels more at ease in a military setting. That was what Qrow was really curious about, a kind of sideways information about how Wash's experiences have and have not changed him.

Then Wash brings it back around to Qrow's Semblance again and Qrow outright groans.]

It's a thing I don't want to talk about, so drop it. God, why the Hell was I playing nice with you?

[Wash is an asshole! But at least Qrow isn't stalking out the tent door this time. He has increased his pace of drinking, however, which is impressive in that he wasn't exactly going slow before. And now he points a finger at Wash.]

Pick your poison: the project, the revenge plan, or whatever "asset recovery" is a euphemism for.

[He had very deliberately not pushed on either of those before, but if Wash is bringing things back to Qrow's curse, then fine. Qrow will start narrowing in on delicate subjects, too.

He still isn't going to ask about those accusations of insanity that Wash's reflection made, however. Not unless Wash really pisses him off.]

[unrecovered]

[And that's the door, slammed in his face. Fine. Point taken. Part of Wash is irked that they're on uneven footing - Wash's double had spilled the beans on everything and Qrow's hadn't said shit - but he locks that down. The doubles had been hell, and God only knows what Qrow's had done once Qrow had caught up to it.]

[So he shrugs again. No big deal, right?]

I don't know. That's your decision.

[Not like Qrow doesn't know what Wash is like by this point.]

And "asset recovery" is exactly what it sounds like. Head to the site of the recovery beacon, recover whatever equipment is recoverable, destroy the rest, and usually get rid of the body, because by the time Recovery is called in, the agent is usually dead.

[It's a very frank way of explaining that he used to blow up bodies for a living.]

Who was on your huntsman team?

[blodsvorr]

If by "exactly what it sounds like" you mean it sounds like a military euphemism for unpleasant work, then yeah, you're right. It is.

[Like "collateral damage" and "deterrent." Not a fun job. Interesting one to take up during revenge. He'll have to follow up on that in a bit.

The question shouldn't be a hard one. But it is. Hell, Wash probably knows it is after that conversation in the desert where he first questioned Qrow's decades of solo experience. Qrow looks down into his glass, because he knows he has been locking Wash out, hard. And while that isn't entirely unfair, he also knows that he has access to a lot of open wounds of Wash's. He doesn't plan on going anywhere near them, but still.

So, after a moment, and yet another drink of whiskey more generous than careful, he pulls a photograph out. That he always has it is, in itself, telling, he knows. So are the water stains on the photograph, the circle around Summer's face, the droplets elsewhere. And for a sharp mind with enough facts, the features of the people in the photograph tell a story, too. Genetic resemblances are hard to hide, and Wash has already seen two people linked up with this particular tangled knot of a family.]

Team STRQ. Summer was our leader. Then it's Tai—that's Yang's dad—and Raven and me. [Despite himself, he smiles, his thumb stroking over the image with an idle gentleness. Everything has fallen apart, and he has had the bad luck of surviving them all. But when he sees them, as they were, he cannot help but love them still.] Coolest team to graduate Beacon Academy.

[He knows what the follow up question is. What happened? He'd guess that that question has about the same weight for him as it would for Wash if he asked it about the project he worked on.

So, he doesn't. Even though he knows Wash is an asshole, even though he knows he should get to it before Wash asks it of him. He picks a sideways approach.]

That project. That why you're so distrustful of the Director? Not that there aren't plenty of reasons to be suspicious without a tragic backstory, but hey.

[It's a yes-or-no question, which makes it even easier for Wash to answer if he doesn't want to give information. It gives Wash the opportunity to talk about the effect instead of the cause, to dodge the injury if it suits him.]

[unrecovered]

[He's keeping an eye on Qrow's drinking, and the deeper they go, the worse it gets. Wash may have to call it quits on this game, if only to prevent having to drag him to Dr. Tank to have his stomach pumped.]

[To be fair, Qrow can probably handle a good amount of alcohol; honestly, Wash doesn't want to have to handle Dr. Tank.]

[He takes a good look at Qrow's face before he looks at the photo. These are the glory days, aren't they. You do what you can to remember the good times; it's why he had pictures of Ari and Skyler in his locker, or why Carolina carries York's lighter.]

[Carried.]

[Dammit.]

[He focuses on the photo again, and listens to the explanation, slotting it in with what he already knows. The only conclusion he comes to is that whoever was in charge of naming Qrow's family was incredibly uncreative, with a side helping of wondering whether Qrow's entire family is named after birds.]

[But that's a waste of a question, and it's Qrow's turn, and of course he's asking about Freelancer.]

Of course it is. They rewrote laws because of Freelancer's fuckups. I plotted revenge for a reason.

What was Beacon like? I know there were combat classes, but what was it like?

[Tell him more about your weird dark fantasy high school experience.]

[blodsvorr]

They had to rewrite laws? [Holy shit. Wait, no. Focus. Wash's question.

But still. Holy shit. He wants to come back to that.

Qrow tucks the photograph of his team away, moving on to answering his turn of it.]

It was a good place. Don't get me wrong, classes were a pain in the ass and I hated doing my homework. [It was school. School will always be school. He waves it away with a hand.] But it was fun, you know? Huntsmen Academies weren't for training soldiers, except maybe over at Atlas. They were for training heroes. That means a lot of dumb kids with ridiculous weapons and even more ridiculous ideals, shoved together in groups and tossed into everything the teachers and Headmaster thought were good training exercises. I'm not saying every kid there was aiming to become a hero; there are plenty of less idealistic reasons to want to be a Huntsman. But you've gotta understand, that's what was on all the posters, that's what the whole culture of it was about, and there's never been anything as messy as war crimes and secret projects to tarnish the image. The schools go about as hard on individualism and self-expression as they do on teamwork and cooperation, and all for the noble goal of defending humanity from the big, bad beasts in the forests. So you can imagine how stupid the prank wars got and how fierce the fighting competitions got.

I'm not saying it was all surprising your friend with a birthday party as he steps out of the shower and high fiving your teammates after a Vytal Festival match. The teachers were training us for a hard job, and the older you get, the tougher the missions you go on become. Hell, there were a few we had in our upper years that turned out about as well as our mission down in Vista Virs, and some that went worse. But the teachers wanted to look out for us, and the Headmaster wanted to give us as much time to be kids as he could before reality kicked in. Beacon was safe and kind the way life isn't. We never would've let the girls go to Beacon if it wasn't the best place for a pair of teenagers to turn into true Huntresses.

[His smile now is more relaxed, his nostalgia for the school not as tainted with grief as his love for his team. Yes, Beacon fell, and then the Hunger ate everything, and he grieves it. But there's an acuteness to his pain about his old team that isn't half as brutal as his pain over his old Academy. It's easier to talk about it, easier even to allude to the niece who isn't here. More abstract.

Okay, now he can ask. Because he's still stuck on what Wash said.]

I'll pick something else if this gets too much into it, but I'm seriously wondering: how bad did the project get that they had to change laws to deal with it?

[unrecovered]

[It's a bit odd, talking about Freelancer like this. He's used to the project's failure (and his part of it) being something of an open secret; explaining it to someone with no context is a novel experience.]

[But he tables that in much the same way Qrow does, listening instead to him recounting his time at Beacon. It sounds for all the world like a magical boarding school young adult novel, and it's a little weird knowing that was life as usual where Qrow's from. One thing Qrow says sticks in his mind, but he tables that too, at least for now.]

Before I answer, I need some context: what was Remnant's level of technology? Did you have functional AI?

[blodsvorr]

The theory's been floating around, but putting it into practice is something else. Mind you, I wouldn't put it past Atlas to has been developing something along those lines in secret. They were always at the cutting edge of tech, for better and for worse.

[Okay, so he knows for a fact that James has done some serious work on what could be classed as AI. But even with Penny dead and James gone, Qrow is in the habit of keeping Ironwood's secrets to himself.]

But I've watched enough scifi to get the idea.