Adventure Awaits

[rocketraccoon]

Character(s): Rocket, Billie, Dany, Jon, Robb
Status: Closed
Location(s): Summerhall & the Roost
Date(s): From Late May to Early June
About: Rocket is tired of babysitting small menacing animals that are still waiting for their people to come back, and also wants to show off his new toys to a potentially interested acquaintance.
Warnings:

Closed to Summerhall Residents
Babysitting the menagerie at Summerhall is exhausting work on its own without having animas separated from and unable to help their people hanging around him. He had become a climbing tree for a red panda several times and there was only so much Lylla could do to distract the other animals from bothering Rocket while he was trying to work on his invention.

And then it had happened. He was working and Lylla was pestering one of the animas, and then she wasn't. Lylla was alone and confused and Rocket was concerned. He loaded up his crossbow and started searching, first the building and then the land around it, venturing out further and further looking for any sign of the missing animal.

In the end he had had to return to the building and make sure none of the others had vanished. He had spent the rest of his time forgoing his experiments and the target he had built a ways out from the building in favor of keeping a closer eye on the animals.

He had tried to stay awake, listening for sounds of an animal trying to get into the building. When none came he eventually passed out just outside the door, his back to the wall and an unloaded crossbow sitting loosely in his hands. Fittingly, he's covered in animals when the Summerhall group returns, exactly as he was when they left.

Closed to Billie
Rocket likes the airships most about everything they have to deal with now. Sure they're convenient and from some perspectives a safer way to travel, but there's also an insane amount of potential and freedom that they offer that no animal mount ever could. Not even a dragon, though admittedly the airships weren't going to be much of a match for dragons now that the scaly god-complex monsters were back. He would fix that, though. Somehow he would find a way to make them defensible again fire-breathing sky menaces.

His newly copied scroll tucked away in his bolt quiver he slips out his room from the window, taking the roof exit and trapping his clingy animas in their temporary room at the Roost. It doesn't take much for him to navigate his way back to the ground, choosing to meet Billie outside so they can head in or elsewhere together. Things were less suspiciously a 'meeting' worth eavesdropping on if they were there together from the start.

He keeps to the other side of the path and waits. Billie wasn't far, he wouldn't have to wait for long.

Comments

[redwhaling]

Far enough to take her a leisurely walk from the docks to the Roost but close enough that Rocket won't be kept waiting too long. Her own animas, the black and white feathered tern, makes an appearance before she ever does, gliding down from over the street and landing on the edge of the roof that overlooks where he's waiting. She'll eye him from up there but that's all.

A minute later, Billie's strolling into view, hands stuffed into the pockets of a coat far different than her usual long red leather one. She's swapped out to duller colors, greys, tans, and washed out greens, and something more akin to what the usual dockworker in Didymos here might be wandering around in. She doesn't even look armed, though that? That really shouldn't be trusted right there.

In any case, once she spots Rocket, she won't raise a hand to greet him or do anything overt to draw his attention — or anyone else's, for that matter — and simply changes her direction enough that she'll end up stopping next to him. There, looking down at him, all that's really left to do is raise her eyebrows at him and ask, "Well? Is this going to be about the crossbow again or...?"

Something else?

[rocketraccoon]

Rocket glances sideways over toward her, pulling his glance away from the bird. He raises a brow back in her direction and offers her a self-satisfied grin. As proud as he is of the progress he has made on his bolts, and he will show her those gleefully at a later point, they weren't the real reason he got in touch with her. He had something even more exciting to share.

"We'll get to the crossbow later. This is about needing more people with the ability to make the right kind of connections." There are people around and Rocket doesn't feel like getting a knife between his ribs while he sleeps tonight so he decides to take the 'safer', less brazen route for once.

"I grabbed a room for the night, we can talk about it there." And just in case Billie is starting to have second thoughts he adds, "Trust me, what I've got is worth seeing."

If she's willing to follow he'll take her straight past the tavern to one of the upper levels. When he opens the door to his room Lylla angrily and sleepily chitters at them from the bed before jumping off of it to curl up in the darkness beneath the bed. She's still cross with Rocket for dragging her away from all her new friends and then not even letting her go play on the shore. For being a part of him, she certainly disagreed with him and his choices a lot.

Rocket will pull the scroll out from among the bolts. Among the few living people Rocket still knew, Billie and Daud had both proven to be resourceful types he felt had at least as much shady/black market dealing experience as he did. He moves to the desk in the room, shoving a bunch of blueprints and bolt designs aside and rolling the scroll out with various heavy objects placed on the corners so Billie can have a look for herself.

In Rocket's surprisingly meticulous handwriting is a near perfect replica of the airship plans he was brought.

"At least one already exists. She's faster and I'm betting she outmaneuvers and outclasses the others."

[redwhaling]

Hopefully worthwhile enough to follow a bomb-happy raccoon somewhere out of sight. Sure, she can do that. Billie doesn't exactly consider him a threat, though hardly in the way that assumes he wouldn't give her a hard time and much more in a way that they've never exactly been at odds. Yet, anyway, which tends to be the key word.

So, she shrugs and tags along. Deirdre is left outside, flitting from one roof to the inn's, always keeping an eye out. It's how it often is and she'll complain at Billie even from out of sight. She's gotten good at ignoring that part.

Deirdre will find herself doubly ignored the second they get to the room and he pulls out those blueprints. Those are—

"...are you serious?"

She makes absolutely sure the door is shut and then locked before crossing over to the desk for a closer look. It's sheer professionalism that keeps her from showing that surge of excitement at seeing airship blueprints. Airship blueprints. It's not like she hadn't cased the airship docks back in Krimnos already but these being here, well, that takes a good deal of work off the table.

For the tiniest of moments, Billie does consider the odds of offing Rocket right there and then and just taking them. Sadly, he would come back. It would be a problem and, again, he's yet to do anything to deserve a knife in the back. This, too, she doesn't give any hint of beyond staring at the blueprints silently a tic long enough for it to seem suspect, then a grin is spreading across her face.

"I knew it. This is for a smaller one, right?" She points to the overall dimensions jotted down right off the bat. "I'd heard a few rumors but I never saw anything in Krimnos to confirm them."

[rocketraccoon]

Rocket would be all in on the vengeance wheel of repeated retribution if Billie decided to turn on him. Despite his distrust of the whole resurrection business, it was the possibility it might work that gave him the extra surety he needed to bring another mind onto this. His hand rests on his hip, near a hidden blade, but he remains outwardly relaxed. Even if she made off with the plans he had another copy hidden, so this is a calculated risk he's taking.

It occurs to him that he should have told Daud, and he tells himself he will, eventually, but Billie has already listened to him ramble about one invention and this is a two birds, one meeting kind of thing. The less people who knew about him having the plans the better. When the actual inventor found out their plans had been swiped and distributed to another builder, Rocket didn't intend on having his head in the line of fire.

"Serious as a centaur. I haven't seen it myself, yet, but from what I can tell it's smaller and sleeker. Has some pretty fancied up bits to it, too." He points to the double sets of blades at the top. "Seems like it can move up and down faster, and it's made to handle the more extreme weather. Won't be surprised if it replaces the old ones soon. It's got less space, but it's a powerful ship if these plans ain't a lie."

Of course, Rocket can't make it himself to find out, and his old resources died decades ago. He has to build up a whole new network of unsavories still.

"No idea how long they've been working on it but I got that from someone who rode in it. Not a prototype, either. There were three of em, fully operational. Sounds like there's only one left, now, though." That was about as much as Rocket knew.

"I spent a week pouring over this. It's sound design. In theory these plans have everything an architect would need." Which will bring them to problem the first. Rocket made explosives and weapons, not airships. He didn't have the resources, money, or the skill to put a project like this together. He certainly didn't have the magic.

[redwhaling]

Thankfully, no one ends up stabbing anyone. It's the best outcome amongst thieves for now and it means Billie can carry on taking in every detail of the blueprints. It's a struggle to school her expression back into something less gleeful. She has to be a professional right now, not just excited over the idea of airships.

Even if that would be something her and Rocket have in common.

"Only one? Due to a malfunction or due to outside forces?" See, that part is absolutely serious and she looks back towards Rocket as she asks. He says the design looks sound, though. Everything an architect would need, only— "And what are you thinking? That you're going to put one of these together? Come on, Rocket, you were busting your tail over crossbow bolts only a month ago."