Julius (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
overharrowed) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2021-03-02 01:03 pm
overharrowed) wrote in faderift2021-03-02 01:03 pm
Mission: Ice Is Back With A Brand New Invention
WHO: Julius, Sawbones, Amos, Holden and Wysteria
WHAT: Poking an artifact for science.
WHEN: A montage over Guardian/Drakonis
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: OOC post over here, no warnings for now.
WHAT: Poking an artifact for science.
WHEN: A montage over Guardian/Drakonis
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: OOC post over here, no warnings for now.
Some initial groundwork has established that the pyramid is not going to turn on spontaneously, at least to the satisfaction of those who need to sign off on it being brought into Kirkwall proper after some out-of-town evaluation. The thing now has dedicated laboratory space, the room rearranged slightly to accommodate its size. The dark artifact rises roughly five feet high. Notes from those who found the thing indicate that parts of it were glowing before it was deactivated; these are added to the notes they found with the item (mostly in Trade, with several untranslated words surrounded by question marks and guesses).
Julius briefs those of them who weren’t there on the circumstances of its discovery, deferring to Sawbones when questions about those circumstances arise. His priorities for research, roughly in order, are as follows:
- How does this artifact work?
- Is there any red lyrium involved?
- Does it seem newly constructed, or is it more likely an older artifact Corypheus’s forces turned to their advantage?
- If the latter, who built it originally?
While he’s technically part of the Diplomacy division these days, Julius started out in Research, and it isn’t hard to see why. While the question does have strategic importance, it may be evident that the matter has captured his curiosity in its own right too. He's certainly in the laboratory as much as his other duties allow.
no subject
He's not really mad. This is to be expected, and his bearing shows a general lack of surprise.
no subject
Well, she read the report. A certain degree of caution is reasonable.
"Do you suppose we ought to step back?" she asks brightly.
(So not caution then.)
no subject
no subject
He's big enough for Wysteria and Sawbones both to get a bit of shade in his shadow.
no subject
It's the equivalent of "did you try rebooting it," sure, but: did you?
(The shaking is getting harder, and he's certain that can't be a good sign.)
no subject
Poke it again, Jesus, watch him press another button and the whole goddamn thing explodes. But in all of the commotion, as the pyramid starts shaking even harder, he does try pushing the button again. Which does fuck all; but then he tries again, pushing for longer (with his other hand holding a button-free part of the artifact so the whole thing doesn't just shake out of his grip), and
it stops.
After a beat, he lets go.
"Well, now we know the buttons aren't just for decoration."
no subject
He said he'd stop calling her bug-eyes.
no subject
"What was that meant to do though? It couldn't be just shaking." Again she does not reach out to touch, but her gaze on the pyramid is very keen.
no subject
"It could be a deterrent."
no subject
Julius is primarily a diplomat and secondarily a researcher, which makes it easy to forget he's also a battle veteran (if it's something one knows in the first place). But the deliberate sweep of his staff is so practiced it's almost automatic, his focus on its effects, not the working of the spell itself. A faint green circle, centered on the pyramid, flares around them briefly. Nothing else changes.
"...hm." Is not the most helpful reaction, possibly.
no subject
"That encouraging, Jules?" He's been calling Julius that since they met.
no subject
"Well, in that it didn't curse any of us or freeze the room solid, it's not the worst outcome. But what was it doing, then?" He approaches a bit, and he himself seems to be considering the pros and cons of poking it (with his staff, rather than his hand). He makes no move yet to try, though.
no subject
But after a moment, with uncharacteristic tentativeness, she says, "Perhaps— Well. There was a response to both. Perhaps you might... activate it as Mister Holden did and then see if casting on it in that state caused a similar reaction?"
Something had shifted. She had felt it, like the faintest of breezes.
no subject
Amos squints, thinking. "Cap ain't wrong. Buttons are made to be pressed. We just gotta figure out which and when."
The look he shoots Holden seems to discourage trial and error.
no subject
no subject
Notes he's going to copy, at this point, or die trying.
no subject
He rests his staff on the floor, not immediately planning to cast again. "Miss Poppell," he adds. "What sort of response?"
no subject
She clears her throat, makes a note in the margins of her own papers, and says simply, "Perhaps I was mistaken. But for a moment when you cast on the thing, I had the impressed that the pyramid was altered in some way." If she tips her head, magic lingers just there in her peripheral vision like the after image of a gauzy, filament thin curtain drifting about the artifact.
"The effect might be more obvious were we to—" She mimes pushing one of the buttons. "Activate it first. But perhaps you could first try simply magecrafting on it in a...more sustained fashion?"
Yeah cool totally not suspicious at all. Very scientific. No mage talent here. Nailed it, Wysteria.
no subject
But his tone isn't contradictory, just thoughtful. With a shrug,
"It's worth a try, once we get a better idea of the order to push these things."
no subject
no subject