eumenis | PSL post (for datbackstory)

PSL post (for datbackstory)

Even after Immortan Joe is dead and the Citadel won, they all know Gastown will be a problem. The lack of leadership from the People Eater doesn't make much difference; he was never a war leader so much as a businessman. The ranks of Gastown boys, flamers and polecats, are decimated, but guzzoline draws all sorts of desperates. Where trained soldiers are lacking, mercenaries are easily obtainable. All it would take is one charismatic leader to fill the power vacuum, and they would have the might of a very large city coming at them.

Of course, Furiosa and the Sisters have faced terrible odds already and come out better than they had any right to. She dares to hope even if the worst happened, they could survive and win. But if they can head off trouble at the pass, they should make the attempt. As the only one of them that's ever actually been to Gastown before, Furiosa is the only sensible choice for diplomatic effort. She's not much of a diplomat when it comes down to it. She can talk down a frightened feral, evidently, but diplomacy requires more patience than that.

Still, after several days of meetings in the city--some of them more like physical sparring matches than discussions--she thinks things are going well, and feels like she can breathe again. She slips away from the half-dozen war boys she's brought along as an entourage, and goes walking in the quieter alleys, the hovels on the edge of the marl pits. Half of them are being swallowed by sinkholes, and the rest are foul, but she won't be attacked here. The population is too sparse this far out.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He'd be happy to clarify once he knew just how things were tracked, how the passing of time was measured by folks now.

"No good having all this info if I don't share it." He replied helpfully, an assurance that he was happy to share what he knew. She'd saved him from languishing in that room to possibly die; while it had been chance and perhaps not hard for her, he certainly wanted to repay her in some way that was as close to as meaningful as he could manage.

Hearing the running approaching them though he straightened, not to be intimidating but simply to be alert, optics brightening as he focused on the figure running their way once the man was in view. Armed, but no weapons in hand, clearly alarmed by something, the guess confirmed by his exclamations when he came to a stop. For now? Spine would be quiet, let Furiosa deal with the situation without him butting in.

She knows perfectly well he owes her a debt. She's a little reluctant to call it in in a serious way. She meant it when she said she doesn't want slaves, but whatever he can give her of his own free will, whether it be labor, knowledge, or simply friendship, she'll take it.

"Throttle," she says, greeting the war boy, and braces him with a hand on either shoulder. "Easy, boy. Anyone hurt or dead?"

"None of ours," he huffs, looking sheepish and grateful for the support.

"Well, it can't be that dire, then. Breathe first."

"...yes, boss. It's just--glory me!" He breaks off, noticing the Spine at last, a glint of metal in the lamplight. His eyes get very round behind the white and black paint.

"This is the Spine," is all Furiosa says, as if she was introducing two war pups on their first day working in the garages. "Spine, this is Throttle, one of my Lancers."

"...um." Throttle says softly, and gives a V8 salute to no one in particular.

He's reassured of any lingering worry about Furiosa with the way she interacts with the war boy that came to report. That she was concerned more with her crew's well-being over the more scarce supplies spoke well, giving him a good idea of the sort of person she was.

When Throttle noticed him, he gave a wry, sheepish sort of smile.

"Good to meet you, Throttle." Offering a hand to shake, preferring that to the odd salute that he knew was some manner of religious gesture. Once that was taken care of, he'd just edge back again, both to give Throttle the reassurance of his personal space, as well as to let focus go back to Furiosa and whatever he had to tell the woman.

Life is cheap in the Wasteland, but Furiosa picks a crew carefully. She knows her people well, as workers and as individuals, and that means she knows they're irreplaceable. Some of them she's even watched grow up.

Throttle looks dazed, not sure what to make of the silvery, 7-foot hallucination greeting him. He does clasp hands gingerly, makes a couple uncertain grunts or mumbles, then jumps as Furiosa elbows him in the ribs. "I know. Enough. Tell me what's happened." That's clearly an order.

The war boy glances from her to the Spine and back, then nods, snapping out of it. "A group of scavs just came in, said somethin' big attacked them on the road."

"Buzzards?"

"An animal," he clarifies. "They brought a piece of it. Said it tore up a car and all, and dragged three of their people under the sand."

Furiosa looks skeptical now, but she motions to him to lead the way back to their caravan. "I'll believe there are sand monsters when I see the teeth, but go on. I'll talk to them."

He couldn't blame the man for the surprise and uncertainty when the metal hand he shook was solid and real. As it was he was wiling to stay quiet as Throttle was making his report, unable to help the lift of his brows at the description of the strange threat.

"...I've heard of spiders like that before, they drag prey under through 'trapdoors'... with all the radiation out there now I can't see why it might be possible that caused some... growth." Though to attack a car like that and drag humans underground it would have to be a hell of a lot of growth, even his suggestion is uncertain as he mulls over the problem.

But still, more than willing to follow along, curious to see what they'd find at the scene.

Furiosa is following Throttle in a businesslike fashion now, but spares a second to glance at the Spine over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised as if to ask what the hell, are you trying to scare my crew? "One vote for giant spiders: check."

"Dunno, Boss," Throttle looks horrified by the thought, but he's seen the animal part. "It don't look hairy or hard. Kind of like a...fleshy snake thing?" Actually, what it looks like to him, he doesn't want to say. It's huge and pink and phallic and that kind of makes it worse than if it were a giant spider's leg.

"Oh, and it smells! Like a thousand-day-old latrine." He adds, with a grimace.

"Guess no one's going to be stealing it to eat, then." She smirks a little, but that's a very real possibility in Gastown. Even if it does stink. "Maybe we'll have time to look it over, at least."

The Spine couldn't help but look a bit sheepish at that raised brow; he hadn't meant to try and scare anyone with his musings. As it was he listened to what Throttle was telling them, frowning slightly at the description of it.

"Times like these I'm glad I don't smell things like you humans do." Sure he could take a whiff of something and know what bacteria or chemicals were airborne, a useful thing for a bot versed in search and rescue when chemical weapon use was at it's peak. That might not be as common now, but the upgrade had never been reversed, and in fact had been offered to the other bots as well; being able to 'smell' smoke or burning rubber or overheated parts was a good diagnostic tool after all.

"There's a sentence I never thought I'd hear anybody say," Furiosa says mildly to the Spine. "How do you smell?"

Throttle breaks into a dazzling grin. He's missing several teeth. "A little bit musty, but he don't smell too bad to me!" If it were an earlier, less apocalyptic time, there might be a cymbal crash after that joke, and Furiosa drops her head into her right hand with a little groan.

She's half amused, in fact, but she kicks sand at the war boy anyway. "Sending you home in the cargo hold for that."

They're close enough to the lot that they can see the Rig now, though, and the dozen war boys and assorted others gathered around in a knot. Whatever fleshy piece they've gotten out of the desert, it's on the ground, and the smallest war boy--probably a war girl, judging from the androgynous build and long braids--is poking at it with a spanner.

The Spine had been about to reply when Throttle spoke up, unable to help the startled snort of laughter the enthusiastic teasing caught from him, steam chasing the sound. It felt good to have something to chuckle at after so long, the smile on his face easing a bit at the joke and Furiosa's response, both of which just reminded him enough of his own siblings to have a sentimental edge.

"Throttle that one was pretty pun-gent." He couldn't help it, and he wasn't sorry, not if that little smirk was any hint.

"As far as the details go, the way it was explained to me is there's a sensor that lets me know what chemicals or bacteria are in the air- basically anything other than normal breathable air gets flagged and I get an alert. Was pretty useful for picking up on odorless things that might not do good things to you humans."

Seeing they were drawing closer, he fell quiet again, letting Furiosa and Throttle take the lead on interacting with the others, not wanting to start a panic when obviously tensions were already a little raised from the unknown find they were currently gathered around.

It's hard to say whether Throttle gets the Spine's pun--he's no better educated than any other war boy, and his vocabulary isn't that big. Still, he knows he's entertained them both, and that's more than enough occasion to make him cackle with delight, ducking the shower of sand.

Furiosa snorts softly, smiling, but she's back to business quickly. "You could sense bad air, then, without it hurting you? What about radiation?"

Not that she has any plans to ask him to be their canary-in-a-mineshaft, but that is one useful talent he's got there.

The group gathered around looks unsettled despite the Spine's best intentions, and two of the scavs scatter to watch from an alleyway, but Furiosa's crew stands firm, watching her body language, and Throttle's. That they're both relaxed in the presence of the shiny metal giant says enough. The girl with the spanner straightens with a nod. She's got some kind of brace on one leg, and she's missing an eye on the same side. "Hey, Boss," she greets Furiosa. "This is our day for discovering things, I guess. Who...?"

"This is the Spine. He's a friend." Furiosa gestures at the robot casually, crouching to study the monster bits. Evidently she doesn't plan on addressing the fact that her new friend is made of metal. At least not yet. She's more interested in the thing on the ground right now. It is, as they were warned, extremely smelly, but not in a dead way. She prods cautiously with her metal hand, then picks it up by what might be the throat, eyeing the maw and the surrounding structures.

"This is not a snake. No scales, no eyes...more like a huge worm. Ugh."

He nodded at that guess, confirming the idea. "I don't need air beyond there being enough for my bellows but that's more a side-function than anything. Bad air or poisons won't hurt me." He'd spent enough time dragging soldiers away from dangerous gasses to know that for a fact.

He can't help the slight wince that flits across his expression at the way the two scavs flee when he comes close, feeling a bit comforted that the crew that's plainly there with Furiosa doesn't seem nearly so skittish. Just giving a small nod at the introduction before leaning slightly over the shorter woman's shoulder as she crouched, grimacing at the ugly thing she was picking up.

"I was really hoping it wasn't this gross."

More and more, she's getting a clear idea of why Immortan Joe wanted to keep him. And, having known the Immortan all too well, she can imagine some of the uses his talents would have been put to. Best for all concerned that he resisted, and that Joe wanted him intact.

A couple of the crew whisper to one another, staring at the Spine and at Furiosa as if trying to sort out where she got him from and what good he'll be--or what danger. Throttle's the only one who seems inclined to speak to him directly, though. "Slimy," he tells him, nodding earnestly. "Even after being dragged in the dust. They said it must've held their truck so they thought they was bogged in the sand. When they got here, they found it wrapped around the back axle."

Furiosa grimaces with mild disgust and drops the thing, only to pick up and inspect the ripped-off end. Some of the people around make little gagging sounds and back up; she just seems to be very determinedly regulating her breath. "It's torn, all right. Nasty thing. Did you say it killed some of theirs?"

The younger woman points to the scavs who've gone to hide in the alley. "They had a caravan, they say. Lost a car, a bike, and three people."

"...well, then, there must have been more than one." She drops the creature and rises to glance at the Spine. "Any theories, other than giant spiders?"

He ignored the stares and whispers, not letting on that he can definitely hear them not with as unsettled as they obviously were about him. And in all honesty he was more concerned with the creature that Furiosa was poking.

"It not getting dried out is weird. It's not acidic I can tell that much, so it's not just cutting through the grit that way." Frowning, he leaned over Furiosa's shoulder with a murmured 'excuse me' to carefully nudge it with a finger himself, making a disgruntled noise at the unpleasant feel of it. As she was looking at the torn end, he noted something that he really didn't like the implications of, and as she was moving to stand, he shifted to one knee to pluck the thing up by the damaged end, nudging aside the shredded hide.

"Starting to get an idea here, but I don't think you're going to like it." Because that sure was what looked like the torn end of a rudimentary brainstem that he'd discovered.

"A giant, man-eating bag of stinky goo," the girl with the leg brace says. "I'm liking this less and less, Furiosa."

"Sure, but it's nowhere near the weirdest Wasteland story I've heard," Furiosa says, and glances back at the Spine as he moves politely into her personal space. Even now, she doesn't feel particularly intimidated, and lets him look over her shoulder, perfectly sanguine about it. The crew whispers trail off, though the stares don't. Evidently if the Boss is okay with the shiny man, he's okay.

"Tell me anyway," she says with an expression between a smile and a wince. "Because I've never seen anything like this before."

"Well I've found us something like a brainstem here..." Nudging it out of the mess a bit more so Furiosa could take a look if she wanted.

"Unfortunately it doesn't look nearly complex enough to belong to a smart enough brain to drag down that many cars and people. More like... it's a secondary neural mass like octopus have." Setting the thing down, he drags a finger through the sand that had been flattened by passing tires and feet, sketching out the squiggles of tentacles and then the basic body of an octopus. "These are ocean-dwelling, the tentacles can act independently of the brain in the main body in reaction to things like food or threats. If this thing helped drag down as much as we're hearing about, it stands to reason it might be a similar idea." He shook his head with an almost apologetic look. "Can't say I've ever seen anything quite like this though, so this is a whole lotta reaching and guessing."

Throttle mouths the word 'brainstem' and exchanges glances with another war boy, while Furiosa cranes her neck to peer at what he's pointing out. Yuck. She thinks she sees what he means, but her grasp of anatomy is fairly rudimentary.

"Octopus?" The other girl slides into an awkward crouch to look, and Furiosa puts out her metal arm for her to use as a rail, without thinking about it.

"Remember the story Ma'at told us, about the Kraken? I think they were like that. Smaller, I guess." She explains mildly. "I've seen pictures, in some of the Sisters' books. I didn't know they had brains in their arms, though."

"Well...okay, then, but if it was an octa...whatever," Another war boy pipes up, "There'd be seven more of those worm things, right? And then a head?"

"Glory, imagine that. Swimming under the sand!" Throttle looks both excited and apprehensive, like a kid telling a ghost story. "Grabbing up passing cars from under trapdoors..."

"Enough of that," Furiosa scolds, seeing the other men looking worried. "It's a theory. If we want the truth, we better go have a look."

"Krakens are similar enough to octopus yeah." Sure they were more like squid, but for the moment he'd save the specifics, as there was a very real problem that needed handling.

"Not full brains... they still need the main body and brain, but enough to sense things like shifts in temperature or water currents that would let them react to things within range." Huffing a plume of steam and making sure that the others weren't close enough to bowl anyone over when he carefully pulled from his crouch, hiding the wince that the slight creaking of some joints earned.

"But just a theory, yeah. Pretty far-fetched too... need to see a whole one of these things to see what we're really dealing with. Might just have one of these things or a couple instead of eight. Might just be one lone creature, or I'm betting you'd have heard a lot more stories like this, right?" Unknowns were frightening to be sure, but he was hoping that the idea of a lone creature was less so than the potential of more.

Furiosa rocks back on her heels and pulls out a rag to wipe her claws clean. "Well...the Wasteland is a big place. I wouldn't call it impossible that a creature like that could exist somewhere out there, and me never hearing about it. But this close to Gastown? Right on the Fury Road? No way. We'd have heard about it. I must have crossed this patch of sand a few thousand times."

She straightens and beckons the scavs back over. They're clearly reluctant, intimidated, but offering them water and hardtack seems to convince them to settle long enough to relay their story in more detail, and sell her the torn carcass. She asks about the vehicle that was dragged down, looking for specifics as far as weight and how it was armed, and when the conversation is done, she hops up into the cab of her own rig and fishes out a rifle, extra ammo, and a crossbow with a packet of incendiary bolts.

"All right. I'm taking the Septireme," she says, and jerks her head toward a long, silver vehicle parked alongside the rig. It's one of her escort cars, not quite as rare and precious as the new rig itself, but fast and in good repair. "Who's coming hunting with me?"

When she was talking to the scavs, The Spine gave them all a wide berth to keep from making things any harder than they had to be as he was listening to the conversation. Doing a mental tally of the weight of the vehicle, the armaments, how fast they'd been going when it had been dragged under. It gave him an idea of the strength of what they were dealing with, which just made the idea of 'it's big' that much more likely.

"I'll come." He might not be willing to fight people, sentient beings, but if there was a predator out there that was a risk to them? Well, his Vow of Peace had enough wiggle room to allow him to give it a punch or two if needed.

Furiosa looks at the Spine, pleasantly surprised by how willing he is to volunteer. She has no idea he's made a vow of peace, and wouldn't know how to relate if she did, but it's impressively altruistic of him to put himself in danger at her side within a couple hours of knowing her. Her gaze on him is thoughtful, and she reaches up to give him a solid thump on the shoulder (luckily, with her right hand, since the left would make an impressive clang meeting metal skin). "Glad to have you."

"Count me in, Boss," Throttle says, a little less enthusiastically. "I'll get a couple lances."

"Good; Throttle, you're in back, Spine, you get shotgun. Twisty," she nods to the girl with the leg brace. "Consider yourself in charge until we get back. Circle up, don't give any answers if the ex-imperators ask, but you can talk to Crispy if he sends envoys."

It made sense to him; in the short time he'd known her, Furiosa had made a good impression, and going after an unknown creature? It made more sense for him to come, rather than someone else who could get more easily damaged. And besides, he was always trying to help others, the time locked up wasn't about to change that.

"Sounds fine to me." Giving a small nod at the instructions, headed over to the car while Furiosa was busy making sure everyone knew what to do while she was gone. Not sure what they'd find, but hoping that it would go well.

She doesn't take long, although Throttle loads up before she does. He braces himself actually on the back of the car, with an armful of incendiary lances tucked in a holder beside him. Leaning forward, he asks, "You need somethin' to shoot with? Or a lance?"

Furiosa joins them a moment later, sliding into the driver's seat and flipping the kill switch sequence to get the car to start. "Eyes on," she tells them, evidently comfortable giving the Spine orders as long as he's riding with her in this capacity. "We'll go a few miles out, circle the city, and come back in if we don't see anything."

If they do see something...they'll have to cross that bridge when they come to it.

"I'll be alright." He had his own weapons, though he hoped it didn't come to that. A last resort only if someone was in danger. He had no issue with Furiosa giving orders; she knew what was needed clearly, she had a plan, and she was the one driving. He nodded with a small noise of assent to let her know he'd heard, that he understood what they were doing but otherwise was quiet for the moment. Better to focus on the area around them, on any sign of creatures lurking under the sand.

Hoping they'd be lucky and that the damage of having a piece ripped off was enough trauma to kill the creature, but knowing it was highly unlikely.

Furiosa is a skilled and confident driver. The Spine may also be impressed by Throttle, for that matter. He's a consummate Lancer, with years of experience. That's unusual for a war boy in itself; most of them die before they get to be old hands at anything. Or, at least, under the old regime they did. Regardless, Throttle holds on well and calls out what he sees over the wind. Not even Furiosa's most wild turns in the sand budge him.

And Throttle is the one that spots the tracks from the scav party, a half mile out and to the west of town. Furiosa calls out her thanks as he points them out and swerves to drive alongside them. It takes them several minutes from there to find the disturbed earth and sand where the scavs were attacked. Furiosa slows and stops the car close by, draws her pistol and checks the safety. She's not about to shoot wildly at nothing but it seems wise to be ready.

"Sense anything we can't?" she asks the Spine quietly.

While he doesn't have the frame of reference to realize that such experience in a Lancer is unusual, The Spine knows confidence when he sees it, and the skill that both Furiosa and Throttle have is obvious. Which in turn just settles him some, focusing more on their surroundings while Furiosa worried about getting them where they were going.

At the scene of the attack, he frowns a bit, taking a long look at the area before answering the soft question.

"Not seeing anything that hints at tunnels underneath. Ground's as solid as it's going to get. No seismic activity either. Can only guess the creature, if it's as big as we're probably thinking, has moved on."

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