eastbound | video, un: hopscotch

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video, un: hopscotch

[Caitlyn enthusiastically shows off a small wooden box. Visible on the lid is an insignia of a Minaras governmental medical facility. Over Caitlyn's shoulder is a redhead looking wholly uninspired by this discovery.]

This was found following an altercation with a group of drunk individuals. One man was tall, must have been a little over six feet, with a blond beard, head shaved, and some sort of tattoo visible on his neck. Another was a few inches shorter, clean-shaven and close-cropped black hair, wearing a rather ostentatious, if tattered, blue coat. The third was a few inches shorter still, also clean-shaven, with long brown hair tied in a ponytail and several scars along the length of his forearms.

[Vi rolls her eyes as Caitlyn rattles off these descriptions. Caitlyn, oblivious, continues:] Does anyone know who these men might have been? If they could be identified, they could perhaps be located and questioned as to how a box belonging to a medical facility came into their possession.

[Vi mutters,] Probably going to sell whatever it is to the highest bidder.

[At the interruption, Caitlyn glances over her shoulder to respond to Vi. Her tone is less critical and more like she's excited to brainstorm possible motivations.] We can't assume that.

[Caitlyn turns back to the contents of the box.] Yes. Um. There are herbs inside, they smell-- [She takes a whiff, wrinkling her nose.] --earthy. Musky. And faintly of fruit. And... [She smells again, and a horrified look crosses her face, as though she's just smelled the most odious smell imaginable. She quickly moves the box further away from herself, looking at it as though it's done her a great personal wrong.] Urine.

[Vi shouldn't look so amused at the posh description, but she does.

Caitlyn holds up a few of the whole dried leaves and flowers: foxglove, wisteria, passion flower, and valerian. There is a small sack visible inside the box containing more herbs ground up.]

Are there any herbalists in the group who might be able to identify these? What purpose could these serve, either individually or in combination?

[Vi leans in closer and says,] And by the way, I need to talk to the resident hextech genius.

[ooc: for the herbalists out there, this combination of herbs leads to memory loss]

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Then, please, explain.

[He offers her a go ahead gesture, but otherwise turns his attention to the gauntlets. He inspects the obviously broken one, clocking the damage as made by some kind of blade. No, the gauntlets were clearly not being used for their intended purpose, even if Viktor knows full well that said purpose was little more than a farce in the first place.

Jayce not stopping her could mean any number of things--and it still sounds like she took them by force. Maybe that's what Viktor wants to hear, because the alternative is not something he wants to entertain. Jayce wouldn't be that stupid. Would he? Maybe he had a good reason for it. Viktor wants to think that, but he just can't see it yet.]

You met with Jayce. For what reason?

[ Vi pushes away from the table. She can already figure where this is going to end up, just where it always does. Someone else in a city like this should be smart enough to figure out this kind of tech, right? ]

We met because I thought he might be different from all the other preening cowards at the meeting. I thought he understood that if anyone in the undercity had any chance, then something had to be done.

[ A shrug and a scoff of disappointment. ]

And I was wrong. He lost his nerve right when he'd finally had his eyes opened. [ Her frown is more puzzled than angry when she looks back over her shoulder. ] Why should you even care? Do you ever leave your little workshop?

[ A fair question, since he doesn't look like he's able to live an active lifestyle...to put it kindly. ]

[He still doesn't quite understand. A Council meeting, okay. Probably about the stolen gemstone--but what would Vi have to do with that? Viktor needs her to start at the beginning, before he starts jumping to wild conclusions, but he knows that's not going to happen until they stop being hostile with each other.

And he can't help but be hostile. He hates that he's missing so many pieces, especially when the crux of this situation seems to be something that Jayce did. Something that Viktor doesn't want to believe that he did. Vi accuses him, accurately, of never leaving the lab, and now he wishes he had--maybe he could have prevented whatever it is that happened. Whatever put the gauntlets in her possession.]

It matters to me because I'm from the Undercity.

[He doesn't know if Caitlyn told her as much, and it likely raises more questions than it answers, but he says it unapologetically, daring her to challenge him on that point, specifically.

Despite the fact that he clearly does not enjoy that the gauntlets are in front of him, he desperately needs something to do with his hands, so he pulls up a stool and sinks onto it with some effort, reaching for an oversized pair of tweezers. Viktor plunges the tool into the hole in the glove, digging around for shards of metal. When he speaks again, he sounds defeated, like he already knows he's going to hate the answer.]

What did he do?

[ The admission gets Vi's full attention, turning to assess the way he sits, and her understanding of his frailty is immediately shifted. He isn't flimsy from being a spoiled scholar. He's another veteran that's been damaged in a war that's invisible to most topsiders. She'd lost everything, but it still looks like the fissures had been kinder to her.

Stepping closer now, the grit in her teeth bears more anger than pity. Vi is so tired of being reminded of why the undercity needs help, and how much her own sister just blew that chance right into the damn sky.

Leaning back against the table, her ankles cross and she leans onto one hand, watching the way his hands work and instinctively letting her other hand over just off to the side, in case there's a sign he needs them shifted or moved. She's not looking to have him collapse over something like this.

She'll at least have the decency to pull her hand away when she answers after a delay, guilt only causing the briefest glance down. It had been nothing new to her, but to a topsider... ]

...He saw his first dead kid.

[He's half-expecting her to argue, or at least accuse him of abandoning Zaun to work in Piltover--it wouldn't be a wrong, because she doesn't know him, either, and what else is she supposed to think? Viktor looks up just long enough to see her expression shift, and he furrows his eyebrows in turn, deciding that he should just focus on the gauntlets, instead. Viktor isn't fixing them, he tells himself. Just examining the extent of the damage.

Then Vi says that Jayce saw a dead kid and he stops, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers and letting out a long-suffering sigh. Viktor has seen his fair share of dead children--he's sure he doesn't need to tell Vi that, or that he might have been one of them, had he not gained admission to the Academy. Jayce, on the other hand, is soft in some ways. He can't imagine that he took it very well, but it still doesn't explain the circumstances, not entirely.]

What was he doing, down there? [It can't have been anything good, given his attitude on the bridge, and the fact that the gauntlets have clearly been in a fight.] You don't need to spare me.

[ Even Vi can't think of a way in which this is going to turn out in her favor. He's tinkering around, sure, but for how much longer? When he hears more? When she pulls the gemstones out of her jacket pocket? She doesn't know him, it's true, and the fragile acknowledgment of a shared origin does not a truce make. Vi has her own burning questions, even more-so now.

He's from Zaun, making weapons for Piltover. Weapons they leave around for others to steal. People...a lot more dangerous than her. Indignant doesn't even begin to cover that little extra speed to her pulse if she thinks too long about him being a traitor, but then what's she doing running around with an enforcer? That check is enough to let her momentarily consider his reasons why.

What was he doing... What did Viktor think he was doing? How did he feel about the possibilities? She squints a bit while staring at him. He had to know he was making weapons, so what should he expect? Is he deluded like Jayce? ]

I'm not sparing you. Just trying to figure out what you hoped he'd do; if you knew how dangerous those gemstones were. Did you know about the hammer? Don't tell me that was for smithing.

[So, she does know about the gems. Where they are right now is something that he'll get to, but the likelihood that she's somehow tied to the first theft increases with every additional piece of information. It's frustrating, not to simply get the entire story, but Viktor is smart. He can piece enough together.]

Do you think I wanted to build mining equipment? The gemstones are what's revolutionary. [The mining equipment was simply what he thought would get past the Council. Foolish, all of it. He knows that now. Knows that his work is dangerous in the wrong hands. How could they have anticipated the break-in? That someone would kill enforcers to get to their lab? Viktor resents the implication that somehow he allowed all of this to happen.] We fought, Jayce and I. It was our last conversation, before I arrived here. He wanted to explore the possibility of Hextech defenses--weaponry--and I refused.

[It sounds like she and Jayce, together, crossed that line.]

I don't know anything about a hammer.

[ He refused. She's definitely wasting her time.

But his admission makes even less sense to her than anything else. She's careful not to move suddenly, in case he damaged the gauntlet more, but she does slowly lean away while reconsidering his position in Piltover all over again. ]

So, if it wasn't for the fissures, and it wasn't to make weapons, then...what? Another Hexgate? ...What's so revolutionary about them?

It's a stable power source for portable devices. The applications are nearly limitless.

[He gestures emphatically at the gloves, to indicate that the reason they aren't working is because the stones have been removed--but he thinks she already knows that.]

But the Council doesn't care about air scrubbers or water purification systems. So...tools for miners and artisans. To start.

[It feels stupid now that he says it out loud. None of it matters, because they couldn't even get any of it past Heimerdinger, to say nothing of the full Council. Viktor seems to realize how hollow this this sounds, and drops his gaze back to the gauntlets, picking a shard of metal out of the gash and setting it aside.]

Please, just. Tell me what he did.

[ So...it is for the undercity, or it should have been. She doesn't know if she should believe him, but she can believe that Piltover would accept mining equipment over water purification. One helps Piltover, and one just helps Zaun. It's...a clever way to get a foot in the door, if he's telling the truth. To start.

Any curiosity she has about his real intentions continues to be hampered by his own incessant questions. She could just ignore him, and she probably should, but he's finally started to offer his own explanations. Some of them. Curiosity keeps her from shutting him down; that, and a need for someone to understand. She hasn't told Caitlyn even this much, if only because Cait had already started to make such a face before Vi could finish, and then the train had crashed.

Maybe Viktor here hadn't been excited about the ideas of weapons, but the weapons are already made and now it's a question of who uses them. If Vi has any chance at all against what's coming... ]

We were taking out the Shimmer manufacturing facilities. [ Her hands hide in her pockets, and she looks to see if has any reaction to the topic of Shimmer. There's something. ] Shimmer goons resisted. One of the kids got away from the enforcers. I, uh... Not sure how he got taken out, everything was happening too fast.

[ No matter what, it feels unnecessary to pin that on Jayce when he's not around to defend himself. Vi was the one who talked him into doing something. ]

[Taking out...or attacking them? Viktor doesn't see much of a difference. Removed as he is from the Undercity, he knows that the people who work in factories and places like that have no other choice. To make matters worse, it sounds like the dead child--what he assumes made Jayce call it quits--was a direct result of this. Maybe Vi didn't see who or what killed the child. It doesn't really matter. Jayce built a weapon out of their technology, and took it down into the Undercity, and escalated.

He's quiet for a long moment. Viktor has Shimmer, here--a vial of it in the hollow handle of his crutch. He wonders what she might have to say about that.]

And? Did you accomplish what you set out to do?

[Or did they simply enact violence?]

[ It's heavy in her shoulders, down to her stomach, her boots. The silence should be answer enough, and it may as well be. He doesn't have any right to know what came of it more than he already does. Not when Caitlyn is still in the dark. Jayce's fuck-ups are one matter, but what Powder had done...

Her hand, fingers curled but not quite forming a fist, thumps against the table. Vi already knows he's not going to want her to keep these gauntlets, not if he's for pacifism and only wants air purifiers, so she might as well speak her mind where she can. ]

We might have, if your man hadn't cut and run and left me to finish what we started. If he could have waited to have his little breakdown, y'know, we might have actually─ Maybe─

[ Another little thump, this time with her fist formed tight, her nose scrunched. Then, realizing she's probably messing up his work (as if it matters), Vi pulls her hand away to cross her arms with a breathy 'tch'. ]

Never mind, it doesn't even matter until we get out of here. If you fix those, it'll be a lot easier for me to make sure that happens.

[Viktor has his doubts about all of it--violence only begets more violence, and he supposes that if Jayce did one thing right, it was calling it quits as soon as he realized what doing something like that really meant. Despite the apparent change of heart, however, it's too late. A weapon has been made, and used, and nothing good can possibly come of it.

But, being here is a special circumstance, and Vi is smart enough to appeal to that.]

The power source is missing. Even if I wanted to fix them-- [He does not.] --the gauntlets will remain nonfunctional without it.

[His words are pointed. If the gemstones really are missing, well. Nothing will functionally change for him. He has a feeling, however, that they're not.]

You don't know anything about that, do you?

The power source is safe.

[ No reason to lie about that, or why would she want the gauntlets fixed? She feels confident that he isn't exactly capable of taking anything from her that she doesn't want him to have, though there isn't much pleasure out of that knowledge. He looks so rickety, and she wants to avoid a scenario that leads to hurting him.

But, how much would he try to get the gems if she refrained from giving them? How badly does he want them? He seems pretty stuck on them, and it can't be to improve the Mouse House. They're probably too rare to use on a city that they'll all be leaving behind before long. ]

I know you have to have your own plans for it, so what is it? [ Back to the original question. Hasn't she shared enough? ] What would you use it for?

[ If he doesn't want to use it for the gauntlets, then she should just take them and look elsewhere. But maybe what he has planned could help the group even more. Maybe it's more important. She needs to know. ]

Is it?

[Perhaps he has a different idea of "safe", though maybe he should be heartened that she seems to understand just how important it is to keep the gemstones secured.

He hates the idea of having to make an appeal to an empathetic side he's not even sure is there, debasing himself in the process. Admitting his dire circumstances. Still, he wants to be reasonable. He's desperate enough that he thinks he can compromise.]

Before I arrived here, I developed a kind of...adaptive conduit for arcane energies. A device that can learn to fulfill any number of functions. [He understands this might not make much sense, but it's difficult to outright admit to a relative stranger the truth--that he's sick, and he hopes the Hexcore will be able to offer him some kind of cure.] Most notably medical applications. It could be of use here, given the sickness.

Tech that can learn?

[ She must be understanding wrong, and she figures she probably is since this isn't her wheelhouse, but if she's right then even Vi can see the dangerous possibilities of that kind of tech. It'd have to be impossible, right? It'd be amazing if true, but what if Powder...if Jinx stole that kind of tech?

The mention of the sickness slumps her shoulders a bit, and she finds a spot to lean again, with her arms folded. He could be lying, about it all, but she feels confident enough in sniffing out bullshit that she feels there's some truth to it. He's not sharing everything, but...neither is she. ]

Is this just a theory of yours, or can you actually do it? Didn't see any of those medical applications being used back home. People are sicker than ever, thanks to Shimmer.

Edited (look- you know, I- look, I- you know, just- I can't be expected to- you know, look- i can't read.) 2022-11-14 21:24 (UTC)

Yes. Adaptable technology.

[Of course, he might be having second thoughts, were it not for the fact that he’s fairly convinced he needs it to cure himself. Here, he can potentially keep it out of the wrong hands, if he can get Vi to agree to some kind of custody arrangement, when it comes to the gemstones.

At the implication that he could have given it to the Undercity, he bristles. Clearly she’s found a sore spot, though this one isn’t particularly difficult to guess, given his earlier talk about the Council being less-than-receptive to his humanitarian efforts.]

I’ve done it. [Not exactly true, but she doesn’t need to know about the fate of his plants. He has Shimmer, if it comes down to that.] The last few days, before I arrived here, I managed it. You’ll forgive me if that wasn’t enough time to scale up and distribute.

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