written on message board, 16/7

[crosslaced]

More umui discoveries.

We dug credit where credit is due, Lance and I did some excavation in the houses (the ones in grids, full of plant growth) and Gladiolus graciously ripped entire chunks of the floor out with his bare hands.

Found sheets of metal in the ground underneath? Same material as the house, seemed to be at least several layers of metal packed on top of each other. Didn’t get to see if there was anything else underneath, you’re free to try digging deeper.

Comments

[thermalwind]

I have a bomb. We could put it in the hole and see how far down the metal goes.

How thick are the metal layers? - Keith

[crosslaced]

A what

Not that thick. Same material as the walls of the place- enough to stand, but probably not enough to last. It was filmsy enough that Gladiolus punched through it bare-handed.

(not...not really here, but also super here)

[thegoofball]

It was pretty awesome.

[crosslaced]

you're being extremely obvious.

[thegoofball]

He was tearing metal apart with his BARE HANDS!!!

[crosslaced]

[the writing just gets smaller and angrier.]

So you tell the whole city that you're just *waiting* for a large muscled man to [SMUDGE] you agains

ignore all that DON'T JUST SAY IT

1/?? i'm so sorry

[thegoofball]

[Unfortunately, he cannot ignore things.

Doubly unfortunately, he is.

Well.

Like this.]

I have no idea what you're talking about! I don't want anyone like Gladio or Shiro doing anything to me against anything.

2/??

[thegoofball]

[oh no]

3/??

[thegoofball]

[OH NO.]

4/??

[thegoofball]

HE'S LIKE TWICE MY AGE!!!!!!!

5/??

[thegoofball]

[Later, both of those messages have been ~mysteriously~ wiped away.]

I DO NOT WANT ANY LARGE MEN DOING THAT TO ME!!!

6/??

[thegoofball]

[AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.


That last message gets erased as well, though not soon enough to keep anyone who's being extra vigilant of the rock from seeing it.]

7/FIN

[thegoofball]

[And then, finally.]

Okay, you're right, we should just pretend none of this ever happened.

[piercetheheart]

Age has nothing to do with it. That just means I have more experience.

You're cute, kid, but not that cute.

[crosslaced]

[what happened here

he was going to erase the evidence but now someone (Gladio?) has replied and now…. he’s just going to add a small, neat annotation to the side:]

:o

[thegoofball]

Age has a lot to do with it!! It's probably the only reason you have way more experience!

[What would it be like, to be a person who actually thinks before talking? Who takes their time, when flustered and out of their element, before they just dig themselves a deeper hole?

Would it be nice? It would probably be nice.]

And I'm clearly cute enough or you wouldn't think I'm cute at all!!

[thermalwind]

It's a contained explosion. Way nastier than a bare handed fist. It should get us some headway.

[crosslaced]

Sounds like it might work. You're free to try.

[thermalwind]

Just be sure to get out of the building when I do this. The explosion will give the debris a boost. A bit like arrows and it's not pretty if you get caught in that.

[thegoofball]

Or we could try a long-distance detonation?

[k e i t h]

[thermalwind]

We don't have the tools for that. I haven't found anything I could use to build a detonator switch and I'm not scrapping my broken scanner for this.

[thegoofball]

[hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm]







I could shoot it?

[thermalwind]

[...]

The Bayard's pretty powerful and this is an old style bomb. It would probably destroy it.

Wait. I think this does come with a detonator. I was checking over the wires and.

Okay. Nevermind, we're good.

[thegoofball]

You couldn't have looked at it BEFORE offering to blow yourself up???????????????

[He is going to yell at you about this when he gets back to the shack!!]

[thermalwind]

I WAS GOING TO SET SOMETHING UP!
Look, you want to blow this spot up or keep hacking away at the metal?

written emphatically beneath

[counterblows]

Frag grenades
Not as powerful as a bomb but safer
I will let you use one if it means you actively try to not blow yourselves up

[thermalwind]

No. It's okay.

Sorry for being alarming. It's just this stuff is so old tech compared to what I was dealing with back home. It took me a bit to realize what method the detonation takes.

I'm good now.

[counterblows]

If your friend blows himself up I am not picking up the pieces.

[thermalwind]

Course not.

That's my responsibility. I'll make sure he doesn't.

[counterblows]

[...good.]

[He doesn't add anything else. He only chimes in when he needs to - when it looks like things are about to get spectacularly messy if he doesn't.]

[thegoofball]

PUTTING YOURSELF IN THE BLAST ZONE ISN'T SETTING SOMETHING UP!

But fine! It's not a bad idea, but you better not get yourself hurt. Or killed.

[thermalwind]

I won't be IN the blast zone.

Relax. I can see exactly how this works now. It's earth tech. Old earth tech.

[thegoofball]

How would you have been able to predict the blast zone when you weren't even sure what kind of bomb you were dealing with yet???

What's earth tech doing on here, though?

[thermalwind]

I have no idea what Earth tech is doing here. Especially stuff this far back in our history.

It's like that here. Stuff seems to come from all realities and times just like us.

[thegoofball]

Please don't talk about other realities.

I mean I know that's HAPPENING here but I don't want to be reminded of Slav.

[thermalwind]

Let's just never bring him up at all.

Ever.

So, we know what our jobs are right now. Let's focus and get them done.

[thegoofball]

It's too hard to forget him. I've tried so much.

But you have a point. I'll meet you there?

[thermalwind]

Yeah. On my way.

[yourattention]

somebody set us up the bomb
all your base are belong to us

[this is his only source of entertainment guys]

[thermalwind]

all your base?
What does that mean?

[yourattention]

[some people respond to things normally. other people spending an unreasonable amount of time painstakingly drawing chalk replicas of memes.]

[thermalwind]

??

Okay?

[He...doesn't get it. This will be embarrassing to him later on. Right now just confusing.]

[piercetheheart]

[Next time he visits the ST he's just striking out every `lus` you add onto his name, Laurent. Stop being so formal. It's Gladio, geez.]

[crosslaced]

[WHO'S VANDALISING HIS MESSAGE AND GLADIO'S NAME SPECIFICALLY???

within the next 24 hours he's changing it back!!!!]