Worldbuilding (IC)

[Electra]

North of the seaside mansions of North Bay, north of the airport and its assorted outbuildings, the press of the city falls away. The airport traffic leads to a profusion of warehouses and expediters, the occasional hotel, sort of a semi-industrial wasteland that is mostly parking lots and roads, punctuated by patches of sickly grass. It's like a million other urban regions in a thousand other cities, except that this region is right next to the Great Bay, opening onto the Atlantic Ocean.

This summer, Freedom City experienced a lot of hot and dry days early in the summer. The dirt dried out, the ground cracked. The scrubby grass shriveled and died in the heat, letting the ground bake into dry sheets. Then, three days of hard rain hit the East Coast, soaking the city and that baked, hard ground. Suddenly, the top layer of ground was nothing but mud, on top of those baked sheets of dirt. All it too was a little momentum, and suddenly a massive chunk, the size of several football fields, of low-rent Freedom City real estate slid right into Great Bay. That was bad enough, but the fact that a grocery store, a school, and a couple of warehouses were left teetering on the edge of that new cliff just made things worse. If something wasn't done, another storm could wash away a lot more.

[Fox]

Aaahhh, busywork. It's a wonderful thing. Tarrant sat behind the front desk of his afternoon class, feet propped up on a spare chair while his students sorted through boxes of rocks. With the happy sigh of a professor who doesn't have anything harder to do than supervise, he reached out and flicked on the quiet little radio he kept on his desk.

-ain continues to pour. In late breaking news, we've received reports that there's been a large mud or landslide on the north end of the city. Officials are mobilizing but inside sources say the weather is not going to make their job easy. With more buildings still at risk our hearts go out to the citizens in the area and we can only ho-

He turned the radio back off, swinging his feet back to the ground and clapping his hands to get the students' attention. "Class dismissed! Sounds like the rain's not letting up - get back to your homes before we flood or something, hm?" Grinning, he strolled off to the door, speaking without turning around. "Oh, and Kyle? That sample belongs back in its box, not your pocket. You know it's fool's gold, right? Don't live up to its name."

A few minutes to get to his car, a bit more to change, and he was flying on a slab rock towards the disaster. So glad this coat sheds water.

[Electra]

It was easy to tell where the landslide had happened, dark dirt and clay showing like an open wound against the cityscape. There was a knot of emergency vehicles there, police and firefighters securing the scene, utility workers trying to secure power and gas lines. There was one other oddly dressed person on the scene as well, a small woman in a green tunic and trousers with a brown hooded cape, walking along the edge of the pit. She shaded her eyes and waved at the new arrival flying in.

[Fox]

Gaian Knight slumped a little, sitting cross-legged on his rock and eyeing the wound he could almost feel. Oof. You always trust the earth under your feet until it's just not there anymore.

Sweeping in towards the waving woman, he chuckled, talking loudly to be heard over the rain. "You're either here for the same reason I am, or you have very interesting fashion sense! Anything important I've missed? Besides, y'know." He waved a hand out towards the muddy scar.

[Electra]

"I just got here myself," she told him with a bright smile, "and right now I'm wishing I had an umbrella as part of my costume instead of just a hood. Can you believe this weather? My name's Fleur de Joie, by the way. I'm just trying to shore up this cliff before any more of it falls into the ocean." She gestured to the cliff face, where a layer of tough grass was attempting to punch its way down through mud and dry soil to sink its deep roots into the shaky earth. It grew and spread even as they watched, but seemed a flimsy bandage at best. "I'm hoping somebody who can do more comes along. Is that you?"

[Fox]

He blinked, pulling his goggles up and taking a better look at the grass he'd dismissed as...grass. "....I will never complain about my lawn again. I'm Gaian Knight, 's a pleasure to meet you. And yeah, I can probably...hm." He backed his platform up a bit, trying to get a better look at the cliff face, almost looking right through it. He crossed his arms, frowning. "If your plants have something more solid to grow on, can they help keep this thing together?"

[Electra]

"If they had more lawn around here, and especially more trees, this wouldn't have happened," Fleur said grimly. "It was really only a matter of time." She noticed suddenly that he seemed to be using a large rock as a platform to fly on. She hoped that meant good things for putting this cliff back together. "If we can put this cliff back together, I should be able to sink enough plant life into it to keep it stable," she told him. "But it'll take a little while, at least twenty minutes to do a good job of it. Can you get it back into place?"

[Fox]

This is exactly what happens when civil planners don't pay attention in class. Knight grinned, though it was a little hard to tell behind the cloth over his mouth. "Dunno. One way to find out. Give me a second, here...this is gonna be a lot of stuff to move around."

Giving her a quick salute, he flew away a decent distance, about halfway up the cliff. Pulling his goggles back down over his eyes, he put his hands on his knees and floated there like some kind of yogi or shaman, head bowed. The only sign he was doing anything at all was he and his seat glowing softly in the rain, water running off the platform in miniature waterfalls.

[Electra]

As she waited to see what Gaia Knight was going to do, Fleur pulled back her grass army to the edge of the broken ground, even as she prepared a handful of seeds from her pouch. Theoretically, this should all work, it was basic ecological theory that a sound and deep root system prevented mudslides. Even so, she debated calling in Dark Star, who could surely shore up the cliff for as long as necessary. But there was flooding elsewhere, and he was off rescuing people. She and Gaia Knight could handle this on their own, surely. "Just tell me when," she called.

[Fox]

For a few more seconds there was only the rain and the soft glow. Then the first few chunks of fallen cliff rose up out out of the bay, pulled up by some unseen force and waiting there like the massive ghosts of the fallen earth. From the smallest rocks to the biggest, remarkably-intact boulders and slabs of solid stone, most hung suspended in the air while the rest began assembling themselves like a massive jigsaw puzzle, gaps and cracks filled by serpent-like streams of mud and debris. Starting practically at Fleur's feet and spreading outward the ground was putting itself back together.

Gaian Knight didn't move a muscle, head bowed and legs crossed, tiny bits of stone breaking off his rock and cutting paths in the rain as they made little orbits around him.

[Electra]

As soon as the ground began to reassemble, Fleur went to work as well. She tossed a handful of seeds that began growing into trees impossibly quickly. She'd sorted Hickory and White Oak trees for the first set, trees that immediately set a deep, deep taproot and began growing out from there, knitting the soil together as they went. Grass began to race over the ground, not lawn grass but sturdy seagrass of the sort that held together sand dunes against wind and tide. Fleur had to sit down right on the muddy ground from the strain, but it seemed to be working.

[Fox]

As the reinforcing plants began their work the rest of the cliff started coming together faster - a whirl of stone and soil knitting itself into a unified patchwork. Gaian was reaching out for anything solid he could get his 'hands' on, now - boulders and bits of the original slide were joined by large chunks of rubble - bricks, cinderblocks, chunks of walls; if it was even remotely earthen it flew up to join the rest in rebuilding the damage.

As the last floating bits and pieces came together a series of solid rock columns sprouted out of the new landscape, carefully avoiding the growing greenery and spreading roots of their own across the surface like some absurd rocky plant growing upside-down. Their purpose was soon clear: mud and silt flowed in a small creeping wave up out of the bay, looking a great deal like a mudslide played backwards. Never thick enough to cover and suffocate the plants, the wet soil wrapped around the bases of trees, covered roots, and seemed to grab onto the sprouting stone just long enough to give seedlings a welcome home and be better-anchored to the more solid stonework underneath.

[Electra]

It took a bit longer than Fleur's promised twenty minutes, and by the end she was almost laying down in her patch of wet grass, but Gaian Knight could feel the cliff stabilizing and securing itself to the landmass. It looked like a nature preserve up top and had roots protruding all the way down. "I think it's good," she called up to him, pushing herself to sit up. "Can you tell if it's secure?"

[Fox]

Breathing a little heavily and very glad he started out already sitting, Gaian crossed his fingers, said a tiny prayer, and let his grip on the shored-up earth loosen. A little bit of the new soil shifted here and there - a plant or two swayed as the ground settled - and he could feel some of the deeper support rocks sank a fraction of an inch...but that was it. Sighing in relief, he rubbed the back of his neck and flew back closer to Fleur. "Yeah, it'll hold. Your plants are doing a great job, and most of the foundation'll stick together 'cos I told it to. For the next few weeks, anyway...time enough for it to settle down and deal with the weather."

The bottom half of his platform broke off, broke apart, and reassembled into a broad, thin roof of sorts which hung in the air over Fleur's head. Chuckling, he looked around at the small park that used to be real estate. "Better than it used to be, even. You and I did a pretty awesome job, if I may say so myself."

[Electra]

"Indeed. Very nicely done," Fleur agreed with a tired smile, lifting a hand for a high five. "They won't be able to build anything on this, and they'd better not cut everything down again, but maybe they can let the school kids run around on it, or just let it grow wild. At least the rest of the ground is safe, and all those buildings." When it became obvious to the observers behind the caution tape that the work was done, they began cheering and clapping for both the show and the assistance. Fleur turned and waved at the crowd, grinning over at her compatriot. "I haven't seen you around before. Are you new in town?"

[Fox]

Gaian grinned, mud pulling away from his hand before he met the high-five. "Place needed some sprucing up anyway." He gave the crowd a little salute, chuckling. "Sort of. A little new, but I've been doing my part for a month or two now. The, uh, big wall that kept the Centery Bridge from falling a while ago? That was me. Usually try not to draw that much attention."

"I feel like I ought to know you by name, if you can do stuff like...well, like this." He chuckled again, pointing at a nearby tree. "Don't watch the news as much as I should, I guess."

[Electra]

"Most of the time my work is a lot lower key," Fleur replied with a laugh. "I do a lot of park beautification, perk up gardens, help clear smog, things like that. I'm on the Freedom League auxiliary, but other than that, I don't do a lot of high profile hero work. Still, I'll know who to look for if I ever need some really hardcore landscaping done! Here." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a card with her codename and cell phone number on it. "Here, if you ever need any help, don't hesitate to call, okay? We all have to help each other out."

[Fox]

He nodded, and tucked it away in his coat where it'd be dry and safe, and grinned. "Thanks...I'd offer you a card, but I don't really have one." That doesn't have my real name on it.... "Should think about that, apparently. In the meantime...hm."

Snapping his fingers, he dug around in his coat for a moment, caming up with a dry bit of blank paper and a pencil; he noted a building and box number at Freedom City University on it. "Here. Not as good as a phone number, but I have a friend who works there and owes me a couple favors. Leave a note and she'll make sure it gets to me, one way or another."

[Electra]

Fleur grinned at him. "I appreciate it, but in an emergency, it might be nice to have a way to get in touch. If you ever get a dedicated phone number, give me a ring. And speaking of wringing," she grimaced, "I think it's about time to go home and squeeze a few gallons of water and mud out of my clothes. It was very nice meeting you. I hope we work together again sometime soon."

[Fox]

Groaning good-naturedly, Gaian waved. "Ugh. Don't remind me. That's the bad thing about spending so much time around dirt: you get mud in places you didn't know mud could go. A pleasure working with you, and I'll certainly see what I can do about that phone number. Good luck out there!" Saluting, Gaian collapsed the makeshift rock umbrella back into floating rock shards and returned them to his platform, taking off back towards the city proper.

Nice woman. I wonder if I can't get some grading done while my clothes dry out....