ORIGIN

V-Onyx-Two picked his way through the rubble. This devastation--whatever had wrought it--was old. Time, mostly, he guessed to himself, as he stepped over a pile of worn, gray brick. His eyes flicked up, wary and empty, taking in his surroundings like twin mirrors. All of it--just time. Well... most of it, he amended to himself, gaze falling on a closer building.

Here, a swathe of destruction had been carved. Something more recent, he thought. Something had blackened a wide stretch of buildings in a straight line right across the ancient city. A fire? But stone did not burn--did it? Strange. Jaw set, Onyx-Two moved into the shadows of one of the ruins, ducking beneath a decayed roof to search its ground floor. These places are ancient. Abandoned for centuries, at least, he mused to himself. A flick of his shining sickle caught a chunk of stone, and flipped it. Nothing lay beneath, and he moved on, pushing back his black hood to better see. It didn't help much. This place was dark; the unlit interiors of the abandoned buildings, doubly so.

With a stifled sigh he tried to call upon his magicka. Maybe it would shine on something he'd missed.

The light came brilliantly bright, so much so that after the pitch darkness, Onyx-Two had to squint to let his eyes adjust. But he did see a dim shine at the back of the room, nestled down among the rocks: old stoneware, and... There. A gemstone, dim brown; a Stolzite.

Dead, but he didn't know that; no life lingered. All he could do was bring it back to the Merchant and hope for the best.

"I need pockets," he murmured to himself aloud. "Or a pouch." He'd not thought to ask the Tailor for such a thing when getting the robes designed; he hadn't known, then, what pockets were. Time spent now and then at the Palace had rectified that ignorance, but too late. He had to sheathe one sickle at the leather loop at his sash, then simply carry the stone in one hand as he continued his search.

He stepped carefully out of the building after a cursory further search, moving across the blackened alleyway and into another. The orb he brought with him, a glowing ball just overhead. A few feet into the building, he stepped just wrong--his foot catching between two stones and twisting, pitching him down across the uneven rocks. He fell--hard--his other sickle clattering away, a cry of pain (quite undignified) escaping him, winding up on his back with his robe over his head.

It took him a moment to pull it away, huffing; then to right himself and to find his sickle in the dark.

He'd lost his damn orb, too, in the moment of lost concentration. How irritating.

He pushed up with a hiss, noting as he did so the ache in his knees. They'll bruise. He hiked up his robe and trousers in an undignified manner--both knees were scratched up in a way he'd not seen since he'd been a single cycle old.

Angered now, he dropped the cloth and looked around. He'd managed to keep hold of the gemstone, at least, but the sickle he had to pick back up; he grasped it in one hand and fired a glower around the room. After a moment he raised the sickle slightly--the wisp orbiting it providing some light, at least--and tried to summon up his glowing orb again.

The light bloomed once more, albeit more weakly--still, it was enough to search by. With a grunt he pushed forward, picking over the rest of this building's ancient, dusty ruins. All he found was a small chunk of teal-colored Amazonite--slightly radioactive and entirely nonmagical. Unaware, he tucked this gemstone in with the first and continued his search.

It took him some time to find something more. He maneuvered more carefully, now, stepping softly and slowly as he threaded his way along long-empty streets to pick through the ghostly buildings. He found and pushed aside old items that were clearly not magical in nature--an old stone dinner plate, an abandoned scrap of metal, and a couple other small things.

At last he found another gemstone--the barest, dust-covered glint in a darkened room. He knelt and picked it up, studying it. It was a Dravite, though he didn't know the name; alive, though he didn't know that, either. It was the color of cola--a deep brown that, when his light shone through it, gleamed translucent and more orange. He didn't know what cola was, either, though. He tucked the stone in with the other two, unaware that only now did he have something to really show for his efforts--and then moved on.

He spent hours more picking through the rubble. Most of the little objects he found were in no way magical, though he ended up (ignorant of this fact) carrying armfuls of them regardless. At last, he'd reached one end of the city. One more brief search found a small, polished hunk of veined Turquoise--pretty, but again entirely unmagical.

Oblivious, V-Onyx-Two added this to his armfuls, and turned from Orion.

A few beats of black wings saw him lifting 'sky'ward, gliding out over the ruined city, and out beyond toward the tunnel. He'd head to Hydra and turn all this in; obviously some of it would be worthwhile. Right..?