(no subject)

[aluminumandash]

[ RE419S | TEXT | 001 ]

[ After the message (warning?) has blared two successive times, Rust waits about an hour and sends: ] Progress on locating unauthorized transport?



[ OOC: Threadjack to your heart's content! ]

Comments

[hyakuoku]

It isn't paper anymore, just mush that used to be paper.

I found it in a tidepool covered in barnacles so I'm fairly confident that's where it came from. It wasn't at the mouth of the river or anything.

[aluminumandash]

Just where do you think paper comes from? Can reconstitute it, dry it out and use it for kindling.

Be worth mapping the sky.

[hyakuoku]

I know damn good and well where paper comes from.

Mapping the sky isn't a bad idea though. Probably take a group effort but I don't think it's impossible.

[aluminumandash]

Just forgot, huh? [ Things that were apparently worth laboriously typing out. ]

What you know about ink?

[hyakuoku]

As if I ever would. But it's pulpy, which won't be good for kindling. Maybe in a super pinch it would serve but as far as STARTING a fire, it's beyond my skill level without some more stuff that isn't soaking wet. That whole rubbing sticks together thing isn't as easy as it looks in movies.

[ HE SHOULD KNOW, he sucks at doing it. He had to rig a whole pulley system to do it when he first revived at home, and that was better circumstances than here in some ways.

But point taken, he'll keep the paper mush for awhile. ]

What kind of ink? Synthetic or organic? That's a broad question.

[aluminumandash]

Best go with reconstitution then. What's your skill level?

Consider the here and now.

[hyakuoku]

I'm a scientist. This is pretty broken down but I'd give it a go with the right kind of setup. Just drying it out won't give us much to go on, though, unless there are deep impressions from writing.

You're asking me if I can find a way to read the ink that was on the pages despite the water damage? That's exciting. Depending on the kind of ink, a UV or infrared light could show us something. I don't have one on me and I doubt anyone has the right stuff to make such a thing immediately, but...

[aluminumandash]

[ This is such an onslaught of borderline-sci-fi bullshit in response to a simple fucking question that it takes Rust half a minute to comprehend what he's reading. Infrared light? How about a canteen, a shirt that doesn't have twenty fucking buttons and isn't soaked with sweat?

But—easy as it is for him to dismiss all optimism as blind—he recognizes, maybe, the need to get at the heart of things. To know. ]

Listen man, I just want a piece of paper and something to write with besides my own blood. [ Other blood: not off the table! ]

What do you have on you?

me googling the wildest shit to come to this answer

[hyakuoku]

[ He would be SO OFFENDED to have his thoughts considered anywhere near sci-fi, gosh!

But he reassesses; his assumption of what this guy was going for was wrong. Fair enough. ]

Hm. Nothing that would make ink on its own. To make ink with what I have on me, I'd need oak galls and some kind of iron.

[ HAS HE DONE THIS BEFORE? You betcha! ]

Let's not resort to blood immediately, though. In a pinch we can just use a dark fruit like a berry with a feather or hollow reed or plant stalk as a pen. It's less permanent but any port in a storm.