open.

[luaithre]

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: Late night evacuation drill
WHEN: Early Harvestmere, don't think about it too hard
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: See OOC note below.

Lashes of rain batter at unyielding fortress walls. It is dark, quiet, and peaceful save for all the rolling thunder summoned from over the sea. It is a good evening to be warm in bed.

Until it isn't a couple of those things.

Wherever you are sleeping (or working) late at night in the Gallows, you will hear it: an incessant and noisy bell ringing, handheld, clanging and clanging loud and obnoxious from the top of each tower and downwards, lingering in the key residential halls until there is sign of people emerging from their rooms. Gwenaëlle has been assigned to harass the Central Tower, while Abby takes the Mage Tower and Matthias is assigned the Templar Tower. Even if you happen not to be in either of these places, the muffled cacophony of bells is liable to still reach you.

It may take a second to realise what's happening, and how real this emergency is, but in the past week, all will have received some suspiciously timed updates as to evacuation procedures, including the protocols surrounding what to do when the instruction is to shelter in place (because they do, after all, live in a fortress).

The first step is moving without hesitation when the warning bells ring out loud. The next is to descend the towers, down dim stairwells lit by lyrium glow, in as orderly a fashion as possible. From there, it's a matter off finding the correct subterranean chamber (tonight, indicated with lamplight) and waiting it out.

At least, this route does not take them outside.

In the basement chamber will be Edgard and Marcus, the former equipped with a medieval clipboard and the latter marking the time in his head as people enter, while semi-supervising the other man's work and guarding the exit. The space is large enough to comfortably fit the whole company, although it is also cold, dripping, and musty. There are places to sit, chairs and tables both, and a few blankets if you find yourself underdressed.

And if you attempt to leave too early, you'll be bid to wait it out a little longer to accommodate and cause no disruption or confusion to late comers.

To encourage this, there are a few bottles of wine set aside along with some lukewarm tea. Stay a while.

[ ooc ; feel free to top level at any part of this interaction! I will handwave the cooperation of anyone who doesn't tag in or assume they are out of the Gallows, so don't feel like you have to, but there is also a comment below for anyone who deliberately wants to be on the naughty list of no-shows. ]

Comments

naughty list.

[luaithre]

Confess.

[exequy]

Part naughty for absolutely refusing to wait it out in the party dungeon and going to hang out with his possessed corpse family instead while in a groggy snit.

gwenaëlle ; central tower ; open.

[elegiaque]

( very few things recently have made gwenaëlle quite as happy as being handed a bell and told to go and cause a ruckus. once unleashed from their preparations to go and chaotically rouse the central tower, gwenaëlle collects hardie from la souveraineté and muffles her bell, the pair of them walking softly and quietly up to the very top of the tower where the division heads' offices and, importantly, private quarters are located.

hardie understands quiet. gwenaëlle has come and gone from this tower often enough over the years to know exactly where and how to put her feet to be quiet, all the way up, right until—

hardie also understands loud. the first clattering of metal on metal nearly rattles her own teeth, and she laughs, and snaps her fingers— )

Hardie, rugir!

( if someone in the central tower — division heads, their partners, any late-night workers in the office spaces below — somehow manages to ignore the bells, there's also the absolutely incessant barking of an enormous shepherd dog who's been told to let fucking rip. )

[hassaran]

[ The door to the Scouting office opens between the fourth and fifth barks, jerked wide enough for Yseult to stick her head out, still freeing her hair from the collar of her dressing gown. Gwen and Hardie get a look that is, just for a second, unguardedly murderous, before she steps back and shuts the door again.

A dozen barks later it re-opens, Darras exiting first with a waggle of eyebrows at Gwenaëlle and a pat for the dog if permitted before heading down the stairs. Yseult's a couple barks behind him, the mess of loose hair corralled into a thick braid, skirt and slightly wrinkled blouse beneath her dressing gown now and a sheaf of files under one arm, as if this disruption had caught her toiling away by candlelight instead of in bed. ]

The dog is unnecessary, [ she comments on her way, the earlier flare of temper tamped down to dry irritation. ] Was that Rowntree's idea or yours?

[elegiaque]

( hardie gladly submits to being petted, briefly diverted from barking as loudly as he can directly at flint's door — possibly in the hopes that the man with treats will reward him for doing such a good job — and gwenaëlle says, )

Mine, ( probably predictably, ) I think he adds something. There's no missing him,

( though the bell she's still ringing will also do that, thoroughly making the rounds of the top floor before she starts downward on terrorising those that haunt the offices late into the night.

they'll probably already be awake, but that's not likely to make this any less unpleasant. )

marcus, basement, ota.

[luaithre]

Throughout much of the sheltering, Marcus can be found near the front door. He has with him an aging wolfhound who has taken to lying down near his feet, slightly more judgmental of everyone filing in than the human who brought him here and gave him a blanket to chill out on. It had occurred to Marcus a little too late that procedures around what to do with people's pets are somewhat lacking—something to work out for next time—and had, instead, opted to induct Vysvolod into supervision rather than participation.

For his part, he is also supervising, dressed neatly and warmly, and well awake. He has a cup of tea in hand and is disinclined to speak to anyone unprompted, unless they have question, comment, or complaint. He does, however, make private note of everyone who comes through the doors, assessing their performance.

At a certain point, he will roam over to Edgard and advise he start marking any new arrivals as late.

It won't be until some time has passed after the last person has entered that he will raise his voice enough to announce, "Alright, you can clear out," with a nod of his head to the door. Thanks for playing.

[hassaran]

Yseult and Darras are the first occupants of the central tower down the stairs, though as there are at least a half-dozen more flights involved than for most people, that still doesn't put them ahead of the pack. She's done an excellent job creating the impression that this drill interrupted some late-night work, from the lightly rumpled clothes and the handsome, blue-patterned robe thrown over them to the stack of files tucked under an arm, but the effect is diminished somewhat by the tell-tale pillow-mark running parallel to her right ear.

She enters, finds a seat at one of the tables, and gets back ('back') to work. At some point, when there is a lull in arrivals, she rises, gives the wine a cursory look and touches the back of a knuckle to the tea pot, and then approaches Marcus. Her expression and tone are as civil as ever, and the cross of her arms against chest is (likely, mostly) more a reflection of the room's temperature rather than her own.

In an undertone, carefully pitched not to carry: "In future, please inform the Division Heads in advance of the date and time for these drills. We'll participate to set a good example, but tonight's approach was unnecessary."

[luaithre]

There is no visible indication that Marcus is enjoying himself, but for a man who has taken a post more or less by himself to observe those coming through, he doesn't seem bored either. He is working on a cup of plain tea, occasionally breaking form to harass Vysvolod by nudging a paw with the edge of his boot, which mostly gets a disgruntled whine and readjustment from the wolfhound.

When Yseult approaches, Marcus' focus shifts, narrows, posture straightening. Maybe she's come over here to tell him he's doing a good job.

When that isn't the case, Marcus takes a second to process this request, the way it is delivered in quiet aside, and matches tone in kind to ask, seriously: "Why?"

I said I would tag marcus

[sprent]

So it's not enough that he lights candles with magic, but he also keeps a dog? Gela looks at it warily when she steps over to speak. She shares the same unkempt, sleepy look as the vast majority of her peers, hair out, half in her face. She does not have shoes on and her socks got dew-wet outside, in the courtyard.

"Pardon," she says, more yawn than word, "I have a question."

Marcus is not the one with the list of names beside him, but she knows him as one generally in charge of things so, "Are you the best to ask?"

the prophecy foretold

[luaithre]

Marcus is perfectly awake, which is as much a comment as his preparedness for this evening as it is someone wholly used to standing around watchfully well into the late-turned-early hours. It could be tempting to go seek out some favourable company while he waits, but it doesn't truly occur to him to do so, simultaneously on guard and at ease.

So he does, at least, appear to be on some kind of duty, clipboards or not, and looks to Gela as she approaches. "Aye," he says, just deciding that's true. "What is it?"

Better late than never

[muckspout]

Edgard strides over to Marcus, biting his lip a little, looking at his list.

"Don't want to alarm you." He says under his breath and strikes the parchment twice.

"But--this list looks a little...short."

[luaithre]

Marcus holds out a hand for it. He may have lost his Trade, but he can at least see how many marks are made against a list of other marks.

"I'll save the alarm for a real emergency," he says. "And we're not a large company, besides."

abby, mage tower (open)

[armd]

Abby, for her part, sent her dog away before she even attempted to sneak up the mage tower stairs, because he cannot play quiet games. He isn't too sure of why he's being turfed loose in the wee small hours of the morning but he doesn't stick around to find out. He's off in one direction, Abby the other, and then she gets to relish the burn in her thighs gained from taking the stairs up and up and up, two at a time. S'good exercise.

Fuck, she's tired.

She leans on the wall while she waits, eyes closed, and when she hears the first bell start to go that's her cue to start. She's going to ring it. For a really long time. And really hard. In fact if somebody wanted to come up and tell her to stop and that they get it already, they could do that.

Or catch her slinking down the stairs later, when she's absolutely sure that she's going to be the last one out the tower...

catches u

[altusimperius]

Shuffling out of the group quarters just as Abby slinks down, Benedict has the frazzled and nervous bearing of someone who has no reason to believe this isn't a real emergency, and who would be rather afraid for his own skin under such circumstances.

"What's going on," he asks timidly, hurrying over to her, arms tightly wrapped around his middle.

is catched

[armd]

She shouldn't. But she's gonna.

"Sacrifice," she says grimly. He looks small, when he isn't decked to the nines and walking around with his chin in the air. "Corypheus sent word. We have to pick somebody with shiny black hair."

wags recovery unit in position

[laruetheday]

Dogs, being one of Ares' sacred animals, tend to like Clarisse. Clarisse has never been the kind of person who'd have a pet, she's too busy for that shit, but if she had to pick one... it would be something badass, like a venomous snake. But a dog would be her second choice.

Anyway, she's not sure what time it is. Late. It doesn't matter; after that evacuation drill, she's sure she won't be going back to sleep tonight. There's a dog following her as she makes her way slowly back toward the tower, and she's been throwing a stick for it for the last little while, idly, wasting time on purpose. She figures it belongs to somebody here, and is sort of hoping they run into whoever that person is before she has to either leave the dog alone down here or end up temporarily abducting someone's pet.

"We need to find you a toy that squeaks, so you can pretend you're killing little animals and shit," she's saying as Wags drops the stick at her feet.

copy that unit, stand-by

[armd]

Wagner is sacred to nobody, but he likes anybody who will throw things for him to run after. Clarisse can throw a stick far. The first few times he barks anxiously the entire time he's chasing it, high-pitched and puppyish, and then he goes silent, now deep in concentration.

His tail is going like crazy by the time that Abby finds them, her hands descending to her hips. She looks tired too, but not like she sprang out of bed half-clothed to be here. Notably, she has shoes on.

"Sorry," she says, raising an eyebrow at Clarisse. She jerks a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the dog, who is waiting patiently for the stick to be thrown again, "This guy bothering you?"

flint + silver.

[hornswoggle]

The Stairwell.

Perhaps other members of Riftwatch are compelled to some kind of urgency by the combined power of sonorous bell-ringing above and below, and the cacophonous barks of an Anderfels shepherd. It is certainly a combination meant to motivate. How quickly can one descend from their respective sleeping quarters down to the specified meeting place?

Of course, all provided motivation doesn't account for obstructions on the third floor landing.

Here, if one isn't careful rounding their corners, they might trample straight into a pair of dawdling individuals. (At one's own peril, surely.)

John Silver has set his shoulders back against the curved wall, crutch pinned between elbow and ribs so as to afford him two hands with which to tip and point a finger onto an item on the slightly crumpled sheet of parchment so as to more clearly display a name to Commander Flint who is currently attempting to both lean close enough to read the page and not to block the glow of the nearest lyrium light.

"Here, you see? We marked it off as a possibility at the time, but I think she'd be more interested in at least a discussion considering the developments in Antiva—"

No, neither of them seem inclined to move aside. Yes, it's a small hallway, and yes, they are taking up a fair portion of it, but the look interlopers receive for their inconvenience carries a clear message: go around

Party Dungeon.

They're late.

To be fair, one of them is among Riftwatch's most senior members and the other is a man with one leg and there are a considerable number of stairs between the Division offices and this soggy basement room, though that probably wouldn't pass muster in a real emergency. Presumably it puts both Silver and Flint on Marcus's naughty list.

Minor misbehavior aside, the two of them promptly set themselves up in a vacant corner (if there are no such corners, Flint creates one with a stormy look). A half occupied table is robbed of its spare chairs, a half empty bottle of cheap wine is commandeered, and the last clean cup to be had is forced to do double duty between them. There, the two of them fall back into some previous conversation in progress. Under the surly carping of all of Riftwatch's company pressed into a single dreary basement room, snatches of the exchange may very well be overhead or interrupted:

"If Bassadoar hasn't managed to hire anyone else to do the job before now, I have my doubts that us miraculously locating and managing to return the boy will produce anything of real value in return."

Or—

"It's beneficial for the account, of course, but the discontent has stretched on long enough that I don't imagine it'll be soothed by illicitly-traded goods. The complaints are old, and I've heard variations on all of them since we've been here, but the combination of refugees arriving near-daily and the cost of basic goods are only exacerbating them."

Or—

"Let us assume what Rutyer says is possible is. My question then becomes, for how long? The hand ruling Ferelden may be contingent on the continued approval of its Banns, but it would be foolish to think that Anora's choice of consort won't hold some sway in the matter."

party dungeon.

[cozen]

From a nearby table, head pillowed on his folded arms, Bastien lifts his hand to wave in their direction. He’s both too floppy and too polite to snap his fingers or point, so a doodly sort of hand wiggle will have to serve as signal of intent to interject, as soon as he’s emerged from the fog of his half-nap.

Quarter-nap, really, at best. Shallow enough for Rutyer (of course) to have cut right through the other conversations he's been following. He doesn't sleep in crowds. If he needed to he could be wide awake in a second or two. But in the absence of need: sleepy.

He turns his head so as to be audible before he says, “If I do my job, we might have a say. In the consort.” As he yawns, an adjustment of the fingers on his raised hand to illustrate, “A little one.”

He hasn’t opened his eyes, and he folds his arm back beneath his head. He would be perfectly content with that being his only contribution.

[katabasis]

If there is a look cut in Silver's direction, it's reflexive—barely there at all, and impossible to parse if what motivates it is some shred of annoyance at being made to have this conversation where someone might interrupt it if he wishes to continue it at all, or whether he's satisfied with having hooked a fish on some baited hook.

Regardless, some subtle but notable shift in the angle of Flint's shoulder follows. It suggests: fine. Apparently room can be made for an outside opinion.

"Has there been any sign that the field of prospects is narrowing?"

Jude | Open + Closed to Viktor

[foolsmakeitcolder]

In the Dark (Open):

Jude is... large, furry, and currently yawning pathetically, enough to do that high little canine whine, pinning his ears back. Once he's down in the cellar with the others, (toting along a man who clearly needed some help getting here) he circles around the parameter, giving everyone a perfunctory sniff to assure himself that they're all accounted for.

It's in the manner of someone very used to these sorts of goings-on, but not quite satisfied with how it went.

And at some point, he retreats into the shadows of the room, one of the blankets clasped delicately in his teeth.

He returns wearing it casually knotted around his waist, barefoot and obviously nude beneath it.

"Cold down here," he mumbles conversationally, to whichever unlucky soul managed to either glimpse or possibly even hear his extremely gross transformation.


Wolf Express (Closed to Viktor):

There's an agreed-upon place that Jude's familiar with. When the original orders about the drill had dropped, Jude had quietly offered himself as an extra set of hands for anyone unable to get themselves to safety.

Seriously, though. This whole place is a screaming ADA violation.

Though he hasn't had occasion to meet Viktor in person, he's familiar with his voice on the crystals. His accent and his coded speech. And Jude figures it's best to arrive not looking like something dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm.

So he throws on a pair of loose-fitting breeches, meets Viktor at the end of the hallway, barefoot and bare-chested.

"Viktor?" he says, with a friendly smile, holding a hand out to shake. He's a tall, muscled man, comfortable with both of those things, aware that others might not be.

"Jude. I'll be your ride down to the evac location this evening."

[grindset]

There's an agreed-upon place. A time, more or less: once the bells begin. He has his crystal, and a plan to use it:

Hello. This is Viktor. As I understand it, you have been assigned to the position of my babysitter. I must now inform you that I am approaching the stairs. Then he'd pause, and add, I am approaching the stairs.

Not as satisfying as it would be to deliver directly to Marcus, but he'd have taken it... were the babysitter not already here.

Jude receives a once-over, uncertain, framed by dark circles and hooded brow, and punctuated by a working of lips, brief and tight. I'll be your ride. Really. The hand is observed last of all; in unspoken demurral, Viktor merely tucks his thumb over the point of his crystal and puts it away.

"Is it laundry day?"

In spite of the hour, Viktor himself is fully clothed.

Matthias, Templar Tower || OTA

[inkindled]

Matthias wasn't born to ring this bell, but he might as well have been.

Or at least, that's the intensity and focus with which he is performing this task. He takes the stairs at a methodical pace. In front of closed doors he stops, to ring the bell with particular focus and intent, very direct and personal and, yes, loud.

"Get up! Get up! Get downstairs!" It's a general call, but if any sleepy bedraggled residents of the tower poke their heads out to see what all the noise is about, Matthias makes sure to shout it in their direction, and ring the bell in their direction too.

And--no one asked this of him--but he makes sure to be loud on the stairs as well. The steady clomp of his boot runs underneath the ringing of the bell, steady on the way up, rushed on the way down as the momentum of his steps carries him along.

[portalling]

Oh god, he just got here, and now all this.

One of the bedroom doors opens (noted on the list of residents: one S. Strange, who hadn’t been in occupancy just a month ago), and a bleary-eyed middle-aged man pokes his head out. He’s in his socks, the neck of his shirt unlaced, rumpled and barely dressed. He’d practically fallen out of bed at the noise, jarred from the still-unfamiliar surroundings, waking up with the most panicked jolt he’s experienced here so far.

“What? What’s happening?” Strange asks, squinting at that very loud, very insistent bell and the very loud, very insistent teenager brandishing it. “Do we go to battle stations, or—”

Barrow, basement OTA

[thereneverwas]

No stranger to military exercises (though it has been a while), Barrow managed to get himself mostly kitted out-- at least in proper trousers, boots, and a gambeson-- before shuffling down the stairs to find there was no emergency.

But no harm done. He sits in a chair with his back to the wall, leaning to the side with his head and shoulder resting against a vertical support beam, snoring gently.