MOD PLOT ↠ STILL RISING, STILL DEVOURING

[faderifting]

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: Sea beasts!
WHEN: Justinian 9:49 (now)
WHERE: Ostwick, Kirkwall, and the Amaranthine Ocean
NOTES: OOC post here! CW for some cruelty/violence toward mythological monsters/animals and also one ferryman. Use other CWs in your subject lines as appropriate.

I. INTERVENTION AT OSTWICK

The earliest reports from Riftwatch's contacts among the coastal Free Marches arrive in a confusing tangle in hours before dawn. The Venatori have taken Hercinia—no, a dragon has only destroyed a little piece of it—no, wait, yes, a dragon, but a dragon from the sea—wait, no, maybe pirates? Scratch that. Sea dragon, Venatori involvement, and ships and something massive moving west into the Waking Sea.

That is all the information Riftwatch has when it begins loading hastily woken people and griffons onto ships at sunrise to set out to intercept whatever it is, doing whatever it is trying to do, before it does more of it wherever it is trying to go.

Fortunately/unfortunately, those questions quickly answer themselves.

Scouts on griffons flying ahead of Riftwatch's ships spot the disturbance in Ostwick's harbor before they reach the city. Churning water, crunching wood, shouts of terror, and most of all an enormous shell, encrusted with stripes of spiky red crystals, housing something with an over-abundance of mandibles that it's using to funnel whatever it can reach toward its even more overabundant spiky teeth and a long spike of a tail lashing dangerously behind it. The huge tentacles of a giant octopus, encrusted with red barnacles, flatten boats with a slap, and sweep the length of the quay to fling soldiers and fleeing citizens into the water. The sinuous length of a sea serpent darts in and out of sight, its writhing revealing patches of scales replaced by crystalline growth. Occasionally it rises out of the water to snatch someone off a deck with a snap of triangular jaws, or twines around the center of a small merchant vessel and squeezes, dragging it down beneath the water with a tremendous creak of wood strained to breaking and the screams of its crew, all quickly silenced.

These enormous beasts are the largest and most obvious problem, but not the only one. Outside the harbor are a half-dozen small Tevinter vessels, Venatori colors unfurled, keeping their distance from the scorpion-crab's spiky tail, and something else red and silver and massive lurking beneath the surface of the deeper water nearby. On the decks of several are pillared structures that look like lantern posts but are topped by large crystals of red lyrium. Between each set of these beacons are stood two figures: a mage with a lyrium-crusted staff and a strange helm of red lyrium, chains of the crystal strung like armor down chest and arms, and a Templar in an identical helm, armor studded with lyrium and cut to accommodate the crystals that grow out of arms and shoulders. If someone chances a close inspection, their eyes glow red and lips seem to move in unison.

Ostwick is putting up the best defense it could muster with little warning, but its first order of business was evacuating the naval ships in the harbor before any more could be destroyed and only after first scattering to safety are a few of those undermanned vessels circling back around behind the harbor-devouring monsters and engaging the Venatori ships. The city guard on ground evacuate civilians and those on the walls of the inner city send forth volleys of arrows that bounce uselessly off of scales and shells.

As soon as Riftwatch's ships arrive they will find themselves bombarded by small missiles too—a veritable school of flying fish, flinging themselves out of the water and over the deck of the Walrus and the Fancy. With razor-sharp wingfins and needle teeth, they are unpleasant to have at face-height in any circumstance, and like their larger comrades these too are encrusted with red lyrium, the crystals adding weight and cutting edge and the threat of madness and blight to any blow they manage to strike—so it would be very wise to avoid that.

The teeming waters become even more cramped and chaotic when the beast hiding beneath the water near the Tevinter ships, its nose terminating in a sword-like spike meters long, appears from the depths to skewer a small naval vessel attempting to make an escape. The spear punches clean through the ship's hull but becomes stuck, and the ship is tossed from side to side, slapped against the water, flinging debris and passengers and shockwaves as the beast thrashes wildly in an attempt to remove it, its plight blocking the harbor mouth.

Riftwatch's captains keep their ships back at a relatively safe distance just outside the harbor, launching all the griffon-riders they've been able to muster on short notice, and bringing to bear what ranged attacks they have: large deck-mounted crossbows require aiming and winding, and though their heavy bolts can punch through armor and even decking, the time it takes to prepare each shot makes catching the fast-moving sea monsters difficult. Flinging rocks and alchemical grenades in the stone-throwers is faster, but less accurate. Most of the work will fall to those on griffon-back or brave enough to take a launch through the chaos to the quayside or what remains of the piers, to attack the beasts from above or in even closer quarters.

For a time the battle is largely contained to the harbor, the sea monsters seemingly driven to do as much damage in the harbor as they can, dragging people into the water, the scorpion crab's barbed missiles punching holes in waterside buildings, and thrashing tentacles fling wreckage onto shore. Some of the trapped ships fight on, and welcome aid from Riftwatch reinforcements ferried by griffon to help them escape or evacuate their crews to shore.

When the swordnose and its wooden nose ring stop blocking the harbor a small pack of ships make a run for it, and at the same time Ostwick's navy attempts to re-engage, the battle spilling out into the sea before the harbor. The sea snake appears suddenly alongside the Walrus, water pouring from it as its angular head rises over the ship's middle and darts across, flinging its scaly bulk amidships. It lands with a thunderous crash and slides through the trough it has made in the rail, scales gliding and crystals scraping the hull as it coils around the vessel, preparing to crush and it drag it down into the deep unless Riftwatch hacks and magically blasts it free in time.

As Riftwatch finds ways to put down the great beasts, Ostwick succeeds in sinking two of the Venatori ships and the others flee east back into the Amaranthine. The sword-nosed monster flees after them, once again stuck to a boat, this time via a harpoon lodged in its side dragging along the small craft on the other end of the line like a flag signaling its position. Riftwatch at least briefly gives chase, and after a few miles it becomes clear that this is not blind escape—the beast is traveling constantly in a straight line, as if drawn by a magnet. Scouting ahead along that trajectory, Riftwatch will discover that there is indeed somewhere in particular it is heading.

II. CHAOS IN KIRKWALL

Meanwhile, in Kirkwall–

It is Gallows ferry rush hour, the time of day when people who live in the city or who just want to get out of the fortress for dinner pack onto the ferry between their little island and the Kirkwall docks. The ferry only has so many seats, and the day's ferryman–Murph–is the energetic and impatient variety of salty old man who waits for no one, so some may have just missed it and be left standing on the Gallows' docks, watching twenty minutes of their lives row away.

But it turns out they're the lucky ones, because when the dinghy and its passengers are midway to shore, there's a swell of water, and for a moment the odd absence of waves, before a massive reptilian head breaks the surface and smoothly snatches Murph off his perch at the back of the ferry and into its maw.

The enormous shell attached to the head follows close behind it, dragging the ferry along on its crest as the creature–an enormous snapping turtle, more or less, with a long neck and spots of red lyrium on its already-jagged shell–proceeds on its way, slowly emerging from the water as the rocky shallows require it to trade swimming for lumbering. For minute it's too busy eating (sorry Murph) to notice or care about the boat and passengers it is dragging along with it toward the city, but once it does it stops where it is and begins turning its serpentine head back in their direction, snapping the sharp ridges of its mouth at anything it can reach.

So that's the situation. Some number of Riftwatchers are trapped on the shell of a giant red lyrium snapping turtle that is only momentarily distracted from its march toward the docks, left with the choices of climbing onto its shell (while carefully avoiding the lyrium) or leaping into the water behind it and hoping it doesn't turn back in their direction. Others, watching back at the Gallows, may have the presence of mind to run for the eyrie, whether they're very good with the griffons or not, or go for one of the emergency boats kept behind the fortress. Those ashore have other options: the Kirkwall guard is quick to organize a defense, and the turtle is coming their way sooner or later, with or without ferry's worth of Riftwatch members stuck on its back.

In the midst of the chaos, it will take a keen eye or two to notice a two figures on the deck of an unmarked ship in the harbor whose ceaseless murmurs and quick, closely-held gestures give away their involvement. It is, specifically, spellcasting that picks up in speed and intensity whenever the turtle seems to be reconsidering the wisdom of its march toward the shore. Someone will have to do something about them, too.

III. COMMOTION IN THE OCEAN

Following the heading of the escaping sword-nosed monster leads Riftwatch to a strange sight. A mile or two off the end of a small chain of uninhabited islands is anchored a flotilla of loosely-connected ships arranged in a semi-circle. They fly no flags but it won't be difficult to guess at their allegiance—red lyrium beacons float on buoys, and on the deck of one ship is a pair wearing red lyrium helms and wielding red lyrium staves, seemingly calling the fleeing sea monster home.

Riftwatch's assault will take them by surprise. The place is guarded and manned by mages and Templars, several of them lyrium-augmented and capable of inhuman strength and stamina, the crystals growing from their bodies serving as both armor and weapon. Most of its denizens are at least somewhat combat trained, and nearly all will put up some sort of fight. But the majority don't seem to be soldiers and it isn't a big facility. It won't take nearly as long to kill or subdue its workforce as it did the monsters that it now appears may be their creations, or at least under their control.

At first, the semi-circle configuration of the vessels appears random, arranged around nothing but an unremarkable patch of ocean. But every so often something causes the surface at that point to roil, and at one point during the battle a wave races out from that point to rock the ships on their anchor chains sharply enough to send the unwary toppling to the deck before settling again.

When the assault ends, investigation of the site will find a curious combination of equipment, some appropriate to a fishing village, some familiar from Venatori research operations, and some strange apparatus of metal and glass and tubing. Cleansing runes inscribed into the exteriors of most of the ships, save one that appears to've been a barracks, bunks reinforced to accommodate the weight of bones studded by crystal growths, storage chest including a stock of red lyrium potions. Other chests contain armor and equipment corrupted with the same.

Eventually, someone will spot a strange vertical length of pipe near the rail on the central ship, at the point nearest the center of the semi-circle. One end travels through the deck, the other up to head height for a man, an angle just before the open top end inviting passers to step up and try looking in. Doing so will find it is a primitive periscope, its other end reflecting a scene beneath the water: a hill of dark rock broken open and glowing with magma along its fissures, flows of lava bubbling up from the spout and spreading slowly outward, occasionally heaved upwards with greater force. At first it may seem a trick of the light, dim and shifting with the waves above, but soon they will realize it is not just the orange-red of molten rock heated to boiling, but a brighter, deeper shade they've seen everywhere today: the red of tainted lyrium.

The good news is that this discovery means Riftwatch has minimal worries about tainting an untainted environment by burning, sinking, and otherwise dismantling the floating base and its red lyrium adornments. It's still a slow, careful undertaking, to avoid destroying any useful information or exposing anyone to the red lyrium in the process. Examining notes and underwater evidence will confirm that the Venatori were luring sea monsters to the volcano by drawing them in with food or distress calls, then casting spells to paralyze them. Wounding the animals while keeping them in close proximity to the underwater magma resulted in the wounds healing over with red lyrium crystals.

In the meantime those with any skill in cartography do their best to chart the location of the facility so they'll be able to find the volcano again without any sign of it above the water. And Riftwatch also takes time to check out each of the nearby islands—unpopulated and unaffected by the lyrium so far, on investigation, with some abandoned campsites that indicate the Venatori were using them to replenish food and fresh water for the operation but no lingering dangers. Once that's confirmed, Riftwatch is able to set up a camp on the beach of one of the islands and give anyone who needs it a break from sleeping on the ships for the remaining days of their demolition project.

Comments

flint | ostwick + venatori flotilla | ota

[katabasis]

i. ostwick - the sea serpent (one thread please; cw: man v sea serpent violence, i'm sure)

It stinks.

Of the acrid chemicals loaded into the clay pots and then into the miniature trebuchets bolted to the Walrus' deck, which burst across the armored plating and and glittering scales of titanic sea creatures in a howl of hot fire and a roil of choking white smoke. Of the red lyrium studded corpses of fish lodged against the railing's toe board and crammed in scuppers, too complicated to throw back by hand in the chaos and now growing rapidly putrid in the summer sun. Of sweat and salt and, even here where their ranged work sees them only barking at the edge of the assault, that ubiquitous stench of blood and bile which follows all work like this.

'She's turning!' comes the call from the foremast, and is immediately punctuated by the unnatural wrenching round of the ship stuck by the great sawtoothed spike of one of the lyrium creatures—breaking what constitutes as the harbor blockade. In minutes, the ships in that harbor will come pouring out after it like the contents of an unstoppered bottle.

"Ready about," comes bawling up from the lower ballista deck and like dogs answering a whistle, two dozen Walrus men are already scrambling toward their stations. "De Groot, good full and by if you please," is Flint's further bark as, sweating, he comes vaulting up the open air companion way stair toward the main deck. "Close distance. I want us between those ships and their way into the channel—"

Flint is nearly to the top step, hauled up by a hand on each rope handrail, when the water alongside the Walrus' lee cuts open and up into a silver, red-studded column. The shadow stretches, momentarily inexplicable in its sudden appearance. Then, with a great fabulous shriek of popping stays and the crunch of a crumpling railing, the sea snake comes crashing amidships; throws the Walrus over with a squeal of timbers; sends men and women sprawling, and flings sailors already scrambling aloft in the ratlines into the sea; knocks Flint off the companionway stair and sends him tumbling back down to the ballista deck.

ii. commotion in the ocean - assault (cw: violence and gore, light lyrium-shaped body horror)

Crack! The crossbow bolt blooms in a spray of red sliver-sized shrapnel as it punches through the red lyrium gorget laced through and about the Templar's throat. The figure (it's difficult to tell who or what they are amidst the unintelligible shapes of the crystal flowering out of flesh and over armor), staggers. Raises a gauntlet encrusted hand to their neck. And then, as if they're not currently in possession of what should ordinarily be a fatal pendent, they come charging over the deck toward the man who fired the shot with their ugly lyrium studded sword ready for hacking.

Flint shoves his foot into the crossbow's stirrup, cracks back it's arms, jams a bolt onto its track and

ducks. The red lyrium sword chews into the tar-covered backstay lines over his head. From inside the looming shadow of the Templar, he fires a second crossbow shot into them at the closest possible range. Or—

Crack! The crossbow bolt blooms from the center of the Venatori mage's chest. The highly concentrated burst of force magic she'd been intending to sweep the besieged deck with veers chaotically upward as she falls, punching into the ship's main mast. It lets out a horrific pop as a crack shears up through the oak, the ship's rigging groaning and the whole vessel shivering in sympathy.

Flint, two dozen paces toward the ship's bow, hurries to reload in the staggered moment that follows. Or—

Crack! The sweet metallic ring of sword on sword. He's run out of bolts, or he'd simply lost the crossbow at some point during traversing from one ship to another; but here is Flint with his brutish Anderfels falchion sword on the quarter deck of one of the last Venatori ships, making to fend off the assault of a heavy handed Templar. He's tired, and sweating, and he finds that his sword arm is frustratingly slow even with the benefits afforded by the blade's distinct lack of delicately. The next clang! of contact is significantly less dignified, and he's driven back two hurried paces to keep the Templar's blade from sliding up the broad face of the short falchion to find a home between his ribs.

iii. commotion in the ocean - aftermath

In the aftermath of the flotilla's capture, with blood still oozing in deck seams and the day given way to what would be the velvet purple kind of cloudless night if not for the ominous glow of the flotilla's red lyrium fixtures, Flint doesn't personally rove from one ship to the other to be certain of its status. That's what the rest of Riftwatch is for, and undoubtedly he's ordered a good number of its membership around to do that very thing with the expectation that they secure all and report back should they find anything particularly baffling or mortifying.

Instead, Flint has posted up on the Walrus' stern deck with a slate, a bit of chalk, and a metal astrolabe in the hand. Whereas elsewhere working lights have been posted so as to safely traverse the gangways stretched between Riftwatch's ships and the Venatori vessels currently consumed with the touchy work of being stripped, the stern lamp here has been hooded and the this small portion of the ship's deck in near total darkness. Instead, Flint's brought with him a candle on a plate. It's currently set on the corner of the writing slate, illuminating a half dozen scratched out chalk marks and the degree marks on the metal dial's outside most ring.

Lifting the disk to one eye and closing the other, Flint sets to finding his star and adjusting the alidade arm accordingly.

iv. wildcard
(holler if you want something specific; better yet, just fling it at me.)

ii. commotion in the ocean - assault #1

[hassaran]

As Flint pulls the trigger Yseult steps into view, her curved blade slashing into the Templar's underarm, left exposed by the lift of its sword for another heavy downward blow at the Commander. Unfortunately, while it is a gap in the armor it is not free of protective crystalline growths, as evidenced by the horrible metallic screech that pierces above the general din as her blade slides almost harmlessly past.

It's the sort of sound that vibrates unpleasantly in the jaw and the Scoutmaster clenches hers against it, hurriedly dancing backwards across the slippery decking as the Templar--seemingly as oblivious to the second bolt as the first--takes the bait and wheels toward her, giving Flint a moment to reload and reposition.

(Not much more than a moment, though--the first time her blade clashes with the Red Templar's her arm just about goes dead from the force of it, and she has to scramble sideways to dodge the next strike.)

[katabasis]

Lucky, then, that Flint is by and large quicker than one might guess. Amidst the din of metal clashing on metal and the guttural atmospheric snarl of some magic being worked uncomfortably close (all the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up at the sound), he takes that step back generously allotted to him.

What he doesn't do is kick his boot back into the crossbow's stirrup, draw its arms, scramble after a bolt, reload, and fire into the fray of Templar on Scoutmaster. That he only has so many shots is an entirely subconscious consideration. If there any calculation occurs in the moment whatsoever, it's one of seconds. Fifteen to reload the crossbow. A fraction of that for the Templar's ugly sword to come hammering down again after Yseult.

"Down!" He shouts, and trusts it will at least prompt her to turn her face.

An instant later, the acrid snarl and stench of alchemical fire erupts across the back of the Templar's shoulders, the contents of the hand grenade mercurially chasing after and igniting against any taste of water, on sweat tinged layers glimpsed in the gaps of plate armor.

The crossbow bolts might be easily dismissed, but catching fire apparently warrants some consideration from the person inside the armor.

[hassaran]

He looks like he'd be the type to lumber, between the load-bearing posture and the perpetual expression of a man internally bemoaning the state of his knees. But Yseult's been disabused of that notion in the past--she recalls a Venatori guard falling to his knife before he'd had a chance to register their presence in the corridor, dispatched as efficiently as she might have. The prickling lightning-storm sensation of magic flashing past carries echoes of the same place, sends a rush of adrenaline racing up her spine.

She dodges another swing of the red lyrium blade, likewise faster than it ought to be, and then drops at the shout. The Templar roars as the flames ignite, arms swung wildly, and she hacks at the back of a knee before rising to backpedal out of immediate range. She catches Flint's eye and gestures to the rail. Surely this thing won't float.

[katabasis]

There's an idea.

Is a split second flicked glance of acknowledgement as the alchemical fire lances indiscriminately along armor seams. The red (in more than one sense) Templar twists, its heavy blade swinging without purpose and lodging briefly, blindly, into the thick cabling of a stay line.

Kicking the crossbow up into both hands, Flint charges with it's broadest side laid to act as a shield for battering with. They've done something similar once before: his thick shoulder driving into the middle of a startled Venatori and her quick and light enough on her feet to follow through with where he'd driven the fucker. This is heavier; the impact crunches up through his joints. That his boots don't slip out from under him is nearly as miraculous as the fact that the Templar gives ground at all, crashing hard against the ship's railing.

[hassaran]

It was simpler last time, darting after to slip a blade into their immobilized foe's throat. But Flint's already tried that here, to what seems no avail. And the unnatural flames licking along the edges of the armor make any attempt to jab between them at least as dangerous to her. A different strategy, then.

This assessment is done in the moment it takes Flint to pin the Templar to the rail, and then she's moving after him, letting the rock of the ship send her sliding down the decking toward them. She hefts her sword back like a wallop mallet and lets the momentum of the run-up and the weight of the blade chop down into the Templar's leg right where the armor hinges at the ankle. Off comes a foot, and the sudden loss of balance sends him teetering back under Flint, able to be flipped up and over the rail, with a final push from below from Yseult if needed.

[katabasis]

It is needed. Even with Flint driving hard with his weight and the broadest side of the crossbow, the behemoth resists its passage over the rail. The sword shears through layers of the tarred line against which it's caught, the rope under tension splintering but not popping as the Templar is heaved bodily backward with a great clatter and squeal of armor made nearly inaudible thanks to the crack and clash of fighting elsewhere and adrenaline roaring in the ear.

The sharp fingertips of the lyrium crusted gauntlet leave horrible gouges in the wood railing. And then the resistance gives, gravity sinking it's teeth into the heavy plate at the Templar's shoulders to drag it down.

The sudden give (or the black blood on the deck underfoot) sends Flint sliding, hip catching hard at the same rail—all elbows as he makes to both catch himself from going over after the behemoth and keep hold of the crossbow.

[hassaran]

His momentum is slowed suddenly by a counterweight--Yseult's hands hooked up into one of his belts. Still on the ground, her feet are braced against the rail, sword dropped at her side, full bodyweight now anchoring him back to the deck, straining to counteract the slide.

When his feet are solidly on the boards once more she lets go, slumps back onto elbows and for a moment lets head loll back to eye the fight proceeding around them upside-down. Wood splinters, magic booms and cracks, lines creak. Something hurtles past them near enough to feel the breeze. A couple deep breaths and then she pushes off the side and back-somersaults up to her feet. She picks up her sword, flips it in her grip. Another breath, a brow arched at Flint. All right?

[katabasis]

The eagerness with which he'd scrambled back off the rail (or submitted to being hauled back over it by his belt) had seen him come clattering down near to one knee—the adrenaline buzz of not plummeting off the ship's side shrieking in the ear.

Two breaths sucked into the lungs sees his iron grip on the crossbow moderate. By the time Yseult is upright, the curve of her bloodied sword glinting in the daylight as it turns, he's checked the weapon's lever and string catch in an effort to make sure nothing's been bashed out of alignment. Has found a handhold with which he intends to wrench himself with.

(No back-somersaults for James Flint.)

So in return for that arched eyebrow: a series of flexing lines in his face that more or less translate into that trite complaint about the state of his knees, and then he's hauling himself up off the one of them.

The crossbow lever is kicked out, the bowstring cranked back. The fresh bolt drawn from its quiver he clacks once against the line of Yseult's sword—a split second acknowledgement of her cleverness with it (good, actually, not to have had his head hacked off by some Templar blade) before the bolt is fit onto the crossbow track and his attention veers to finding his next target.

ii, option 3

[favoriteanalyst]

There are about fifty things that Mobius absolutely hates happening right this very instant, and if he had ever had a choice, he'd be on the other side of the ocean from a gaggle of Red Templars.

But there had never been a choice. Not when it's Ostwick under fire, not when it's Venatori using the damned red stuff to do it, not when whatever's left of Maker knows how many brothers and sisters of his are being puppeted into tearing the fleet asunder.

And not when they're able to fight them back, and better yet, follow the bastards to where they're operating.

It's exhausting to sustain, even were he in basic leathers. As he has donned the remaining metal trappings of his Templarhood, his weight is a bit more considerable. But after decades of training with the whole of the armor, what's left feels more like a hefty second skin. Still: the fight has been sustained, and his wells feel like they're tapping dry every time he seeks to cut the magic out from under someone, to disrupt the Fade-blessed connection if briefly. Thankfully, his sword and his shield still do just as well as his other skills.

He looks across the deck, dislodging his blade from the chest of an unlucky mage, and finds Flint similarly losing steam to one of the things crawled out of a nightmare. Takes a breath, two, and tightens the shield on his arm. And charges.

The next swing of the Templar's arm is sent wildly off course when Mobius crashes himself shield-first into the brute's side, sending them both tumbling to the deck.

[katabasis]

The crash of metal would be cacophonous under any other circumstances. Here, it's nearly lost to the boom of some nearby clash of magic, or a dying woman's shriek, or to some horrible crack and groan in the ship itself as the vessel twists against its remaining anchor chain. That the effect is briefly baffling—difficult to parse where one armored body ends and the other begins—can be blamed on the length of the day and the surge of adrenaline that outpaces wits in any abrupt alteration of circumstances in battle.

Flint staggers back a half stride. And while his brain leaps for the gap provided by the scrabbling figures on the deck

—There! A space between one shoulder and the other, a lipped edge of armor and the briefest glimpse of the padding beneath it where a blade might be driven to kill or immobilize—

his arm is too slow to take correct advantage of it. The space is gone in an instant. Rather than lash out with the sword, he brings his foot hammering down on the red Templar's twisting wrist. If he stomps hard enough, the sword may yet come free of the creature's twisted claw of a hand.

SEA SNAKE

[armd]

The pitch and roll of the ship to a sudden halt takes Abby's feet clean out from underneath of her. Hitting the deck she bangs an elbow hard and stays there, knocked down, thinking, re-ordering thoughts. Shouting splits the air. The ship gives a great shudder, a giant tremble that sounds like a forest creaking. She gets to her feet and something roils underneath of them all over again. There are other people fighting to get up all around her; blood coming out of bruised noses; Flint on his back and on the ballista deck, same as her.

The ship is being squeezed by the wet coils of something huge.

Abby extends her hand to him, offering to pull him back up. There is a cut on her cheek and she's ducking her head underneath of a leather strap slung across her body, getting her crossbow down from her shoulder. It was the first thing she took when she heard what they'd be fighting.

"Why'd they have to add lyrium to it," she's saying, panting. Wiping her face, "Like it wasn't bad enough just being a huge fucking snake?"

[katabasis]

A screaming whine, buzzing in the ear. Both ears. And a tight ache in the chest, confounding until he takes his first sucking breath and the wind knocked out of him by the heavy impact with the ballista deck is bashed stinging back into him. There's something off in the sway of the deck, artificially heeling—not so far as to find himself sliding, but it and the vision spotting fall is almost enough to remind a man how to be seasick.

Almost. A black shape is stretched across the gap of the ballista deck, hanging heavy and raining salt sour water down onto them as it twists taut. And here is a hand, thrusting down toward him. Flint grasps after it without second thought, hauled upright with the kind of alacrity that only adrenaline can breath—one moment flat on his back, the next on his feet.

"We need to get it off the ship," is the kind of obvious barked thing that comes most naturally when you've been knocked around the head. His grip twists briefly tighter around Abby's upper forearm, making reflexively to steady himself as his free hand reaches for the ugly, brutish sword art his hip.

And closes over nothing, fist snapping closed around the air where a sword's pommel should be. Fuck's sake.

[armd]

The ship has a new rhythm now, a different sway. Abby has sea legs, not snake legs. It pulls her body one way but Flint grips her harder in the other direction and it keeps her from falling over again, which she's silently grateful for. She has to spit before she can talk, through the salt on her lips.

"Here—" Nope.

She had a mace and it must have come loose. Her head twists to look for it (she narrowly misses thwacking Flint in the face with her braid) but doing that fills her vision with wet, shiny coils all studded with lyrium, terrifying and elegant. Her other hand is outstretched in front of Flint and empty, grasping at air.

Run away... There's nowhere to run to. They have to fight, those scales look thick, would bolts even go through them? The rat king was like that, actually, something she had to keep firing wildly on until it stopped moving; thinking of it like that brings some relief. She's killed a giant, unkillable thing before. May as well do it again.

No mace but yes back-up dagger, which she hands him instead. "Is there a plan?"

[katabasis]

A back up dagger isn't going to accomplish much, but he takes it anyway: hand curling around it in a fist, the dagger instantly rendered into a brutal spike for plunging. The impotence in the gesture is clarifying. Whatever they do, it's not going to involve hacking at the sea serpent's scaled belly with small arms.

He forces his attention to drop from the heavy shape coiling overhead, from the shivering groan of the ship struggling to bear up against the weight. To think (for a split second here in the belly of the ship, scattered Walrus crew in the process of scraping themselves off the deck—).

"Bring me two pots of the Antivan fire. There, the port side rack," is indicated with a thrust of the knife.

And then he's off, making through the chaos toward one of the ballistas straining against its cable ties.