All Mortals Shall Know - Part II

[faderifting]

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: A hit close to home
WHEN: Beginning of Cloudreach 9:50
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: OOC post! General CW for war-related violence, NPC death mentions, and significant peril to PCs. Use other CWs in your subject lines as needed.

Just after sunset, an hour or so after the news begins to arrive of mass Venatori action in Minrathous—a second coup, if it can be called that when the power already behind the throne finally steps out in front of it—comes another alarm, this not through the crystals at first but from Kirkwall itself. The watchtowers Riftwatch once helped repair burst with signal fires. Just one at first, to the northeast, and then after a time two more at once, and a fourth, bright against the falling dusk. On each the shutters begin to flash, two short interruptions and one long: the signal for a dragon attack.

Not even a high dragon like the one Corypheus's has tainted with red lyrium and enthralled could cover the distance from Minrathous to the Free Marches so quickly. But the watchtowers continue to blink the signal until, one by one, they're snuffed out.

I. THE CITY

Griffon riders and ranged fighters are called out as soon as the dragon signals come in, taking flight to wing across the harbor and spread out to locate this dragon, still not visible even from the roof of the Gallows. In the time that word is spread, lift ridden or stairs climbed, griffons mounted and launched, the watchtowers go dark, the sun falls deeper below the horizon, and Riftwatch arrives in the city proper just in time for a massive explosion at the Viscount's Keep to light up the twilight. Silhouetted against it, and now seared into the backs of everyone's eyes, is the shape of two small draconic creatures with riders on their backs wheeling away from the Keep.

Now that they know what they're looking for, Riftwatch's griffon riders will realize there is no single large dragon over the city. Instead there are a dozen or more of these creatures, smaller than griffons, bodies like large horses between leathery wings. The first time one wheels close, its rider flinging a spell or a grenade, they'll recognize the shape of the heads, the shrieking cries, the burst of fire or ice or acid poison from their mouths—they're dracolisks, now with wings.

Below, a hue and cry in the streets brings citizens with bows and buckets, joining the fight against attack and fire both. The city guard mobilized as soon as the first watchtower was lit, and arrows and crossbow bolts spray from atop the walls and roofs, but their range is too-easily evaded. The enemy on their dracolisks wheel above the city, some attacking Riftwatch's griffon riders, attempting to herd them into the path of a spell, others breaking off to drop explosive grenades on the city below, pillars of smoke rising beneath them.

Just as Riftwatch's griffon riders are beginning to come to grips with what they're dealing with and engage the enemy in the skies, another explosion lights the falling dark. Just as large as the one that has taken the top off Viscount's Keep, this comes from the stairs to Hightown. The noise alone is tremendous, the sound of the explosives almost drowned by cracking stone and the earth-shaking crash of buildings tumbling down from the edge of the cliffs above as Darktown splits open and sends a slice of Hightown cascading down into Lowtown. As it falls, a cadre of dracolisks breaks off from their current paths and heads for the Gallows.

While much of Riftwatch will need to follow them to defend the Gallows and the work contained in its towers, others may remain in or over the city to continue assisting with defense there. The remaining dracolisk riders will attempt to target the Twins—the large statues outside the entrance to the harbor, connected to the chains Kirkwall uses to control ship traffic through the Waking Sea—in an apparent attempt to down them and block that passage entirely. But between Riftwatch and the force of guards and civilian militia members mustered by Guard-Captain Aveline to shoot arrows from the walls and skybridges, they'll be driven off without success.

II. THE GALLOWS

At the Gallows, those who don't ride griffons have also been instructed to prepare to assist the city. As the explosions in the city are felt, large enough to rattle the furniture even from this distance, and news of the flying dracolisks arrives, all hands are ordered to get themselves to armor or infirmary and make ready to venture across the harbor. Those who can provide healing are an obvious need, but just as urgent will be assistance with evacuating damaged buildings and protecting those on the ground, especially if this proves to be followed by a ground attack. But the first ferry hasn't yet left the Gallows dock when the battle comes to them.

There is barely time for a crystal alert of incoming dracolisks before they arrive. They wing circles around the towers, flying close enough to touch the sides, hovering for seconds here and there in pairs as if trying to look in the windows. Almost as soon as they've come they draw back–

And then the Mage tower explodes. A burst of light and force engulfs the uppermost floors, flinging stones the size of a man outwards. It is immediately apparent to anyone remaining within (though there should be few, given how lightly occupied it is to begin with) and those watching from without that the blast has destablized the entire tower, which teeters for only a moment or two, just barely long enough to allow for a race to safety, before toppling over with a thunderous crash. It tips outwards before it drops, crushing a chunk of the outer wall and flinging the remains of its top floor into the sea. The impact sends out a shockwave, followed by a cloud of dust and debris that sweeps across the Gallows courtyards.

The other devices—because now that they know to look, there are devices fixed to the sides of the other two towers, up near the top—do not explode immediately. The dracolisk-riding Venatori continue to circle above, throwing spells and arrows and the occasional small grenade down at the denizens of the Gallows, while two of them also appear to be focused on the devices, trying to get near enough again to hit them with some sort of spell. It quickly becomes clear that there is a chance to save these towers, if the attackers can be fended off long enough to remove or disarm the magical devices before they're triggered.

Of course, it's not going to be easy. The devices are each attached to the outside of the tower between the top two floors, meaning they must be accessed by climbing out a window or off the roof and rappelling down to them. Once there, they'll prove to be attached with some impossibly sticky substance, such that trying to pry them off would damage the workings and risk explosion. The only option is to deactivate them where they are—whether by lowering someone knowledgeable down a rope, or by conveying instructions to someone good with heights by crystal or from the nearest window. The insides prove to be a complex combination of machinery and magic, clockwork mechanisms, enchanted or carved with delicate runes, panels inscribed with glyphs, glass tubes full of Maker knows what volatile compound, brass spinners like thaumoscope sensors, and so on. If attempting to defuse a bomb while dangling from a rope weren't difficult enough, the Venatori on dracolisks remain active overhead, doing their best to wreak havoc below while trying to hit the devices with the activation spells, which (thankfully) require concentration, time, and very precise aim.

They succeed in activating the device on the Templar tower first. Unlike the Mage tower, it doesn't immediately explode, but instead begins sending tendrils of ice racing out along the stone, finding its way into every crack and fissure, every weak patch of mortar, forcing the tower apart stone by stone. But the interference of those working to stop it has done something—weakened the device, or distracted the mage on dracolisk-back sufficiently to throw off the spell she casts to detonate it—and the ice only spreads so far.

But it does spread. Those defending the Templar tower will have to abandon it as the uppermost floors begin to crumble, aided by force and telekinetic spells that can target the frozen weak spots without needing so much precision. Climbing down, catching a griffon ride, or jumping across the gap to the main tower (if someone's good enough at jumping) are all rational choices, under the circumstances, but those who choose none of the above and take the stairs may be able to make it to the lower floors before the upper three collapse.

In the meantime the Venatori shift all their focus to the Central tower, home to Riftwatch's painstakingly-assembled library of rare volumes, records of all of its work, and storerooms full of irreplaceable artifacts. There, a third type of device. When an activation spell gets through, it at first seems to do nothing, but then the stones of the tower begin to shake. At first just a tremor, but the shaking intensifies and spreads, like an earthquake spell amplified throughout the building. Those trying to defuse the device must race to deactivate it before the building rattles to dust beneath them, taking most of Riftwatch's resources with it.

The Venatori do their best to disrupt this work, trying to pick off those on the outside or top of the tower, lobbing spells and explosives at those on the ground, and doing battle with the griffon riders in the air, but eventually, the device is disarmed, its shaking stopped before it can bring the tower down, and the enemy forces retreat.

III. THE AFTERMATH

The sun rises on a changed, chaotic Kirkwall. While the attackers didn't manage to inflict all of the damage they'd planned, Viscount's Keep is still rubble—with reports indicating Viscount Bran Kenric is among the dead, caught by debris while trying to organize an orderly evacuation—and Hightown, Lowtown, and Darktown alike suffered losses from the decimation of the staircase. The gap in the stairs is quickly bridged to facilitate movement, but the solutions begin makeshift, starting with a rope and wood bridge only wide and reliable enough for a few people at a time, and will take days and weeks to progress into sturdier scaffolding and wooden stairs to cover the missing piece. In the meantime, travel between the high and low parts of the city is slower, often involving long queues for either the narrow bridge or a ride on the industrial lifts straight up the cliffside from the docks.

Despite the damage, the mood in the city is more defiant than anything, anger primarily directed at Tevinter. There are some who blame Riftwatch, claiming that it's only their presence in the city that drew the attack, that they would all be safer if these foreign troublemakers took their problems elsewhere. But this idea doesn't get a whole lot of traction, especially not after the warning system they helped repair and Riftwatch's efforts to fight the enemy above the city at the expense of leaving the Gallows vulnerable. Their assistance with clean-up efforts in the city doesn't hurt, either.

In the Gallows, meanwhile, things might feel more destroyed than not, with the dust and debris from the collapsed Mage tower and the upper sections of the Templar tower scattered across the rest of the island. On the side of the Mage tower, the damage is extensive, with a whole section of the outer wall collapsed and a significant amount of the debris—including the residents' belongings—spilled across the rocks and down into the harbor. On the Templar side, stone walls from the upper floors have fallen more or less straight out and down around its perimeter, blocking walkways, with a large chunk of wall nearly flattening the smithy and all of its doors. Debris litters the training yard and has knocked a few holes into the thinner roofs of outbuildings and covered alcoves.

The Central tower is least affected, save the eyrie, which had previous holes and damage from the mage rebellion in Kirkwall and fell further apart, in turn causing the ceilings of the Scouting and Research division offices to partially collapse and bringing the structural integrity of the entire floor into doubt. The brand new lift, on the other hand, has come through largely unscathed. So too has the new tavern, as yet unnamed, and its first shipment of ale. So there is some good news.

The first two days after the attack, while the extent of the damage and possibility of further collapses are still being assessed, Riftwatch members are barred from sleeping in or near any of the standing towers, instead directed either to Riftwatch's warehouse near the docks or to tents set up around the debris of the Mage Tower, which can't really fall any further than it already has. As days pass, other options will open up: setting up cots in the outbuildings, dragging mattresses from the groups quarters into library alcoves, staying with various Riftwatch members and allies who have space to offer in the city, or continuing to camp out in the courtyards and among the debris as the weather warms enough to make it more or less pleasant. But between the time for reconstruction and the need to fund it, it will be at least a month before anyone can move into the remaining residential tower.

Assisting with relief in the city and sorting through the scattered debris in the Gallows or helping the hired labor brought in to help clear and rebuild will be an ongoing effort. In the meantime, everyone still has as much—or more—of their usual work to do as ever: adjusting plans and forming new ones to account for Corypheus' open takeover of Minrathous and the problems and opportunities that provides, or dealing with the news of other attacks that begins to arrive through contacts and field agents.

Comments

Disarming: Templar Tower

[faderifting]

OOC: Consolidate efforts to protect the Templar tower here!

[grindset]

He's pulling on his boots when word comes. Buckling the shanks in place. The door is wide open; Fred occupies much of the hallway beyond.

The thundering blast pulls him to a window, which he heaves open to witness the settling after collapse, shattered boulders trailing dusted mortar, his belly plunging with them. Cold, sick. It's down. People live there, and it's in the sea.

Some of theirs are airborne, had launched or were launching as the intruders came. Feathers and membranes go beating past, animals shriek and hiss at each other, riders shout. Something strikes the wall above, bursts weakly. He dares a look out and up.

Then the crystal tells him something that pierces, snaps his thoughts into bleak clarity. Amid messages clipped and shouted, his voice snips:

"Templar tower—where is it? Which side?"

Disarming: Central Tower

[faderifting]

OOC: Consolidate efforts to protect the Central tower here!

[katabasis]

((ooc: If folks have alternative plans brewing for this that I'm kiboshing by taking a run at it, hit me up and I'll edit as necessary. Otherwise—help! 🙏))

[Some weeks ago, a leaflet with an essay titled Past Times Best Avoided By Messeres Overr Fiftie had done the ordinary circulations between what qualified as the well educated drawings rooms of Hightown. Part legitimate medical advice, part thinly veiled satire regarding certain political intrigues of the southern Marches, the activities listed had ranged from Drinking too little wine and too much beer, to Riding anything at all, yes even that, without stirrups.

The list had not included climbing out of eighth floor windows. Apparently, it should have.

The cable line runs from Flint's griffin riding harness, lashed about waist and thighs, through the broken out Forces Division window, and is firmly tethered to the heaviest piece of furniture in the office—the lumbering mahogony desk which, in addition to weighing nearly twice as him, is too wide to pass through the stone window envelope. If Flint thinks twice about what he's doing once he's stepped up onto the window ledge, the cut of the wind sharp across the face, and the dark harbor's water visible through the night only by its foaming against the rocks some dizzying distance below—

Then no he doesn't.

At least the weather is cooperating.]

I'm headed up. Keep them clear, [is shouted into the blue crystal pinned at his collar. And then he's climbing.]

Barrow OTA

[thereneverwas]

I. Anti-Aircraft Tactics

Amidst the chaos, Barrow's voice erupted over the crystals, urgently requesting an assist at the ballistae.
There are two remaining on the battlements near the Templar tower and he can be found already in the process of loading one, but its large and complex nature makes it clear that this is a multi-person task. Eyes wide and face pale, he beckons any new arrivals with a jerk of his head. There's no time to lose.

II. Defending the Central tower

The Templar tower is lost, the ballistae compromised, and Barrow, with his arthritic hands, isn't much for ranged combat. He does make himself available to cover the backs of anyone working to defuse the Central tower's device, either by lending his strength to lift or push through debris as needed, or to fight off any enemies that have the gumption to touch down.

III. Aftermath

Sitting on a broken stone in the rubble near the mage tower, Barrow stares at nothing and holds no fewer than three cats on his lap. At least four others crowd around him, sitting on his shoulders, hiding behind his legs eyes big and tails puffed. It seems there's strength in numbers.

iii.

[brennvin]

Astrid’s picking her way through the rubble; she had half a mind to search for more valuables, but it turns out that everything’s mostly indistinguishable in the debris. Like, there’s a half-shattered wardrobe over there, but the dresses spilling out of it certainly aren’t hers.

So, instead, she winds up drifting toward the miniature sea of furry creatures.

Cats. The cats. The big guy with the heaps of cats. That dislodges something, some memory pinging faintly off another— they lived on the floor beneath her, in the mage tower—

She clears her throat. “You’re Lazar’s roommate, yeah?”

i.

[galvanising]

She'll be no help with the loading process, but Nell arrives in the air overhead atop Coupe 2, streaking in ahead of the next wave of dracolisks descending to take shots at the Templar tower. The slate-gray griffon's white leg-feathers are speckled pink with blood already, and she extends claws in an eager reach as Nell's hold on the reins draws her into a momentary hover.

"When you've got it loaded," she shouts into her crystal over the noise of spells cracking on stone and shrieking creatures, "Call out and I'll drag one over."

ii

[pathlit]

Just a few feet away from Barrow, a dracolisk and its rider crash into the ground. The reason is readily apparent: one of the dracolisk's wings is barely hanging on by fascia and bone splinters, bent at an awkward angle, courtesy of an airborne strike by Jayce and Uggie.

In their scramble to reorient themselves against the assault that forced them to the ground in the first place, neither the Venatori nor the dracolisk notice Barrow yet, which gives him a pocket of opportunity to strike first.

iii

[cozen]

"Hey," Bastien says on approach, his soft boots—not meant for this—crunching quietly on gravelly rubble. "Is everyone accounted for?"

He means the cats. Or not the cats; he's just arrived in the Gallows for the first time, making his way through the city and across the harbor only once it became clear there was nothing left that he could do in Lowtown. He isn't limping because he can choose not to, despite the pain, but bloody scrapes on his hands and face have mingled with the dirt and ash to scab over black.

Chez Basterly (closed to Benedict, and eventually Byerly and Bastien)

[quaestionespatris]

The City

It is perhaps seven-ish minutes until sunset--not that Octavius can tell from where he's standing. He is kept company by a mortar, pestle, and the medicinal scent of ground herbs, all of which he is making use of to prepare a tincture of something invigorating and restorative for his patient. After letting it steep like a particularly bitter tea over a little flame on the stovetop (or in a little pot over the fire) while fretting privately over news from Minrathous, he carefully pours it into a mug, then ferries it over to wherever Benedict has settled himself.

"Careful," he says while handing the mug over, "it's still quite hot." Then, with a sympathetic grimace, "Probably best to let it cool a bit, then drink it all at once, unfortunately."

[altusimperius]

For the past however many days since returning to Kirkwall from Wherever The Fuck He Was, Benedict has spent most of his time sleeping, eating far less than he would like per sitting, and staring glassy-eyed at the wall. What energy he's had has been reserved for the bare minimum of keeping himself alive, and while some long-buried part of him wants to enjoy being waited on hand and foot by familiar faces, the fresher, improved personality lying closer to the surface hates that he's so weak and helpless.

He's sitting up without support, an event in itself, and is even able to grip the mug in his own hand as he takes it from Tavi. He sniffs its contents, pulls a dead-eyed face, and settles in to wait for it to cool, gazing into the surface of the liquid for a while before he finally speaks, for the first time since his initial rescue:

"what are you doing here?"

Octavius isn't a demon, nor is he a hallucination. He's very much here, and very much himself, which is as familiar and comforting as it is innately annoying.

gwenaëlle baudin — open

[elegiaque]

THE CITY

Hauling ass to the eyrie, Gwenaëlle is on the back of the first griffon and its rider available and willing to take her up when the Keep's explosion rocks the city. Faced out with her back to the rider and treating the safety harness as more of a suggestion than a rule, Hakkon's Wrath is in her hands (one gauntleted, one gloved) and — rising up with her knees gripping the griffon beneath her, the blades in her coattails tucked not to slash at animal or rider behind — she focuses her efforts on the dracolisk wings.

The goal is a simple and straightforward one: it's got to be hard for a mage to concentrate if he's plummeting from the sky to the chaotic streets of Kirkwall beneath.

On the other hand, they can also aim at her.

THE GALLOWS

At the Gallows, her focus turns to targeting the Venatori efforts to sabotage the work to protect the central tower — rolling out of the way of a lobbed explosive and colliding with a wall hard enough to set her head to ringing, she staggers to her feet and blinks her eyes (her one remaining eye) hard to focus, her already lacking depth perception thrown off for several crucial moments by the way it feels as if there's about five of everything around her.

The thing is, there might be.

Her reflexes are still good enough, however, that when the dracolisk rider who'd thrown the first bomb in her direction wheels around to throw another, she —

doesn't use her fade shield. No, she plants her feet and sends a powerful force blast to meet it midair, sending it careening explosively back toward its origin— and she's already running, seeking shelter in which to regroup and avoid a third, so hears and feels more than sees the outcome.

THE AFTERMATH

“Fuck.”

La Souveraineté has, all things considered, come through the chaos remarkably unharmed. The built up barge looks just as she ought, if perhaps as though there may be some flooding in the lowest upper-deck levels to be dealt with, but unfortunately, she is also in the middle of the fucking harbour. Although the animals usually aboard are safe enough with the new spirit healer, that doesn't mean this is a problem that can be easily left for tomorrow: there are more people aboard her than usual, and resecuring the mooring therefore becomes something of an urgent proposition.

At least, if it becomes urgent, there are still griffons—

but the immediate aftermath will find Gwenaëlle (with her crystal, too) on the docks, vigorously bargaining with a local captain for what's going to be a substantially higher price than she last paid to have her (beautiful, perfect) boat towed securely back to her mooring on the Gallows island. Under the circumstances, she expects it to be nothing less than eye-watering, but with the thought in mind that she's sending the bill to her grandfather and he already doesn't love her (again, flawless and very lovable) boat she is at least making a sufficient effort that she can say, later, she did her best to bargain the woman on the docks down within reason.

“There are people— Gela still needs to be monitored by our healer, I don't want to have to evacuate her on a griffon—”

WILDCARD

( feel free to be the griffon rider she's with, and I'm happy to roll with "she had to switch at some point" or if anyone wants to thread a dramatic mid-air leap from one to another I would very much like to do that. otherwise, toss a wildcard at me if none of these prompts is vibing for you, or hmu to customise something. )

city;

[dissolving]

"Shit!"

He flattens on Agathe’s back, as heat ripples out over their heads. This is fucking unwieldy in plate: Has the brief, stupid thought that the demon was right, that there are more dimensions to worry for -

The dracolisk keens, a warble echoing between smoke and stone. Cedric drags the reins sharp, pulls them out from range just as a second, stranger thing billows forth: Magic, the Fade drawn heavier than breath.

"He’s throwing spells around." Below them, an archer drops, stone asleep. Getting close enough to take its wings may end their own ride. The harness is only liability on a falling bird. "Can’t do anything about it until we’re cl -"

The rest of that is lost to another rattling boom. Someone’s screaming. A lot of someones are screaming tonight.

cedric; ota

[dissolving]

I) BEFORE

It’s dusk. He’s already dragged on armor — debating whether to abandon tonight’s watch for Bastien’s call — when the watchtowers light. Cedric bolts into the hall, grabs the first arm he sees,

"Window," He’s pointing. Doesn’t know the signals. "Two short, one long. What’s on?"


II) CITY

Fire roars. A mass of people, buckets, bristling arrows and falling danger. All deafened — again — when a second explosion rocks the sky.

They swerve, a fist-sized rock careening just past Agathe's head. In the settling dust two things swiftly become clear:

1. The Venatori are breaking for the Gallows.
2. There are people trapped below.

A fallen beam and a mess of stone blockade half the street, flames advancing on the crowd.

Cedric pulls up sharp, and a departing spray of acid hisses past, droplets sizzling off his breastplate. The dracolisk and rider are almost close enough to touch.

Indecision is obvious. There's only time for one.


III) TEMPLAR TOWER

"C’mon,"

The top floor is crumbling. Maybe you can jump it - if you're strong enough, if you're lucky enough, if. But Cedric's here too, circling the collapsing wall, hand out to haul you aboard Agathe's steady grey back. So all's well.

For a fraction of a moment -

A wave of force smashes him in the side, sends him hurtling toward the ground below.


IV ) AFTERMATH

Stuff spills into shallows. Rough chunks of masonry toss between sea-smoothed stone, sodden clothes; splintered wood. Cedric picks through it with a broken ferry-pole.

(Seems to be using it to stay upright.)

Agathe dips her long, hooked beak in and out of the water, avian eyes darting. Here and there: A long hunk of scrap metal. A half-melted key. Anything that shines.

"Hey," Her newest find looks like it belongs to someone. "Give it -"


V ) WILDCARD

[ Drop anything here, or HMU if you’d like a bespoke starter ]

The City

[wearyallalone]

[It's unlikely that Vanya asked for permission before joining the rest of the griffon riders: He still looks a bit gaunt, to be honest, even in the dim light. Pamplemousse, though, is in fine form. More importantly, it's a true emergency. They need every pair of hands (and wings) they have. He'll take the lecture later, if anyone gives it.

He's turning when he sees Cedric hesitate, just a moment. He'll replay and dissect his own decision later, probably, but right now he doesn't pause as he shouts:] The rider!

[The people have, in theory, other potential rescuers on the ground. No one is going to reach the Venatori in the air except them. He spurs Pamplemousse that way, but Cedric will have a few moments to take the cue or reject it before Vanya can close the distance.]

clarisse | ota

[laruetheday]

i. the city
Like they've done this a thousand times, flown into the dark with armor on and Clarisse's spear at the ready, she and Blunder move in sync, like a well-oiled machine. They've practiced it enough to make it look good, but like Clarisse said once when she was still just a kid, practice time is over. This time it's for real.

The night air is cool enough that it's a sudden, startling difference as they get close enough to the smoke rising from the city. Acrid, hot. It smells like Granitefell did, and for just a second Clarisse stalls with her hands on the reins, letting Blunder glide high over the heat and screams only to swerve with a furious shriek as something smaller and black comes screaming up and out of the smoke and nearly collides with them.

Clarisse jabs with her spear a second too late and yells to anyone in Riftwatch close enough to hear her, "These things can fucking fly?!"

ii. the gallows
Clarisse gets Blunder as close as she can to the upper floors of the Templar tower. This close is risky, and the buffetting of those huge wings isn't helping. A huge chunk of stone falls within a foot of them and joins the rest of the debris crashing to the ground below.

She winces and holds Blunder in position. They can take one person down and then come back for another, if there's time (but she doesn't think there'll be time—)

"You have to jump," she yells at whoever is nearest. "The tower's going down, you have to jump."

iii. aftermath
a.
The morning after, and Clarisse finds herself standing near the ruins of the Mage tower, staring at the pile of rubble and personal affects that trail into the harbor to sink or be washed away or dashed to smaller pieces on the rocks.

She's angry. She's so angry. She can feel it hammering around in her chest and throat, tightening the muscles in her shoulders, looking for a way out.

She should go hit something, but there's debris all over the training yard. Instead she crouches down and sifts through a fistful of dust and broken stone, letting it run out between her fingers like sand.

b.
A couple days later, and—this is pretty much the first time she's been in the library. She might have wandered in here once when she first got to the Gallows almost two years ago, back when she was still under quarantine, but not since then.

It smells like old paper in here. Not a bad smell, but not a smell she's familiar with. Not one she associates with comfort.

Clarisse finishes shoving the mattress into one of the alcoves, and then she just stares at it, not sure what's next.

vega

[laruetheday]

Amongst the chaos happening both on the ground and in the air, Vega might not notice the griffon bearing down on her until it's almost there. Blunder lands with a heavy thud and a piercing shriek, sending dust into the air in a billowing cloud. The griffon is bleeding from a gash on one side, but there's fire in her eyes.

Clarisse doesn't dismount. Under her helmet, her eyes are just as bright, the muscles in her jaw clenched and angry. The tip of her spear is sparking red.

"Are you good with that?" She's pointing at Vega's bow, but she doesn't give her a chance to answer before she demands, "Get on. I need you."

There isn't any room for argument. But she'll offer her free hand if Vega needs help climbing up.

Siegfried Farnon - open

[inmycare]

I. Before

He hasn't been with Riftwatch long, but Siegfried doesn't believe in idleness. He's already checked most of the mounts in Riftwatch's stables, and his next project will be to introduce himself to the Griffon Keeper. But in between, today, he's asked for any Riftwatch members with pets or other small animals to bring them by so he can get to know them and establish their basic state of health. Any animals who can be contained, or that are sufficiently well-behaved, he's suggested can be dropped off in the morning and picked up in the afternoon or early evening once the owner's daily work is done. (Problem children are asked to have an owner accompanying for the check-up itself, but he's planned for those exams to happen first.)

He's set up a small utility room in one of the outbuildings not far from the infirmary. A small collection of crates, tables and other odds and ends will serve to keep his patients cozy if needed, though larger and friendlier animals will be given the run of the place when they're not being examined. Anyone stopping by with an animal will receive a brisk but not unfriendly greeting and a quick series of questions about their pet.

[NB: If you want to claim your character's pet was here, no need to tag into this thread unless desired. Feel free to just handwave. If you'd like your pet to have a cameo in the thread below or elsewhere, drop a comment over here.]

II. During (attn Astrid but OTA)

As soon as the griffon riders go out, Siegfried is already moving to pack his instruments and consider a safer location for his charges. It's not ideal, but an unused part of the dungeons seems like the closest practical place: underground, when the danger seems to be coming from above.

Unfortunately, he's still figuring out how to get the animals from point A to point B when, breathtakingly fast, things go from a shouted sending crystal warning to the earthshaking chaos of one of the towers collapsing. The cat he was in the middle of crating, a strange-looking creature Siegfried couldn't help feeling instantly fond of, disappeared into his jacket, protesting with both noise and claws against any attempts at dislodging. The dogs mostly break into panicked barks, the even-tempered ones too.

There's a moment when he freezes, something long put away threatening to rise, but he wins that struggle. Still, he's only got two arms (one with a cat attached). Siegfried steps out to shout: "Hello -- is anyone nearby? I need help, we need to get these animals somewhere safer and there's too many for me to manage alone." His voice is loud and commanding, and tends to carry. But considering what's just happened, he knows it's a long shot. Regardless of the owners' feelings, though, he'd never forgive himself if he abandoned the animals in his charge at a time like this.

ii, smushing my timelines a little, i do what i want

[brennvin]

One of the people who hears him is already in a hurry, running past at full tilt. She needs to get upstairs, needs to climb those endless fucking stairs and join the next griffon flight out, but—

But there’s that cacophony of barking from the outbuilding and a few distressed howls, each dog setting the others off in a cascade, she knows how that goes. So she skids to a stop on the stone, looking at the open door. Does she have time?

Not really, no. But she’ll make time. So a youngish woman comes clattering through the doorway, almost colliding with a table before she can halt her momentum, as she turns and faces…

Chaos.

“Oh, shit,” she says, staring at the hooting yowling cawing menagerie, not even noticing the man yet. “Didn’t know we had a zoo down here.”

astrid runasdotten | ota

[brennvin]

in the sky.

Astrid came late to the fight and it’s her first time alone in the saddle so she’s really doing quite well, all things considered—

Which means: only an acceptable amount of hysteria and panic as she tries to get her griffon under control, wheeling around the still-standing tower. She has a shortbow for better maneuverability, but the heaving up-and-down movement throws off her aim and almost dings a fellow griffon rider (“sorry!!”). But she’s a trained archer and so eventually gets the hang of it: her arrows compensating and finding the joints of those dracolisk wings, tender tendons, a Tevene rider, ducking and swooping.

She fights alongside others from Riftwatch, chasing the enemy away from the nerds dangling off the remaining tower like so much bait. At one point, a dracolisk knocks a colleague off the walls and she has to abruptly dive down and catch them: “Don’t fucking die!” she chides, as if if was on purpose, hauling them up to the saddle. “We’ve got to get you back up there, I’m not gonna be able to shut down those bombs, probably accidentally blow us all up like as not—”

on the ground.

Eventually, she’s downed. Astrid loses track of her griffon, although she knows it’s alive — she saw it fly off in a flurry of screaming feathers — but now she’s grounded, fallen from the saddle, an injured dracolisk rearing in front of her with its own rider dismounting. A bow’s no good in such close quarters, so Astrid’s scrabbling, wishing she’d thought of bringing a melee weapon.

She settles for a brick from the rubble, smashing it into the face of the Venatori. Then she’s scrambling over the rocks, looking for familiar faces, friendly faces, some assistance as the man teeters and comes after her.

aftermath.

It’s not like she had years’ worth of clutter and sentiment, but it still hurts, seeing the Gallows so transformed. She’s meandering through the ruins, exhausted, hands shoved in her pockets and absentmindedly fingering the trinkets she’d managed to rescue before the towers went down: a broken frost rune, a ring with a swan on the band.

Normally she’s quite comfortable with the idea of a tent, but this is not ideal. Riftwatch’s pseudo-refugee camp makes for a sorry sight: impromptu tents, set around what had once been the Mage Tower. Her mouth twists. And then she looks at the nearest person she can find, forlorn.

“Can I bunk with you?” she asks. Whether it’s sharing their tent, or the warehouse, or wherever they live, or whatever. It sounds so bluntly straightforward, and nothing salacious: maybe just looking for the warmth of another body, the sound of someone breathing nearby; the companionship.

wildcard.

( just lob something at me, or hmu @ quadrille on plurk/discord if you wanna brainstorm! )

in the sky?

[daturameloxia]

Wylan has barely spent a night in the Gallows when the attack comes and all he can think about is to pack his things to keep any of his grenades from causing further damage. With his pack slung over his shoulders, Wylan makes for higher ground, desperate to not get buried in the rubble. Little does he know that doing so puts him directly in the path of a dracolisk.

There is no time to search for a suitable grenade, no time to breathe, before he’s knocked clear off solid ground and begins to plummet toward the ocean.

His father would be proud is the last thought he has before a hand wraps around his and suddenly his fall is halted.

Don’t fucking die.

Right, he’ll get right on that. If he had breath enough to speak, he’d thank her, but he’s all out right now.

Ellie | OTA (cw: corpses for the last prompt)

[notathreat]

I. The Gallows Attack

Ellie arrives only after the stairs to Hightown collapse, and the attack turns in earnest towards the Gallows.

It's chaos, with the world shaking and all but blowing apart, and Ellie has only limited information. It's dark, and loud, but she brings her fingers to her mouth and lets out a shrill, long whistle.

Artie hears. With a screech he bears down on her. She'll have to ride him bareback, there's no time to get a saddle or any of her gear, which is beyond dangerous, but she doesn't care. Ellie grips his feathers and braces herself, and his hard muscles bunch up for a leap.

Together they shoot into the air, gaining altitude, and Ellie grips with her knees to signal him to stall in the air, the second she has a target in a dracolisk. She the string back to her jaw, exhales, and lets Gold take her. The world narrows down, and the fragments of divinity expand, finding her the precise socket of air that will let her aim for the rider's eye.

It punches straight through the helmet.

Unfortunately she is not watching her back, and someone else also appears to have excellent aim. She may appreciate a warning.

Or an assist.


II. The Aftermath

II-A. Gallows

Ellie's lost count of how many times the world's crashed down around her, left her with a sense of unmooring. She didn't expect it to happen with the Gallows. But she's slowly sifting through the wreckage, searching for things that are familiar.

Maybe she's assisting with finding someone else's belongings, or has stumbled across something that belongs to someone else, but eventually she comes across the scorched corner of one of her own paintings.

The feeling of violation and revulsion is so strong, she almost doesn't want to lift it and look at the damage. She's not sure if there's anything left.


II-B The City

It's dismal work but somebody has to do it. Ellie knows that having a visible Riftwatch agent helping with things can only do some good in the long run.

She's busy with clearing the rubble, and with it, the bodies of the dead.

It reminds her so much of Granitefell. At least it's not high summer right now, rank with rot. Instead it's greasy ash. She catalogues bodies, taking note of identifying characteristics. Jewelry. Clothes. Families have to be notified.

A few hours after dawn, she steadily pulls out the scorched corpse of a man, holding what looked like the body of a child in his arms. Ellie's hands tremble -- but then the child coughs and cries, and Ellie calls frantically for a medic. He gets the attention he needs. He's burned and scared and traumatized, but alive.

Ellie's all right, probably. Maybe. She is. She is.

She has to be.

She turns back to the charred corpse of the father, and her hands shake on his shoulder. She clenches them into fists until she stops.

"Help me with this?" she asks whoever's nearest, and her voice is completely level.

I

[thereneverwas]

The battlements allow Barrow an unimpeded view of everything happening above him, and he has to pause in aiming the ballista when he realizes one of the flying figures is on a griffon rather than a dracolisk. Squinting, he clocks Ellie with her bow, taking a split-second to admire her ability to fire so well on griffonback, but his attention is quickly drawn by a similarly positioned figure on a dracolisk.

"ELLIE!" he yells, scrambling for his crystal, "DIVE!" Only part of her name and the second word are taken up by the apparatus, echoing his shout from below from Ellie's own crystal.

marcus rowntree. ota.

[luaithre]

the gallows. ota.

[luaithre]

the battle during (two prompts);

Beneath the leathers he hastily strapped himself into, a circle of scars from a dracolisk bite are too well healed to pull and twinge. And there are parts of him that, in another timeline altogether, would have taken on worse markings had he survived it—but as it happens, there are no scars to recall that night in Granitefell at all. All the same, news of a dragon recalls the scent of burning flesh, and the reality of dracolisk recalls the sting of venom in the blood.

Throughout, Marcus stays on his griffon's back, a large white beast named Little White Monster who seems, in her own way, furious at this invasion of her territory. He can't say he disagrees.

"More coming from over the bay," is at one point barked over the crystals—and, indeed, barely visible in moonlight and the reflection of fire, the shapes of four dracolisks. Marcus is already flying to meet them, but slower, directing Monster to gain altitude. "I'll harass from above. Flank around, we'll drive them low."

Later—a fraught moment. You, yes, you, on griffon back, catch movement out of your periphery, and there is no time. The dracolisk rider comes out of nowhere, swooping in from behind, and flung from an outstretched hand is an explosive, spinning through the air.

The next split second, a sudden rush of wind, a shout, and your vision goes blue when you find yourself and your griffon enveloped both in defensive magic—which equally assists with taking the brunt of the mid-air collision as Monster and the man on her back who cast that magic slam into you both. The world flips around, blurs, and then—the explosion as the projectile hits, making heads ring and ears whine,

but no damage. At least, there won't be if you can right yourself and stay in your saddle during this brief griffon-on-griffon tangle.

the enemies retreat (one thread);

The quaking that had shook through the Central Tower comes to an end as, by hook or by crook, the device that threatened it is disarmed. There is little the swarming Venatori forces can do. As one, dracolisk flare their wings, pulling back in retreat, powering through the dust still thick in the air from the felling of the other two towers.

No sense in giving chase, and some rational part of his brain overrides the impulse—he would isolate himself, get picked apart, compromise his fellow riders in trying to rescue him. Marcus steers Monster around in a wide arc of the Central Tower to make certain that the battle is over, and then, with a swift kick of his heels, bid her to power her way upwards.

There, on the rooftop, Monster lands—heavily, exhausted, blood streaked in feathers made dusty grey from the dirt in the air. Marcus, in similar condition, stays in his saddle for a moment, breathing through a lowering heart rate. Turns to look past his shoulder, where the Templar Tower is half-wrecked, a ruin. There is nothing that can be seen in this light, just broken rock, drifting dust, the suggestion that some of it still stands, but not most of it.

Then, he leans forwards in his saddle, smoothing his hand over Monster's plumage, a few pats to her shoulder. Good girl.

isaac; ota

[wythersake]

AFTERMATH

Isaac picks his way over rubble in what must - a few hours ago - have been a very fine shirt. His staff angles out for balance, its tip still smoldering with heat. A hissed curse: He trips, rights himself, fist clamped about a rattling bag.

He may look a stranger, but a Riftwatch hand gleams from one tattered lapel.


I ) WEE WOO WEE WOO AMBULANCE

"Let me see it," Even, intent. "Whatever you’re doing there can wait."

That injury might, too - but he’d sooner not give anyone time to run off and pretend all’s well.


II ) SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS

Isaac straightens from the bag he’s been rummaging and pushes out a short breath. Abruptly:

"Have you seen a centipede?" He holds up an uncorked bottle, gestures between his palms. "Perhaps eleven inches, bright red mandibles -"


III ) INSOMNIA

It’s three or four in the morning, and work goes on. By torchlight, by magelight, by the fires still flickering across portions of the city.

But everyone has a limit. Searching a cigarette he must have lost somewhere over Kirkwall, he finally glances up -

"You too?"

It's pitched to hear. Someone in the yard is still shoveling rock. Scrape, scrape.


IV ) WILDCARD

[ Drop anything here, or HMU if you’d like a bespoke starter. ]

i. ambulance.

[elegiaque]

Blood in her hair, and trailing the side of her face, and she's started to say, “It looks worse than it—” when she catches sight of who it is she's actually speaking to, and has a moment of genuine, silent bafflement. When did Isaac get back. What's going on. How hard did she hit that fucking wall, anyway—

“Maker, you haven't come with the Venatori, have you,” is the sort of slightly unkind joke she occasionally thinks before actually saying, these days, but it's sort of been a real fuck of a month.

Gwenaëlle sets her gauntlet down on the nearest likely surface, possibly trying to remember what she'd been doing when he'd stopped her. Her crystal is in her other hand, so— probably he's right, probably it can wait.

stephen strange.

[portalling]

( one open prompt below, feel free to nab it! or hmu @ quadrille on plurk/discord if you wanna brainstorm something; happy to receive wildcards or write bespoke starters, i’m just cooling the doctor’s heels a bit this month. )

the falling templar tower | open to 1 thread.

[portalling]

He’s done stupider things, surely, but this one’s gotta be up there.

Strange had been in the city proper when the attack started, so it’s taken him a while to make it back to the Gallows. By the time he returned, it’s been time enough for the mage tower to fall, then for the Venatori to circle the templar tower and deposit their devices, patches of ice spreading across the walls like a noose tightening, digging into weakening mortar.

But as most sane and sensible people might be fleeing downward, one man surges up the stairwell instead, even as the exterior’s being peppered with magic and Riftwatch tries to disarm the devices on the walls. Up and up and up, heading for his bedroom on the fifth floor (oh, this would’ve been one-and-done if he lived in the group quarters far below). Ragged breath heaving, he reaches his wardrobe, rips it open, and hauls a long, heavy red cloak out of it. He’s already wearing one cloak, and so this one gets tucked under an arm as he turns back to the stairwell—

And the tower rumbles underfoot.

Ah. Likely won’t have time to run all the way back down. The roof is closer. So: up he goes, out to the open air, as there’s another ominous tremble beneath him, some of the outer masonry already starting to peel away as the tower shudders. Strange casts an assessing look at the gap between here and the main tower, sizing up the distance between here and the ground; both prospects seem bleak.

Where’s a griffon rider when you need one? Someone please come save your Head Healer—

lazar; 4 astrid & barrow

[extortionate]

By the time he ambles back -

The bag on his back isn’t one he left with. The one under his arm, either, supporting a sprawl of scroll cases; or the other arm, juggling a fractured marble bust and a half-spilled sack of apples. That cloak certainly isn’t his, its rich fur fastened with an ostentatious, flame-shaped, and entirely foreign broach.

The blank expression Lazar wears is at least familiar.

"Well," Looking about the place. "Shit."

(In the distance, the ferryman sports a fetching new feathered hat.)

[brennvin]

It’s already been an exhausting period of time, the cleanup and rebuilding needing to start in earnest. Astrid’s been toiling away in the bleak spring sun, hauling rocks alongside their hired labour; hoping they don’t come across something truly horrific beneath the rubble, like some mass of blood and bone which used to be a person. She occasionally pauses to wipe sweat off her brow, squinting into the middle distance.

Which is when she notices Lazar. She stares at him, and his inexplicable armfuls of loot. She’s taken detours to steal shit with him before, but this timing—

The man might or might not deserve what happens next: she drops what she’s carrying, marches over to him with a stormy look on her face, winds up, and punches him in the upper arm. It’s a harmless location, but with some proper weight to the blow, all that pent-up concern displacing itself into anger.

“You goat’s ballsack, what took you so long? The others were back ages ago!” Then, a flurry of Avvar cursing and: “Is that a fucking statue??”

jayce talis

[pathlit]

[ ota wildcards or hmu for a starter ]

aftermath, for viktor

[pathlit]

After the Templar tower's partial destruction, Jayce takes a blow to the-- he doesn't know, honestly, because he awakens in a makeshift infirmary dry mouthed, temples pulsing, and his shoulder and abdomen tingling in an odd way. Healing magic, he realizes, when a short glance down reveals a patch of dried blood on his torso that he doesn't remember seeing beforehand.

It takes a few minutes to flag down someone down; even shorter to receive their harried, brief summary of the current events, and Jayce is perplexed to hear that it hasn't even been a full twenty-four hours since the attack.

Panicked, he nearly throws himself out of the cot, searching for a familiar face as his fingers scramble for his crystal. Into it, he hisses hoarsely, "Viktor. V. Are you there?"

evelyn | ota

[delven]

during.

The debris from two towers—maybe one and three-quarters, but who's being technical in a time like this?—either has tumbled into the courtyard of the Gallows, or is presently in the process of doing so, and even if these newfangled Vint explosives have thankfully provided enough warning for everyone to get out of the way, that doesn't help when there are blasts of magic throwing chunks of stone around and grenades destablizing heaps of rubble and acid-spitting dracolisks chasing folks through them. So it's understandable that somebody might end up slipping and falling between one rock and another, or ducking into a hidey hole that suddenly became a bit too hidey, or getting an arm pinned by a miraculously intact filing cabinet or whatever.

Good news: Evelyn and Caballero, a small-ish (in bear terms) bear wearing an apparently custom-made leather jerkin, are here to help. "Hang on!" shouts a Kirkwall accent over the general din, as they scramble towards a frantic wave or a cry for help or whatever may have alerted them. "We're coming!"

Bad news: although Evelyn is carrying a bow and Caballero is a bear, neither of these things are all that helpful against flying mages on horror horses. (Horrorses? Horrses?) "Shit!" comes the next shout, "Hang on, incoming!"

after.

There's no getting back into the city overnight, at least not at the moment, the ferryman having understandably run off to probably check on his family or apply for employment elsewhere or something. Evelyn sits on the lowest bit of the battlements (maybe a bit lower than it was this morning) and stares out at the lights of Kirkwall, brighter than usual in some places, others an uncharacteristic void. She's somehow gotten the bear up the stairs, and Caballero snoozes at her side with a softly whuffling snore.

Once the dust has settled in the morning, it's time to stir it up again by picking through the rubble field that now fills half the Gallows. Evelyn's search is more systematic than it looks, drawing objects up out of one area until she gets a sense for what's there, and then delivering her finds to whatever central Lost & Found has been set up before moving on to the next.

"You looking for something in particular?" she might ask, if somebody seems to be searching in vain, "Which floor?"

during, change this around however

[dissolving]

It’s like a dream. So: It’s fucking absurd. A cabinet’s caught his foot at the exact wrong place to pin, forms in triplicate spilling about this crater in bureaucratic snow.

Tethered by his own leg, Cedric's grunting half a bear himself - shifts high and sharp when the real thing lumbers into view. His eyes go wide as dinner plates, scrambling back so far as the furniture will allow.

"Is that a -" Motion, over Evelyn’s shoulder, and she’s seen it; she’s shouting, and he’s waving, yelling back: "- Get down!"

Toward him, hand thrusting out on some dizzy, unnameable impulse. Green light ripples forth, hardening the air. Too small to cover them, really, but the angle shades Caballero -

bastien | ota

[cozen]

i. immediate aftermath

He's as high on the stairs as he can go before the stairs are no longer there, giving way to what might look like a rockslide on a mountainside if not for the shape of the debris. Columns, doorways, a garden wall with iron spikes. Even in the dark it's dotted with color from shredded curtains and crushed furniture and spilled wardrobes.

Against the cliff, the Darktown tunnels are ripped open. The city's full of shouting and crying, and Darktown's no different. Maybe worse. They couldn't see what was happening above them. The guard wasn't there to try to organize them or explain what was happening. It's climbable. He's going to climb—he and his twisted knee and whoever might be on the stairs beside him with a shared interest in seeing if they can help those least likely to find help from anyone else.

In a second.

Right now he's looking out at the harbor. The way Lowtown is built, he couldn't see the Gallows before. There's hardly anywhere you can see past your own illogically shaped street. He could hear the crystal chatter, sometimes even pay attention to it, and he understood that there was damage, but he wasn't expecting—

"Fuck," he says, wondering and distant. Almost pleasant.

ii. more after aftermath

To go from the Gallows to nearly anywhere else in Kirkwall, you'd have to go out of your way not to ever pass by Bastien and Byerly's rented little house. It's on one of the main thoroughfares between the docks and the Lowtown Bazaar, itself at the base of the broad staircase that (on better weeks than this one) is most people's only way to and from Hightown.

And if it didn't particularly stand out before, it does now. The houses on either side have been crushed by the landslide of rubble from the stairs and Hightown. The street has been cleared, for the most part, but a few large slabs of busted stone remain. One is on top of the house's flat roof, hanging over the edge. Bastien's been watching it with particularly Orlesian suspicion. Only very slowly is he beginning to trust that it isn't going to fall through the ceiling and crush anyone and anything inside.

But he's outside, anyway. He has a broom, which is inherently ridiculous given the situation, but he's holding it upside down and using the stick end to lever and poke his way through the upper layer of the wreckage of one of the neighboring homes, searching for possessions that aren't beyond saving.

One sign this is not illegal looting is the city guard loitering down the street, in full view, without paying him any attention. The other is the way he smiles at a familiar face. Tired, but friendly and shameless, waving with his broom because his other arm is full of someone else's clothes.

ii

[dissolving]

A moment, squinting back, before he picks out the face. It’s been a long night - a long week - will be a longer year ahead.

"Monsieur," In broken, halting Orlesian: "I give you my arms."

Reaching to take broom or pile, and free up one hand for another. Even if Bastien likes a skirt, these can’t be his size, so Cedric breaks back to Trade to ask,

"Anyone make it out?"