faderift | All Mortals Shall Know

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All Mortals Shall Know - Part II

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.

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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.

This is hardly the reunion that Octavius had childishly entertained in his daydreams, but at this stage he's pretty used to disappointment. Still, it is much better than the grim alternative he'd nearly made peace with not so long ago.

"What are you doing here?"

"Helping you recover, I hope," he replies smartly, eyebrows raised, but given how he looks aside with an exhale, he knows that answer won't pass muster. He pulls a chair over and settles down onto it, leaning his elbows against his knees, and looks down at his fingers as he laces them together to still their fidgeting. "I'm trying to find my father. Riftwatch is letting me make use of its resources to do so, and in exchange I--" and here he flourishes a hand just long enough to conjure a barely there wisp of magic at his fingertips, before allowing it to fizzle out. His lips twist into a tense little smile. "It's a refreshingly straightforward transaction, so I shouldn't complain." (Shouldn't, meaning he could. But he won't.)

A little mirthless laugh croaks out of Benedict, but he keeps his commentary to himself, at least for the moment, in favor of taking a drink of the tea; it's acrid, his face demonstrates, but he still tries to do as he's told, choking down as much as he can in as few gulps as possible.

He gives a full-body shudder as he passes the empty cup to Octavius, leaning back to recline once more with an exhausted sigh.

"He went off to Skyhold," he continues, sneering, "and they lost him, from what I know. You're better off forgetting him." Everyone is.

He accepts the cup back as it is offered to him, inspects the dregs with a physician's shrewd eye to be certain that his instructions were followed, and then, satisfied, sets it aside. "That should help with any pain," he explains, "without dulling your senses."

As for the rest, well--

"I plan to." Forget about Atticus, that is. "But if he's alive, I need him to sign some paperwork from Mother's solicitor first. After that, I don't care if he--what was that?"

The 'that' to which he refers is a distant shout of alarm, followed my a flash of bright light seen reflected off of the white stone walls of the Lowtown streets. Startled, Octavius stands up and heads over to the window to investigate, just in time to spot a dracolisk rider swooping low over the adjacent rooftops. That makes him shy away from the window like a spooked horse, stumbling backward and nearly tripping over the chair he'd been seated in seconds before. "Shit--"

It's been an age* since Benedict had to think about anything involving the nitty-gritty family politics of Tevinter, and his face scrunches lightly in some combination of confusion and distaste while Octavius explains, but he too is distracted by the shouting.

He painstakingly pulls himself to sitting again, peering over the back of the sofa in time to see Tavi jerk back from the window.

"What is it," he asks, dread creeping into the rasped question: he'll never be able to run, in his current state.

*a dragon one

Edited (html) 2024-04-01 21:17 (UTC)

"Dragon!" comes a shout from somewhere further down the street.

"Dracolisk riders," Octavius clarifies weakly (not that the people screaming about it in the streets can hear him). Then he frowns, shaking his head. "But they can't have reached Kirkwall from Minrathous so quickly, it's not possible--"

He stops himself, because whether they're from Minrathous or not, someone has certainly arrived in Kirkwall in enough force to send the city into a state of panicked chaos. Octavius looks over his shoulder at Benedict where he struggles to sit up on the couch and comes to a similar conclusion right away. Which means neither of them will be running anywhere, because Octavius has no intention of leaving Benedict behind.

"Come on," he says and circles around to the other side of the couch, then offers a hand out to Benedict to help him up. "Lean on me. We should get away from the windows--the hallway, maybe."

A quick nod, and Benedict's face is a mask of quiet fear; he's already proven since their reunion to be a far cry from the preening, shiny-haired lordling Tavi saw last in Minrathous, but there's an additional weight on top of his current affliction. His eyes dart with the pointed anxiety of someone who is not witnessing this sort of thing for the first time, his lips pulled taut as he takes the offered hand and uses all his strength to get up.

He immediately lists over onto Tavi's shoulder with a puff of breath, his head spinning as he grips his shorter countryman for balance.

It's sort of inevitable that Octavius has to hook a steadying arm around Benedict's waist to keep him from toppling over sideways, shouldering all of his weight with his own body, and under any other circumstances he might be flushed and flustered from such close proximity to the man he's been carrying a torch for since he first laid eyes on Benedict's pretty (and prettily bitchy) face. For now, the possibility of imminent doom is suitable distraction for his hormones, and so Octavius's priorities remain blessedly un-sidelined.

"I've got you," he assures him, meaning it, and hobbles the pair of them out of the living room and into the limited shelter offered by the little house's central corridor. They've just about cleared the threshold when a massive explosion in Hightown rocks the walls, the floor quaking beneath their feet--and outside in the streets, the shouts of panic and alarm transform abruptly into screams of terror, and somewhere nearby, a building crashes to the ground and sends plumes of dust and smoke billowing past the window. But the house is still standing, and aside from a few things being knocked off of shelves, there's no real structural damage to speak of. (yet).

Still, Octavius does not realize he is shaking until he sees his own hands trembling where they clutch at Benedict's side. He forces his grip to relax, to ease Benedict down against the wall, and marshals his composure. "My staff," he says and looks back towards the living room, towards where his staff is still leaning against the couch.

The force of impact is nearly enough to send them to the floor, and it's a miracle they don't go sprawling. There's a bit of reprieve in leaning against the wall, and Benedict sinks down slowly to press against the baseboard, turning his head to the sound of toenails tapping against the floorboards; he has barely moved his arm to open it when Rat Red barrels into him, hiding her head as deeply into his armpit as she can manage.

He thinks to look around for Whiskey, and, following Tavi's gaze toward the living room, spots a quivering hound tail emerging from underneath the (now slightly askew) couch.

"Whiskey," he rasps impatiently, calling her, and he heaves a long-suffering sigh when she doesn't respond.
"I'll cover you," he informs Octavius, raising his sharded hand as best he can while Rat Red is still trying to burrow into him. Even if they left the staff to rot, they can't leave Whiskey.

The sides of the house rattle and shudder ominously, but the building must be composed of sturdier stuff than its neighbours. Octavius truly is not sure whether he believes in the Maker, but offers up a prayer to him anyway as he darts out of the modest shelter of the hallway and over to the sofa. He goes to his knees beside it, taking hold of his staff in one hand while bending down to take a look at the terrified dog beneath the sofa.

"Whiskey? Come on," he cajoles and reaches out to rest a hand gently on her scruff. Is there a collar he can grab to haul her out? "Come out of there." But the hound only emits a stubborn whine and does not budge.

Without the strength to properly get up and walk over to assist, Benedict instead engages in a Tactical Lounge (he may be recuperating, but he is also a very long individual). He slumps to one side, still clutching Rat Red, and thrusts out his left hand: energy jolts through him as a beam of electric green light flashes a Fade barrier up around the general area of Tavi and Whiskey.

"Drag her by the haunches," he suggests, otherwise concentrating on maintaining the shield; tellingly, crumbles of plaster from the ceiling bounce off of it as the house continues to shake.

Edited 2024-04-02 19:47 (UTC)

Reflexively, Octavius throws up an arm to shield his head--and Whiskey's quivering little hound's tail--from the falling debris, only risking a wide-eyed look upwards when it does not actually land on him. He spares a moment to admire the barrier with a scholar's wide-eyed appreciation, before the urgency of the moment reasserts itself, and he instead throws a look of incredulity back at Benedict.

"Just--grab her?" he repeats disbelievingly, then looks back to Whiskey; he radiates apprehension that speaks to someone who did not grow up around dogs and has no idea what to do with one. "Won't she bite--"

Then another explosion sounds, this one much closer, and so are the panicked screams that follow. Octavius curses, grabs hold of poor Whiskey by her haunches, and bodily pulls her out from under the couch. No attempted biting follows--only a sorrowful, frightened animal whine as Octavius tries to haul her back into the shelter of the corridor.

"Just--" Bene begins, but when he sees Tavi do as instructed, he trails off, leaving him be. Whiskey becomes dead weight in her rescuer's arms, tail curled between her limp-hanging legs, and the moment they reconvene with the other two, she slumps to the floor and all but oozes over to hide between Benedict and the wall.

The barrier flickers and fades with another shake of the house, but seeing as it's served its purpose, Benedict doesn't see a need to renew it just yet. He lies on his side, one dog behind him and one dog nestled tightly in his arms, his eyes hollow and lips pursed in an expression of weary acceptance. This might as well be happening.

"See if you can get ahold of Byerly," he says, nodding to Tavi's crystal. He'd have done so by now himself, but having a terrier where his chest should be is complicating things.

He's only just slouched back down onto the corridor floor, disheveled and out of breath from trying to haul an uncooperative dog along after him, when Benedict makes his suggestion. He nods his understanding and fumbles only a little to get hold of the crystal.

"Byerly--" he starts, then jolts when something heavy knocks into the side of the house--maybe a bit of the next-door neighbour's house--braces himself for worse, and then exhales with relief when the ceiling doesn't cave in on them. He swallows, tries again, "Byerly, it's Octavius--what's going on out there? Are you all right?"

On the other end of the line is the noise of chaos. The sound of running.

"Octavius!" Byerly's voice. "The house, the house - Benedict - You need to get him up and get him out of there. They've hit the stairs."

"I'm here," Benedict croaks over Tavi's crystal, "we've got the dogs." They are all cuddling on the floor. It's fine.

"I'm not sure we'll be any safer out there!" Octavius has time to say before another crash shakes the walls. On instinct, he ends up throwing an arm out to protect Benedict's head, and the dogs... even though out of the pair of them, Benedict doubtless can produce a stronger shield than Octavius can even in his dreams. "Where would we even go? Byerly, what's happening, who's attacking us!"

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All Mortals Shall Know - Part II

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