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

[elegiaque]

“—et higher then I can make it,” she is insisting, when they can hear each other again. “All I need is a good angle—”

Probably Ellie, and that new man, Farnon, would very rightfully have about fifty apoplectic fits if they were to, for instance, ginger the griffon's arseholes, but consider the immediate benefits of being able to make the fucking thing go faster? Imagine. Nothing she does back here is going to be of any help to that end, though, and she resists the urge to slap Agathe's backside, instead flinging up a shield around the three of them to at least buy them some breathing space for Cedric to do as she damn well tells him.

“Better angle, it'll split his focus if we do it fast enough—”

[dissolving]

The murmur of something in swift, repetitive Nevarran. His knees press in. Agathe banks steep against cloud, and Cedric hauls an arm back for Gwenaëlle and her suggestion of a harness -

(And though we are few against the wind, and though we are few against the wind.)

Ice needles the shield, splintering off and away. Stray points clip the griffon's wings and Agathe screams, levels,

Not high enough. Not high enough, and still too close. The rider pulls his hands back, ozone threading the night. They're square in the center of his aim.

He's in theirs. Cedric lets go of her - the telltale spark of magic catches, and then,

Doesn't. A pulse in the air ripples white. The rider leans forward, caught sudden in the thrust of a spell that isn't there. He's open.

(They're not high enough.)

[elegiaque]

They're not fucking high enough

but she could be. Gwenaëlle calculates in the space of not even a moment, the distance, their momentum, and— Clarisse, just close enough. Maybe close enough. Angling downwards has to be easier than upwards. She's certain that she can hit him, and pretty sure if she screams loud enough Clarisse can catch her. If she's wrong, she is almost certainly about to die.

She wraps the safety harness around her fist, pulling her feet onto the griffon's back underneath her— lets go, leaps, before she can think it through and think better.

“Clarisse!” comes out at a pitch that dogs and hopefully teenagers can hear as she looses the shot, a frigid, ozone-sparking arrow slamming home into the throat of the dracolisk rider and bearing him backwards off his mount with the sheer force of it—

There's no time, and there's nothing underneath her.

one last tag before i dip out

[dissolving]

She is almost certainly about to die.

He doesn't have time to take it in, to rip Agathe around and down, after her before griffon collides bodily with dracolisk, talons splayed to shred its soft throat.

She's faster with half a load. They're high enough, now. What fucking odds.

[laruetheday]

Clarisse moves almost before she knows where she's supposed to go. She certainly hears Gwenaëlle before she sees her, and only later it will occur to her how much of a fucking miracle it was that their angle wasn't off, that the timing was right. In the moment there's no time to think about that—about anything—so she just moves.

"Go!" She squeezes her knees against Blunder's sides, inward pressure stronger on the left side than the right. Seamlessly, Blunder turns in midair and rockets in the exact direction Clarisse needs her to go.

She didn't see the initial leap into the air, or the shot that followed. All she sees is Gwen falling like she's been slam dunked out of a fucking cloud, Blunder's back the only thing standing in between her and a short trip straight into the fire below.

Wind deafens her, makes her eyes water. Clarisse has her spear in one hand and prepares to grab onto Gwen with her other arm, ready for it to rip out of the socket if necessary, ready for the bone to snap if it comes down to that—Blunder points herself forward and down at the perfect angle, if they can just get close enough—quick enough—

[elegiaque]

They collide with almost enough force that for a moment Gwenaëlle isn't certain that she isn't dying— hands locking to wrists and she keeps going for a heartbeat where her stomach twists, the sickening lurch of realisation that it is entirely and completely possible she might just bear Clarisse into the flames as her arrow had that Venatori mage

and then she doesn't. She lands hard, swinging behind her on Blunder's back and forcefully catching herself with her knees, slinging her bow over her back and raising the anchor-shield around them through her gauntlet, a gleam of strange fade-light that buys at least half a second of fuck me are we alive? before they have to continue contending with everything that doesn't want them to be. A lot of things urgently do not want them to be.

“Fuck me running,” she says, and then: “Merci beaucoup,” with a breathless laugh, a leashed hysteria that she can save until she's on the ground and can recount this as an exciting story instead of the way it feels now, like she's feeling her pulse from a very long way away and somehow it's the only thing she can hear.

[laruetheday]

Only after Gwen lands and swings herself up and onto Blunder's back does Clarisse realize how scared shitless she is.

She feels feverish with the sudden rush of adrenaline, cold sweat breaking out on her forehead and the back of her neck, and she takes advantage of the momentary shield to half-turn so she can confirm that Gwenaëlle is actually there, that this really just happened.

"What the fuck," she manages, and the rest devolves into rapid, upset Greek.

If Gwen hadn't been close enough—if she'd been a split second slower—she can see Gwen's fingertips brushing her own and then slipping out of Clarisse's grasp, see her disappearing into the smoke and flame below. She feels nauseous from the scene looping in her mind's eye.

[elegiaque]

Alright, so—

she doesn't speak Greek. What she does speak (fluently, even natively) is devolving into one's mother-tongue in the sheer naked rage of terror (because isn't that every mother's gift to her daughter?) and she is not afraid right now because she's already locked the part of herself that might have hesitated before jumping into nothing somewhere and she can't let that bitch out until they've lived through this. She knows what that will feel like, later, when she allows it to happen. She knows all about being haunted by what might have been.

One hand gloved, one gauntleted; she takes the hand Clarisse isn't gripping a weapon with and presses it to her chest, where beneath the layers of her overly dramatic coat and her sleek, armored corset her heart is hammering in her chest, proof of life:

“Ouais, ouais.” A deep breath in, so Clarisse can feel it, her chest expand and her shoulders rise— “Oui. Je suis navrée.”

[laruetheday]

Even up here, even during this, the familiar slanted vowels and soft rhythm of the words ease her into a sort of calm. Orlesian isn't the French she knows, but it's close enough for the pulse of it to work on her the same way.

She sits for a moment, feeling Gwen's heart beating against her hand, her chest expanding as she breathes in. Yes, yes. I'm sorry.

"Okay." A second later, she repeats it more firmly. "Okay."

Okay. She's still going to give her shit for it when they're back on the ground. But this night is still far from over, and they've already been pushing their luck with the shield as it is.

[elegiaque]

“Okay,” Gwenaëlle echoes it back to her, releasing her hand—

they really do both need both of their hands right now.

“Mage is dead,” she says, “the dracolisk will be easier to put down, it's one more they can't send another rider—”

back to business. Of course; when does it ever stop for them?

(She's firm and solid and holding her bow, alive, still. Real and here, not like the vision of her disappearing into the flames that will probably feature in multiple nightmares later.)

[laruetheday]

Back to business, all right.

The good thing about Clarisse is that this kind of business is what she's used to. Gwen scared the shit out of her, but she's ready to tuck that away and deal with it later (or never!) and rush back into the chaos.

"I can get you close enough," she says, already turning around to face front.

She gives Blunder Supreme a strong nudge with her knee, and they bank to the right, rising steadily back toward the dark shapes above. "Whatever you can kill, great. Whatever you can hurt, we can finish the job."

[elegiaque]

Gwenaëlle adjusts the gauntlet on her left hand, reminding herself which lens is currently equipped and whether or not she needs to think hard about how she aims with the anchor-shard, if she does,

nods, though it hardly matters. Clarisse needs to be looking elsewhere, and it's not as if agreement is in doubt.

She can cause a lot of harm, is the point.

“It'll make you feel better,” she says, which might or might not be true. It will make both of them feel more in control, which is sort of the same thing. Close enough. She draws back her bow, ready—

[laruetheday]

"I know," she agrees, because violence almost always does make her feel better.

They get closer, gliding steadily up, Blunder occasionally giving a single agitated flap of her wings. Clarisse is used to slamming herself right into the center of the action, so this almost-stealthy turnaround is new and a little exciting.

She wonders if this is how the shark felt in Jaws when it would surge up from the dark water and bite the shit out of people who never saw it coming.

She points to one of the dark shapes ahead. The dracolisks are smaller and faster than the griffons, and they fly differently. Even in the dark, it's not hard to pick them out.