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

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.

[notathreat]

Ellie and Barrow have been in battle together before, and like all of the people she relies on with her life, she recognizes his voice.

So when he yells for her to dive, she immediately breaks stance, ducks against Artie's feathers, and holds on with a bear hug as they both plummet straight down. The missile narrowly misses them, and the enemy rider's helmet turns towards Barrow. They hold up a hand, energy gathering in their palm.

[thereneverwas]

A little sigh is the only reprieve Barrow is allowed before the enemy's attention fixes on him, and the moment leaves him with one of two options: doing the Templar thing, and using the ballista. Or fucking running, but the both of them know how well that would pan out.

Templar abilities are best performed in close quarters, so he crouches behind the ballista again, swiveling it at the dracolisk rider to call their bluff.

"You make it?" he asks into his crystal, eyes fixed on the mage.

II city

[dissolving]

There's a cloth over his mouth. Small blessings, because Maker,

Cedric knows this street. Knew it from the air. His stomach churns - he turns, smashes the impulse down. Not here and now. Not for his own work. The look in his eyes could be anything, so long as it's far away; a spyglass piloted from great distance.

He stoops, levels his arms gentle beneath the man's legs.

"I can take him," Ungainly for either of them, alone. He was tall. "If you want to check on the kid."

The kid doesn't need it. This is an offer. He doesn't expect her to take it, but.

An offer, all the same.

[notathreat]

"No," Ellie says, and it's like it breaks out of her mouth, urgent, almost a snap.

Fuck. No. She's not checking on the kid. She can't check on the kid. Of the two horrible things, somehow this is easier.

Maybe she's just a fucking coward. Christ.

"No," she says more softly. "Just. Help me." She braces, and lifts with her legs.

[dissolving]

He does. It's not the only the body, it's a while before there's much reason to speak further: The heave of breath, an occasional murmur - behind you, or left. The pile isn’t far.

Something cosmically unkind in it, returning a burned man to the pyre; but it's Kirkwall. All funerals end the same way. They set him down. Cedric’s thinking about the kid. He’s thinking about the speed of it, that first denial, about how Ellie looks at home with this work. Maybe that’s unkind, but she does. You can get used to anything.

Maybe not kids.

"This isn’t," He offers, meeting the corpse's boiled stare. There aren't any lids left to shut. "This isn’t my first time doing this."

He doesn't want to pry loose that stone, not really. But people who get used to things don't like blinking first. Someone has to.

Cedric peels the cloth from his mouth, lays it over the dead man's face. It's fine. He can blink.

IIA

[sprent]

"Ellie—"

Soft relief at finding her before an even gentler touch, Gela's hands alighting, trembling, upon her shoulders. She turns her, so that she can put her arms around her. Now that the fight is over, the damage done, she's been let off the houseboat and allowed to return — to what?

The Gallows, as Gela knew them, are gone.

At least the people are still here. That's all they really need in the end, each other. She squeezes Ellie before releasing her, gaze falling to what's on the ground at her feet, parsing through the rubble and dust. "I'm so sorry. I'm so glad you're okay."

Re: IIA

[notathreat]

There hadn't been time for true goodbyes. Time to hold on and reassure each other of reality again, like she has to every time she's seen Gela since she watched a demon wear her face, rip out of her skin.

It's not Gela's fault that Ellie's skin still tries to crawl when she touches her, so she hugs her back all the tighter for it.

"It's- it's just stuff," she says softly and she knows it sounds hollow. Just stuff. "I'm glad you're okay, too."

[sprent]

"No," she says gently, "Not all of it."

You can lose a chair or a bed and have to get a new chair and a new bed, it's not ideal but it isn't very hard to do. But those little trinkets that you take and think to save because you like them or might need them later, or gifts from people who love you, or things that you've made, those are so much harder to replace.

"I wasn't here, I was — Gwenaëlle kept me on the boat, she said that would be safer."

And she was right to do that but it doesn't stop Gela feeling so guilty and sad.

"The warehouses near the docks will be set up for people to stay. We're going to pitch tents closer, if people want to be closer. You'll stay with Clarisse?"

i also cw for violence up in this thread

[laruetheday]

Clarisse doesn't call out a warning—she makes a split-second judgment call that doing so would both waste one or two precious seconds and risk distracting Ellie from moving out of the line of fire.

She's close enough, and the dracolisk rider isn't looking at her. She sends Blunder careening into the creature from the side, and there's a shriek of triumph as the griffon's talons rip into leathery skin. Clarisse is ready for the impact; the other rider isn't, and the white bolt of energy he was about to send straight at Ellie's back shoots wildly off to her left instead.

He doesn't get the chance to prep another spell. Clarisse slams the tip of her spear into the unprotected spot under his outstretched arm, feels it punch through leather and skin and keep going until she's got the man half-skewered and thrashing like a fish on a line, blood bubbling from between his lips.

Clarisse's eyes are wild, and her lips draw back into a brutal smile. Good.

hot of her

[notathreat]

The whuff of feathers and the shriek behind her is what clues Ellie in to the fact that something's happening, and she whirls around on Artie in time to see Clarisse guarding her back before Ellie even knew she was there.

The spear plunges home, and unlike people who haven't spent a lifetime around violence, the look in Clarisse's eyes makes Ellie feel safer than anything.

"Nice save," she calls, and the relief is clear in her voice. "I see some assholes to flank up there."

[laruetheday]

Clarisse isn't sure how long Ellie's been back in Kirkwall, but she's really fucking glad she found her in time.

She extends one booted foot and uses it as leverage against the dracolisk while she pulls her spear out of the enemy mage's chest. She watches as he tips to the side, still gurgling for breath, and slips from the saddle of his dracolisk. From there, he ceases to be her problem. And the dracolisk, already wounded and now directionless and without a rider, won't be an issue now either.

Clarisse gives Maimer a single brisk shake to get some of the blood off, and then she gives a quick, piercing whistle and steers Blunder Supreme up and closer to Ellie.

"Welcome back," she says once she's close enough for Ellie to hear her over the wind and sounds of battle happening all around them. "I'll take the left, you get the right?"

city

[favoriteanalyst]

Ellie's good, great, when dealing with the terrible and the awful. She's had a lifetime of it, unfortunately. But the evenness of her voice sets Mobius to worry. That it's forced, or that it's dulled.

Dismal and needs doing, though. "I gotcha. Get the feet. Count of three: one, two,-"

He can't let himself think about it, each body, each crumbled wall, each terrible injury, each life feeling shattered. That's something to unpack over time. It's...Starkhaven, again, and again. Only this time, he's present in the city itself. In the after. Maker, how long will they keep losing?

After settling the body on whatever bit of sheeting can be spared (some of the char and ash comes off on his gloves, and he doesn't think twice to brush it off), he bumps shoulders with her. "How long have you been at this?"

Re: city

[notathreat]

Ellie lets Mobius count, lets herself exist in the places between the numbers before going onto the next and the next. Narrows it down.

She's disassociating. It's a problem, but it happens. It's going to be fine. She'll keep on moving, keep on going. They really don't have time to get fucked up over this.

Ellie loses track of the bodies moved, just breathing, but she jumps slightly as Mobius leans in to bump her shoulder.

"... a while?" she shrugs. "I'd rather not take a break though."

If she spends any time away from it, she's not sure she'll be able to come back and finish.

"You?"

[favoriteanalyst]

"Take five, at least, for a drink." A while could mean since the sun's colors were starting to color the sky; it could mean ever since the dust settled at the Gallows. A while is still going to be longer than he'd care to see someone work without two damn seconds to stop. "Not gonna do us any more good if you fall over."

Any more good, given the good she's already been doing. It might not penetrate given the state she's in. Physically present but distant otherwise.

"I'll take five with you." Is not an answer, really. Everyone's been working because sleep hasn't really been on the docket while sleeping arrangements are figured out in the midst of it all. (Ellie's things are probably predominantly smashed to bits. Of course she'd prefer to do the good work that needs doing than face that.) But the work, in the city and in the Gallows, is going to be an ongoing group effort in the coming weeks. Five minutes won't make too much difference in this marathon, not with the whole of Kirkwall mobilized to keep searching for the living and the dead both.

medic;

[portalling]

Ellie’s voice is screaming for a medic, and somewhere within that blur, Stephen Strange lifts that wrecked child from her and carries him safely away, swept off to the semblance of a crisis tent which had been set up around the perimeter of the neighbourhood. His bedside manner still isn’t the best, but he does what he can, tending to the child’s injuries.

By the end, even with his burns treated and out of the woods, the kid is still asking for his father. It’s not a good morning.

While others toil with the rubble and the dead, Strange’s hours have been like this: checking on the survivors they find, triaging, sending them to the appropriate assistants, checking for punctured lungs and signs of internal bleeding, gauging those ugly burns (first degree, second degree, third) and declaring when there’s nothing more to be done. His mouth pursing and the shake of a head. Calling it, when someone’s drowning in their own blood. Some ancient instinct to glance at his wrist and check on the time. Time of death: sometime after dawn, I don’t fucking know.

It’s been a while; others have assisted Ellie with dealing with the corpses. And someone, some volunteer, presses something into his gnarled hands— and he finds himself heading to find the girl who’d summoned him to begin with.

“Coffee,” he says, drawing up alongside Ellie, carrying a mug in one hand and a bottle in the other, making the offer more of a command than a question. “Or water. I’ve got both.”

The coffee was precious; expensive, these days, but people have been bringing it to the ones working the ruins. To help keep them going, this dreadful morning.

[notathreat]

Stephen had been there earlier. A fucking godsend, if she believed in those sorts of things, having a familiar face she could trust to hand that kid off to.

She'd whispered to the man that Cedric helped her carry, promised him that the kid would be fine. She hopes she didn't lie to the corpse. It's not like he would care, but some part of her still does.

The smell of coffee sets off the synapses in her skull, rattling free some clutching memories. Stephen sounds nothing at all like Joel, but the tone of his voice is the same.

"Hate the taste, you keep it," she says, and accepts the water bottle instead. "But if you could- I dunno. Stay a minute. Smelling it helps."

It seems like such a childish thing. Stay, just a little longer. She's beyond caring.

"... did he pull through?" Ellie asks, like hers was the only child Stephen picked up today.

[portalling]

It’s a worn glass bottle which probably held wine in a past life, but now it’s been repurposed for cold, thirst-quenching water for throats raw and scratchy from breathing still-smoky air. He hands it over, and considers her question.

It wasn’t the only child he’d picked up, but he’d remembered the young boy largely because of who had handed him over. (There had been something ragged and frantic and desperate in Ellie’s voice, such a far cry from the even keel and steadiness he was accustomed to from her. Unusual, noteworthy, and so he’d automatically filed it away at the time.)

Stephen obligingly holds out the mug for her to catch a whiff of the coffee — warm and cinnamony, a better scent over those burnt buildings — and then holds it to his mouth to take a sip. Savours it. The past year and a half, he’s been learning to get by with less of that daily fix.

“He did,” he says. “Badly burned, it’ll be some ugly scarring and some recuperation, but he’ll live.”

Some recuperation is such a tame phrase for peeling skin and blisters and pus and a truly horrific long-term healing period, but. The important part’s still there. He’ll live.

II Gallows

[youwonscience]

Cosima isn't sure any of them have slept since the attack. She knows she hasn't. She was concerned with people during: getting noncombatants to safety, helping the wounded get to more qualified medics, helping coordinate. She's one of Riftwatch's leaders but she can't help but feel she was under-qualified for this, specifically. The best she could do during, and after, is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. She knows that in the coming days there will be an attempt to learn what they can from the devices that didn't entirely detonate, from any other wreckage. And of course, saving whatever resources they can from the damaged parts of the central tower.

For now, though, the best she can do is help get people resettled. She's helping pick through the debris when she notices Ellie has gone quiet nearby. She glances up. Are you OK is such a nonsensical question she doesn't ask. Instead, she comes over to see what caught Ellie's eye. She hisses through her teeth when she figures out what it is, pissed and sad and sympathetic in ways that are hard to immediately put into words.

[notathreat]

The others are around, and Ellie doesn't wanna do something stupid like cry in front of them, which is especially stupid because pretty much all of Riftwatch has seen her off her fucking rocker at some point.

But it just feels like it would be the cherry on top to let somebody see her cry because of a dumb painting.

Instead she bites the inside of her cheek hard, and goes to one knee.

She pulls it up and the frame cracks, but that's the least of its problems. "Fuck," she mumbles. It's a night sky chart she painted -- but underneath are several paintings, still intact because they were trapped underneath this one.

"... holy shit."

[youwonscience]

Cosima comes closer then, moving carefully over the rubble. "What is it?" At least the second reaction doesn't suggest purely bad news.

She makes it over to Ellie's side, crouching down. "Whoa... those look... here, I can help." They're going to have to be careful, but even the little bit she can see suggests there's something unexpectedly recoverable here. The last thing she wants to do is add any more damage while getting them out.

wildcard action

[armd]

Up on the roof of the Central tower, the air whips at her. This is not where Abby would choose to be but she's stood in the middle and can't see off any edges, so it's fine for now. She's holding the panic at bay, pressing it down into her stomach and using her anchor to fire at the dracolisks; their riders; whoever the fuck she can determine isn't on their side from this distance through her squint, the dust and smoke billowing from a tower that's crumbling and on fire.

She aims. She hits a rider who had been about to fire on a griffon — Ellie's, she realises, recognising the shape of her and the way she holds herself stiffly astride Artichoke even at a distance — and she will fire again but she needs a second and the dracolisk is turning in her direction now, the rider noticing her there.

They plunge down to get at her.

Abby has her mace. The dracolisk lands on the roof with a heavy clattering of claws and lunges at her, snapping.

[notathreat]

A blast from an anchor draws Ellie's attention to the top of the tower, to the briefly backlit silhouette of someone with a braid and a mace. Her heart gives a leap of relief, of fierce satisfaction.

Of course Abby would be here. Just a second later, it occurs to her that Abby probably... doesn't want to be anywhere near the top of a tower, and the dracolisk is turning on her.

Up top, the dracolisk is heavy, angry, and with some semblance of ground under its feet, way too damn fast.

It lunges at Abby, going for her shoulder with a loud, wet snap of fangs. An arrow whistles past Abby's ear and into the shoulder of the beast, biting deep.

It's far from enough to stop it, but- Ellie will still need a few seconds, even if she's on her way.

[armd]

"Fuck—"

She's dodging unsteadily, slipping in place to get out of the way of the dracolisk maw bearing down on her. The first lunge is more angry than tactical and Abby swings her mace following the momentum of her escape, hitting it hard in the leathery side — it hisses, the sound sharp enough to hurt her ears and turns its head for another go.

Abby doesn't see the arrow. She hears it hit. The dracolisk screams a little, tucking wings close to its body to minimise itself, and misses its intended bite, scoring Abby's arm with an off-kilter fang instead, ripping through material.

She collapses to her knees. On purpose; the mace drives up, into its smooth gut.

A back foot comes up at once and kicks her in the face hard, but still she twists.