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

[luaithre]

The rev of a growl when pain bleeds back in is cut off by the closed-mouth but otherwise open cry of pain that comes next as Isaac sets things to rights with firm grip. Teeth set marks into leather, spittle left behind on his bracer, stomach clenching. His eyes are closed and he still sees white spots swimming in the depths, before numbness prickles over the whole mess.

Splinting. On a delay, Marcus loosens his jaw, lowers that arm to let drool-slick leather slither out from between his teeth. Skin pale, but breathing even. So much for dignity.

The look he casts to Isaac seems to ask what? before he puts it together. Rebreaking. A long breath out, and he shakes his head, says, "Only on gashes. Stops the bleeding well."

[wythersake]

Sipping from the phial, he makes a face. A distinctive, dizzy burn assaults his sinuses, vision briefly doubled. He’ll dream awake tonight.

"I was Harrowed before I ever touched bone," Human, at least. Before, there’d been pigs, rats. On one memorable occasion, a nasty little monkey. "It’s alive as the meat of you. It dies much the same."

Isaac shakes his head, and downs the rest. Hands a spare scrap of cloth to Marcus - dignity so oft begins with drool -

"In the best case, you would have lost function, or the tissue would starve and rot."

Cue another Riftwatch amputee. They’re in the home stretch: By piece he finds the breaks, already padding themselves with desperate clot. Warmth flows from his skin into Marcus’, urges new thread to spindle, bone to weave. They reach and reknit, set about the long work of hardening.

A joke in there, somewhere. Else a metaphor - but they're both tired.

"Stick to gashes." Or show up for lessons, but Isaac doesn’t think he’s the patience; any of them, the time. "We need you in the battles to come. Now, who am I calling?"

To chaperone. If Marcus thinks he's about to climb back up the tower, he's mistaken.

[luaithre]

He takes the cloth. Wipes his brow, wipes his mouth. Endures the lecture.

Doesn't feel the need to explain himself, or at least, is halfway aware it wouldn't be of any use to either of them. He had, anyway, felt the wrongness of it beneath the ache, so Marcus can hardly say Isaac is wrong for saying so. He rests his better arm on bent knee, watches Isaac's hands work down the injured limb.

Then back to his face as he speaks. Something close to amusement in the turn of the corner of Marcus's mouth, if a little too exhausted to manifest itself any more emphatically than that. Testing, he closes that hand into a fist, going slow. A short breath out as muscles twinge, but important things have been mended. That scream of pain has dimmed to a whine.

"Go on," he says, instead of a name, a shake of his head. "I'll sit here for a bit."

[wythersake]

Isaac has, in his time, charge exorbitant fees for this work. Not that he saw the money. If a penny's the cost of thought, then Marcus may mark this little tirade as ruinously cheap -

"You'll sit," He agrees, and lifts a crystal. Perhaps it's unkind, to hold that pause before him, when Julius might not have responded at all. Later, Isaac will have cause to consider grief and its anticipation. In the moment: He just holds eye contact.

And then Nell's crashing in, all feathers and blood, and he's cursing and moving and -

Julius will be here, eventually. If Marcus sits.

[luaithre]

Good will and gratitude vanish, fine rain on fire, and Marcus' already rigid expression closes even more. A brief glint of teeth, an objection forming, but it dies when Julius' voice comes through the little glowing crystal—harried, brisk, alive.

The low swoop of feeling is too much to grapple with to push aside misgivings and say something to Isaac rising up, turning—his thanks, or some curtly delivered sentiment, that it's good to see him, in spite of everything.

There will be time, after. Everyone has put in so much to guarantee that after.

He sits, stays, all that, splinted arm kept close, and waits.

[overharrowed]

It's probably closer to twenty minutes, despite Julius's best efforts. The complex is a mess of wreckage and debris, and even with the need to get to Marcus's side as soon as he can manage, a straight shot to the garden simply isn't possible. He makes virtue of necessity to briefly call Petrana on his way. If he's also started a mental list of supplies and materials they're going to need, well, he can at least recognize the impulse to distract himself.

When he appears in the ruined prayer garden, he's as much worse for wear as anyone in the Gallows. Dust makes his hair a few shades lighter. His hands sport some cuts that aren't bad enough to slow down and heal, and there's a burn on one sleeve that didn't make it through to the skin below. His manner is marked by the weary exhaustion of the attempt to save as much of their base of operations as they could that more or less everyone shares at present. But, for all of that, he isn't visibly injured, not seriously. He moves quickly enough when he spots Marcus waiting.

[luaithre]

Marcus hasn't moved from where he was placed—a patch of grass in the gardens, sitting with his knees bent and boot heels dug into the soft earth. Still in his armor, his lighter assemblage of dragon hide, dark copper and black. With the cloth he'd been given, he's haphazardly cleaned his face some while waiting—dust and, as always, magically-summoned soot dry in his sweat in streaks.

The arm that Isaac had seen to, he has tucked against him. Hard to make out until Julius nears, but nonetheless, the bracer has been removed and the sleeve sliced open to hang in loose strips. The limb has been splinted and wrapped securely in silk.

Five minutes, twenty minutes, time has bled like an open wound. No need to preoccupy himself when he is barely cognizant of his surroundings—at least, until the familiar pattern of Julius' approach calls to him, and he looks over. Knees lowering, his good hand drifting up, expression sharpening.

Nothing said, immediately, just a silent bid for him to be nearer.

[overharrowed]

He catches Marcus' hand as he lowers himself to his knees. A proper embrace is demonstrably a bad idea, despite the strong impulse, so Julius leans to touch their foreheads, clasping the arm he can. He just breathes a moment, thankful that they've gotten out of it no worse and shaken that it was this bad. He has to think many of them have expected an attack in an abstract way, but it's been a breathtaking shock in the concrete reality.

Finally, after a few heartbeats just being as close as he responsibly can, he leans back enough to look at Marcus properly. (He doesn't release his hand.) "Have you had anything for the pain yet?" He's not sure whether anything is even available, in fairness. He hasn't had time to check on the state of the infirmary, so he doesn't know if Isaac didn't take Marcus there because it's not necessary or because it's not in a state to accept patients.

Still. They've made it through. Everything else can be sorted.

[luaithre]

It had been a rush of guilt in the moment Isaac had ignored his wishes. Marcus is not dying, he had been on his feet (mostly) when he'd been found, there is so much to do and attend to, and the dust of fallen buildings is settled in Julius' hair and clothing and cuts—but, here, what guilt had already started working its way out of his system is properly dismissed.

This is good, actually, leaning into this fractional embrace, breathing together. He works his fingers between Julius', only leans back upright when the other man does.

Finds eye contact, and shakes his head no, but, "I have something to take before sleep," but before he can add to that, he asks, "Is Petrana well?"

[overharrowed]

He exhales, heavily, but nods. "I called her on my way over. She's still in Hightown, not hurt. I don't know when they'll run a ferry again, but I'd think they'll have as soon as it's clear the attack is fully over." The supplies, but more pressingly, the personnel. "I'll keep an ear out."

A wan smile, as he adds, "Speaking of sleep, I haven't heard a final ruling on where we're going to end up for now. But I think you get priority for an actual cot rather than a pallet on the ground, so you have my congratulations." A very quiet joke. "No one's going into any of the towers at length until we can check the structural integrity, so not today, at least." Probably not for quite some time, but they'll deal with that soon enough.

[luaithre]

That is as it should be, but it helps to know that it's fact. He is mid-calculating the likelihood that they could get clearance to fetch Monster from where they're keeping the griffons and go over there to collect their better third (low, but not impossible)—

A breath out at this joke, a petty twinge of anguish. He would prefer, so much, to be on his feet and amongst those delivering directives, offering input on decisions and making arrangements, rather than amongst those being arranged. Still, he nods along, chooses not to admit that Isaac found him in a daze, attempting to navigate his way back into the half-wrecked Templar Tower.

"It's only an arm," instead. "Isaac mended it well." His thumb strokes over the back of Julius' hand, and he adds, "None too impressed with my efforts at healing it first."

[overharrowed]

"I doubt any field work would impress him much." If he has doubts that Isaac is capable of being impressed, he doesn't express them for now. "At least it's not a leg; once you get some proper rest, you should be mobile while it heals, so that's... small blessings."

It's less an attempt to look on the bright side than it is thinking through logistics aloud. The entire Gallows complex is going to be a challenge to navigate for some time, and being moved around it by stretcher at length would be far from charming.

"Did you fall or did something hit you?" is a less practical question. There's no particular reason that it matters, except wanting to know what Marcus had been through for its own sake.

[luaithre]

"Monster and I both took a fall."

Julius' habit for thinking out loud practical things is a more soothing thing than undue optimism. Some tense thing in Marcus can relax and allow someone else to do some amount of worrying that they are well equipped to handle. Slowly, that lockjawed grasp on the immediate future loosens. He speaks.

"I was near the ground anyway, where they were harassing our people. She took a knock and we couldn't right ourselves, and I hadn't the energy to conjure a barrier. She's alright," he adds. "Unhappy and a little bruised, but we were in the air again quickly enough."

He squeezes Julius' hand. "I note the Central Tower is still standing."

Or—the only tower, now, but he's attempting a compliment.

[overharrowed]

"Maker grant it fucking stays that way," is quietly weary, but there's a small note of pride even so. "Given the shake it had, I'll feel better when someone's able to examine the foundation, but I'll take the success for now. I don't know what my plan was gong to be if they succeeded in knocking Flint off, but luckily none of us had to find out if my climbing on the outside myself was as bad of an idea as it sounded."

It's been a long night, and one with a lot of losses. He's not displeased that they managed to grasp at least a partial victory in the midst of it. He looks down at their hands, running his thumb along the side of Marcus's.

Circling back, slightly: "I heard we have an animal specialist now, so at least there will be someone to take a look at Monster in due course." Assuming said specialist made it through, but they'll find that our soon enough. "And Isaac back again. Flush with medics."

[luaithre]

He straightens his fingers, curls them again.

A grunt that agrees: good to have some more healers about the place. Good that Monster can be seen to. But not quite prepared to circle back, and instead taking the opportunity when Julius looks down to lift his chin and brush a kiss along the other man's cheek.

"I'd have rescued you," has the warmth of humour to it. Broken arm and all. It would have been very brave and sexy of him, etc.

[overharrowed]

Julius lets himself be drawn back, a bit, from pushing forward into more practicalities. The kiss, at least, makes him smile; he turns to press one gently but unhesitatingly to Marcus's lips. "I know you would have," he says, quiet. "You'd have come for me, too, if I'd stubbornly stayed in the tower too long trying to save it and it hadn't worked." A scenario he definitely would have survived to be saved from. While they're imagining.

Speaking of being brave and sexy: "I saw you, in the air. Before I buried myself in the library. It's always striking." What griffon riders can do generally. What Marcus can do in particular.

[luaithre]

Marcus nods. Yes, he would have come for Julius. He'd have known to. Pleased, quietly, for the kiss, for the smile still evident as Julius speaks.

For the image Julius makes of him in his mind's eye. Better that than Julius having not noted it at all, and only finding him here, half-ill and sore. No, none of that— "You should say so to Petra," he says. "And I'll return the favour."

[overharrowed]

It gets a quiet, frank laugh. "You think she needs a reminder of our remarkably heroic qualities?" He's not saying no, for what it's worth. "I'm happy to tell her exactly how dashing you looked. Which was very, for the record."

Representative, he supposes. Marcus in the air, Julius in the library.

[luaithre]

Rare, this broader smile from Marcus, showing teeth, not so crooked. Brief, of course, but genuine.

"Aye," he says. "She does."

He will be a sorry sight come tomorrow—and right now, he's sure, although between Isaac's healing of his arm and Julius' healing of his ego, he might pull through alright. He kisses Julius again, still gentle and light, but lingers a little. The wind coming off the water has had time to disperse some of the dust in the air. Everything still smells of it, and fire, but now the familiar trace of salt working its way back.

Marcus slides his hand up from Julius', to his arm. "Help me up. I heard Isaac instructing you that I need to sleep."

[overharrowed]

"He did." Julius levers himself up so he can properly raise Marcus by his good arm. "I think I saw some activity toward the warehouse, it seems a likely bet for a place to set you up." Julius will eventually need rest himself, he's well aware. On the other hand, he feels as if there's enough adrenaline in his system to keep him awake another day, maybe two. Seeing Marcus settled is a reasonable thing to do for now, at the very least. (Finding Petrana's dog, maybe, after that; he has concerns on that front, but one thing at a time.)

Once Marcus is up, Julius keeps his good arm. Support, yes, but also he simply doesn't want to let Marcus drift too far away. "Do you know when Isaac returned? I wasn't even aware he was in the Gallows, I don't think." He was fairly certain he'd remember hearing as much.