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

[grindset]

The obvious, reaching effort in it makes something in him want to recoil, at odds with his own intention. What wouldn't, if not this? (Leaving that glorified club outside would be a start.)


After wetting his lip, "Still standing. But the workrooms..." This pause ought to speak for itself; it ends with a faint shake of his head, a shallow sigh. Soft fabric rustle as he lifts a hand toward his own face, the tip of his middle finger seeking that flaking smear above his eyebrow. Faint pink across his knuckles where there were scrapes some hours before. "The extent of the damage has yet to be determined."

[pathlit]

As Viktor responds, it quickly becomes apparent that Jayce will not, in fact, be squatting for much longer; his thighs burn with the effort, strained by the unaccustomed duration and intensity of the latest saddle ride. He relents, shifting to bear his weight on his knees.

His attention follows the movement of Viktor's hand, lips pressed into a small frown. He stares at jagged pink cutting through pale skin, then glances at his partner's face again. This time, his stomach remains still.

Jayce closes his eyes and lowers his head. "But you're alive." His thumb presses into the grimy, leather gloves in his palms; his shoulders jostle with the exhale of a laugh. "I guess you could say de Fonce's departure was serendipitously timed."

[grindset]

His finger tentatively curls, and with a gentle scrape comes away with coagulated grime under the nail. After looking at it, he repeats the gesture. Lingers, this time, feeling at it.

Head tipped, fingers at his hairline, a frown below, "With her assistance, we might have succeeded in disabling the devices."

They did disable them. As much was prevented as could have been. Anyone else could reasonably call it a victory, if only in part.

His scalp is still tender; the skin is healed but the nerves remember. He recalls very clearly the impact on his head, a knock that resonated through bone and brain. After was less a fall than an abrupt sitting down. A piece of aggregate, not much larger than an egg, that's all it was—a tiny fragment compared to the boulders that shook and fell from above, the mortar that clung or crumbled loose in blunt or jagged chunks. Ceilings caving in, floors dropping away. All that power condensed in collapse. He'd been incredibly lucky.

Quietly, "I could have used you up there."

[pathlit]

His brows furrow, a microsecond before his gaze averts to the edge of the cot. Viktor's response stings; it deepens the already-present trepidation behind why Jayce hasn't yet physically reached out to him.

So, the gloves are clenched. The fist around them is enveloped by the opposite hand. Together, they remain in Jayce's lap.

Evenly, he says, "And leave Averesch as the sole defender?"

[grindset]

Leather's whispering creak draws Viktor's eye down. He takes in gloves and hands, becomes conscious of knees, of posture. At first it satisfies, but then less so—spite's empty calories—and all unconsciously, so that the familiar prickle of frustration seems to manifest from nothing. Wearing the look of a sigh, but no such breath, he combs back the hair he'd disturbed and lowers his hand.

"Someone else would have come." Might have. "You could have raised a shield from your anchor." If it cooperated.

[pathlit]

Again, Viktor's movement beckons his attention. The childish hope for an invitation flares, but he's quick to tamp it down. He lowers his gaze, trying to keep a neutral expression despite the obvious discouragement written in his everything.

He wonders how Viktor can put weight behind these hollow sentiments. He wonders why this discordance needs to be revisited right now.

Instead, he says, "Those aren't risks I was willing to take," and it still feels like a verdict looms above him.

[grindset]

Jayce's answer fades to an interval populated by ambient activity, from the faint wheeze tailing Viktor's every exhalation to loose stones being heaved and tumbling down sloped debris, each a laboured rhythm. One tower down, the other headless, the third half a shambles. Jayce kneeling like a supplicant, wringing his gloves, eyes low. Those busy outside have the right idea—there's salvage to be done.

The cot creaks under the shifting of Viktor's meagre weight as he gets an elbow under him; from there he slowly sits up.

"Get off the floor," is not a mutter of admonishment, but of relenting.

[pathlit]

In that cavernous silence between them, Jayce frowns, then closes his eyes and slowly inhales. The creak of the cot expels his breath; he glances up at Viktor, still frowning, assessing.

No. This is still wrong.

Biting the inside of his lower lip, Jayce rises to his feet, shoving his gloves between his torso and belt. He has a suspicion that Viktor intends to leave his cot -- and for what? his mind supplies, exasperated -- but gods help Jayce if he tries to stop him, so he casts a glance for Viktor's crutch, because he doesn't think it would cross any boundaries to touch that.

[grindset]

For what is this: one hand raising, long and pale, knobby knuckles and dirty blunt fingernails. The relaxed shape of it expects to be clasped. Viktor's gaze, meanwhile, has yet to raise after his partner, instead hovering to one side with a sense of tolerance, as if his own gesture is something he must endure—

—but really, he's waiting without enthusiasm for the effort he's about to make.

[pathlit]

For fuck's sake.

Their world's turned over yet again. They could have been killed (again). He doesn't know if the casualties are made of anyone either of them have a personal interest in. Maybe Viktor knows, but Jayce doesn't. Who knows what of their work survived, but they're both still alive. To entertain this fracture between them, this ugly, constant tension even now -- especially now -- cracks through his apprehension.

He sets the crutch down onto the cot and grasps Viktor's expectant hand, lifting him up and into an embrace against Jayce's chest.

[grindset]

Up he comes, swifter than he would alone, smoother. The strain of it plays out in Jayce's arms: the stiff pause and snagged breath, the cautious relaxing, the concurrent clutch and slack of grip on his partner's hand. The fracture's barely discrete edges stubbornly squeezed together.

Thin arms don't fully encircle Jayce in turn, but both hands do come to rest on him. Viktor slides a fractional step in to get his weight under him comfortably, rests his mouth by Jayce's collar, and breathes against him, infusing fabric with the slow warmth of a sigh.

A moment later, he replaces lips with chin and says, "Your griffon riding skills have improved."

[pathlit]

That cautious relaxing settles around him with the safety of an old, favorite blanket. Mouth to fabric, nose to hair, they breathe each other in, sweat and dust and blood. In the quiet, the enormity of his relief swells against the waves of guilt and anger; its potency nearly drives him to tears.

His response: a bark of breathy laughter that sounds uncomfortably close to a sob.

Viktor's still touching him.

Jayce draws back, just enough to look at him. His hand, warm against Viktor's nape, curls beneath his ear and combs his hair away from his dirty face. "I've got a good partner," he says, and there is warmth beneath the weariness in it, too.

[grindset]

It's a weariness they share. The warmth beneath it radiates, seeking homeostasis between them, encouraged by fingers gently grazing the gaunt bone of a cheek. In answer to a sentiment he cannot agree with in this moment, Viktor only lowers his head, turns his eyes down,

and stares at the dark stain that fills his gaze there. His hands loosen, begin to slip, but stay: still touching him.

Pain radiates, too, through a spine overworked, tendons tight as bridge cables, a structure framed upright by bolted forms. Mind's motor running and running, turning over and over one question: what could he have done differently?