[EVENT] IN THE WAKE OF XI TIANLONG

[khuimods]

Characters: All
Date: January 2019
Location: Around Aifaran
Situation: The archipelago is recovering from the megastorm, Xi Tianlong, and a Watcher has sailed into Aifaran's port.
Warnings/Rating: Mentions of death and devastation resulting from a natural disaster; use additional warnings as needed.


The force of the storm and the chaos it wrought - both mundane and metaphysical - has given rise to its name: Xi Tianlong. The Black Sky Dragon left devastation in its wake and many areas are still flooded. The first priority is to ensure the safety and security of everyone living in the archipelago. Anyone of sound mind and body is expected to join the recovery efforts.

I. THE WORK BEGINS

Volunteers may report to operation and logistics outposts run by Sentry and city officials to assist with a wide variety of tasks. Each outpost reports to an overarching emergency operations center, where almost all leadership decisions are being made from.

At a given outpost, the scene is one of organized chaos: most people are in constant motion, wearing weariness as well as their uniforms. Most of the outposts have been set up within buildings but a few are located outdoors beneath huge tents. It may be hard to tell exactly who is in charge, but soon enough you'll be directed to a table designated for processing volunteers. From there, volunteers will be assigned to tasks based on their skills - and not necessarily what one may prefer to be doing. Lives are still at stake. It is time to dig deep.

While participating in recovery efforts, people begin to come across… oddities. Things that do not appear to belong here. Some admit to hearing voices calling their names or whispering incomprehensible secrets, though they're chalking that up to exhaustion and stress.

Below are areas where volunteers are needed:

MEDICAL SUPPORT: A wide spectrum of support is needed, from doctors and magical healers to basic first aid. Individuals will be assigned based on their expertise to emergency clinics that are being set up across the city. There is very little time for bedside manner: the focus is treatment, especially in facilities handling more serious injury. Triage is in full effect.

Including, it seems, for injuries that do not have an identifiable cause, or are reportedly caused by one of the storm's more chaotic effects. Patients falling under this category are sequestered in a separate treatment area, or in some cases moved to an entirely different facility to provide adequate care. They must have stories to tell a willing ear.

DEBRIS CLEARING: At first glance, this is the most straightforward task and easily the one that has the most volunteers assigned to it. One hardly needs particular skills to gather up and deposit debris in bins that are bound for the growing mountain of wreckage outside the city walls. Items of a personal nature or anything that may have immediate use as part of recovery are separated out, but a more thorough sorting will have to happen later. The archipelago is not an endless bounty of resources, and everything that can be reused or recycled, will be. It is hard, messy work. Many volunteer crews push back heartache with song and recitation of well-known poetry to keep their minds focused.

The Sentry does need sharp eyes to deal with a few particularly hazardous areas. Anyone with structural engineering knowledge or similar may end up clambering through the carcasses of buildings, locating any survivors and shoring up instabilities as much as possible.

ORGANIZING AND DISTRIBUTING SUPPLIES:Between what the city and businesses provide, donations, and items collected as part of the debris clearing, there is a lot to go through. Supplies from the city and Sentry are already quite organized, but the rest will arrive at collection points in various states of disorder. Volunteers are needed for sorting, cleaning, and distributing supplies. This may be on an individual basis or to bring items to shelters, such as clothing, medicine, blankets, non-perishable food, and so on.

Items of a personal nature (e.g. pictures, anything with a name on it, etc) that are recovered by cleanup crews are set aside for people to try and claim later, but it can be quite a mess. Lost and found is by no means a priority, and those who come to ask about their property will either be turned away or told they can dig through the piles. There's no time to catalog it all until the city is in better shape.

REPAIRS AND CONSTRUCTION:The first order of business with repairs is to sort what actually can be repaired from what must be torn down and built again, better and stronger. So there is a sort of tiered organization: when the nature of repairs has been ascertained, usually by an expert with long experience at this sort of thing, then the task is assigned. There's some demolition, not all of it skilled, for which Dreamfolk with destructive talents or large muscles are in high demand. Priority in rebuilding is given to utilities and those centres where people are being given aid; dwellings are a close second, since the winter is still in full sway, but all efforts are calibrated toward helping the most vulnerable first.

Carpenters and masons are well loved here, but anyone with a talent for reinforcing structures, for hitting a nail with a hammer, or just plain old carrying heavy things and holding them in place, will be valued.

OOC: Anyone who volunteers will receive a unique discoverable based on which volunteer group they choose by responding to the comment below.

II. HAZARDS AND HUSHED WHISPERS

The trees that sprouted improbably from lightning strikes during the storm remain firmly rooted, wherever they are. Most of them grew from rooftops but a handful reside in the streets. Regardless of whether they have soil or sun (and in one unique case of a tree growing in a flood zone, no air), the trees seem healthy and content. They're also quite diverse, including fruit-bearing trees, evergreens, and several from unidentified species. One has a bioluminescent glow at night. Another grows perpendicularly out of the side of a building. None of them show signs of disease, damage, or lack of nutrients. For the time being, the official word is to leave them alone. Given their origin, no one knows how a tree might react to being cut down or uprooted or touched, and in any case they don't seem to be doing anything but standing there. Leaves fluttering a little in a non-existent breeze.

One glaring exception to this ambivalence is the grove of trees rooted in a section of the Skyway. Rumor has it that the cluster grew out of a single lightning strike, whereas all the other strikes only produced one arboreal interloper. About a week after the storm clears, Opara Core technicians erect a containment tent across the entire section to hide it from view, and to cover the roots dangling down through the track. By then, however, enough pictures of the trees have been taken to reveal the gnarled roots and branches are not made purely from wood: they're veined and interwoven with a silvery-blue metal. Even the leaves have silvered edges, giving rise to the theory that they're sharp as razors. The technicians and scientists who come and go from the site are tight-lipped about the situation and will evade questioning.

There's been no improvement or really any change in the status of those buildings now colloquially called 'drowned.' Obviously, no one is allowed inside. Those with a careful ear to the ground may overhear some whispers, that these buildings are -- wrong somehow, strange. But these conversations are hushed quickly. Whatever is actually wrong, it's something that those investigating are trying twice over to make sure doesn't get out to the general public. The clearest thing, perhaps, is that these buildings are not safe.

While it's not the first priority, as soon as there's some breathing space the Sentry has some crimes to look into. The storm's peculiar eddies affected many Dreamfolk, and while there's some debate about the level of responsibility given that many are reporting states of altered consciousness-- crimes still happened. People have still been injured or worse. This is not something that can be simply let lie. Further, cannier minds provide, there's the risk of some having committed opportunistic crimes and then trying to camouflage them under the veneer of a Dreamperson affected by the eddies. Sorting this distinction out comes first; then comes how responsible those under the eddies' influence actually are. Nothing is being allowed to simply slip by if the Sentry catches wind of it. Frankly, they're paying more attention now than they usually do, under the logic that now more than ever their order will be a source of reassurance.

OOC: If a character chooses to touch the lightning trees, please respond to the comment below.

III. WATCHERS IN THE WATER

The two ships that accompanied Melias are of a similar design to her own, but there is no visible cabin on them. In fact, there only appears to be one door on each, at the stern, but there's no visible means of opening them. The ships are cream-colored and almond-shaped, with whorls carved onto them that could be symbolic of the water - and, if one looks closely, there are words carved into them in an alphabet that has been extinct since long before the establishment of Aifaran.

The ships do not dock, but flank Melias' ship in the harbor, seemingly guarding it. If anyone gets curious enough to try and sneak aboard one of the two mysterious ships, they will be met with a feeling of intense amusement projected into their minds before something resembling a tree branch materializes from the hull, grabs them, and gently deposits them on the docks nearby. Any attempt to breach the chitinous hulls by violent means will be met with a wave of anger tinged with disappointment. Hull damage is quickly self-repaired. The ships seem to be alive after a fashion. That's crazy, though, isn't it?

If Melias learns of an attempt to board or damage the ship, she'll scold the Dreamfolk: "All in good time! Honestly, you lot are so impatient."

---

OOC Notes: Melias will be available for threading upon request.

Comments

II

[wolfishflame]

And as luck would have it, Devin's got a friend for a patient. (He's her friend, and he has to accept that.)

Look, was it really Aly's fault that the rebar sticking up had torn a big gash down her newly-healed arm? (Yes.) At least she could feel the pain this time, which was somewhat of a relief, even if looking at the blood all over her arm wasn't. It wasn't that it made her queasy - she'd seen far too much of her own blood for a little nick like that to distress her - but it was annoying. Not least because she wouldn't be able to use that arm until it was healed up again, which meant that unless she could wheedle healing magic out of someone or find a Dreamfolk with a talent like that, her part in the debris-clearing was finished. Her own Restoration talent applied to inanimate objects, not organic matter, and while she could still do that, not being able to carry things made her more than a little grumpy.

For all that, though, she brightens up when she sees that Devin's been assigned to her. "Hola, buddy."

[annihilist]

(He will probably never say it out loud, even if he has accepted it.)

Although this is not the setting in which Devin would hope to find Aly (relatively) safe and sound after the storm, at least she's on her feet and talking. This is markedly better than when he fished her out of a canal, so he assumes she avoided getting totally inundated.

"Aly." The look Devin gives her when he approaches the makeshift treatment area she's in is akin to parental annoyance-relief. "Why am I not surprised you've ended up here," he remarks, faint scolding at the edges of his amusement. "I'm beginning to think it's physically impossible for you to stay out of trouble."

He tugs gloves on and pokes around the box of supplies to make sure he has everything he'll need, then comes to her side. "Let's have a look, shall we? How did you get this?" Devin wants to know, gently taking her injured arm to inspect the gash.

[wolfishflame]

Something about Devin's Look at her makes her think of her dad and how much she misses him, and homesickness squeezes her heart. At least she can ignore that for the most part and engage in banter.

"'Cause it's totally on-brand for me to get my fool self hurt," she says with a cheeky grin. "And I'll have you know that I can avoid trouble perfectly well. I just choose not to."

Okay, that's not entirely true. Trouble seemed drawn to her like, well, a moth to a Flame (ha ha). Not that he needed her to tell him that. He's smart; he'd probably figured that out.

"Did you know that rubble can give out under your feet really easily and when you land on your butt a big broken piece of rebar rips open your arm on the way down?" she says cheerfully. "Because I am a living example."

[annihilist]

"I am aware," Devin replies, arching an eyebrow up at her. "Too bad I don't have a camera on hand, we could capture your living example for posterity. Maybe remind you not to do this a second time, mm?"

He begins carefully examining the laceration, assessing the severity of the injury and checking for debris. The gash isn't too deep, but it's likely to re-open if she tries to do too much.

"I hope your tetanus shot is up to date," he needles, going to the box of supplies and transferring what he needs to a small tray and placing it next to her. His features are rearranged to something more suitably wry. "Can you move all your fingers? Any numbness or tingling?"

[wolfishflame]

"Reminders don't work," she says seriously. "No matter how careful I am, this kind of thing keeps happening to me. My luck, I guess."

"No numbness, no tingling," she says, and systematically moves her fingers. "One, two, three, four, and five, our good friend the thumb. I think I missed the nerves." Then she makes a face. "Y'ever been full-body numb? 'Cause that happened to me during the storm. And I broke my arm."

[annihilist]

Devin gives Aly another Look, laying thin cloth next to her to catch any saline or iodine. Obviously she found her way to some healers to deal with that, but her frequency of injuries still causes worry. Worry he'd rather not have, and makes a sincere effort not to show.

"I've experienced something like it," he says, intentionally vague. "I don't suppose telling you to be more careful will help either, will it." It's not a question. Devin picks up a bottle of saline and takes her arm again. "You're going to need stitches after I clean this. Might sting a bit," he warns, and begins flushing out the gash. "I'll numb you up in a minute."

[wolfishflame]

"I don't need to be numbed up," she says, more out of stubbornness than anything. She didn't want to admit that she'd like a reprieve from the pain, because that made her feel weak. If Sensei were here, he'd knock me ass over teakettle, she thought, amused. He'd never been one to indulge her habit of pushing herself harder than she could handle.

"Hey, at least this won't be my first time having stitches."

[annihilist]

"Uh huh." The remark is dry and dubious. "You're getting it anyway. If you start squirming around you're not going to appreciate me accidentally sewing your arm to something else. And it won't heal neatly if you can't keep still."

Once the rinse is done, Devin picks up the iodine and pours a bit onto some gauze to sterilize the wound and the area around it. "Somehow, that doesn't surprise me. If you're going to keep up this frequency of injuries, you may want to learn how to suture yourself up." A pause while he makes sure not to rough up the edges of the gash, following the direction of the laceration. "I can teach you while you're here," he decides to offer.

[wolfishflame]

"I'm not going to squirm," says Aly, who would probably squirm.

When Devin makes the offer, though, she blinks and looks at him (without moving too much). "Really? I don't actually know how since the Princeps is usually around to be our healer. I guess it's a good life skill, huh?"

[annihilist]

"You're still getting local anesthetic," Devin counters firmly.

And suiting action to words, he wipes away the excess iodine, pitches the gauze, and reaches for a sterile package containing a needle and syringe. "Ideally, you'd still have someone else do your own stitches, but if you can stitch up other people then you can more or less do your own. It's useful to know in case you're out of range of a healer or a doctor. Always have a backup plan."

He lifts a small glass bottle once the syringe is put together and begins drawing out a sufficient dose of the numbing agent. "I've done a lot of my own sutures, except the ones I couldn't reach or were too serious. The Princeps is a friend of yours, I'm assuming? You're going to feel a few pricks," Devin tells her, holding the syringe above her wound but waiting until she's ready to begin.

[wolfishflame]

"Yeah," she says, watching Devin prepare. "They're...well...it's a long story. A powerful ally, and a better friend."

She misses the Princeps too, and misses everyone, but they'd accidentally let Aly know about severing lines. They'll probably be able to figure out what she's done when she does it, but hopefully that wouldn't matter too much.

"Ready when you are."

[annihilist]

"Mm." The hum is thoughtful. Hopefully, her powerful friends would help keep her alive when Aly went home. It's up to her to share more if she wishes.

"I'll be quick," he promises, and begins administering the anesthetic around the edges of the gash to ensure the whole area becomes numb. Devin's hands are steady and he's true to his word, wasting no time. He holds her arm gently just in case she does move, despite her assurance. Honestly, sometimes this was more unpleasant than the sutures themselves, for him. Repeated needle pokes were annoying.

"Alright, give it a few minutes to take full effect," Devin says once that's done, going to dispose of the needle. "I'll show you how to do sutures once the storm recovery is a little more advanced. It's still quite busy here."

[wolfishflame]

Aly nods when he says that he'll wait to show her until the recovery is better underway. "Yeah, no worries. Other people need the help a lot more than me."

She watches him sew up her arm with interest. "So did you have a good teacher, or did you pick it up yourself? Probably a little hard to do that, right?"

[annihilist]

The sutures are basically just sterilized thread rather than the kind that dissolve themselves, but it still works. Better than staples, in his opinion.

The edges of the gash are a bit ragged in places, but it's a clean enough injury that this will do. Devin is deft with the curved needle, conscientious not to tug or pinch any skin.

"A bit of both. It happened enough times that I decided to stop winging it and actually sit down to practice so things would heal more cleanly." It was possible to tell from his scars which had been tended to properly and which had not, for the most part. "I've been on good terms with a few doctors in my lifetime as well, out of necessity. Between them, personal study, and direct experience, I know enough to be a basic field medic. Not that it's always a welcome skill, when people know what else I am."

[wolfishflame]

Definitely better than staples.

"Last time I got stitches was when I fell off a pier at home and gashed up my leg on it," Aly says. "In my defense, it was right when the waves bobbed the boat out of foot reach. And my dad was freaking out too much do do much but fish me out of the water and put pressure on it. I think he was more freaked out than I was." She laughs at the memory, but misses him even more.