Khu Ioduan Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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ioduanlogs2019-01-07 07:07 pm
khuimods) wrote in ioduanlogs2019-01-07 07:07 pm
Entry tags:
- #event,
- [american mcgee] alice liddell,
- [guild wars 2] trahearne,
- [marvel | imaa] pepper potts,
- [marvel | imaa] tony stark,
- [original character] aly haskell,
- [original character] devin parker,
- [original character] valdis,
- [original character] x,
- [realm of the elderlings] the fool,
- [splatoon 2] kai (oc),
- [star wars | tor] draz'ohv'inadax (oc),
- [tales of symphonia] sheena fujibayashi
[EVENT] IN THE WAKE OF XI TIANLONG
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.
---
OOC Notes: Melias will be available for threading upon request.
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:
OOC: Anyone who volunteers will receive a unique discoverable based on which volunteer group they choose by responding to the comment below.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
no subject
A: Distributing Supplies - Open It was terribly dull work, but Alice's job at Houndsditch and the Opera House had left her with a good head for numbers. She didn't exactly have the physical prowess to go digging up the rubble, so she offered what she could. Which was keeping track of supplies.
But familiarity breeds contempt (or so the saying goes) and the work was much too familiar for her liking. So her mind did what it always did - it wandered. Even a natural disaster like this couldn't keep her grounded long, and the ledger is soon filled with doodles of all manner of oddities. Bull-finches (finches with literal bull heads) and a hairless cat all skin and bones and tattoos with all too many teeth grins up from the page.
B. Picking up Scraps - Open She didn't look so out of place amidst the destruction. Dressed in dull black, with shaggy hair that needed a proper trim, and her sickly palour, one would be forgiven for mistaking her to be the grim reaper's long-lost sister looking for souls to cart away.
But Alice wasn't looking for souls. She was looking for her bat cat.
"Lucy!" She called, clambering over a damp brick wall that was all that remained standing of a small set of apartments. What couldn't be salvaged had been carted away. All that remained was an empty lot with a few crumbled bricks and broken glass that crunched softly under her feet as she navigated the ruin.
"Where did you run off to? ...Lucy, darling!"
Lucy, who had just started to take wing, was rather enjoying her new-found freedom, and hide and seek seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to play in the midst of a crisis.
II - Hazards and Hushed Whispers - Closed to the Fool
Alice had the good sense to steer clear of the trees. Getting too close or even looking at them too long gave her a throbbing headache. Unfortunately that good sense didn't extend to the 'drowned' buildings. All she'd heard of them was hushed rumours that gave her a vague idea of their location. But it was enough to pique her interest. The way she'd heard them uttered sounded like something much more than just buildings that had been flooded.
She knew she must be getting close when one of the sentry stopped her and sent her back the way she came. Once she was out of sight, she slipped down an alley, heading back towards the drowned buildings. She'd made it further this way, but a peek around the corner revealed two sentry patrols, having a late lunch.
She ducked out of sight before they saw her snooping, and she scanned around for anything that might get her closer to her goal. A flimsy fire escape that led up to a second floor door that had been blown off its hinges during the storm.
...She'd had worse ideas.
no subject
Rich words, coming from a Fool. He has the good sense to make his observation quietly from where he stands, safely out of sight of the Sentry but near enough for Alice to hear him. Standing in the shade of a nearby awning, the Fool regards her with an inscrutable look on his face. A second or two of silence--from him, at least--follows, before he lifts his eyebrows and makes an artless gesture with one hand.
"What you need is a distraction."
no subject
Her violently green eyes - the only real splash of colour on her - narrowed, her fingers flexing as they inched towards a pocket.
"You're not one of the sentry," she accused sharply, looking him over head to toe. He didn't seem dangerous, but then, neither had Doctor Bumby. Some people were very good, indeed, at seeming.
no subject
The Fool is quite good at seeming to be many things... though perhaps not dangerous. Under Alice's scrutinizing and narrow stare, he returns a ponderously benign smile. "No, I daresay I am not," he agrees with her assessment. "Yet I have plenty of experience garnering their attention, whether I wish for it or not."
He peers from her to the drowned building, and then back again. "They're a mystery, these buildings, aren't they? One I think we both wish to solve." A touch more earnestly, he adds, "Let me help."
no subject
Let me help.
That was always an unnerving phrase. Too many people had very strange definitions of "help" and she'd had her fill of being "helped".
"What are you thinking of doing? I'd rather not spend the week in a cell if it's all the same."
no subject
Mistrustful and suspicious; the Fool can hardly fault her. Rather than rankle under her vivisecting gaze, he instead turns just enough to peer discreetly out at where the Sentry still stand guard.
"I glimpsed a sturdier set of stairs while passing by this road before," he muses aloud, tapping a slender finger against the tip of his chin. He gestures with that hand a moment later. "Yet if you wish to reach it now, you must pass right beneath their noses. Unless," he adds with a conspirator's glitter in his amber eyes, "someone else has intervened to steal their attention first. Then saunter past them you may--" here, he mimes such with two fingers, "--and up a set of stairs that shall not give way beneath your feet.
"All I request," he finishes, lifting his chin, "is that you share with me what you discover."
no subject
"I'd not keep something important like that all to myself. But I can't guarantee I'll find anything or know what it is when I see it."
She was, she knew, out of her depth but that had been her life since she was eight.
"If that's alright with you, then make your distraction."
no subject
"What--" he demands of them both in a shrill, antagonistic voice usually reserved for irate schoolmarms as they scold truant school children, "--are you doing just standing about like a tree hasn't just sprouted up in the middle of the skyway! If your superiors are ignoring my calls again, I tell you I'll not have any of it!" The Fool plants himself directly in front of them--or rather, in front of them in such a way that the two startled members of the Sentry have no choice but to turn their backs to Alice in order to deal with the Dreamer currently throwing an entitled tantrum directly in front of them.
They exchange long-suffering glances. "No one is ignoring your calls," one begins tiredly--or she attempts to, anyway, before the Fool smartly cuts her off.
"Oh aren't they?" he argues smartly, eyes cutting between them. "So then you are aware of my enquiries, and are simply choosing not to respond to them in a timely fashion for what particular reason?"
(One suspects that he can keep this up for quite some time--but don't push your luck, Alice. Best get to your investigations sooner rather than later.)
no subject
She slipped behind them, keeping low and close to the rubble as much as she could until she reached the staircase the Fool had described. She was quick and quiet, used to navigating hairy situations where she had to go unnoticed. She was finally able to reach a door, pulled it open, and gasped.
The movement must have caught one of the Sentry's eye, and in a flash he was making his way up the fire escape towards Alice, while the other was bearing down on the Fool.
"Run!" She called to him over the banister, and glanced down at the officer who was quickly closing the distance between them.