From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
01-02-2024, 12:03 AM (This post was last modified: 01-02-2024, 03:29 AM by Hadama.)
The Underwater City had not missed the impact in the Arclight, though it had thankfully come far from the home of the Mer. Sea quakes and underwater waves had made the disaster's onset known, but the City's location was protected enough by the surrounding reefs that aside from a few cracks in the foundations the city remained sound.
As soon as he had assured himself that the Mer were safe enough, Hadama had taken the Bubblestream to the Port to check on the landwalkers.
He needed his Mastered Water Manipulation just to reach the surface. The sky was clear overhead, but all around them was devastation on a scale he had not seen since the War. The waves had come and gone, but their aftermath had left the port full of wreckage. And the night had been long as Hadama had called what Mer could be spared from the city to help find and rescue humans that had been pulled into the debris-filled waves. Some were alive.
Many were not.
And dawn was a long time in coming before the sun's bright rays washed wan and violet-streaked over the coast so that the survivors and rescuers could see as they worked.
Ray's clinic was gone, swept from its place near the coast where it had once served to treat both human and Mer patients. Only bare stone remained in an island above, connected to land by a narrow avenue of raised rock, but the rooms that had been dug out of the canals for the Mer were still intact, if empty of all furnishings now. It was a place to begin, at least.
The Tidebreaker continued to work, grim-faced and resolute, as he had some human helpers raise a healer's flag over the area, calling all who were hurt and all who could help to gather there.
"Clear the water for boats to bring the injured," he called, already hard at work with brute strength and magic. "And clear a path on the land side." Through the wreckage that was all that remained of so many homes and businesses in the Port.
This is a PQ taking place the morning after Starfall, to help as many of Torchline's affected citizens as possible. There will be aspects of both cleaning up and healing in this PQ, so it can be used to fulfill either SE. Please post your character arriving and beginning to clean up either the land or water around the tied island where the clinic used to be!
01-02-2024, 12:16 AM (This post was last modified: 01-02-2024, 03:36 AM by Edmund.)
After his odd and somewhat unpleasant encounter with Koa, Edmund had turned on his heel. If Stormbreak was sending help, then the damage was likely worse than he'd heard. And upon arriving at Torchline, it was clear just how horrific the devastation was. "Gods..." He was so relieved that he'd listened to his gut and came back. He'd need to go teh Grounds as soon as he could after this. But for now, he had to help.
After making sure that his family was truly okay, Edmund helped who he could as he headed towards where people were congregating. Seeing Ray's shop destroyed had him biting his lip, grief piercing his heart. Taking a deep breath, he approached Hadama, "I'm glad you're unharmed."
With that, he got to work clearing the water. Using a net, he worked to scoop as much debris and wreckage from the water as he could.
~
Edmund arrives and starts cleaning the water with a net.
Nothing could have prepared Soh for the devastation.
She'd come as far as she could via skyship, and when she could travel no further, she'd abandoned her pack aboard the ship and taken to the air herself. From on high, the complete destruction of Torchline was all the more stark, and even in her owl form, her throat burned with the weight of unshed tears.
Keen eyes surveyed the activity, pinpointing a spot on the shore where some semblance of order seemed to have begun, and she swooped down with a cry of greeting to shift back into human form. Worry creased her forehead as she caught sight of Hadama, who was more grim-faced than she'd ever seen him, and she hurried forward to begin to help.
Rather than distract the king with conversation, she merely caught his eye and nodded in greeting before throwing herself into the fray. She focused on the land, gathering up pieces of debris and wreckage in an attempt to move them out of the way.
Eating fire is your ambition to swallow the flame down
Melita knew all about carnage. She’d seen it firsthand, over and over again, since she was little and small and couldn’t fathom the true wake of disaster. So here and now, she blinked out over the waters, her mind compelled to aid rather than sorrow or injustice. Maybe days later she’d be able to process the horror and tragedies. For now she was action and movement.
She didn’t bother waving to those she recognized; just stiffened her upper lip and carried on. Her hands went instantly to wreckage and debris, picking things up and apart before anyone else could or would – Fangorn and Sila sliding right behind, all quiet and silence. Only once did her eyes narrow dangerously at the meteor sitting amidst sea and ruin, no promise quite laden except vehemence.
--
Melita comes to help on land!
to be lit up from within, vein by vein to be the sun
Exhausted from working through the night, Hadama's efforts were nonethless tireless. Using broad strokes of his Water Manipulation, he moved debris with slow, powerful waves away from the shore, pushing them further down the coast to remove snags from the paths of approaching boats. When Edmund arrived he nodded in gratitude, too numb to be more than relieved that Ray's nephew yet lived. The Ancient was fresh, and what he lacked in raw strength he made up for in efficiency, successfully using his net to snag smaller pieces of debris that were attached to larger floating clumps so that he could clear large swathes with every haul he made.
Sohalia and Melita were met with similar silent greetings, and both bent to the grim task with similar success. The initial work was backbreaking but simple, and Melita's strength proved to be invaluable as she cleared as much work as any three other Torchers combined. She was unstoppable as she shifted wreckage away to create a clear avenue of approach for those who were stumbling in across the shore. Sohalia, like Edmund, had a knack for tugging on just the right corner of a pile of wreckage to send it tumbling away from the path they were clearing.
Others were beginning to arrive, shell-shocked or silently crying as they fell in with the efforts begun by the original four, and as more hands took over the tasks of simple cleaning Hadama pulled himself up onto the tethered isle to catch the attention of the three he most trusted amidst the madness.
"Supplies are coming. I do not know what state they will be in. We will need to sort them as they arrive, so the healers can work. Try to find clean blankets, and lay out as many pallets as you can. The injured should start coming in soon." He took a deep breath, eyes closing briefly before adding: "And someone will need to direct the healers as they arrive. We will need an area for the seriously wounded who need immediate attention. Another place for those whose wounds are not yet life-threatening, but could become so if we wait. And a third area for those too wounded to walk, but who are not in immediate danger."
Round 1 was strongly successful and both the healers and the injured will be able to safely reach the clinic area without further incident or delays!
Tasks for round 2:
1 person to sort supplies as they arrive from the floating islands and from the Underwater City, so the healers will be able to find things quickly and easily.
2 people to search for clean blankets, sheets, etc amid the debris, and to make pallets for the Critically injured, to separate them from the rest.
1 person to briefly interview the medics, healers, doctors, apothecaries, herbalists, midwives, etc. and assign them to the areas where the Critically wounded, Moderately wounded, and Lightly wounded patients will be separated into, for the most efficient treatment of patients.
Hadama's exhaustion was obvious, and Edmund couldn't imagine the stress that the mer was under at the moment. Even that simple nod of greeting looked like a monumental effort for him. It's a relief then that they were able to clear the way so efficiently.
The work continued as supplies started to roll in. The Ancient didn't feel confident in his ability to sort it all or to assign healers to places. He could manage a guild, but Edmund didn't know enough about medicine to manage healers. He turned instead to the search. Recalling what part of the destroyed clinic held the spare beads, he made his way there. It was a bit difficult to guess where that had been due to the debris (and didn't that ache), but after a moment he thought he'd found it.
Edmund started to dig, flipping over the larger parts of the wreckage and tossing aside the smaller ones. Hopefully there would be enough blankets and sheets for all of the pallets they undoubtedly needed.
~
Edmund searches for clean blankets, sheets, etc. amid the debris to make pallets for the Critically injured, to separate them from the rest.
The four of them worked in relative silence, even as more people began to gather in the area. Sohalia was glad that their efforts went well - she rather suspected that Hadama needed all the good news he could get, and right now, a smooth recovery would indeed be considered good news. Even if it might take weeks. Months. Years.
The Heart didn't let herself continue down the road of wondering how long recovery efforts could take in the devastated coastal region. Torchline was strong. They would recover.
Soh was not a healer, so she steered clear of that particular task. She didn't want it on her conscience if she sorted someone incorrectly. She'd never be able to forgive herself if they died because of her. Besides that, she wasn't sure if she could stomach the seemingly never-ending flow of patients, some so gruesomely injured that it already made her stomach churn.
Instead, she turned to the task that she felt she could mange the most successfully: organization. All of her time as a leader had prepared her for this moment, and as supplies began to arrive, she efficiently instructed people on where to put them, crafted a log of what ended up where, and generally oversaw the increasing activity.
Eating fire is your ambition to swallow the flame down
The Honeybee was content to utilize her strength in this manner – it may not have been violence or vehemence, but that wasn’t what was needed right now.
Once those were compiled, she listened to the next set of requests, nodding along, and watching where the rest began to meander. She was no healing afficionado, that would’ve been her mother if she were still alive, and interviewing individuals would’ve been a nightmare for everyone involved. So instead, she and her companions trudged over to the debris once more, intending to snag whatever she could find and utilize.
Maybe there’d be enough.
--
Melita goes to search amongst the debris with Edmund for anything useful!
to be lit up from within, vein by vein to be the sun
Unfortunately for Edmund the clinic had not been simply knocked down. The very nearness to the coast that had made it work so well for treating Mer patients meant that when the waves had come, they had knocked the structure over and stripped it away. Only the underwater treatment rooms for the Mer had survived, and even those had lost their doors and everything inside them when the surge slammed through and then sucked back out, taking all of the furnishings with it.
There were no beds, blankets, or other supplies to be found from the clinic itself.
Melita had the most success, thankfully. She found what they needed a little bit further afield, sharp eyes spying fluttering bits of cloth that they could free from the wreckage and gather to put together makeshift beds for the patients that were beginning to trickle in. Again her strength came in handy to shift aside bits of building that had fallen and otherwise pinned the fabric, preventing it from washing or blowing away before they could reach it.
Sohalia started out strong, with her spreadsheet and organizational abilities. As people started to turn up with donations of bandages and medicine, she was able to keep things easily separated and clearly labeled. But then the first Mer donations arrived, and they weren't quite as obvious or easy to categorize, and while she was dealing with them three more people showed up at once with boxes thrown together of everything in their medicine cabinets, all jumbled, and then things started to snowball, so that her system struggled to keep up.
Hadama took the task of speaking to the volunteer medics as they began to arrive, drawn to the flag that had been raised. Many were as grey about the eyes as the Tidebreaker, having worked through the night. There was still so much to do, however, that they weren't ready to give up yet. There were still lives that could be saved. He sent the ones with magic or items or experience with scalpels and internal injuries over to where Edmund and Melita were laying out the pallets. Those that had minor healing magic, knowledge of painkillers, and training in wound care were sent to the far side of the little tethered island. Those that had neither magic nor formal training, but could set a bone or stitch a gash were sent to the shore.
And none too soon. Patients started to arrive in the midst of preparations. Some struggled or hobbled towards the flag on their own. Others were brought by boat or by stretcher, carried by friends or family or strangers.
"I will help Sohalia with the supplies," Hadama called to his core of trusted helpers. "Edmund, Melita, go help the search for the wounded." Both were hunters, better suited to the task of finding and digging out than of sorting items at a frantic pace.
Round 2 was not as successful, but there's no time for do-overs.
Round 3: no posting order!
Sohalia and Hadama will continue to wrangle supplies
Melita and Edmund have been asked to go on rescue missions!*
*There will be no dice this round, unless you chose to roll them yourself. Given the potentially sensitive nature of writing a natural disaster, write to your own comfort level with the rescues and your success at them.
Edmund grimaced when his search proved fruitless. There truly wasn't time to lament, however. The survivors came first. With a sharp nod, he resumed his search. This time, however, he was able to look for clues. Footprints that abruptly ended before a section of debris, soft cries, or desperate words. Using all of his senses, the Ancient tried to locate as many people as possible. Part of him wanted to shift and let his molten tiger's senses help. Yet the molten drips could harm survivors and the sight of the beat might scare them into further shock.
He'd have to do this in his true form. Thankfully, it works. With dirt-clogged nails, bruises, and sweat, he was able to pull survivors from the wreckage. Not everyone he found had made it, but with every survivor he helped, a piece of Edmund settled. Torchlne would survive, with or without him.
~
Edmund searches for and rescues people from the wreckage!
The Heart had been proud of her progress as supplies began rolling in and she categorized them neatly, sending them off this way or that to be stored until they were needed. At last, she thought, something that she could do, some way that she could help. She might not be strong and fierce like Melita, and she may not have magic like Edmund, but this, at least, she could do.
At least... for a while.
Then the Mer started to arrive. She'd forgotten that supplies would be coming by water, when no such system existed in Stormbreak. By the time she began counting out what they'd brought, a line had formed. Then clusters of landwalkers began to appear with seemingly random piles of items, and she began to struggle in earnest. When Hadama approached, she winced. "Sorry," she mumbled, her cheeks heating with shame. Maybe Koa had been right. Maybe it would have been better for her to just stay home.
But she was here now, and giving up wasn't an option, so she continued on with her work doggedly, relieved to at least have Hadama to share it with now - even if it shamed her to need the assistance.
Eating fire is your ambition to swallow the flame down
Melita’s strength and ferocity might have instilled all the prowess in the world for sorting through debris and wreckage, but she wasn’t certain it would apply well in any of her blunt bedside manners. She was more apt to being the one barging ahead and demolishing titans; she’d been one of these survivors before, in so many other instances of heartache, loss, despair, and destruction.
Turning back to it now greatly reminded her of her mother, her sister, and the hordes lost in waves of annihilation – but some were out there, striving and struggling, and perhaps she could do her part to ensure they carried on a little while longer.
Sighing, she encouraged Sila to scout above, see any from her vantage points, while she and Fangorn meandered through the rubble and ruin, calling out to those hidden and buried, lingering and forlorn, pulling and tugging, reaching and clawing, for those that hadn’t perished.
--
Melita, Sila, and Fangorn search and snag at survivors.
to be lit up from within, vein by vein to be the sun
With two sets of hands to juggle the influx of supplies and a Mer to help translate those things coming from underwater, Sohalia and Hadama were able to catch up once more. "Do not be," the mermanta rumbled quietly to the Heart's apology. "You are here. It is enough." In the desperate wake of so much tragedy every hand mattered, and even mistakes could be better than no help at all. The pressure made things far harder than they would have been otherwise but slowly, slowly they started to get ahead of the demand for supplies from the medics spread across the island.
Melita and Edmund were the faces that many would remember when they thought back to the disaster and recalled their rescuers. Determined and tireless, they saved many who might not have been reached in time otherwise. Melita's lived experience helped to guide her, while Edmund's familiarity with the coast around the clinic helped him pinpoint those collapsed structures most likely to contain people. And all the while various Mer swam back to shore with humans who had been dragged out to sea with the retreating waves, bringing the wounded in for treatment beneath the tattered flag.
There came a momentary lull in the rescues, and a bat Attuned fluttered down to speak with Hadama before going back to scouting. The King turned once more to his staunchest helpers as Edmund and Melita returned at the same time with more survivors, and he beckoned an older man over to take over the task of sorting the supplies so Sohalia would be free as well.
"The Court of Stars still stands," he rumbled. "So should the Fountain. Go. Please. Bring back as much of the healing water as you can carry." On wings or paws or the fleetest feet in all of Torchline, he trusted those three to travel the swiftest. "Do not wait for the doctors. Administer it as soon as you return." When seconds mattered, the Mastered Healing might make the difference between a life-threatening wound and a lethal one.
Round 4: Get to the Court of Stars to fill whatever you can with healing water from the fountain and distribute it among the wounded!
This is the last full round, so take as many trips as you need.
Hadama was as kind as ever in assuaging Sohalia's guilt, and the girl immediately hated herself for needing his reassurance. She should be supporting him right now, not the other way around. Still, she nodded and continued on with her work, sorting supplies as best she could beside the merking. She would need to be stronger for this, for all that was to come, if this was any indication. Gods, what had she gotten herself into, taking upon herself the mantle of Heart of Stormbreak?
Slowly, but surely, things began to settle, and order began to return, under the careful ministrations of their group. When Hadama beckoned a citizen over to take on the task of sorting supplies, she followed along with the merking as he gave new orders.
Fortunately, she was familiar with the layout of Torchline - or, at least, she had been, before it had been all but destroyed. She was fairly certain she could find her way to the fountain, though it would be easier from the air. No sooner had Hadama finished speaking than the girl shifted, leaping into the air as a snowy owl and making her way towards the magical waters of the fountain, carrying a bucket in her talons. It made flight awkward, but it was the quickest way to make it there.
Coming back, however, would be a different story. She wouldn't be able to carry a full bucket in her claws as she flew. So upon arriving at the fountain and filling her bucket, the girl shifted once more into her tide jaguar form, hoping that she would be able to climb over and under any wreckage in her way without spilling the water from her bucket, and began to make her way back to the wounded.
Once there, the Heart went from patient to patient, noting who had been considered the most urgent cases, and offered them the enchanted water from the fountain. For a while, she managed without issue, but eventually, the sight and smell of blood and broken bones and gods knew what else began to get to her. She'd never been surrounded by the wounded like this, had never had to watch people succumb to their injuries even as she attempted to help them. It was too much.
She threw up everything that was in her stomach - not that there was much - and returned to the fray.
Back and forth, back and forth. For hours, it seemed, she flew to the fountain, then trekked back on four paws. And still it was not enough. For the wounded continued to be carried in, and the dead continued to be gathered in rows, and time ceased to exist beyond doing what she could to help them all.
------
Sohalia distributes healing waters from the fountain among the wounded!
