Into a Rising Wind

[handsofwinter]

Winter holds the Nexus in its jaws, and its teeth sink ever deeper.

A month into the storm, the snow has yet to stop falling. The number of mouths to be fed has stopped dwindling, almost. Occasionally people go missing, and those who notice hope they’ve found a way back through their portals. It’s not enough to change the maths on their food supplies - all their supplies. Nobody is getting a full meal at a time, not any more. Isidor and Lyall have begun to enforce the rationing with iron hands. Both ignore the look that crosses Captain Kirk’s face when they upbraid a volunteer cook for being too generous – the look that lingers on Runa’s face if she’s close enough to hear. They’re doing what they must. They need a tight hold on their supplies if they want to get people through this. They need supplies even to send expeditions after more.

And expeditions are a difficult prospect now. Those who ventured into the storm and returned have brought stories that spread faster than Isidor hoped. The Crossroads Cafe has become a semi-official hub for those travelling outside or keeping watch on the bounds, a safe resting place kept warm by the combined power of Pokemon and Persona. In the long dark nights, people sit around the tables and share what they've seen, what they've heard from this scout or that refugee. Whispered tales of the creatures out there hunting in packs, hounding people from rooftops, even tearing open walls to reach them…

No-one goes out alone, now. Those brave enough to take the risk go in groups and arm themselves with the best weapons they can find. Sometimes they’re a risk to themselves. Not everyone knows how to handle that black market plasma pistol they picked up two days past. Not all of their team-mates keep their nerve when a figure looms out of the snows beside them. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s run afoul of monsters, and who of their own folly. Safer, but little less brave, are the people recruited to keep watch on that shifting line of torches. Just a precaution. The creatures don’t come past it, everyone says. But quietly, everyone doubts.

There've been bright moments, too. A strange alchemist comforting a lost child. An expedition team fighting their way home, back to back. Families brought safely through the snow by soldiers and wizards, by heroes young and old and sometimes surprising. A volunteer cook stepping up to prepare, if not quite a hundred thousand meals, then something that feels close. A young man saving the life of a stranger who'd threatened him. The past weeks have seen people who may never have known one another before come together to offer a blanket, or guiding words, or a helping hand in a search. Small moments, glowing reminders of how much good the people of the Nexus have on their side. But the Winter goes on, and the winds never get less bitter, and the smiles get more strained with every day.

Slowly the line of torches close on the Plaza, a noose no-one can afford to flee. Sheltered space is at a premium. Most of those who remain are settled as close to the centre as they can be. Whether in the big public bunker or the Cafe, people find themselves crammed all together, and tempers regularly fray among residents not too cold and exhausted for fighting. The more responsible Nexus-goers find themselves trying to duck out of (or break up) fights, or spending hours stuffing drafty accommodation with any insulation they can find. There’s snow to be shoveled from doors, pipes to be defrosted, bandages to be changed. Anything’s better than dealing with the problem of working bathrooms.

At one end of the Plaza headquarters, a makeshift screen has been dragged into place to give a semblance of privacy to Isidor’s desk. It’s painfully early in the morning, though the nights are so long and the days so dim beneath the storm clouds there’s little sense of time any more. There’s no-one around yet to wonder about the meeting going on. The only people present are Isidor, Lyall and a handful of senior volunteers – those who remain. Blaze-37 crouches by a makeshift fireplace, stacking the salvaged wood just right before she punches it lightly, setting it alight with the flames that ripple over her fist. The other robot, Ghost, is hovering over the desk playing flashlight for them, shining a pale beam over the maps and reports laid out there. Light, too, is a precious resource, as batteries die and outlets are lost to encroaching Winter. It’s the only reason those here have gotten sleep. They work until they have no light to work by.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Suou?” the Guardian asks when Isidor says they can begin.

“Officer Suou won’t be coming.”

That’s part of why they’re here, Isidor explains. The torches’ march has taken them past the Grand Library. The Crossroads Café is now on the very edge of the safe zone, along with all the people sheltering there. Katsuya’s magic is the only thing that will protect it. He can’t leave. It’s a turning point that only drives home the larger problem: they’re running out of time. They’re running out of everything. Most refugees are in some kind of shelter by now; what they lack is food to keep them alive and fuel to keep them warm. Isidor’s volunteers have counted heads and counted tins and counted everything backwards and forwards and the numbers never get better. Either they do something now, while they have the strength, or the meals will run dry in two weeks. Less, if anything goes wrong.

She lets that sink in. Nobody looks surprised: she’s confirming their worst suspicions and that gets a few flinches, but they understand. They talk, instead. By the time there’s a hint of daylight outside and someone knocks on the door for the first shot at rations, they have a plan. They need an expedition, bigger than any before. They need enough arms to discourage attack, the skills to get them to any buried supplies and the numbers to haul them back in quantity. Each of them walks away from the table with a mission in mind and an air of grim determination.

They have a job to do, and they’re going to need help.

((As before, so below: the main missions/subquests for the expedition prep are listed below. Tag any of them, threadhop, or post with your own character. I suggest putting your character’s name in the subject to help keep things clear. The OOC Post can be found here! If you have any questions, feel free to message me or one of the mods!))

Threads of Note

Scouting the Expedition | A Fistful of Torches | Scrapyard Sweep | The Home Front | Medical Attention | Isidor's Expedition Call | Main Expedition: The Raid

Comments

[prescription_grade]

His eyes are scrunched closed tight when he lands, and then they fly wide open and he takes a couple gasping breaths, patting his chest and legs as if to make sure he's all there (he is). Breaking into an ebullient grin, he announces, "Did you see that? I just did that!"

Okay, not the most reassuring rescuer, perhaps. A second later, he casts the light spell again and moves toward the kid with the leg trapped, mindful that that has to hurt as much as it looks like, or more. "Ah, Christ, that's not good, um, okay, hold on, let me think here..."

He's capable of a painkilling spell but since he can't do but so much at once, he'd be better off saving his energy. He starts to strip off his top layer of jacket. "Right, this is a loan, not a gift. Gonna need it back later, but you best keep warm. See if you can get it under him a little, will you?" He addresses the kid holding their sibling, handing them the coat.

He puts his hands on the beam and runs them up to see how heavily the debris on top are resting. And he's just not fully training to analyze the physics of all this. A decent journeyman sorcerer, he imagines, could figure out where the weightbearing sections are and how much weight is on them, but he just can't know for sure. He knows he could do a controlled fire-spell and the beam itself would be done for, but the debris might come crashing down on them. That, and it would consume a lot of oxygen and that could be bad in a small cavity under a building.

"There's a lot of stuff on top of us," he says. "So I think we may have to just hang on for a little bit, but I'm gonna try and get that beam off your brother's leg. I can lift it, but maybe not for long, so when I say so, you pull him out from under it. Can you do that?"

The red gems glimmer as he starts to construct a very thin shield between the beam and the leg. All he needs is a few millimeters of space for a few seconds, he tells himself. And then they can worry about how badly broken the bone is after.

[handsofwinter]

In person Danny is... much smaller and scrawnier than the superhero the three kids had been hoping for. And weirder. The two older kids share a look of uncertainty before doing as they're told. He might not be able to lift anything, but they have to try.

With their trapped sibling's sounds of pain taking up their attention, the don't notice the sound of the excavations gradually getting nearer. Instead they are entirely focused on working the jacket underneath their youngest sibling. They do the best they can, then wrap their own hands tight around the little one's arms.

"We'll pull as hard as we can," the eldest confirms, nodding jerkily.

[bitterguardian]

Perhaps it will help that the mass of weight bearing down on it all, including the beam in question, is gradually lightening by the minute. Horvath can't go as fast as he'd like, for fear of causing some sudden avalanche that will doom those beneath. If Horvath is stronger magically, more experienced, more skilled than Danny, he is still every bit as terrified that at any second something will shift wrong and there will be a scream and it will be entirely his fault...

Because he is older and more experienced, Horvath is capable of compartmentalizing that fear and focusing on the work at hand. With Hermione's guidance he's able to excavate in a careful cone-shaped area, occasionally making use of some of the debris he's moving to brace other parts to make sure the edges don't collapse inwards. It may take what feels like an eternity for those trapped below, but eventually, they'll see light coming through the rubble from above, and feel the air.

Actually, that probably makes it colder. The rubble was at least some insulation from the frigid air.

[mudblood_andproud]

"We will need some blankets here. Anything that people can spare to cover the children when we free them." Hermione tells another nearby volunteer.

"We should set up a pulley system, so we can lower a stretcher down to them." Hermione starts calculating good place to set up such a system, that won't get in Horvath's way.

[prescription_grade]

Theoretically, it shouldn't even matter how heavy the weight he's trying to lift is. Magic is magic; it doesn't work like muscle. The only upper limit is what the sorcerer's mind can conceive of. Theoretically. But Danny's only an apprentice, and he's all too aware that if he screws this up it could be his head, too, not just the kids.

(There's nothing wrong with the kids. He'd love to save the kids. But he really doesn't want to die down here.)

His hands are shaking as he solidifies the shield he's made, an arch over the trapped leg. Slowly, he changes the shape of the construct, ever so painstaking, breathing fast and listening for any untoward shift of the debris. After he's succeeded in pushing the beam up about an inch and a half he grits out, "Can you move him? Move him, now!"

And once the child is in a safer position, he lets the beam back down only slightly less carefully than he lifted it.

[handsofwinter]

The moment Danny gets ready, the children are already starting to tug. Their youngest sibling cries and sobs pitifully as they do, but the older ones bit their lips and screw up their faces and hold tighter. Then the beam lifts up and they really pull- and the child comes flying out, leaving a few broken pink quills behind. All three of them fall back against the rubble behind them. Thankfully it doesn't budge, too well compacted to tumble in on their little space

As soon as they realize it's worked, they wrap themselves over each other in a fluffy ball of hugs. The little one is sobbing again, but in relief this time.

[bitterguardian]

A pulley system is probably something that Horvath can help with, now that he's heard the idea, and from the rubble he's already set aside he finds a long beam that still seems sturdy enough, moving it into position so they can make use of it for that purpose.

Now that his digging has brought them closer to reaching the trapped kids, those helping up above can hear the sobbing, faintly. It's both a welcome sound and a worrying one.

[mudblood_andproud]

"Danny!" Hermione yellows down to the excavated hole. "Can you hear me?"

"We are going to lower a stretcher down to you. Only load one child at a time." Hermione starts providing instructions to the volunteers on how to set up the pulley system, that Horvath is creating. Making sure that there are strong bodies on the other end of the ropes, so Horvath can concentrate on keeping his magic in place.

[prescription_grade]

Danny's shaking again, and breathless, but he levers himself up on hands and knees and comes over to the kids. "See, nothin' to it. We're good. We've got this."

He's halfway muttering to himself out of sheer anxiety, but he puts a hand on the youngest child's head, ring gleaming again as he casts a painkilling spell. "This should help but stay still because it's not going to fix any injuries. Here, wrap the jacket around that leg, I can't tell if you're bleeding, it's too dark..."

Hermione's voice makes him look up, and the amount of light he can see through the debris above is heartening.

"Hermione! I'm here. We're all here! One of the kids is gonna need a medic!"

[bitterguardian]

The beam is set in place resting on parts of the rubble once he's very sure that they're stable, but he'll leave running the rope and the other details to Hermione and the others offering assistance. They need enough of an opening to lower a stretcher into, so his primary focus is on carefully widening the hole in the ceiling of the space Danny and the kids are trapped in. Snow and dust sifts down from the edges of the opening as he removes rubble, and the watery gray light they've all been living in through the storm glares down and brightens their narrow shelter.

They may have to take the kid to the medic tent, unless once they're all up there's nobody else Horvath needs to unbury. They may be reaching the end of who they can save, though.

[mudblood_andproud]

Hermione supervises the chaos of ensuring the children are saved from their difficult situation. "Make sure the one who needs a medic comes up first, Danny." She yells down the hole.

It is tedious work, lifting one child at a time. Making sure they are transferred to another stretcher to get to the hospital. And then repeating the process all over again. Hermione has to make sure that those assisting don't crowd the scene too much, in their eagerness to rescue the children.

"Someone go ahead and make sure the beds for the children are placed by their mother." Hermione continues staying in her hole of guiding the other rescuers, until all three children are retrieved from the hole.

Last to come up will be Danny. "Okay, Danny. Your turn."

[prescription_grade]

"Yeah, got it!" He calls back. "I got him out from under the beam, though!"

He did a good thing, and in case he dies he wants to make sure someone knows it.

He's surprisingly gentle and efficient getting the kids loaded onto the lift system, one at a time. He goes youngest to oldest, exchanging a few harried but friendly words as they go. He's proud of himself, anyway, but he's also eager to get the hell out of the pit.

After the last child goes, he quiets, trying to listen in case there are other sounds around him, potentially other people trapped down here, but he hears nothing.

He clutches at the rope with white knuckles as he's pulled back up, shivering in the cold. He's probably going to need a replacement jacket in spite of his insistence that his was only a loan to the pink child. He jogs over to Hermione's side as soon as his feet hit the snow, but he can't help but peer wide-eyed at Horvath, from behind her shoulder.

[bitterguardian]

He's a striking figure, cane forgotten in the snow beside him, long coat accentuating his towering height. Much like Danny, he has turned his attention to seeking out any further signs of life in the rubble. With what's left braced, he spares a moment for a different spell to try to seek out heartbeats, but there's nothing left to find, even though it seems likely there are still some bodies lost inside.

With a sigh, he turns his attention to making sure what's left is stable, and past Hermione he shoots Danny a brief look that clearly says, 'We must have words, later.'