Casualties were high. And he still drew breath. Though each lung pull rattled and dragged across the cage of his bones. Step after plodding step. Blood dripped the more down his side from a wound, magick borne.

I'm behind you.
​
"Noted, Condotierro," Xanatos grit through their teeth as the sea went on with its churn, and the pier's planks creaked and cried with each pound of the sea against its structure. Above the stairway, and onto the dock proper, they could all see the carnage about them.

Smoldering sea serpent. Cracked and split. And all the dead that went on rising. Crashing. His eyes searched for something. Found it. "Condotierro!" he called out. Jabbed a finger toward the Sinclayr honor guard, fighting about the smoking scorpion. "There! Defend the Viscount!"

His own eyes caught the glow of something he knew too well. Brow quirked. Eyes squint. What were those idiots doing? "Hey!" he called out, and took sure steps toward the dwarf and their glowing beacon. "That is property of house Sinclayr!" Hacked his way through whatever wretched shambler came across his path. "What do you think you are doing with that, rif raff?!"

He could smell the coppery scent of ions splitting. Felt his hairs standing on end. As if lightning approached. Footfalls cracked fast enough against the docks to be thunder.

He turned to find some girl. Sprinting?

"Are you with these two vagrants?!" he called out to her.
 
Osytha said:
“It’s— it’s Osytha.”
Click to expand...

Monroe had never been good at names.

Osytha said:
“Order sent me. Heard you were back, and — shit, first things first. What do you need from me?”
Click to expand...

Her eyes lifted to watch the fallout from her true aim, what flame and arrow achieved. It... it had been impossible no? She knew what she was capable of with her fire and her aimed arrow, but to have the effect of bringing down the leviathan with just...

Osytha.

Monroe turned back to the other woman, dressed just like a dutiful Knight where she had not. Her face was familiar, her voice too, but the name Monroe always refused to remember. Recognition gnawed at her memory, begged to be remembered and catch the dawnling in her lie.

She had never made an effort to remember names of squires. Had not dared to learn them again once they were Sworn in, because Monroe had remembered too many names, and many of those now graced gravestones.

"Osy—"

The waves, docks, and air became impossible to stand still. Monroe moved, hand grasping for Osytha's arm and forcing her to run. She should have reached for another arrow from her quiver, to lay her life down to defend, but here came someone that knew her. A sister Sworn. Monroe ran, and through the silver sleet that came in downpour and deluge. A male stood amongst the rain, yelling as one had to do to be heard over the storm. To Osytha, Monroe frowned deeply. "Tell me you are of use to me and are Sworn to Dusk."

If she too were of Dawn, Monroe's helping hand would release her. Most likely leave her behind as to not be held back. She had fire inside her, burning without the need of existing for the dawnling to call upon the flame. Her momentary leave from the Order had been a long period to grieve, and thus became too lost. Today, here and so close to home, she had found that purpose again.

But Osytha had not answered quickly enough. Monroe halted them both, her hand tightening over Osytha's arm when her boot slid over a puddle of water splashed over the docks. "Are you of Dusk or Dawn?"

There. Past the crack in her voice as desperation forced her impatience, the many wounds Monroe tried to ignore and drown with denial. Losing her connection to the shroud, the responsibility that came with the Pursuit of Flame, it had done something to her that Monroe tried to hide. The true reason she needed to take her leave from Astenvale and hide just how broken and ashamed she was of herself.

She just hoped Osytha had not seen it.
 
“Are you of Dusk or Dawn?”​

Osytha’s face falls a little when she hears that. Syr Monroe really doesn’t remember her, then? Sure, perhaps the two of them had never been close… but only by the standards of the order, where your oath-kin are people you live, fight, and die right alongside with. Even the line between Dawn and Dusk isn’t something which divides so much as it binds knights of one Sanctum to the other, the way a good weld is stronger even than the metal around it.

Or, so it is meant to be.

Monroe spiers at her twice, desperate some in voice and grip — and why wouldn’t she be? Osytha’s only just arrived, doesn’t know how long and frantic the fight has been thus far, but has yet had enough time to witness that leviathan horror White Port’s defenders had been contending with, and the unbelievable numbers of drowned whelming out the surf. It’d be stranger to her mind if Cathmore wasn’t fraying at the edges by this point.

But it’s been two years. Her sister’s been away from this life for two years. The order hadn’t even sent Osytha here to reinforce Syr Monroe in the line of duty. They’d just wanted someone to be at the woman’s side this final leg of her journey back, to make sure she returned safely home to them at last.

Does Monroe truly not know her?

There in the mizzle of that moon-cursed night upon White Port’s raddled docks, Osytha tries to fill her voice with assurance. “‘Allus there will be twa vigilant… ane to bid t’wild dawn well, an’ ane to quell that which clings to dusk’,” she recites to the other Sworn. “Who else would be sent to stand at thy side? I am thy sister in Dusk.”

Bodies run past them. Too fast, too terrified not to be living. Survivors manoeuvring to reposition, if the commands she hears yelled are to be believed; belike in rout, if not. Not everyone’s heeded the call, though. There seems to be a crew still working with one of the scorpions, and a sturdy honour guard fulfilling their duty to a collapsed liege. Another figure sprints in from one of the jetties — and seeming hardly more than a girl. A woman bedecked in armour, so pallid that her face could be moon’s reflection on the meer behind her, who’s following another fellow up stone steps from the shore below.

And all along the beachhead, a dead tide rising ever higher to meet them.

“We mun get t’rest of these folk to yon fallback positions.” Osytha twists a little and proffers the contents of her quiver to Syr Monroe, in case the dawnling needs a refill. “T’streets’ll offer chokepoints — counter they’s number advantage an’ stop ’em encirclin’ us. Unless tha hast a better plan,” she goes on, as she starts advancing on that pocket which yet clings to its purchase on the docks, “then cover me from range — where tha canst better watch t’foe’s movements than missen.”

And also, where it’s safer for thee. We aren ne losende thee now, not when thou hast only just returned’st to us.
 
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Rinrose might feel a brush of hoary whisker and a smudge of rain-soaked fur bump against her hand in an affectionate headbutt. The panther from before, whose name was Cosmo the Third, looked up at her with warm amber eyes. The big cat, of course, could not talk, and if a Tower weaver had examined it, they would have deemed the creature simulacrum -- incapable of life or feeling. Even so its face squinted up into an expression which any cat owner would recognize as affection.

Cosmo III wanted to tell the knight that it remembered being created, and its creator had given it one purpose: to survive. And it wanted to say that a mote of dust would always try to linger in the sun as long as it could. All it managed was a second headbutt against the palm of her hand, firmer than the first.

"Hey!" [Xanatos] called out, and took sure steps toward the dwarf and their glowing beacon. "That is property of house Sinclayr!" Hacked his way through whatever wretched shambler came across his path. "What do you think you are doing with that, rif raff?!"​
Click to expand...

"Saving all yer asses," the dwarf with one wooden leg replied. Despite the threat of the towering Senechal, he did not stop his fiddling with the Scorpion. Unscrewed a valve and caused a bout of iridescent steam to hiss into the atmosphere. "Pretty little Sinclayr included."

The lady Sinclayr was laid out on a pile of netting, nestled between boxes of equipment. Her coat had been draped atop her in an act of care that must have taken up too much time in the middle of the chaotic storm. She lulled her head from side to side and muttered as if having a nightmare.

"Now, if you wanna save your Ladyship you'll pick 'er up and hoof it outta 'ere faster'n the Wayfarer. Anything within shoutin' distance will be going up in sparkles shourtly." The salty old dwarf was nearly done with his work. He was unconcerned now with any stragglers who might get caught in the flurry. He reached into a place where several sinewy components crossed, his thumb hovering over a small lever. "Aster, how we looking?"

The Astersaari (whose name was not Aster, but he'd never bothered to correct anyone) peered over the edge of the docks, nictitating membrane wiping the rain out of his eyes. "Stand by to loose shroud," he called out to his companion, voice honed to echo commands across a ship deck. He did not move a muscle as he watched the darkness with unblinking eyes.

"Lights above man, I've got a cramp in my butthole from clenching!"

"Stand by..."

The dead swarmed towards the rigged Scorpions, like locusts to the last sheaf of wheat. Dark water lapped against the last few steps leading away from the shore, licking at the heels of those who retreated. The Astersaari waited for a few more people to make it up those steps, to disappear to higher ground. Waited as long as he could.

"LOOSE SHROUD!" He called at last, becoming a twist of strength as he spun away and took leaping steps back towards the dwarf on the Scorpion.

The dwarf struck the match. The shroudstone at the center of the Scorpion cracked. The night bloomed with color.

Yellows, pinks and oranges exploded from the dead's husked bodies. Bloated flesh split and bleached bones cracked to reveal clusters of coral, anenomes and red rhodymenia. They could no longer move, overgrown with those lush forests which inhabited the sea floor. Dead come alive again and so drained of their malice. Gardens, now. And what of the already alive caught unlucky in the pulse of verdant shroud? Well, who was to say what was seeded inside of them?

The shroud explosion was not a radius in the sense that a ripple is or like the dust cloud of an explosion. Instead it spread like the topography of a soap bubble, where sometimes the soap pooled thick and iridescent and cloying, while in other places it was so thin as to pop harmlessly into bitter mist. Who it hit was random. Who is spared, cruel.

Motes left to hover for a few more seconds, suspended by a warm current they could not see.

through the night...

The rising tide and the crack of the shroudstone saw the remaining survivors scattered. Up dockways and cobbled streets they ran, sailor and knight, noble and commoner, Eight-blessed and the Living Tide cultists alike. Into the multi-story ramshackle houses and warehouses quickly barricaded against the dead knocking. And knock they did, through the storm raging and the singe of shroudfire still in the air. For hours the dead would knock. The breath of the living grew short, arrows dwindled and blades went dull hacking through bone and brine sacks.

Until the dawn broke through distant waters and the horizon line bled out a bloody red.

People said White Port had the best sunrises in all of Ilica. The dead must have thought so too. They stilled at the sight of the sun. Their fervor slowed until they were standing in place, swaying gently as fat-headed kelps in the current. Only if someone came too near would they stir. Otherwise, their glassy white eyes faced eastwards, nodding gently upward as the sun rose.

IMKISH 28, 10 HOURS WITHIN THE QUARANTINE ZONE.

They'd figured out a field office for her. One of the nicer buildings in Rimrock, a Temple-built stone hall where the Harbormaster and his hands conducted their business. Eden was in the Harbormaster's office on the second floor, sat at his commandeered desk, scratching words against a thick stretch of vellum. The desk was glossy with shellac and had several milky rings of water damage from cups long past. Sullied white curtains behind her had been drawn back only so that the sailors could nail boards against the picture windows.

Eden's thick green coat hung on the back of her chair. Lifting the quill, she watched the lines she'd just drawn seep into the vellum until the ink disappeared.

RIMROCK PIER HAS BEEN LOST TO UNDEAD. SCORPION CLASS WARMACHINES RENDERED INOPERABLE. REMAINING GUARDSMEN RETREATED TO HARBORMASTER HOUSE.

CONFIRM EVACUATION.

It did not take long for the Council to seal their fates. Before the mounting sun could even reach her through the cracks in the boarded windows, Eden recieved a response.

The words wrote themselves on the vellum between her hands.

QUARANTINE ZONE EXPANDED TO SURROUNDING DOCK 15 DISTRICT.

FLOOD BARRIERS ERRECTED AROUND DISTRICT. SHROUD ANOMALY CONTAINED AND BARRIERS STABLE. EVACUATION NOT GRANTED. REMAIN SHELTERED IN PLACE UNTIL QUARANTINE IS LIFTED.​

Too quick a decision to have any real vote behind it. Had this been the plan all along? Her hand went to the spot along her ribs where the knife had struck her. Dried blood clung to the ragged hole in her shirt, stiffening fabric. Someone had known that the cultists would be here, that the dead tide would rise. And they had set a trap to make sure she never left the quarantine zone alive.

Her, and dozens of innocent men and women.

Eden clenched her fist, and thumped it against the desk. A collection of brass trinkets lined up along the edge of the desk rang and rattled at the disturbance.

"They've raised the barriers." Eden's voice didn't match the tension there in her poise. It was dry and grey. "We're on our own until the tide ebbs."
 
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All that was around her was fire and panic and the screams of the dead. But she sprinted for her life, her knees aching from spilling out on the cobblestones of the docks. But the gate was so close. The gate that was…

Her heart dropped into her stomach.

Closed and barred.

She threw herself against the man sized door at its side, it gave a thud as it rocked against its bolts. “Please! Please let me in!” Her voice was a panicked cry, ever and ever drowned out by the groans of the undead that were getting closer. “Please…” She threw her shoulder into the door once more.

Here she was in her ragged sleep shift, her hair completely a mess, her elbows and knees torn and bloody. She looked half the zombie that assaulted this place now. The realization hit her. Why would anyone let her in?

“Please.” She gave one last sob, and the most pathetic of efforts of crashing against the door as the hungry growls grew ever closer.
 
Having direction in life was a godsend. Whatever thoughts had began shattering the foundation of Rinrose's mind were washed away by the orders of the Seneschal. What rebuilt the foundation was the press of a large, round head against the palm of her hand. Blue eyes glanced down at the large cat. That's right. The first one to fight beside her tonight. Although thoughts could not be shared, the emotions were. Rinrose had felt insignificant and small and pathetic -- disgustingly weak.

She only needed to do what was required of her, her best. It was the only way to keep her from the pit of aimlessness that plagued her less frequently now as an adult. Her best, that was all. As long as she did that she'd never be still and useless again.

"Let's go, Cosmo," She said, "To the Viscount."


Getting the injured Viscount out in time wasn't easy, but it was a hell of a lot easier than many other things that Rinrose had done in life. Some of the undead had found unusual ways to get into deep into Whiteport. It was unfortunate that they could indeed climb, and it was even more unfortunate for them when Rinrose cut them down with her blade, helping to both forge the path ahead and to keep nothing on their trail.

Rinrose was not in charge of choosing where they were to take the Viscount, no, there were far more qualified people for that, but she did like being consulted with a look. When some of the men and women were too tired to keep carrying the Viscount in her net, Rinrose traded places with them, others had swords, and her arms and back could handle the strain of carrying another person as gently as possible.

Just keep moving.

Rinrose wasn't allowed in the room. She was not from Whiteport, although she had come here to try and meet the Viscount Eden til Sinclayr, not that she had shared that with anybody. Rinrose was still not allowed in the room when it seemed like the Viscount had recovered, and she was especially not allowed in the room when others brought messages to the Viscount.

She loitered outside of it like some kid with too much time on their hands. If she was not outside of it, she spoke to the few impressionable adults that suddenly wanted to pick up swordsmanship. No one could sleep, even if they all felt tired. Rinrose understood all too well what it felt like to be tired and yet begging for a chance to stimulate the mind and body. They stopped asking her questions on how to improve when they began realizing that all of Rinrose's best tactics were cutthroat and underhanded, no mercy, no chance to let there be a mistake, just kill, kill, kill. They were not ruthless like her, they had morals.

There was no need to correct them about morals being worthless when you were dead. They only mattered to those alive, and from Rinrose's perspective, those that lived the longest were some of the worst people imaginable. She would know, she worked for someone worse than a devil.

Walking back up to the second floor, she could see the door to the office was still closed. This time, however, she heard a sound, a thump, then after that, muffled voices.

Raising a hand, she rapped her armored knuckles on the wooden door. Maybe now was a good time to see if she could head inside. The worst they could do was tell her 'no' again.
 
"Saving all yer asses,"
​
"By whose decree?!" Xanatos did not miss a beat. Metaled boots marching firm across the planks as the rage set their spine stiff. Sword stabbed through the skull of one walker. Hacked off the arm of another. Then the leg at the knee. It was the coup de grace which severed head from spine that saw that particular bloated corpse come still. All the eels and starfish in its belly were another thing.

"Now if you wanna save your Ladyship you'll pick 'er up and hoof it outta 'ere..."​

"Our Ladyship is already being seen to! Thank you very much, you surly ingot! Now!" steps closer as the Astersaari readied the scorpion. Xanatos' arm hacking its deadly work against the swarming tide of dead that rose to crash against the scorpion. "Now, get yourself to cov-"

"LOOSE SHROUD!"
​
"Good for nothing miscreants!" Xanatos shout. Hand reaching for the dwarf as the scorpion reacted. Lugging him down to the ground like a sack of potatoes. The Astersaari next as all the shroud about them loosed.

Armor slammed and peeled. Xanatos was but a black silhouette before the bright spectrum of color bloom about them. Arms stretching. Back splitting. Horns growing. Wings sprouting. A fiend come from the Seneschal. And a fiend acted as shelter to the men so foolish as to defy their commands.


1786207126440.webpWhen the dust settled. Rubble and debris rustled about the epicenter of the blast. A great figure, two heads taller than even the Seneschal's impressive height, rose. Splintered wood and mortar stones rolled and slid off their form. A mass of raw and fleshy leather. Bones like thorns about points that almost seemed an armor. "Well," it breathed through horrid teeth, ever gnashing and twisted in all the long directions they pointed, and its voice was like steam and smoke rushing through grated vents. "This is unsightly," it turned its horned head about. How it saw with eyes grown over by flesh, was a mystery. "You two will be dealt with when the time comes,"

Calls for survivors in the distance. Soldiers moving with order and discipline. Frail as it was, but still there.

"Loathe as I am to do so, I must trust the others to care for this,"

A knocking came to sound in their skull. Whimpers and desperate pleas. A snarling sound came from their throat. A push of legs, a snap of wings, and up the flesh fiend went.

A crash down amdist the hungry growls that grew ever closer. Taloned feet grasped and tore apart one body. Legs sprung the flesh fiend up again, wings flared wide to catch the sea breeze. A twist of torso, a rake of claws, a spiral dive that saw the fiendish figure tempest through a score of the undead to land there by that same sealed gate, bent low. It rose again.

"The way is shut,"

Those posted on the barricade stared wide eyed in horror at the fiend. Fear the only thing that stayed their hand.

"It will remain shut, until this subsides," the monstrous form told the stormhaired waif. "There is a rally point," a long fleshy finger pointed a scythe black claw away from the barricade, toward the center of the district. "At the Harbormaster's house,"
 
Osytha has committed to hacking a path towards that wraith-white schwertkämpferin; a path forged twice as fast for being carved out at both ends. Every now and then she catches a glimpse of the other woman’s technique, before, with difficulty, she forces her eyes back upon her own task.

She’s an expert, this dark angel. If not an outright master. Footwork and swordplay seamlessly united, in an unpredictable style that would run rings around the knight. Against these hapless dead, it’s utter carnage.

And is that a panther—?

“LOOSE SHROUD!”​

A cry which cuts over even the clamouring dead. A shambling thing, half-formed of twisting black coral, goes down under Osytha’s blade with a crunch and gurgle, giving her just enough line of sight to note that semi-deconstructed scorpion — and the dack-cacking expressions on the two engineers who’ve just turned in their attempts to flee.

And then the night bursts with colour. A billion frigid prisms falling through the air, distilling refraction upon refraction, while the sea-roke soaks up pastel hues. They’re in it, now; the end of the rainbow. Found themselves the impossible place. Only, there’s no pot of gold, here. Nothing so safely ordinary as that.

Osytha’s hand darts into her baldric to press the little button atop a brass cylinder before she’s even pulled the thing from its pouch. The null buffer clicks and purrs in her palm, and a wave of vertigo spins the inside of her ears around as deligated¹ shroudstone compensates for background levels of magic. A new equilibrium is established, a baseline barely above what is required to sustain life. She’s glad she told Monroe to hang back. A pocket void of Shroud like this — it’s unpleasant enough for a non-weaver. For those with the gift, it rarely falls short of incapacitating.

That chromatic cascade froths over her. Beyond her little safety bubble, dead things spasm in ways a body simply should not be able, to then burst asunder with all the errant little spores and seeds which but a moment ago had lain dormant. The easy hum from her null buffer kicks up into a fevered pitch as cell after cell comes online to compensate for the sudden scorpion supernova. It vibrates so fast under the load that Osytha can feel her fingerbones thrumming in sympathy.

And then, near no sooner than having activated it, she hears the foreboding tap-dance of cells reaching saturation point.

Clackclackclack-clack-clack clack, clack… clack…

“Oh,”

… C L I C K.

“shit.”

The null field collapses. A tail-end of radiance floods in. Osytha feels it strike — an instant with a searing, live copper wire conducting against her chest, before the Shroud’s scrambling touch invades her. And refracts.

Indescribable agony as her body re-shapes, the hearty sound of tearing fabric as a new form breaks its constraints. Swells, snaps, scrapes into inhuman alignments. The useless brass toy drops from her hand, because she doesn’t have hands any more.

Still has a mouth, though. That much is clear because it’s screaming, pried wide open and screaming—


* * *​

Imkish 28ᵗʰ
White Port, district XV containment zone
Harbourmaster’s offices
10 bells into quarantine

Not much survived.

Fortunately, the important stuff made up most of what did emerge unscathed: sword and daggers, bow and quiver, spear, plus a sling of leather pouches containing elixirs and other gadgets like that small brass tube Osytha had hedged her bets on. They’ve been collected, still attached to the belt and baldric which did not fare so well, in the corner of a large reception room on the building’s ground floor, which is being designated a sort of communal muster point.

The rest of her raiment is still out there on the docks. Wool and linen so thoroughly rent, steel shells so completely mangled out of shape, there wasn’t much point in bothering with it. By and large, quite beyond repair.

Scraping and hammering fills these rosy, dawn-brushed rooms; attempts at barricading gaps in the stout stonework with anything that will take a nail, for as long as this daylight-induced catatonia on the things outside gives folks a chance to do so. There’s another sound, too. A heavy, hard-surface percussion, though not so jarring as the stop-start banging of hammers. It loops on repeat, back and forth, back and forth, in a restless tattoo against the quarrels. Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack.

“This is temp’rary.” Click-clack. “Et’s got to be temp’rary. Reight?”

Click-clack, click-clack, clip-clop. The speaker tacks around as they approach a wall, and begins to lumber agitatedly back across the room in their endless figure-eight.

“An’, an’ — even if et en’t, Ah mean, somebody at t’ monastery will figure et aht.” The pacing stops, briefly. A dread moment of doubt, before the speaker shakes the long head at the end of their long neck, and resumes polishing an anxious groove into the floor. “Yeah. ’Course they will. Yeah…”

A big, soft, blue eye fixes upon Syr Monroe. A tall dark ear above it, flicks, absent-mindedly.

For some reason, there’s a horse in here.

A palfrey mare, slightly on the petite side, uniformly dark bay in colour save for a shock-white mane. It comes to another halt, and swings its head side-to-side as it tries, and fails, to get Monroe in both fields of view.

“They can fix me, can’t they?” Osytha asks her. Though, it might be more apt to say pleads, or even, begs. “Oh gods. Oh gods. Tell me this en’t permanen— who’s that laughin’?” The mare whips around toward one of the work crews, anger snorting out through her flared nostrils. “Ah heard you! Ahyiid ’elp me, if Ah catch you laughin’ again, Ah’ll kick you reight through that fuckin’ wall! Ah can actually do that now, seea you’d best think on!”

Fucking scorpions. Fucking Shroud criticality accidents and their flagrant disregard for the boring red tape of reality. Satyavati alone knows why it turned her into a horse of all things. Osytha’s best guess is that a piece from Forbítter’s mane had clung stubbornly to her after the hard ride here, and whatever prismatic fuckery came out of cracking one of those Shroudstone batteries had decided to prioritise his biosignature over her own. Which is its own little mystery, if true. Maybe it’s simply because that horsehair had been the first thing in its path. Or maybe something about it was more receptive to the magic than her own body had been. Osytha has a feeling it’s the latter, if only because the implication that Forbítter — her horse — has more Shroud potential than she does, that’s just the salt in her wound she’d expect at this point. Universe sure likes to kick a girl when she’s down.

At least she can still talk, somehow. And her mind’s intact. So’s her body, even if it isn’t the right kind of body. Not everyone had been so lucky. Osytha got a front-row-seat to the spectacle that scorpion had made of a few people’s flesh. Gruesome doesn’t even begin to describe it.

She turns her big horsey head back toward the dawnling. Horsytha’s ears are low, tail swishing and nose flickers agitatedly. But no longer from anger. It’s clear the big, blue eye which stares at Monroe is widened in fear.

“Monroe… what— what t’ fuck am Ah goin’ to do?”


¹ From the Latin ‘dē-’ (of, away from) + ‘ligare’ (present active infinitive of ‘ligō’, meaning ‘to tie, bind, or wrap around’) + ‘-ation’ (noun-forming suffix which denotes a condition, action, or the result thereof). Similar in construction to the word ‘desiccation’, which is to say: a needlessly involved way of referring to shroudstone which has been entirely ‘unspooled’ of magic.

Not a misspelling of ‘delegated’. I just have too much time on my hands, and apparently, I find more fun in butchering linguistics than simply getting on with writing my damn replies. Joke’s on me, though — it was already a word!
 
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Even in this backwater place, where the shroud twisted itself into knots and they were still counting the lost, even in the middle of calamity, a number of officials had flocked around Eden just to bicker with each other. They took the news of the lockdown about as well as she expected.

"The hall will hold against the tide, and we have enough supplies -- all we need to do is stay put until the barriers are lifted."

"And what of the rest of the district? Do we leave them to the thrall?"​

"Our duty is first and foremost to the Viscount. We must ensure her safety above all else!"

A knock at the door, sharp and insistent. Eden could not see the person on the other side. The attendant who cracked the door open just wide enough to whisper harshly through was blocking her view. All she could see was the wide back half of the woman and her curly mop of red hair.

"The Viscount isn't taking visitors right now, if you have a report you can..." The set of the attendant's shoulders changed abruptly once her eyes caught up with her voice, and she recognized who it was. "You again," she said much more harshly. "I told you already--"

"Who is it, Ranya?" Eden asked.

"N-no one important, Lady Sinclayr!" In her hurry to turn around and address her Lady, Ranya let the door crack a little further open. There shone a glint of steel armor, and a brush of long, dark hair. Cosmo III, who up until then had been sleeping peacefully under the desk at Eden's feet, lifted its head off its crossed paws. Its whiskers brushed forward as they caught a familiar scent. With curious green eyes, Eden watched the beast trot to the door. Its tail flicked cheerfully as it tried to bull past the rock-steady attendant, unsuccessful, the woman well trained in the ways of the Viscount's pets.

"No one important? I will decide that for myself." Eden stood, slipping out from the confines of the tall, heavy chair. She lifted her jacket from its perch against high back and draped it across her shoulders. Long steps took her across the room. A pale, bony hand gripped the edge of the door, above Ranja's. "I need a walk, anyway."

"Lady Sinclayr..."

"I will be fine, Ranya. Now do me a favor and keep my wise advisors feeling like they're doing something while I'm away."

Not a single person standing behind Eden had been down on the docks last night, fighting. That is why they were still alive. She had no faith left for them. Eden freed the heavy door from Ranya's grasp and pushed it all the way open. It swung on tarnished iron hinges, revealing the knight who stood at the threshold. A motion was waved to the other woman as Eden strode past her. With still-swaying tail, Cosmo III followed close at the heels of its master.

"You have until the end of the hall to speak your piece," she said. The hall was very short. It ended abruptly in a curving stairwell, and the stairwell opened up into the main room downstairs where survivors gathered.


No matter what was said, the bottom of the stairwell was reached, and the commotion below enveloped the two women.

Those who could toil, toiled. Shelving and cabinets, crates and nails, all of it disassembled and rearranged to create a safehouse against the dead. Untested now, in the lull of the daylight, but soon the sailor's carpentry skills would mean the difference between life and undeath when the tide rose again in the night.

Those who could not toil, the injured and the shroud-stricken, were laid out in rows, as out of the way as one could be in such a cramped space. These were the people who could still be saved. Healers moved between them, administering medicine or magic, their movements tired but dedicated. In rooms down other halls, out of sight, lay the hopeless and dying, moaning with ailments which modern magic could not cure, phalanges of colorful anemone blooming from their cheeks.

All of this was expected loss, factored into the report running in Eden's mind already. Something unexpected, however, made her stop in the middle of the room. Before her was a massive beast with big, blue eyes. She gawked at it.

"Why is there a horse in my lobby?"
 
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When the door opened the dark haired woman only looked, dark brow raised, waiting to see if she would be addressed or ignored. Since it had been the former, she moved quick, taking the opportunity. Rinrose kept pace with the Viscount, armor clinking and chinking with the expected smooth roll of mail against cotton or leather. The hallway was short, but it was not a deterrent.

"My name is Rinrose Fainlight, I come with a request from Sognare. Capomandamento Ignazio Rizzo is requesting to secure a dock in White Port for our boats. Certain officials are against it. He is looking for your endorsement and the continuation of it." The hallway ended but everything that needed to be said was said. Rinrose waited for Viscount Eden Til Sinclayr walk down the stairs and let Cosmo follow at her heels before taking a step.

At the bottom of the stairs that protested loudly against the condottiero's armored steps, cold blue eyes surveyed the room. She had no gifts of weaving and had never wasted her time on it. Steel suited her better, the trusted silent companion. Taking a step back, Rinrose dipped her head in excusal. An avenger, she could do nothing for the sick or dying or the horse in the middle of the room, unless the solution was to scare them away with a sword or kill them with it.

"I will go outside to inspect the perimeter. Safety is important." Rinrose said in a low voice, turning and leaving, hand on her sword. She'd rather deal with zombies than this any day of the week.
 
The Knight of Cathmore no more, a seaside town that turned against their founders and spat upon Syr Monroe's time and dedication to fixing their homes and businesses after a fire. A fire that killed her uncle, the last remaining Cathmore. Seeing all the dead, the fresh corpses that littered the docks... the misery she had been living the past year felt as familiar as a third cup of ale.

She was slumped against the wall, arse perched on a dampened crate, and a hand tucked beneath the spot at the top of her ribs. Monroe had kept very still as healers had come to assess her. Splinters of wood had found their way into her sides, but due to the shroud calling through her veins, they deemed they could not tend to her until that build up of lost and forgotten weaving burned out from her. Her Fire had returned to her, a limb no longer atrophied by shame. It was misfortune how it came back to her in her hour of need, and that she pulled all she could of it and let loose on the dead plaguing the rain-slicked docks. Monroe had burned through her well of power, but had taken out a great number before the fight died within her. The moment she was struck and thrown back by a blast unforeseen, she could only register pain.

That pain ignited her fire again, as if slowly and over time, her body would burn hot enough to expel the splinters from her side.

Osytha said:
“Monroe… what— what t’ fuck am Ah goin’ to do?”
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Her eyes opened slowly, her face contorting into discomfort. A brief moment of her expression turning confused and concerned that a fucking horse was staring at her, but fuzzy details were beginning to come back to her.

Monroe groaned, her head rolling back and striking the wall a little harder than she intended. Pain lanced through her again, and with a hiss, she sighed and slowly positioned herself to sit a little more upright.

"Always wanted a pretty pony myself." She mused dryly, but after a couple of moments to catch her breath, Monroe sighed. "I promise, the moment we are able to leave here, I will send word to Syr Sabinian so that he may meet us and to bring along anyone from Astenvale that may be able to —"

The moment the Viscount spoke, Monroe's gaze drifted to her. Duty had her moving to bow her head in acknowledgement, but she let loose a string of colourful words as her body protested.

"Miss, please. Stop moving, you will only hurt yourself." A healer chastisted her.

Monroe stiffened, remained still, but ire was beginning to build up in her.

"Fuck this." She muttered. A hand crossed to her side, fingers finding the larger pieces embedded inside her, and with quick succession, called upon the Pursuit of Life and healed her wounds with a face torn in agony.

Horsytha would have to wait her turn.
 
As she listens to Monroe, the mare’s frantic, anxious heat begins to recede. Watching her dawnling’s face grimace in pain, hearing the laboured way she speaks — Osytha finds her own troubles suddenly tempered by a cold wave of shame. She’s not the only one with problems.

She swings her head back around to the other women. There’s that sable-and-argent spectre, who’d proven terrifying with her sword against the dead. That one excuses herself to head outside, and Osytha tracks her with a curious equine eye. She’s still getting used to that; being able to watch Rinrose behind her and Eden in front, both at once. A couple times now she’s turned her head a bit too quickly with dizzying results, and has needed to lie down for a few minutes until the world stopped spinning.

“Why is there a horse in my lobby?”​

“Ah’m not—” Osytha hesitates there, in light of current circumstance. “—Ah’m jus’ mostly a horse. Er, Your Ladyship.”

This is her, then: Viscount Eden til Sinclayr. Short, to the point of being dwarfed beneath her big green coat. Remarkably plain for a noble in her attire and adornment, and almost sickly-looking, like someone who doesn’t get enough sun. Not much of a recipe for intimidation… and yet, there’s something a little nerve-wracking about being in the woman’s presence. She is a viscount after all, and one with a certain reputation, at that. Osytha’s never had the pleasure of making Eden’s acquaintance before, of course, but when you make it your business to keep a finger pressed to the political pulse, then you tend to learn a thing or two about the players.

Well. Bowing is a little tricky for her at the moment, and curtsying is right out the window. But she dips her neck downward in what is, hopefully, an acceptable improvisation of etiquette.

“Ah’m Syr Osytha,” the horse elaborates, before lifting her head back up, “an’ my comrade ’ere is Syr Monroe. We were at t’ docks when everythin’ went a bit, um, pear-shaped, an’ I getten caught in blast — hence t’ current morphological mix-up.”

Osytha glances curtly around the room; taking stock once again of the survivor’s desperate labours, and the convalescent injured. Her ears flick toward the grim sounds filtering through from more secluded rooms, where those suffering a malady even worse than mere necrotic bites lie in their final moments. In all the hours since they fell back here, she hasn’t seen any new faces coming in. They’re not moving the wounded, and instead of regrouping and strategising with the rest of White Port’s defences, they’re digging in here, alone. There’s a distinct ‘last stand’ kind of feeling to the atmosphere inside the building, and you don’t need a horse’s 350° angle of vision to spot it.

For whatever reason, they’re cut off. Or in other words: up cack creek without not only a paddle, but the bloody bung, too. If they want to make it out of here in one piece, they’ll want to use every scant resource at their disposal to do so. And not just the material advantages such as spears and barricades, but also the trickier, more capricious ones. Things like ‘trust’, and ‘cooperation’.

“… Ah’ll admit neither of us is currently in peak condition,” Osytha goes on, refocusing on the viscount, “but we’re still far from useless, My Lady. If there’s a way we might be of assistance ’ere, well, ’appen we can lend you us services.”
 
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