RP:Rynvale Docks Ablaze
Rynvale Docks
As you pass by the guards at their posts at the massive, sturdy gates to the Harbor of Rynvale, your nose is immediately bombarded by all the scents of the Harbor, especially the scent of the sea, in all its salty magnificence. The hollering of sailors fills your ears, shouted orders drowning out the hustle and bustle of merchants all going about their business on the waterfront, attempting to lure someone into buying their precious wares. Out in the distance, you can see many ships, some in pristine condition, others lacking, and a few that are still in the stages of construction. Sailors run all about the decks of those ships; cleaning, dropping anchor, and generally following orders. Just beyond the ships, a massive stone wall rings the outer waters, with a double-wide portcullis that acts as a passage for incoming and outgoing boats. Anyone sailing must have a proper license to even enter the Harbor without raising an alarm from the Navy, as well as the rest of the city. You can barely make out Archer towers scattered about the fortified gray stone wall, their signal fires yet to be lit. As a few sailors stumble past you, obviously drunk, you happen to notice a square building beside you. It is connected to yet another building, twice the first’s size, via means of an upper level causeway; the Dockmaster and Officers’ building being the first, and the Navy’s barracks being the larger building. You begin to feel very safe in this stone-fortified Harbor, especially with such a heavy presence from the naval officers marching this way and that on errands.
[Smoke pours out from the docks in Rynvale. Alarm bells clang as citizens scurry to ensure the flames don't spread. Unfortunately, a weapon's magazine for the battery catches and goes up, creating a much harder to manage fire]
Ranok was furious. Absolutely. Fire was a serious problem, always. They broke out every now again due to carelessness or arson. Someone trying to collect insurance money or settle a score. Or a ship fire broke out of control and spread in exactly the wrong way. What was worse were the reports pouring in from his Message in a Bottle system. A series of two way bottles that made a message tucked into one disappear and appear in the other. A centralized location to handle inbound information flow and send messages outwards where they needed to go. It was somewhat complicated, but utterly secure. Ships, some military, most civilian, had been lost in a sudden burst of fire. A few managed to save themselves by luck, others went down. The death toll would likely never be completely grasped at. Body recover would take months. To make matters worse, the storms had been worse this year. Rynvale was losing ships are far too fast a rate, and the most mighty navy in the world was weakened as a result. But then the docks went up, a ship too close setting off a chain of events. Enough was enough. He needed to be there. Sweeping out of the command center of sorts that the bottle system made he moves swiftly onto the streets. Most were carrying on their daily business, utterly unworried. Why would they be? Things come and go. Curious looks, but the majority of worry were for those to the south, near to the docks. A crouch, and a massive jump. Springs click and up Ranok goes in a burst of speed and the snapping of leather. A thump is heard as he lands on his target: the rooftops. When you needed to move, there was no substitute. The thiefways were handy, if you knew where they were, and you weren't afraid of falling. Ranok wasn't. Off he goes, heading to the docks in swift speed. There were looks, people pointing...the same. The would-be emergency leader of Rynvale was a strange one. Rumors abound plauged the city. The smith was this, he was that. Few knew the truth, and more then a few would likely see him gone. But that was hardly for now? The docks needed to be saved. Onto the scene Ranok sweeps like a bundle of fury, metal, and beard. Men were moving, trying to put the fires out. Deep down, this pleases Ranok. So there was some competence to them after all! Sailors took fires seriously, after all. Who wouldn't, when you lived on a thing that burned so easily? Buckets were little match for the inferno that was the ammo cache. Improperly stored, it'd been. They needed more water. Ranok grabs a guardsman who was running by roughly. The human looked angry at first, but then paled seeing who had snatched him. "Vere iz de vater pump? Vere are de vater schips?!" The demand made the guard shrink a bit, but the explanation was stammered. The pumps were tied up at a street clogged with illegal merchant stands. THe water ships were being manned even as they spoke. The guard was released, and Ranok disappears to personally 'free' up some street space.
Alice had already found herself at the scene. Firey curls whipped around uer face as she directed a group of women with buckets of wayer towards a nearby building which was ablaze. There was the ferocity of a raging tiger on her face, furious to have found what she believed to he the future port where her ship, once rebuilt, would dock. "Move it, move it! Ye don't want yer shops burnin' down too, do ye?" It seemed thatbshe had taken up initiative to lead the small fire fighting task force. As the women ran off to refill their buckets, she barked a few orders at some sailors nearby, who, also stunned by
the sudden burst of flakes, gave no time for quippy remarks. She had discovered the docks ablaze when she had returned to the spot where she had crawled out of the water. She had lost her original ship to a horrible storm out on the sea. She herself grabbed a bucket, filling it and rushing over to a ship nearby. As she worked, she ignored the beads of sweat that were beginning to drip past her brow and into her eyes. The young woman certainly seemed to mean business, and wouldn't put up with no fire shenanigans.
Azakeal grimaced at the smell of burning wood and powder. His eyes lifting to find the smoke that would lead him to the source. What those burgundy optics caught however was a man leaping high and taking off across the catwalks. Rather a quick pace too... A first responder? The vulpine takes off as well, following Ranok's lead and catching the lip of a roof to hoist himself up. He didn't know the ratways here though and that hindered his progress. He'd always been more about quick footing then brute force though, so making new paths of his own wasn't much of a problem; Grab a rail here, spring from an offset windowsill there and he would quickly catch up to the scene. Once the docks were in sight, the male took a leap, soles catching solidly and vibrating the unspent kinetic energy up through his body to store in one of the gems lining his left gauntlet. Made him tingle a bit. He would follow closely behind Ranok until his run-in with the guard, at which point he would fork off for a vantage point. A few moments and several hundred feet higher and a crouched Azakeal eyeballs the damage being done below from the top of a cargo lift. It was spreading fast, agitating key points of structure. Off in the distance, he could see vessels mounting, heading in the dock's direction. Then a thought... A vacuum. It wouldn't kill the fires altogether, but it would kill enough flame that the water ships might have a chance. That thought in mind, he unhooks his ax and unlocks the telescoping shaft to give full extension. A quick shift of blades off the bar and into their holsters on his back and the fox was leaping free of the crane with that ax shaft just a-spinning above him. The resulting vortex upward sped his fall to ground, increasing kinetic energy built up in his gauntlet until he hit the ground like a boulder. In that instant he released his reserves, sending a blast of raw kinetic energy out from his body to encompass nearly a hundred yards around him. It would forcefully remove the air that fueled the flames, putting quite a few out for a while.
Ariadne :: The fire crackles the moist wood from the docks slowly, putting off more smoke than actual flames for the moment. When it reaches the dry part of the docks one will see it ignite higher into the air as the flames burst anew. As
it stands it is difficult to see any fire due to the haze and one must be careful of breathing in too much smoke or risk unconsciousness. The vulpine's idea is a bright one, as starving a fire of oxygen is a sure way to quell it. A lot of the
wet-wood flames extinguish, leaving behind more smog, but less dangerous flames. The fires that have reached the dry parts of the docks blaze on, though at less epic of proportions than before. The blaze is spreading, but at a much more subdued pace than before.
Tcverntus ::: Above the chaos flies a lone vulture, which unbeknownst to those below, happens to be a certain vampiric druid. Apathetic to the situation, it is only out of meager curiosity that the entropic druid has chosen to attend the blazing harbor of Rynvale. The fire, which is now growing hungrier, seems to have a life of its own! It roars, seemingly overjoyed with the short lifetime that it has been given, however most are not privy to any possible intelligence that the elements may possess. The damp, wet wood that it is devouring is not safe from the flames, much less the dry area to immediate east, and it is only a matter of time before the inferno will begin to feed upon it as well. When it does, those gathered should make no mistake, dry wood burns much faster.
Alice nodded to the vulpine and waved an arm to get his attention. "Oi! Good job, now run o'er there, near the shops! The last thing this town needs is an economic collapse!" She pointed to a building near the promenade, that was near the drier
parts of the docks. She now turned away from the vulpine and back to the women and sailors who were lined up awaiting further instructions. She shouted more instructions, and her little troops headed off according to her orders, bit by bit dousing the flames of the ships. Her piercing blue eyes stared down the flames, as if daring them to grow. She now refilled her bucket and flung the water on a bit of fire that attempted to spring back up again. She gritted her teeth angrily.
Azakeal looks up and grunts at Alice, beginning to twirl the shaft of his ax at a rapid pace as he moves across the docks to the place indicated. The gems imbedded in his gauntlet light up, one at a time as blink-fast stops transfer the kinetic energy from the handle into the reservoirs. Once in place, the shaft comes to an immediate stop at his side, the arm
holding it outsretched. He lifts it up, then slams the pommel into the ground to create another blast of kinetic energy,
but out towards the docks only, forcing the smoke filled air away from the town entirely. As those burgundy irises flit
about, the fox begins to realize something. Heat was just the rapid movement of particles agitated by a source... Absorb the kinetic motion of the particles, the heat is no longer generated. But there was no way he could siphon all of it at once. His eyes land on a water reservoir, the slope of the roof of the building directly beneath it, the path that the contents would take if suddenly released. He looks back at the burning area, then shrugs. they would rather lose a single reservoir then the entire town. Two fingers kick that handle back into motion, but this time, he wasn't storing its energy. No... This time, he raises the thing above his head and slings it at an incredible speed at the piping beneath the reservoir. It would hit, knock it loose, and the weight and pressure of the water would do the rest.
Tcverntus ::: The vulture circles the area, watching the dead, and dying where they lay. The fire has taken some lives
during its existence. But that existence appears to be in jeopardy! A few clanging sounds herald the equivalent of what would be old age colon cancer for a human. The end of life crisis that inevitably, and quickly, kills whatever unfortunate victim. The high pressured water screams louder than the fire as it careens towards its elemental arch-nemesis. The flames
do not stand a chance now and are severely weakened as the hydro cataclysm collides with the pathetic inferno. Smoke fills
the air as evaporated water takes to the sky.
Alice thrust a victorious fist in the air as she saw that the flames were finally escaping in a weak retreat. "Keep at 'em boys! The flames are nearly gone!" A few more buckets were sent to douse the scattered smaller sparks. She then looked around. There were a few dead bodies of sailors, who in their heroic effort to save the docks, had either been fatally burned, or taken in far too much smoke into their lungs. She motioned for Azakeal to finish off the flames as she started up on her new task; tending to the injured and gathering the dead. One by one, with startling strength for a woman, she'd lift each body, carrying it carefully to a dry area, respectfully leaning them against a building, and closing their ever- staring eyes. She didn't know much about religion, but with each body she recovered, she whispered the small piece of the Sea's Blessing that she could remember; "May your soul sail to warm seas." She was serious as she worked, occasionally pausing to wipe sweat from her brow.
Azakeal stamped out the last bit of flame in a timely manner, sweeps of his feet along cobble and wood giving him enough
kinetics to blast them out with bursts from his hands. the male then joined Alice in gathering dead bodies. He was no healer, wasn't even trained as a combat medic, so he left her the injured. But he could put these brave men and women to
rest. Words kinda weren't his thing either, rather, a simple guesture was made, a thumb to the forehead of each. As he worked, one could hear soft, deep, and low against the crash of the ocean a voice singing, mournful, sad.
Tcverntus ::: The vulture screeches, calling down to the dead, heralding what is obviously going to be a grim clean up. Vultures are bad omens, whether they are shapeshifted druids, or ordinary animals. The flames are nothing but candle sized blooms which are quickly dying. The water has triumphed over the fire in this epic struggle. The inferno was out of its league, especially given the abundance of liquid, and the abilities of the fire fighters. The vulture above continues to circle and watch. Port authorities begin to arrive and assess the damage.
Alice sighed, half in relief, half in sorrow. The war against the burning flames was over. Perhaps they had won the battle, she thought to herself, but they had, in a sense, lost the war. She looked at the line of what counted up to be fourteen dead. "We've done what we can, fox." She turned to her helper, and put out a now soot-covered hand. "Thank ye for all yer help. The name's Alice." It didn't seem like the right time to go by a nickname. A solemn look was on her face, but she meant all the thanks in the world.
Azakeal holds out his own gaunted mitt, taking what was offered, "Fil- Er... Azakeal." He looks back to the line of the
dead, then up into the sky at the vulture, "They need a proper resting. This ain't right to them." Back down at Alice, "Brave men and women, warriors the lot of them. They deserve a vigil of some sort."
Alice nodded and looked at him. "When their families come, they'll be sent out to sea like true heroes." And with that, she returned to administering treatment to the wounded.