[Plot] Naked Lunch

[Wynd]

Timestamp: Pontius in the Season of Winter, Era XV PF

It was dusk in Defiance. The snow on the crowded tenements and row-houses was blue in the fading winter light and orange pools lit up as the torch-lighters made their rounds. Children played out on the streets, throwing snowballs and fighting and spying on J.P.'s older sister. Parents called them to dinner from third-story windows, people walked up and down the row house rooftops, and cabbies drove along the avenues. Another Jaedaxian night was heating up. The pubs were filling and the music halls were swinging. The spires of old churches rose into the Defiance sky. People looked up at the stars and the light got caught in their eyes. Jaedaxia was a human-sized city, not like Primus or Aelyria Prime, too big to be real, but a city that belonged to anyone who walked down its streets. The Jaedaxian night grew out of the starlight and into the wine.

Ekaterina de Bourbauge stepped out of a cab onto Avenue d'Est and calle des Arbres. She was wrapped in a thick coat of polar bear fur, and stood on the corner alone, waiting for somebody.

A newsboy for the Libertas Sentinel was shouting out the headlines: "Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Anarchists seize Thayron's manor! Extra! Extra! Explosion on Negociante! One man dead! Sorcery suspected! Extra! Extra! Sir Yduin's daughter kidnapped! Extra! Extra! One crown a paper!"

Jack and Ajheed, two Protectorats walked past and stopped the newsman. They spoke for a little while and continued on down calle des Arbres. They stopped to talk to Ekaterina, who didn't answer them, but crossed the street. They shrugged and kept walking.

Finally a man in a long coat came up to Ekaterina. Arm-in-arm they stepped inside a cafe. And then the cafe exploded.

[Oati Oathgilder]

Oati just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was on his break as he made his way to the cafe. He was going to get himself some nice hot black coffee to warm him up. Just as he crossed the street and started towards the cafe...BOOM...the cafe had exploded.

He was knocked back a few feet and onto his buttocks. He slowly sat up disoriented and bleeding. He wiped the blood from his forehead and stood up. He made his way towards the the remnants of the cafe to help look for survivors which was highly unlikely. He started shifting threw the rubble as fast as he could hoping to find someone alive. After he shifted a few rocks he turned around and yelled "Ye 'orry louts get yer asses over 'ere and 'elp me search." He then turned his focus back onto the pile.

[Z'kron]

The druid stumbled as he appeared out of.. well, almost nowhere, really. One knee bent, he lifted himself half off the ground to watch the effects of the explosion.
"Blasted transportation spells. Seems like anything will throw them off. First it's Arium, now it's a cafe.."
Leaning on his staff, the druid gestured irritably. For at least a moment, he seemed more concerned with his spellcraft than the potential death of dozens of cafe goers. But then, his inquisitve instincts took over. Reaching down to his belt, he withdrew a carrot, waving it through the air several times, before replacing it. And then he set to work. Concentrating, the druid dipped into clara, drawing essence in and then released it as a spell that would detect and show the lifesigns of all the humanoid creatures in the rubble. Like a detect spell, but capable of being seen by others.
That was the simple part. Now for the more complex methodology.
"Root golem." the druid muttered, as he continued his summonings. When he was done, tendrils would snake down into the earth; forming into a huge mansized creature from underneath the ground constructed of plants, roots and leaves. Travelling through the dirt with ease, it would move under the earth in tunnels to grasp those who survived under the rubble, and drag them to freedom and safety.

[Bladewyn]

Bladewyn often walked down to Defiance for a meal after the shop closed. She often frequented La Petite Couronne, but on nights when she wasn't that hungry, she sometimes chose a smaller cafe or even a boulangerie. She made her way towards one of these now, following the scent of bread that tempted her nose.

As she passed the newsboy, she bought a copy of the Sentinel from him to read while she had her pracenda. Explosion on Negociante? It was a surprise that she hadn't heard about that yet, since she worked on that street. Slowing her pace a bit, she opened the paper and began to read the article.

It didn't take long for her to have a firsthand experience with another explosion.

The first thing Bladewyn thought, knocked to the ground and covered in dust and pieces of wood and brick, was that she was immensely grateful that she was the kind of girl who bought the paper to read while she ate. If she hadn't... well... The remains of the cafe, just a few yards away, had been far too close for comfort.

She got up slowly and brushed herself off. Her foot was caught under a larger piece of brick; she carefully pulled it out, coughing. She was bruised and shocked but not bleeding, and that at least was something. Massaging her aching body, Bladewyn stood and looked around, helping up others who had fallen and wondering what had caused something like this to happen. Sorcery, the newsboy had said. Could she recognize a belligerent sorcerer just by glancing at him?

[Viniece]

Viniece was on his way back to where he was still staying at the inn in Defiance from the Sentinel when he felt the bricks of the street under his feet rumble as from a small earthquake. Viniece remembered experiencing the occasional earthquake back on Nimalnus, they often caused landslides on the mountains beyond the seaside settlement. Occasionally they'd knock a few buildings down too, if people hadn't been taking proper care of their place. It wasn't long after the rumble under his feet however, and the distant boom of the explosion reached his very sensitive ears. Something blew up. And he wasn't there. Pity.

With that exceptional ability of his to remember where a sound came from, Viniece worked his way towards the street corner that it had come from, forgetting all about resting. Where one thing blew up, perhaps something else would! He ought to be there so that the next explosion could kill him too!

Reaching the site of the explosion Viniece noted using his sonar the mess of the bricks, and quickly made his way to the top of the pile, casually rushing past the mass of bodies even as he bumped into nearly everyone between him and his intended destination.

Among the people he so callously pushed past were a bleeding dwarf, a curious seeming individual waving a carrot around, and a rather pretty young woman with the only slightly pointed ears characteristic of those who are only half-elven.

When Viniece reached the top of the pile of bricks he proceeded to start jumping up and down, his loincloth - which was all he wore, flapping in the wind. His intention was probably not particularly evident, but he was trying to cause the rubble to collapse further and kill him in the process.

[Crimson]

Nothing like terrorism in post-Seige Jaedaxia, non?

A ringing continued to fill the heads of those nearby, including several merchants, the newsboy, and the would-be heroes of every story. Slowly, they rose to their feet, dusting themselves off, and suffering no particular life-threatening injury thus far. Ahead of them, the dust slowly cleared and the entirity of the destruction became evident. Where once a quaint cafe stood was now a heap of wood and brick. Those portions that was flammable continued to hiss as fire licked and consumed all it touched; the adjacent structures, a cafe and a local shoe-repair shoppe, were in similar conditions.

A frail looking man managed to struggle out of the rubble that was once the front door to his shoe shoppe; and on the other side, the heroes could hear cries, groans, and muffled shouts for help. Passer-byers scrambled to help move whatever rubble, stone, brick, wood they could. But men could only do so much. Entire support beams must have fallen on those destroyed buildings, hindering much of the work.

But there was a mage in their midst -- and a druid, no less. The Imperial Sage, Z'kron, drew himself into Clara with expertly time ease and within moments he was already casting Detect. The spell, powered by one of the most renowned minds in the Empire, spread like an invisible blanket which percieved and translated any spiritual energies within his immediate proximity. He sensed the 'lights' that represented humanoids and animals and smaller creatures easily; and from his preliminary scans he recognized at least a dozen weak 'signals' coming from beneath the rubble.

Now casting Root Golem, the druid caused snake-like roots to travel beneath the cobblestones and toward the fallen structures. But the tricky part was the position of the victims in relation to their environment. The druid had no way to judge whether his targets were beneath, crushed, or cripples under some huge weight even with the aid of his Detect spell. At that realization, Z'kron's roots paused for a moment allowing their master to work out the kinks in his otherwise selfless and wonderful plan.

Viniece on the other hand was jumping up and down atop the mess of the nearest ruined structure. The sea elf found that his loin cloth was rather ... flimpsy against the Eunesian breeze that swept past him, to the shock of those who watched. The shattered brick and broken beams of wood groaned beneath the suicidal sea elf -- and with a CRACK, collapsed beneath him, sending him downward with a painful jolt as chunks of sharp debris pierced his skin along the way.