[Milliways] White Upon White

[dejah_thoris]

He'd only left an hour ago.  Darkness had fallen and the storm outside was screaming and tearing at the building.  It was lunacy to go out in this weather.  But he was out there, and in only the clothes he'd put on this morning.  He and Edgar both.

They'd die out there, surely, if they didn't get a move on.  

Woola whined at her, picking up on the desperation she felt crawling down her spine.  She'd put on her winter coat and boots, and taken the goggles bar had given her.  Ellen and Ysalwen were already waiting for her at the backdoor.  She handed each of them one of the electric lanterns Bar had provided.

"Are we ready?  Do we need anything else?"  

Comments

[freedom_is_grey]

Ysalwen, comfortably attired for a week-long hike through the Frostbacks, pulls her hood tighter around her face and shakes her head.

"Not that I can think of, unless a more well-connected personal item from either of them has shown up in the meantime."

Liranan barks once, loud and clear.

He is ready, too!

"We'll find them."

[dejah_thoris]

"I have my bracelet," she said, touching her sleeve where the silver cuff lies at her wrist. "And Curtis has its mate, the amulet I gave him. It should help us get close. And Woola should be able to find them from there. They can't have got very far."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen, on the other hand, is wearing something that would be considered skin-tight if it weren't so darned thick. She's got the headpiece pulled down and a set of odd goggles pushed up on her forehead. "These were made for me by a troll who used to come here," she says, touching the goggles. "They translate scent information into visual form. If Liranan needs help tracking, I can follow a trail too."

[dejah_thoris]

Dejah would stop and admire, and pepper her with questions about it, but she's focused on getting her people back alive and in one piece.

"I don't know how well scent information will track in this weather, but here..."

She hands Ellen one of Curtis's shirts, retrieved from the hamper in their room.

[freedom_is_grey]

"It's unlikely to hurt," Ysalwen says absently.

There's a faint tingle in her hands, which is probably a sign that the her tracking spell is working.

It's only that Jaegers are bigger, and that -- well, that makes a difference.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen nods and pulls the goggles over her eyes, peering carefully at the shirt as she turns it over in her hands. After a while she holds it out to Liranan for inspection. "I think Liranan will probably be faster at this," she says, "if only because he's closer to the ground. But we can reinforce each other very well.""

[dejah_thoris]

Dejah looks back and forth between their motley crew.

"I'm more worried about us getting separated and one of us getting lost. Is there a way we can -- link up somehow?"

[freedom_is_grey]

"Rope around the waist," Ysalwen puts in almost immediately. "All in a line."

"That will be easy enough to cut, too, if we need to separate, for whatever reason. Later."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Fair enough," says Ellen. "I'm... not really all that familiar with snow. Except for the simulated kind, but that was a year or two ago. So the rope's probably the best idea. Have you got any?"

[stilljustandrew]

"Ropes right here," comes a new voice, as Andrew pops up next to the group with his arms full of miscellaneous equipment. "Extensible safety lines and belts, here -- and who's team leader? I got a walkie-talkie for you so you can stay in touch with the other search team and with mission control --"

He holds the device out to Dejah, who he's pretty sure is in charge.

[dejah_thoris]

"Yes, thank you. Andrew, isn't it? Thank you so much." Dejah takes the radio from him and peers at it. She glances to Ellen and Ysa.

"Do either one of you know how to use one of these?"

[freedom_is_grey]

Ysalwen looks up from where she's fastening the belt around herself.

"I could learn, but it will be faster if I don't have to."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen puts up a hand. "I can handle them. They look like pretty ordinary hand radios, right?"

[dejah_thoris]

"I'm not sure. But you are in charge of communications." She gives it over to Ellen's safe keeping and follows Ysa's example by fastening on the safety belt.

"Andrew, we'll keep in touch. Thank you again for all your help. Let's get going then. I do not wish to waste any more precious time."

They could already be freezing to death out there. Anyone near her would not need the Voice to feel the desperation pouring off of her.

[freedom_is_grey]

"Preparation isn't waste," Ysalwen says, checking the fit of her gloves.

Though it may be for the best that they are both already dead. Just in case.

"We'll find them."

Chances are good she'll unsling her staff from her back once they get out into the whirling storm. For footing, of course, but also to have magic ready-to-hand. Just in case.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"All right," Ellen says, after fiddling with the radio's controls. "I can work this, it's no problem. I'm going to patch it into my Pip-Boy- that's this here-"

She raps a knuckle against the bulky metal-and-glass device on her left forearm, clamped over her suit.

"It's got a built-in radio and a speaker you can hear from a long way away. I'd say it's got a map function, too, but the mapping program doesn't work on the Milliways grounds. We'll just have it for our communications."

She nods to Dejah and offers Andrew a small wave; he's got another team to reach, after all.

"Let's go pick up some trail."

[dejah_thoris]

Dejah takes a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment, and nodding. This is going to be a long night.

She opens the back door and winces as the wind almost tears it from her hands. Stinging knives of cold bite at her face and she scrambles to get her goggles pulled down and the scarves pulled up over her nose. She holds the door firm against the side of the building so the others can follow.

"Woola. Stay close."

The calot chuffs his assent. The cold doesn't seem to bother him, but he is squinting against the wind.

[freedom_is_grey]

Liranan trots out just ahead of Ysalwen, breaking through the snow with his relatively greater bulk.

Ysa, meanwhile, does start using her staff, muttering quietly even as she pulls her cloak a little more tightly around herself.

A faint haze springs up around her, because if there is anywhere you want elemental resistances, fumbling around in a blizzard is it.

Her hands are buzzing very faintly, and she lifts her head a little as if to try to see where it's coming from. It's a futile gesture in these conditions, but still.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

They don't have snow in the Capital Wasteland, but Ellen earned her way into the armory where the suit she's wearing had been kept for centuries by slugging through a training sim based on the Anchorage campaign of early 2077. She moves carefully through the snow near Ysalwen, peering through the mostly odorless mess in search of the faint glow of orange that means 'a human was here'.

"At least nobody's shooting at us," she mutters.

[dejah_thoris]

"Ysa!" Dejah has to raise her voice to be heard. "Can you take point? I have to focus on the amulet he's wearing, and that's going to be difficult to do while breaking the path! Let's head for the stables and we can regroup there if we need to!"

[freedom_is_grey]

"I can!"

Ysalwen raises her own voice to be audible over the scream of the wind, and Liranan echoes her with a loud two barks.

(He is much better at being loud.)

"Liranan, go."

The mabari doesn't take off, but he maintains his position in front of Ysalwen, sniffing occasionally at the snow and then sneezing when it gets in his nose.

Ysalwen follows gamely behind, occasionally re-casting her scrying spell and waiting to see if guidance from Dejah and the amulet help her narrow her own perceptions.

It would be nice.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Is this kind of weather common?" Ellen wonders aloud. "I mean- I know it was in Curtis' world, but-"

She waves a hand vaguely, not that it's likely to be all that visible through the horrible white mess in the air.

"-here, or... anywhere else, really?"

[dejah_thoris]

"I wouldn't say common," Dejah shouts. "But winter storms like this happen from time to time on Earth." Jasoom is a miraculous place when it comes to meteorological phenomenon. "Andrew called it a 'blizzard'."

Woola barks, louder this time, and muscles through a snow drift to join his friend Liranan in leading the way. It'd be a comical sight if anyone could see the sheer volume of snow he was displacing.

"We're heading in the right direction, I think!"

[freedom_is_grey]

"It happens in Ferelden with some frequency. We get bad winters."

Ysalwen doesn't exactly mean to shout that, but it's easier.

"It feels that way to me, too. From what I can tell. More left?"

Liranan whuffs, pushing a little more in that direction. Not walking into large stones is probably good, just now!

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Ugh. At least you can see which way to run if the storms blow in and they're acidic, back home."

Silently, she's thankful that the Reds had enough sense to equip their Crimson Dragoons with armor capable of keeping them warm enough to fight in the Alaskan cold.