It was dark, Very dark. And there were zombies everywhere. And Eastern point lighthouse was a veritable anti-zombie fortress. Sev loved her toys and you could tell by the setup in the yard. Motion sensor cameras, explosives on a remote detonator switch, even a pressure and body heat sensitive live wire trap, not that she knew if electrical current would do a lot to a zombie.

Harry, Maia, Harvey and the old couple were all asleep upstairs. Harvey had left his com-set on broadcast so that she could hear what was going on. She had heard Harry get up, then moments later saw the change in the pattern and color of the lighthouse light.

Checking the monitors, and seeing all quiet outside for now, she decided to make a quick trip down the beach to the beach house. Sev's clothes were much to big for Maia, and Maia's were totally ruined. She had bagged them in a double layer of plastic after the woman had gone back upstairs and set them aside. But Maia and Hannah were much the same size, and Han had left her more "duty ready" clothes at the beach house. So out into the darkness Sev slipped, collecting Mock Turtle, the beige and green pegasus that ran like the wind but hated to fly, she made the run down from the lighthouse.

The Eastern Point Lighthouse
September 19th
7:06AM - Dawn

The sun was due to rise not long after seven in the morning, but despite going to bed very late, Harold was up anyway sometime around six-thirty. He got up, went down and used that funny shower system Sev had set up, then climbed all the way back up top to get ready for a day on patrol with Maia.

Mercifully enough, he was able to apply his thought to action and focus on getting ready. It seemed a lot of his life was spent getting ready for something, whatever that something may be; it was easy to do so now.

He didn't think, or tried not to think, that there were people he cared about in the city. He only hoped that they would be able to defend themselves; most of them were capable of doing so. In the meantime, he and Maia could keep a look out for them and anyone she might be worried about, and if they didn't have plans of their own, they could always hole up in his lighthouse.

He kept quiet for the most part, taking everything outside into the predawn light so that he wouldn't disturb anyone sleeping inside. Though, he had a suspicion Maia was probably already getting up and ready herself -- they had a few unnerving qualities in common, on top of their common language of the sea. One of those being a little too at home in battle.

Harold shook his head, clipping the holster Sev had brought with one of the Glock .40s to his belt. Not surprisingly, despite it not being his Browning HP, the gun felt familiar there in the small of his back. He put three extra clips in holders on both sides of the belt, and then put his lightsaber on it as well.

He'd gone into the Underdark with much the same setup, though he also had a heavy pack on when he went down there; the same with Avalon. But both of those, despite some of the deadliness of them, had felt quite like the notion of going into the city and killing the undead.

When it was all done, he actually made a pot of coffee. It had been a long time since he'd had a cup, and he made the coffee and sat with it and some bread and fruit for breakfast, and watched the sun come up. Al Na'ir was still offshore, and when the light rose enough, he could read the signal flags.

They made him smile.

'Stay safe.'

"We will," he thought, though he had no way of sending that message easily.

The sun rose beautifully over the sea. And he let his mind follow it, and the wind that came with it, centering himself for a long day. The company would be good, even if the task wasn't. They had a few tentative plans. They had at least a few people they cared about safe.

It was a small piece of comfort and hope, but Harold took it.

And he was ready.

The Eastern Point Lighthouse

19 September

07:22



The night before, it had taken a long time for the woman to fall asleep, but sleep she did. Beyond dreams, Maia slept heavily, if only for a couple of hours. The sounds of dawn approaching brought her to her senses, and she crept from her pile of blankets, cold. So many mornings for so many years, she woke in such a state. It was how she knew she was ready for what lay ahead.

As the veil of night was peeled away, she spent the pre-dawn minutes warming her body. She pulled her sinewy limbs in long lines, and with slow breaths, she felt as her blood pulsed through her, warming her from her fingers to her toes. Maia's pulse was slow, and her thoughts were calm and centered.

When she went looking for her own blood-splattered clothes (she needed something that would fit her properly) she found instead the smaller threads that Sev had brought from the beach house. Thoughtful. She left the oversized sweats folded neatly, and made a mental note to send Sev a bottle of whatever she liked to drink, assuming that they both lived through the infection.

The clothes certainly fit better, but there was something about being dressed in something that belonged to another person that was a little unsettling. More often than not, it could make you feel like a stranger in your own skin. Maybe it wouldn't be so awful, mused Maia, to be someone else today.

Just after sunrise, she found Harry at the tail end of his breakfast. Bertie Hausenfelter would no doubt be dismayed that she did not get to feed them before they left, but no doubt the woman had seen greater disappointment in her life. Maia had arrayed herself with everything that she wanted with her: crossbow and plenty of bolts, a variety of daggers, her cutlass, her axe. Well equipped, inside and out, she stood beside the Welshman without a word. There was no rush, and there was no need to delay. It was not long before they set off for the city.

In the Dark

20 September

04:30

There had to be dozens of them, moving in one large pack. They had been soldiers, and mothers, and even a handful of children. How so many had been infected was a question that she had not yet considered. She was more concerned with the unusual way in which they were grouped. Maia had seen packs of two and three and six... but so many? Something was rotten in the state of RhyDin, and it was not just the once-human flesh of the approaching masses.

Fffwwwwwttt.

It was the only sound she heard as she let her very last bolt fly. It landed in the skull of one of the zombies with that terrible and wonderful sound, a sound that heralded peace for one who had been denied it in death, and did so at the cost of another ounce of Maia's precious humanity. The crossbow was useless to her, and she discarded it, standing with her sword in one hand and her axe in the other. Her back was to the wall, so at least she would see it coming.

The turn of the world slowed as she waited for them to come. A miracle was never impossible, but it seemed that at long last, her preternatural luck had indeed run out. She never expected it to end in this city. And she certainly never expected to fall to zombies, of all things. Stupid, stinking, staggering, slobbering zombies. It was almost embarassing.

Into the fray she spun, leading with her blades, always leading with her blades. The gore flew everywhere as she plunged her sword into the skull of one, swung her axe through the neck of another, and another, and another. The unholy sound was terrifying, and it chilled her to her core. Maia grew so cold so quickly, in fact, that she started to literally freeze up. Her limbs, so strong and graceful from years of training, betrayed her. Her arms did not fly with the speed that she knew. Her legs became too difficult to lift.

The teeming mass of death surrounded her, and they seemed to move as one, pulsing in towards her. First she felt strong fingers wrap around her arms, and her legs, pulling her wide open, threatening to snap her in two like a wishbone. Maia did not hear the axe fall away. She did not hear the sword clatter on cobblestone. She did not even hear her own screams. All that she heard was the coming silence. Gaping maws reached towards her, sinking death into her scarred flesh even as she fell to the ground.

It was so cold.


Gasp.

Shudder.

She clutched the sheets of the nest as she sat straight up. For the first time in two days, her pulse pounded so hard and so fast that Maia could hear it in her ears, and she found it hard to breathe. Moonlight poured in through the window, and Maia came to her senses. Lighthouse. To the left, the bakers slept. To her right, Harry. Everyone was quiet and still, and she shivered. It was not too cold outside that night, but Maia was chilled to the bone.

Silently, she rose, pulling a blanket tightly around her and moving away from where the others slept. If she had any hope of drifting off again, she would have to shake the feeling that she had not done enough, and that the darkness would reach up and swallow her again. If only she was not so cold...

For some, the zombies were not the worst of the demons to be faced.

The Eastern Point Lighthouse
September 20th
7:18AM

He woke up with his eyes practically glued closed and a bit of a fatigue related headache in his skull, but it was not the worst feeling he'd had of late. The low orange sun, just recently crested over the edge of the horizon, flooded the Lighthouse with natural light. Despite the slight chill left in the air, Harold liked the color; he had an eye for color, and always had, and thought of past lovers and how they looked in that light.

He did a quick check. The radio was quiet, and the bakers were asleep, and Maia was...

...not asleep.

Frowning a bit, Harold sat up in his little nest of blankets, finally locating the woman out sitting on the deck.

Long accustomed to nightmares, his own and those of others, he just looked at her for a moment. There was something of a mirror there. God knows how many times he had sat just there like that, looking out to sea, holding still in the hopes that the light and salt and wind would be enough to dissipate the troubles.

He didn't know how long she had been out there like that, but he didn't ask. He got up, whisper quietly, and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes; went and made a couple mugs of jasmine tea. She probably heard him come out; the window door wasn't perfectly quiet.

He didn't ask, nor say anything. Just sat down next to her, once he set the tea down on the opposite side, close enough that his heavy wool sea blanket could rest easily across both their shoulders in the new light.

No words. He was just there; if she wanted to talk, he would listen. If she wanted him gone, he would likely go.

If she wanted two living arms to hold her and remind her she was alive, he would give them.

And the sun still rose.

The Eastern Point Lighthouse

20 September

07:25

It was not until after he had set the cup down and settled in that Maia acknowledged he had joined her on the deck. With one word, she engaged in that long practiced tradition of stating the obvious.

"Morning."

It was a statement with but a hint of greeting dashed in- the 'good' had not been left out for brevity's sake, but rather because that bit remained to be seen. Eyes were still focused on the endless roll of the sea, and her prevailing thought as the sun rose was the way that a sailor could hear the ocean whisper their name and call them home. It made things a little better, and as a result, she certainly had the look of a person that had been sitting up thinking but she did not look haunted, not the way she had when she had been jarred from sleep about three hours earlier.

The shared blanket and shared space was accepted, much like the way an uppity housecat may deign to sit right beside a person when the weather turns cold. With both hands curled around the mug, she held it against her sternum, letting it warm her from the outside for a bit. Steam curled in elegant wisps towards her face, leaving the notes of the tea on the air to mingle with the smell of the sea. She loved the smell of jasmine. It did not stir anything within her memory, and that was a priceless comfort.

Maia did not tell Harry that she did not wish to talk about her night. She knew that she did not need to. Eyes stayed front for a long while as the sailor sipped at the mug of tea, and finally felt the warmth coming back into her limbs. Though it brought with it a bit of a numb, sleepy feeling, she knew it would pass once she ate a proper meal.

When at last she turned to Harry, the stillness brought on by the cold was gone from her. Maia leaned in and pecked him on the cheek: a non-verbal thank you. Emptied cup in hand, she stood up, letting his heavy blanket fall back towards him.

"I have an idea."

Promise of a smile tugged at the corners of her lips, and some degree of mischief was evident in that direct gaze she cast towards Harry. Ideas gave way to plans, and plans gave way to progress. It was well beyond time for some bloody progress.

Dockside
20 September
15:22

Maia had told Harry the idea, and in short order, the idea had blossomed into a plan. It was simple, in its essence: take back the docks, take back the city. If ships could get in, so could the badly needed support that came in the shape of food, medical supplies, ammunition and appropriately educated ground support.

They had suited up, in case of an encounter, and headed for the city to rally together any support that they could for the effort. By Maia's estimation, there would be more than a little of that.

"I am betting that some of those dock hands are going to be holed up in the sturdier warehouses. If we can get to them, we can up the numbers exponentially. Everyone has a friend of a friend, aye?"

"I would hope so," Harold replied. His time amongst the dockworkers had proven that word spread fast amongst them on all occasions. Plus, he wanted to get down there and check on the 'fleet' he had left in drydock; it hadn't occured to him sooner, due to circumstances, but when the Balclutha, the barque and the brig he'd left in the Salvage Yard crossed his mind, he realized with a sinking feeling that there had been a lot of smoke Dockside. And he was worried. "The sooner we get the docks cleaned up, the sooner we can start the rebuilding."

And wasn't that a word that didn't concern those who just dropped in for the fight? The smoke had worried Maia too, though it was secondary to the task at hand. Fires, looting, and chaos had made the usually bustling district quiet. It caused a paranoia in her to see the place so still. She expected to see the teeming herds around every bend, or, perhaps worse, a legion of troops she didn't know walking through territory over which she felt great ownership. It was hopeful, though, that notices were being posted, and some had survived the melee. Closer and closer the the yard they moved. The thickness of the smoke made the woman very grim indeed. She reached for her partner's arm.

"Harry..."

"I see it."

His tone was flat; a sort of cold, passive note that told those who knew him that there was something boiling black and hot under the surface, waiting to find a properly responsible target. He gave her a brief look, softening for only a moment, then walked to the fence. There were no troops, but the brig that had been in drydock was obscured by the rolling black smoke. The only thing visible were the tips of her masts, already crashed down, smoldering where they lay. And the body of a zombie, smoking nearby. It was not hard to guess what had happened here.

Eyes traced from the devastation to its source. The warehouses surrounding the area were arrayed like a checkerboard... black and white. Some charred, some burning, some standing still. As she broke from Harry to survey the damage, she noted that someone had at least attempted to help. Signs of ice, from above. Maybe a mage. Maybe something else. Not everything could be saved, though, and the damage here, where the infestation allegedly made landfall, was evidence of that.

When Maia stepped away, Harold took a moment to further assess the situation in the Yard. The brig was a lost cause; there wouldn't be anything left of her but her copper sheathing that was once on her hull to protect her from marine life. But at least Balclutha's masts still stood tall, and looked unscathed from his vantage, and the barque, far deeper into the Yard, likewise looked all right. He looked back for another moment at the brig -- she had not been quite so charming as Al Na'ir. But she had been her own entity, and now she was becoming blackened boards and ash.

Once he had all he could take of that, he followed after Maia. He still looked calm, though there was a certain black cast in his eyes that suggested otherwise. "Ready to start recruiting?"

"Aye. We can start with that warehouse- I'd bet my life there is a group hunkered down in there, waiting for a good enough reason to go." She pointed, and it was a sturdier structure than man of the others, and the few windows were heavily boarded up...the scorch marks she noted even spoke of some rudimentary fire-fighting. "Then, we can head into town." Day three, and things were beyond out-of-hand.

All right." He didn't wait for her to take the lead; a certain stalking stride in his footfalls, he headed for the warehouse. On closer inspection, there were a good many zombie bodies around it, some of them charred black. As he drew nearer, a voice shouted: "Stop there or we shoot!"

"We're not zombies!" Harold called back, using his sea-won voice to ring the call up to that upper window.

"They ain't the only problem!" The man who was peeking from behind one of the removable boards seemed to ease up his guard, though. "You're not one of them troops, right?"

"Not troops, but we're looking for soldiers. Open the damned door." Maia sent that authoritative glare up to the man, chin high, years of command in her stance (short though it was).

"You better gimme a better reason than that, lady!" the man called back. Needless to say, it had been a long few days for the men who had managed to survive both the outbreak and the fires.

"That's captain to you, sir. Dockside doesn't belong to the zombies, and it sure as hell doesn't belong to those half-wit landlubbers making walking torches out of the poor infected bastards. It belongs to us, and I'm of a mind to take it back." She glanced to Harry, just for a moment, then back up to the window. "Or, you can hide in there until this place burns, too." Maia waited, jaw clenched, steeling herself for what lay ahead.

"You're not *my* captain!" the man shot back. But he wasn't unreasonable, just wanted to make things clear that he was not going to be ordered around by someone he didn't know. "Come around to that side door, there. The one with the most zombies piled near it."

She smiled a little to Harry then, heading for the door. "Like him already." They had done well keeping themselves safe, keeping the plague away. It said something for their mettle, and she needed men of mettle to make this crazy plan work.

Harold didn't wait for any more to be thrown back and forth. He just picked his way across the mess. It wasn't hard to tell that the men in there had put up a fight -- there were headshots on some of the charred zombie remains. They'd tried hard to keep those undead torches from getting close to the warehouse.

"...what a fucking mess," was all he said, a low tone.

Maia just hoped to god that there were more than three men in there.

There were, in fact, six men in there, and two women. One of the women was Alice Hayes, who had been heading back towards the Al Na'ir when she ended up in the fight of her life. She had studied Maia, but then in true sailor fashion, had fallen into the line of shipboard obedience.

The others were all unknown to them, though some of them knew others, who knew others, and eventually it proved that they were all connected in the web that wove through the docks and ports. The web that had just had a giant rock thrown through it by zombies, and was set afire by troops not of Rhy'Din.

The threads of it banded together.




((This post was collaboratively authored by the players of Harold Lowe and Maia d'Thalia. Look, it's a mutual endeavor!))

Dockside
September 20th
5:45PM

With about twenty-five men and women gathered so far, Maia and Harold started taking back the docks. Moreso, though, they started to piece together what had happened to the many burnt out buildings, and many more burnt zombies.

There weren't many troops lingering in the area, but the pieces of the story that came together pointed to them. Some said a hundred, some said ten thousand, but the same name kept coming up: Obsidian.

The Obsidian Halls.

Harold had heard something or another about it, something about an embassy, or whatnot. He hadn't paid it much mind at the time, just noted it into the back of his mind and then went on with his life. It didn't seem important to him.

Until now, when troops that had come from there had set fire to his dockside, in his home realm.

Harold burned. On the outside, he was icy calm -- duty, ever duty, came first. They didn't find many zombies left, but those they did find were killed quickly, efficiently, and not using fire. Some buildings still burned, and they started trying to put out the fires, handing buckets from the seaside, across the road, a string of men and women and a few people standing guard.

On the inside, he burned.

Even as his docks burned, he burned.

How many flaming zombies had wandered away, still walking, to catch homes on fire? How many had taken out businesses, warehouses, stables? How many fires set by these troops had spread to the close-knit buildings that lined some of the cross-streets off of Eastern Drive?

He didn't take it out on the troops. They were only soldiers; it wasn't their fault that whoever had given them orders lacked any semblance of common sense. The imported army would have been a wonderful windfall to the besieged city... if only it had been handled sensibly.

He got hold of one of the people near the group of those troops; he didn't know, nor care, if the young man was one of the soldiers or just an admirer of the marauding army.

"Send a message to whoever commands these people," Harold said, evenly, though there was a razor-sharp edge on his voice that made the young man in front of him look a little nervous.

"This is not your home. It was not your right to burn our warehouses, homes and businesses. It was a massively stupid move to set zombies on fire; you are an asshole, whoever you are, in thinking that they'll just die while in flames. You have to destroy their brains. You don't need fire to do that.

"This is not your home. You have cost me a brig that I had plans for restoring; consider yourself lucky that you did not cost me the ship I already finished restoring. You have cost some of these people everything they own, with your moronic slash-and-burn plan.

"No matter how well-intentioned you were, you have acted in a way that shows a decisive lack of common sense.

"The next time that you send men or come onto my dockside, our dockside, you had damn well better use your brain. Or you will be met with force, and it will turn ugly for all involved.

"Take heed."

And without another word, Harold turned around and went back to trying to save what he could of the Dockside, with those left who still belonged there.

Dockside
September 20th
8:30PM

Harold was not expecting word back. The first thing that had crossed his mind when he received it, however, was to wonder how this Kalis-nar fellow had gotten his name. Though, it wasn't too hard to guess who he was -- Harold's name had become rather too public for his tastes what with the trial, then his head-long involvement in this mess alongside Maia.

He read the letter, using the light of some lanterns set up to work. They had seen no zombies Dockside since hours earlier. Maia had taken Hayes out to patrol the perimeter of their little corner of Rhy'Din, while he directed the relief efforts, and had set some more fighting-types to sweep as well. A good number of the fires had been put out; some buildings beyond repair, some levelled, a few salvageable.

He raised his eyebrow at points, but he didn't let his anger well up again. There was some decency in the letter, at least, though he wasn't so sure that they had needed an army. Fifty men who were prepared would have done more good than hundreds in this case.

Still, he replied for himself and not his troop of workers. Let them speak for themselves sometime.

Kalis-nar:

Send me nothing; I do not want money. I will rebuild what I can for this area and myself, as I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. If you wish to help those here who you have wronged, even unintentionally, then you may report yourself for duty in rebuilding. Not your men. Just you; you can give back by giving us your sweat and back for work.

As to monetary repayment, you would be better directed if you come to help with the manual labor of cleaning and rebuilding the area, to speak to the people themselves. Large sums of money do not heal wounds, and your willingness to come and work alongside them regardless of your ruling status will go farther. You can ask them what a fair and honest price would be to rebuild what they lost -- I have worked alongside some of them in the past, and having worked alongside them today, find them to be honest people who will not ask for more than is right.

No army is a good idea if it's uninformed. If you care about this city, then think before you act in the future -- fifty men who were armed and trained for this would have made a bigger difference with less damage. And you would have gotten most, if not all of them, back at the end of the campaign.

I will expect your word as to your willingness to report for duty tomorrow. The dockside, as of this almost nine o'clock hour, is now clean of zombies. We have a patrol lead by an extraordinary woman who is making certain it stays as such.

If you want to help, help where it counts.

-Harold Lowe

He sent the letter with the runner, then went back to work.

Dockside
September 21st
1:00AM

After bringing back sandwiches and making sure his and Maia's people ate, it was back to work for Harold. The first thing he did was divide his people into watches -- now that most of the fires were under control or out, he was able to give his people a break. So, half of them went and slept in the newly restored fo'c'sle of the Balclutha, and the other half, who felt the stronger, stayed on duty.

He did as well. He wished he would have brought those neat radios of Sev's to keep in contact with Maia, but he hadn't thought of it. He sent a runner to go check for Stephen Kidd's brother at the Powder Keg Pub. It was well within the 'safe' area of the Dockside, and then maybe they could pass word through the city watch to Kidd as to the whereabouts of Robert.

In the meantime, he went back to work dragging zombie bodies to where they were going to be burned. It was hard work, and smelled terrible, but he was tired enough now that he just didn't give a fuck anymore. But he did do something as he worked...

...he wrote down their names. Some of them still had identification on them. Not all, or even most, but some. Paperwork. A library card.

Pictures.

He wrote down their names, and collected up the pictures, putting them all into a wooden crate. When there was more than a single piece, he tucked them in there in order with the name on top of that set.

He didn't let himself think about that. He couldn't let himself think about that. If he did, something inside him would crumble.

"Don't think, just do your damn job."

So he and his half-strength crew worked on gathering the bodies of the dead; a few kept watch on some still questionable fires. The last thing he paused to do was send the young man who had been waiting to take Kalis-nar a brief message; no time to write it.

"Report at dawn, wear old clothes and good thick boots, and meet Bill Wainwright in the northern end of the area to start cleaning up fire debris. Have a good breakfast first. Take care, see you tomorrow."

Then back to the dead he went.