Breaking the Ice (WIDE OPEN)

[asgardspride]

Who: Anyone Sick of a gigantic Ice-cicle on our front porch who wants to hep out!
What: Removing the Corrupted Ice
When: d513 and onward
Where: The Viscinity of the Gate of Fire and surrounding areas
Rating: Keep it PG

Meta-Post for all those assisting in breaking up the ice who would like to post logs to that effect. A reminder for you that Here is the OOC Post. The basic rundown of events is that while Baldr and Loki tag-team to assist in purifying the corruption to weaken the ice enough to destroy it, the travelers will be using a combination of ingenuity, well-protected muscle, technology and powers to

a) Keep the ice from going everywhere.
b) Heal workers who get magical frostbite.
c) Melt, explode, break up and destroy the ice, carting any left over out of the city.

This process begins throughout 513, and you may all assume you're cordially invited if you want to help out. I'll leave some general prompts for participants. Remember the following hazards:

Hazards:
-The Ice has not weakened. It's not stronger, and it hasn't grown, but it's just as hazardous as it was to start. Touch it, and you get frostbite that has to be healed magically, and the healing leaves you with regular frostbite to handle the old fashioned way.
-The above matters because part of this plan involves blowing this massive thing of ice to pieces. Yes, you're planning to build big bulwarks and walls, but there's always a risk of some getting on a few of you... or a lot.
-After this is done, clean-up crews will have to scour the streets and search for pieces just in case. ---Once it's all out, the Engineers can focus on rebuilding the Gate of Fire.

Comments

it's all good

[ka_sera_sera]

It is possible that Dirk could not have chosen a better person to ask - you might be surprised how much precision shooting, angles, and mathematics have to do with one another. Or maybe you wouldn't.

He stands, takes a look at the closest one, and looks around to check how safe it'll be to walk around it. "Don't know how strong this ice is, but the angles of this one look right. Long as there's another one on this side to close things off. Want me to check the others?"

[timaeus_testified]

Dirk nods and takes a swig of the water. It's exactly what he needed. His head clears enough for him to recognize he'd been stupid with pushing himself so far. Well, it's not like he's a stranger to running on little energy.

"Yeah. Last thing we need is one of these to be off. I'm not taking any fuckin chances with that black ice." He shifts on his feet, planting himself squarely as he looks up to the problem they intend to remove. "The ice is thick but to absorb the shock it was constructed in layers with snow between each one. It should take the shock of explosions a hell of a lot better than it would without it."

[ka_sera_sera]

"I'll have to go around the front of them to see. Could be a risk. May be best to take a break before that, depending on how long you've been working here." He hasn't been watching Dirk long enough - and doesn't know him well enough - to say whether he actually should. A friend might not get a choice in the matter, but acquaintances get to decide for themselves what they need.

[timaeus_testified]

"I've been going steady for a few hours. Taking a break wouldn't be a bad idea. At the present, can't make a damn adjustment until I've at least had a sandwich." It was hella dumb to push himself that far but the ends justified the matter. He'd constructed most of what needed done in this segment. There was plenty of wall to do but he isn't going to make it his mission to get all of it.

"Even if something's off, the base work has been done and that's half the battle, so to damn well speak." He takes another swig of the water and adds. "If push comes to shove, most of us ice users can haul in water and use it to keep going while using less energy in the process. How's the rest of the barriers people are making looking so far?"

[ka_sera_sera]

He looks around at a few in the distance, remembering what he's seen so far. "They look fair. Though I didn't know it was my job to inspect all of them," he adds, his tone very slightly amused. "Someone set a food cart up a little ways off. You could take a look at some of the other walls yourself as we head there, maybe decide if anyone does need a little water hauled in. Should be safe to leave these alone that long, I think."

[timaeus_testified]

"Nah, it's not your job. I'm just asking for information. I'll definitely inspect them as we go get some food." He tucks his tools away into his tool belt and caps the bottle of water. His tone is as always, matter of fact. He's the sort of guy who builds plans with as simple of a guideline as a set of equations.

Dirk scans the area and takes his shades off, clipping them to his shirt front. "I don't think it would hurt to haul in water in a few hours. If we can build up a bit of energy before the deconstruction starts happening. If we ran into a problem we have a reserve."

He thinks of the worst thing he can and plans for it. Unlike a year or so ago, it's only a loose plan. "I'm going to right now assume something will happen. That queen of frost doesn't seem like the type to leave something behind without a trap built into it."

[ka_sera_sera]

"No, she doesn't." Roland starts in the general direction of the food cart, choosing a route that'll bring them close to a lot of the barriers that others have already made. There are all sorts of different designs to them, some more clearly effective than others, and Roland eyes the nearest as he begins to come close to it. "She did seem distracted during the last attack, less put together. And usually a trap in this sort of situation would have gone off by now - but that's no reason to let our guard down. I think we're prepared as we can be here, unless I'm forgetting something."

[timaeus_testified]

As much as he wants to fix the less effective barriers, only his fingers twitch. It's progress. Dirk inspects the nearest barrier and nods. "It makes you wonder if this 'corruption' is having an effect on her. Not to dismiss what she's done but if it's manipulating her, what else is it doing behind the scenes."

He stuffs his free hand into his pocket and takes another swig. "I'm not as learned or experienced as other people, but I have a nagging feeling that plays a big part in this war."

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland thinks on it. "In my world, the breakdown at the center of all worlds wasn't thought to be natural, as most here believe. It was said something was wrong with it. Wrong in it, maybe. It's too bad there's no way to know for certain. Not about that or about the state of yon ice queen." He waves his hand in the general direction of the nearest barrier, watching as a native sets up some arrangement - a bomb, Roland assumes - near the ice beyond it.

"Not without too much risk, anyway. Risk which would be undertaken in secret, which we wouldn't know about until it was over." Roland sighs, frowning, not at the scenario itself so much as the state of things that makes it likely.

[timaeus_testified]

Dirk presses his lips into a thin line. It isn't often he offers up information about his own reality but the older man sharing a bit of his feels like he should say something. "In my world, everything is over. It was over a long ass time ago and humanity is four stupid kids who can't figure themselves out, let alone their roles in what comes next." He includes himself in the stupid category without a pause. It says more about his view of himself than he'll admit even to his close friends.

"Universes died, and were reborn through the system we escaped into and a very specific set of circumstances meant the process could be successful or a failure. Everything for our iteration of the rebirth was manipulated by someone who wants to use our attempts to fuel the revival of her species." He studies another barrier as well as the arrangement with a critical eye. If either of those are off. Dirk lets out a breath, not bothering to hold it in.

Things could go so wrong and he has to just let them be. "I feel like I made that a bit too vague. The point is, it's weird to think of any kind of breakdown to be natural and not knowing is nothing new. But it still hella bothers me to be a proverbial sitting duck waiting to see what comes of shit I can't see. It's something we can do fuck-all about and that makes it worse."

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland doesn't offer apologies for Dirk's dead world. There'd only be a point to doing so if those apologies would help, and Roland does not think Dirk is the kind of person for whom they would. He does listen closely, though, expression grim. "I don't know about natural, but worlds ending is often a symptom of whatever's happening with the 'tree'. Its breakdown makes it easier in the outer worlds for chaos and darkness to take hold, as they did in my home."

The native finishes setting up whatever it is he's doing and starts moving around toward their side of the barriers. Roland starts to move a little away, not doubting the barriers there but feeling it best to be cautious. "And now I'm the one being vague, but I don't know that there's any other way to speak of the greater pattern of it. Did you feel as if you were doing more, in your world? I know more is being done here but it's difficult sometimes to remember that."

[timaeus_testified]

It doesn't even take a moment of thinking to answer. "No. Everything was going crazy back home and I could do jack shit but try to get to it in time. Here I can do something and that makes slightly better. Yet, the sense of not knowing is the damn same. It just has faces here versus the pure unknown." But the darkness and chaos...

Dirk stares straight ahead for a moment, mulling that information over. "If Chaos and darkness taking hold are signs the tree has problems, my universe is right in the heart of the breakdown. There's no other way to explain all the chaos and bad situations carefully layered the way they are at home. I could be wrong and it all has some grand plan to it."

But he damn well doesn't think so. He stuffs his hands deeper into his pockets as he follows Roland's lead moving away from his tour of inspection. "At the end of it, while the best work is here, I'm antsy to get back home to fix what's going wrong there. I'm not even sure I make any damn sense anymore."

[ka_sera_sera]

"You want to work on your own world's problems first," he says, nodding. "But if we are successful here, it'll at least give other worlds the opportunity to heal. Things'll start working the right way again. Which isn't to say there isn't some sort of organized effort behind whatever's happened to your world."

He looks around, spotting the food cart in the distance. "I had a different problem. I was trying to get to the - the tree, as they call it here - from my own world. Coming here, waiting for others to do most of the work-" Roland shakes his head, crossing his arms. "It feels very different."