Dannan Recon

The city is hard to spy on while flying due to the storm, but there are also no stars or moons for the dragons to occlude, either.

The timing of this run is for when L'tarn realize(s|d) he (was|is) time stressed (last|to)night. Which, IIRC, (was|is) at a moderate lull in the storm, after a brief break in the clouds that permitted the moon to light up a redhead of our acquaintance. Still dark, but a wee bit less wet than all that. How quickly (did|are) conditions destabiliz(e|ing)?

Based on what the guards report, you have a watch or so before the rain started getting really heavy again. The moonlight never broke through the clouds here, which is a bit disturbing to you. You wonder if shadow is...being affected.

(And is inventing a grammar of time travel worth a contribution point? Cuz if it's not, I'm just too damn tired. :-P)

(Depends on if you can get someone else, who is not in cahoots with you, to attempt to use it aloud in the course of normal conversation and be comprehensible to an observer...)

No one can hear anything and the town is battened down in the raging storm, so it is hard to evaluate either the fleet or the town. Jovian's time-sense is the only way to tell if you've timed it right, since the normal clues (star rotation, sun/moon, seasons) are not clear.

There is a lighthouse at some point on the harbor's edge, or nearby to it. It is lit by fire and reflected into the water by large mirrors.

Not mage-light. Good to know...that kind of power is not considered cheap here.

There are ships in the harbor, but it's not easy to say how many. Fewer than in Amber's horbor, at a guess.

How many of a size to be warships? How many showing lanterns or other signs of activity? Are any visibly armed, e.g. with <ahem> siege equipment? (As contrasted with Siege equipment, about which I'll leave others to inquire.)

Most of 'em. no lanterns. no visible equipment on decks, unless you want to fly close.

There are a few other lights. Some buildings may have glass windows, but most, no matter what they are made of, are shuttered tight against the heavy, cold, rain. There is one well-lit tower that is clearly part of the defenses of the city. It has lights and Siege indicates that it is the citadel.

//Maranth says that L'tarn thinks we could swim in, if you want a closer look at the ships. We are already very wet.//

//It's a bit choppy for humans to snorkel, else I'd consider it.//

[How is the visibility? Is L'tarn just wise-assing around, or could we get usefully close without being too obvious?]

I'd worry about the lighthouse and the tower. But sound and sight are pretty well muffled, and nobody is out. The rain was damn hard earlier and most people stayed home.

Robin's enjoying this ride almost as much as she did with J'rim and Canareth. She won't 'surf' though, but it's obvious that the rain doesn't bother her at all.

If Squawk and Heeek don't want to fly at Maranth-speed, Robin is certainly willing to carry them, chuckling fondly in response to their grousing.

Carry it is. Even in the eye of the storm, it's still too windy for casual flight.

She would indicate to L'tarn though, that'd she like a closer look at the citadel if it could be arranged. ;)

"If it weren't stone, I'd light it on fire for you."

"Oooo!" Robin coos in delight. "You say the sweetest things, bronzerider." She grins to L'tarn in the wild wetness of the night.

L'tarn does not reply. He is concentrating either on his dragon or on his flying.

//L'tarn thinks we should look closely, and go Between if they see us.//

"Your brother gives us the go ahead." He says and Maranth turns into a tight downward spiral.

"Your brother. That'll be a big surprise to a few people when we get home." L'tarn goes quiet for a moment, then decides not to dwell on the question.

A soft cynical snort escapes the Ranger as well at her own private thoughts.

[L'Tarn]
"Maranth may have to be our eyes. He sees better than us and will notice trouble before we do."

Robin's blonde head nods in understanding, though the girl uses her own eyes as well to the best of her ability.

The dragon flies down, getting closer to the citadel. It is short and squat and looks as if it would not give purchase on the roof to man nor to dragon. "Looks defensible from airborne attacks, " says L'tarn. "We can't stay here for long, they'll spot us."

"I hear you." Robin softens her voice with a smile as she croons to Squawk and Heeek reassuringly, telling them they are big brave gulls and that she's very proud of them and such. Her own green eyes are scanning both the structure and the surrounding grounds for weaknesses that the unseasonable rain and/or a small earthquake could exploit to their fullest. The girl is also looking for tracks a sudden, swift and unfortunate fire might run along.

Robin notices that the roof seems to be sturdily constructed, as if they expected attacks from above. There are several promising tracks for flames to traverse, and Robin makes note of them, but remembers that she will soon be/have caused it to rain really hard here. Also, Robin is no architect or engineer, but the building seems odd. She doesn't know why it stands up without collapsing, but it does.

"Well, dung!" The girl mutters under her breath in exasperation. "Looks like Jovian gets his war. But ya know, I was really hoping for a quick in-and-out. Damn efficient-types - always making things difficult." Robin tch's her tongue and shakes her head, a rueful chuckle going through her.

"Okay, I've seen enough. Thanks Maranth. Thanks L'tarn. You can grab some sky if you want."

Maranth pushes his wings almost lazily, beating into the air. He climbs effortlessly back into the sky.

"Right. We'll see what his Lordship wants us to do next..."

Canerath says //L'tarn says your sister has seen what she was looking for. Maranth thinks she is like a bird. They wish to know if we are done here.//

The rain is starting to pick up a bit. And it doesn't seem to be quite natural.

//I don't think we're quite done, but we're done here for the present. I want to land and confer with the four of us face to face, before returning to normal time.// Jovian scans the outlying area, picks a landing spot with no good sight-line to the city and directs Canareth there, with instructions for Maranth to follow.

When the two dragons and four humans are able to talk in normal tones, Jovian summarizes what he's seen of the harbor - an armada of some 50 to 60 ships including men o'war and support vessels, hardly any with hands on deck at this hour and in this weather.

Robin is a little grimmer with her results. A locked up tight citadel of rather sturdy architecture that she wouldn't care to break into without a... something. On the plus side, it doesn't look like they're scheduling any outdoor sacrifices soon. The girl is finding herself kind of dry on short term ideas. She is absolutely confident that given a week the place would be hers, but tomorrow/today? Maybe the day after, but not today/tomorrow. Dung!

"I want those ships so badly I can taste it," Jovian thinks aloud with a smile for Robin. "One dragon could tow each one away - we could make off with 15 or 20 ships, with covering fire, easy as a walk in the park. The only problem would be keeping the crews bottled up inside the ships while we make off with them; once we were away we could take care of them one crew at a time."

"Oh, Jovian! Thank you!" Robin claps her hands in delight and drops a kiss on her brother's cheek.

The dragonrider shakes his head. "If we had just three or four people who knew those ships well, could be dropped on board to dog down hatches and fix tow ropes, we could pull it off." He looks to Siege, not exactly hopefully, but gauging his reaction to such demonic tactics.

Siege looks up. "Might work. How do you stop the witch-queens? Or do we do this so fast that they don't come into it? That's always a risky plan, but sometimes audacity is the best plan. Too bad we can't sink them quickly from below and raise them later..."

"Speed was exactly the idea," Jovian nods. "Make off with a third of the fleet in one pass of the lighthouse beam - and keep ten or so of the dragons free to harry anyone who comes out in time. But we don't have the spare hands," he complains.

The wingleader turns to L'tarn. "Maranth said something about swimming in close to the fleet. Your idea or his?" The tone of this does not welcome wise-assing around.

"His. Not sure I'd want to swim in on Maranth and I'm not sure I want to be away from him either. I think not wanting to be separated from him during the battle is more than 50% out of concern for his hide, but I'm not saying how much more."

"Noted," Jovian nods with a mildly sour note in his voice, dismissing from his mind visions of reptilian submarines hulling the fleet.

"Even if that can't work," he thinks aloud, "this still feels like a good time to hit, with everyone huddled up. We could glide right in and start the fireworks at exactly the moment we choose."

"Hmmm... it's gonna take a lotta fire to keep working with what's coming up though." Robin murmurs to herself. "Annnnnd...

"Jove? I've got an 'it's quiet, too quiet' feeling about plan B. Ships, yay! Starting fireworks... something's not quite right and I don't know what. Yet."

The ranger bites her lips as her eyes wander off. "They're... defended against aerial attack... There's obvious fire-trails in a citadel otherwise pretty sound... Except for I'm not sure why the walls are standing... " Oh, she's mulling it over.

"The abilities of these...witch-queens," Jovian says the word as if it tastes funny, "has shaped the architecture, no doubt. Flying foes? Nothing new there. The walls are probably planned with magical support in mind. And it wouldn't surprise me if those obvious fire- trails were defensive, maybe even part of an active defense. A full frontal on the citadel would be a Bad Move, no question."

Jovian does that characteristic peering-into-distance thing he does. "The question is, how well can you sneak in? That may require a closer look from the ground." He is not happy about that thought.

"Well, we snuck out" says Siege. He's grinning.

"Absolutely." Robin smiles as well. "Of course, we can't sneak back in that way. They'll be watching the sewers now. And they'll have a lot more water to try and flush us out with. But... there's always the ventilation shafts. Unless, dear Siege, you know some of the back paths of Grandma's citadel." She winks.

"Water. Damn the water," the wingleader mutters, scowling at the heavy clouds. It dawns on him again that there is something he doesn't like at all about this weather. "Robin, are you still doing this back at the cave while the rest of us sleep?" he asks aloud, frowning deeply. "Heavy rain doesn't exactly prepare the field for allies whose chief weapon is fire, you know. Nothing for it now," he concludes disgustedly. "We didn't stop you, so we can't... unless you were interrupted, maybe?"

Robin blinks innocently at Jovian, but can't maintain it and breaks into rueful laughter. "Jooovvve, if I understand your time talk - nothing interrupted me, so nothing will interrupt me. Right?"

"Right," Jovian nods. "No paradoxes, it's impossible. Or at minimum, so risky that no one would dare test the theory - the possibilities include being locked in a time-loop so that you would no longer exist at any time beyond it." He visibly shudders at this, the only time Robin has ever seen him that flapped.

(As contrasted with his usual unflappable self.)

"And yeah, maybe a heavy rain doesn't exactly clear the field for fire use. But it does wonders against siege machinery and overwhelming numbers. Not to mention reduces visibility for mammal types but not draconic types, offers convenient cover for large aerial targets, keeps the blood trackers indoors, and generally shifts the tactics of this friendly place to something less prepared for. So, you want to bitch about the rain or work with it?" Robin smiles up to her brother, her eyes sparkling.

L'tarn looks at the fleet. "Work with the rain... If we don't care about casualties, and by that, I mean their casualties, we could just drop rocks on them. Might not be perfectly accurate, but the ships were pretty tight in the harbor and if we miss, at least we wouldn't be at risk.

"Do we have any way of taking out that lighthouse?"

"I think we might - by brute force," Jovian nods. "It's not mage- light, just good old fire and mirror; shouldn't be too tough. Unless the glass is magically reinforced?" He looks to Seige to confirm or deny this.

Seige looks at Robin. "Lady, I think we can storm the temple. The dragons can cause a big enough stir to roust the witch-queens to defend the place, A quick raid on the temple to rescue Avis and then we are in a much stronger position. I like your man's man's idea of sinking the enemy fleet."

The wingleader cracks a lopsided grin. "That would certainly stir them up. I still think interrupting a public sacrifice is a strong option - it'd put Vianis and Avis both out in the open, for one. Barring that, I suppose the exact timing isn't critical - though half a candlemark before the defenders' shift-change is a personal favorite."

Robin sets her fists hips and looks around at the trio of grinning warriors around her. An exasperated purse of her lips is followed by a rueful head-shake and a rolling of green eyes heavenward.

"Men!" she laughs. "Oh, alright. We'll sink the fleet." A wink to Siege. "We'll storm the citadel." A chuckle to Jovian. "And we'll knock over the lighthouse. Dark Reaches! It's got to be testosterone poisoning. It's just got to be." The last is rhetorical.

"Okay. Jove, two flights? One to deal with the fleet. If your magnificent friends can drop rocks - they can snap off masts and play stick ball with the hulls. The other - probably smaller, but I suppose that's up to Kourin and maybe M'hall? - to just push the damn thing over. Say... starting bell to be just before dawn? Had we left before then?"

"We don't need to push over the whole lighthouse, just disable the light. That's why I asked whether the glass up top is magically reinforced." He turns his questioning look upon Seige again.

Siege shrugs. "Unless you can use your divine powers to detect it and more importantly, defeat it, I don't see as how that's an issue. You hit it with all you've got and it either breaks or it doesn't. If they're smart and/or paranoid, they'll defend it, but we're not talking about an attack like anything they'll expect from us."

"It's probably going to rain steadily throughout the day. Get ragged after sunset. And by midnight regular weather should be re-established. Witch-queens need line of sight, according to Siege here, so the lowered clouds can be used as baffles.

"These two lovely gentlemen," Robin nods to where Squawk and Heeek are huddling and hissing underneath the inadequate cover of a nearby bush, "are Witch-Queen hunters. You guys see them peal off after someone. Nail her. Hard and fast." An evil grin spreads across the Ranger's face before she returns to business once more.

Jovian eyes the annoyed gulls - which he had been wondering about but refused to ask - with a thoughtful look and a less-sardonic-than- Julianic eyebrow.

"If you guys could spare one or two steady-watcher types, Siege and I will probably need a quick pick-up."

The dragonman nods at this.

"In the meantime, oh counter-revolutionary," those green eyes turn on the Commander of the Brotherhood of the Stag, "my brother has been delicately hinting for any partisans you might know of. Now that we're committed to this little endeavor, do you know of any that might help when you and me sneak into the temple via the sewers to rescue your Lady Commander?" Robin cocks her head like a bright-eyed bird and awaits the answer. Answers.

"The people of the City of Temple of the Lady were, in my experience, shockingly cooperative with the invaders. I am sure that after we re-take the town, we will find that there were any number who were loyal to us all along, but I am loathe to risk our plans on the possibility that they may not be so loyal now.

"So, we are planning on sneaking in to the temple and pulling Avis from her cell? How will you know when we need the diversion?"

L'tarn speaks up. "J'rim, one of us has to go with them. I'd say it should be either you or me. Maranth wouldn't need to spot them, I'd call him in when we needed out."

"Yeah." Robin confirms to Siege. "Just a sneak in to rescue your Avis. But..." the Ranger's green gaze drifts to L'tarn, "I thought you didn't want to be separated from Maranth."

"He can be separated from Maranth, but sending Maranth into harm's way without his rider - like that submarine attack we half considered - is out of the question. I wouldn't wish the meanest spirit among us to become a dragonless man, sister." Jovian's tone is grave and clearly meant to close that subject.

Robin nods as understanding filters into her eyes.

"L'tarn, you're not on the extraction team. Leave that to the scrappiest rider among the greens." He considers a moment. "M'corli and Antrith, I think. I've got a special stunt in mind for you and Maranth." A glint in the wing commander's eyes suggests this might be payback time.

He looks away and upward at the lighthouse beacon. "I'd say a middling sized tree trunk, driven into that beacon at the speed of a stooping bronze, should do nicely. Maranth will have to let go and pull up hard at the last possible second. Sound like fun?"

A snigger escapes Robin. Oh yes it does.

"Hmm. Still can't go between? As long as we can take some practice shots before we need to bring it down, we can do it. We'll do it."

The Ranger gives L'tarn a big thumbs up.

Jovian considers a moment. "We've timed it safely twice now. I wouldn't want you to do it too often without an Amberite leading you, but I suspect an evasive skip would be all right. Try to avoid it if it's not strictly necessary."

"Right. Dive at a building, carrying a massive tree. Drop Tree on building. Dodge. Try not to have to go between. If I survive, do something else dangerous. I think I'm clear on the plan, at least my part."

Siege looks at Robin. "Are we planning on going into the sewers close to the temple? Or do we go in by the front doors?"

"Weeeelll." She scratches the side of her jaw with a thumb. "You know the tactical layout of the place. If we can go in the front doors, I'd prefer it. But our goal here is to succeed, not to die gloriously." Robin grins to him. "Which way do you think will get the succeeding option done?"

"I wish we could, as well, but it'll be defended if there is a real attack happening. It will be much easier to sneak around the back than to push ourselves ahead of a frontal assault. I could probably lead us back through the caves we entered, but it might take some swimming, if the water is high. At least we can prepare somewhat and take some rope."

"Or we can break into the sewers in the town and take a short cut, but that might be dangerous."

"Dung! Oh, deep green shadows and stinking crap piles!" The Ranger curses to herself quietly. "Okay fine. Swimming. Underground." The green eyes that look up to Siege have ice under them.

"You're going to keep a good grip on your end of the rope, Siege, right?" She's willing but she doesn't like it one bit.

"I have not lost a soldier except in combat in many years as a war leader, Lady. Except to treachery." He seems quite confident of himself.

Robin grins despite herself. "I'm gonna hold you to that. Or my rotting corpse will rise from the waters to strangle you." She teases the Danu in a parallel of his earlier humor.

"Siege, have you got a good grip on where your grandmother would keep a small but important item? Something the size of-- Son of a bitch," he cuts himself off, looking mildly chagrinned. He pulls a pasteboard from an inner pocket, one with a familiar equine sigil on one side, a stunningly beautiful strawberry-blonde woman depicted on the other. "Something the size of this?"

"Either on her person or in a reliquary in the temple. Especially if it were magic."

"Either way, it's a small team project and I don't know how we coordinate it so that the attack keeps the witch-queens busy while we do it."

L'tarn answers that. "No problem. That's one thing dragonriders are good at, keeping in contact with each other. In any case, let's get back so that we're not spotted. It sounds like we've got the plan down to a 'T'..."

"Well at least to a shaky squiggle that promises lots of room for improvisation." Robin's grin comes back as she squats and scoops up her grumpy avian friends.