vivala | 002 - A Time to Gain and a Time to Lose

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002 - A Time to Gain and a Time to Lose

Truthfully Hesaeth was not a place that Donnie had been in any particular hurry to return to. So much had happened there, such gains and losses in what he felt was comparatively a short amount of time. He'd had mixed feelings about their abandoning the resources, but he still wouldn't have questioned the decision when they had such dire threats bearing down upon them. Resources could be replaced. Lives could not.

And yet, here he finds himself again. At least he has no intention of poking around what's left of the camp itself, and he and the other Corsairs had made sure that the mines would be inaccessible in the wake of their escape. The Empire would have to start all over again, but for now it seems that they're too busy licking their own wounds after their losses from here and against Flotsam.

Their target is one of two downed ships. It's a wonder what some well-aimed guns can do. The vessel's entirety had listed to one side during its descent, driving itself into the nearby cliff-face until its starboard side had been nearly flattened.

"Considering the load capacity of those ships, I'm willing to bet they've got some decent artillery other than their cannons. Probably didn't think they'd need to pull out anything else," Donnie notes as he observes the site from the rail of their own airship while it circles closer.

The entry point is through the rear loading hatch, which had been partially open perhaps in an attempt to evacuate before the whole ship had tipped over, and after rappelling down from their ship, the real adventure begins. Footing is tricky given the steep angle, ensuring that anything not nailed down or secured has been thrown to the starboard side of the ship. Toppled crates, containers and the equipment meant to move heavy loads make up most of the 'floor' they have to navigate across, as well as some dangling machinery hanging precariously by their loading harnesses.

((OOC: Leaving it open as to whether interested parties want to thread together or individually, whichever is easier/preferred! Also, this is a salvage mission so if there's anything anyone else might be in the market for, let me know!))

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((....you know, I did not realize when I was trying to trim the introduction down that I cut out the part about them rappelling down by airship lol. Oh well, I'll fix that for the main post but I'll go with your tag. There's still a ship on standby.))

Donnie's no slouch for climbing himself, proving himself quite capable of finding handholds and footholds even when there doesn't seem to be much to hang onto. His brothers used to explore just about everywhere along the coast where they lived, and that included plenty of climbing up of steep rock faces and jumping off the top into the ocean waters below.

Unfortunately there's nothing to pad their fall here, so when a rope is provided, Donnie's not going to refuse it. He makes it up the rest of the way without trouble, eyeing the mechanism of the hatch before peering down the opening itself, still plenty wide for them to get in. Squinting into the dimness, he crouches down to slide over the edge, hanging there so he can swing himself in the direction of a nearby support beam.

[Haha rappelling from airship would make sense! Perhaps this experience with Link makes Donnie realise it would be a better approach XD]

Link's eyes can't see through the darkness any better than Donnie can. But he tosses a familiar glowing-green flower into the hatch - and wherever the Brightbloom lands, it will grow and release a soft green light.

He glances at Donnie - who looks to be doing okay, swinging on the rope like a vine - before making his own way through the hatch. He doesn't have extra rope, so he just climbs through and clings to the wall just inside, looking around. What's it look like inside?

At a glance the tilted ship does its best impression of a very stylized cavern, its stalactites formed by hanging equipment and crates in thick rope nets, stalagmites a pile of the unsecured detritus of everything else that formerly sat firmly on the ship's floor.

Crates of every size form mounds and peaks, some busted open from the force of their fall, their contents scattered and mostly as good as lost if they've slipped into the crevices of the jumbled conglomeration that makes up the terrain.

Donnie walks along the length of the beam he'd landed on, pulling out his own lantern, one that employs the same brightbloom source. With a twist, he aligns the mirrors within to focus the light into more of a beam, running it across the piles beneath him as he looks for the next best place to put his feet down.

The lantern gets a curious look, from Link - with that concentrated beam, it's brighter than Brightblooms usually are.

But even if it's not strictly needed, Link still draws his bow - and fires off a few more Brightbloom seeds into the space, until there's no more pitch dark spaces. The lantern will still help illuminate the specifics. But this way, they'll at least be able to see the whole space better.

And with that task done, Link drops down to a lower section - to a part where there's lots of crates, broken or otherwise. What's inside those?

Donnie's not going to argue against having more light. He nods at Link before hopping over to one of the netted crates, clinging to the rope as it swings lazily about as he tries to see if there's any indications of what might be inside of it.

One of the broken crates once held parts, a few random gears still sitting within its remains. Another that seems to have only suffered the splitting of its lid has dried foodstuffs. Link's landing makes some of the pile shift, something sliding off the side before stopping, but the sound of something streaming might catch his attention. It's not liquid in origin but dry, and upon investigation turns out to be a leaking keg of gunpowder.

The drief foodstuffs get a curious, close inspection from Link. Despite being a keen chef, he's not actually that familiar with them. The benefits of being able to store ingredients in his enchanted pack mean that Link's used to always having fresh ingredients on hand.

Doesn't mean he won't try these too, though. He'll stuff whatever he can pick up in his pack.

And then...ooh, that's interesting. The inside of the keg's like a bomb barrel. He makes a noise in the back of his throat, to get Donnie's attention.

"Can you patch it?" He says, pointing to the leak in the barrel once Donnie's close. If he can, the barrel will be easier - and safer - to transport.

The turtle looks over before he plots out the best route to take to get him to where Link is. Eventually he jumps to the neck of some sort of loading crane, sliding down before making another leap to pick his way over to the mound Link's been investigating.

"Hmmm," he muses, setting his hands on the barrel. "Help me turn it." It doesn't seem like the other side is leaking, but the ship's landing probably hadn't done it any favors if the crack there is anything to go by. "Don't have anything on me...Maybe if we find a rag and tie it down tight enough with some rope it should do the trick for a temporary fix."

With Donnie on one side of the barrel, and Link on the other, they're able to shift it so that the gunpowder can't leak anymore. But if they need rags...

Giving Donnie a nod, Link leaves the barrel where it is and immediately begins a search. It doesn't take long for him to gather up what pieces of fabric he kind find in the debris - a torn sail here, a worn sack there. All of these, he thrusts towards Donnie while giving him a questioning look.

Will these work?

Link works quickly and seems more than eager to search for the needed materials, so Donnie leaves it to him while he has a closer look at the damage. When the fabric samples are brought back, he has a look at each as he spreads each piece on top of the barrel. He feels each of them between his fingers and bunches them in testing. The sail's too stiff and most of the sack material is too loose, but he finally finds a piece that looks dense enough but still pliable.

"This should work," he says, wadding it up a bit to stuff it into the seam of the crack. He takes his multitool out to cut off the excess, and then he gets the sail and cuts it down a bit too before setting it over the spot he'd just stuffed. "Okay, so we just need to bind this down and it'll be good to go."

Okay. So they need to bind it down.

But...what with?

He doesn't have anything in his pack that could help with that. So instead he looks around, hoping he'll spot something that could be of use...

Aha! There is something - a small box filled with nails. The lid is partly ajar, and many of the nails have likely scattered all over. But there's still a few next. Maybe enough to hold the sail down?

He holds the box out for Donnie.

If only he'd finalized that experimental adhesive he'd been working on...

Donnie can't help but grin when Link produces the nails. "Oh, that'll work," he says with a shrug, reaching over to take a few. "Hold this down while I start hammering these in."

He has to be careful not to break the thing even more, but between the two of them they manage to get the patch in place.

"We just have to warn whoever's loading it to be careful," he notes. "This area looks pretty sturdy, so we'll keep it here for now until we call in our airship."

As Link holds the barrel steady, he considers whether or not he might be able to just store the barrel in his pack. But he has to conclude that no, it's not possible - the barrel's just too big.

Even korok-enchanted packs have limitations.

So instead he just nods - and when Donnie's finished with his work, steps away.

A shame, that. It would've been pretty handy. Donnie rolls his shoulders back as he straightens again.

"There's gotta be a lot more than just gunpowder around here. But this is promising in itself. They must have some weapons around. Those will always be useful." Kind of an unfortunate truth, but he figures it's better in their hands than the Empire's.

He hops down the stack of crates once he's retrieved his lantern.

"Probably shooty weapons," Link agrees. What were they called again? He couldn't quite remember the Imperial word for it. The ones that went bang, like every shot was made of fire fruits.

But if they had the thing the put in those weapons, then it stood to reason that they'd have the weapons themselves.

So Link takes a look at some of those crates Donnie just hopped off of. Are there any he could crack open, to see what's inside?

"Firearms," Donnie supplies with a slightly crooked smile. Shooty weapons does cover it, and reminds him of something his brothers would say.

There's a few crates where the nails have come loose from them being thrown to the side, panels either splintered or half-pried off to reveal their contents. Link's assumption isn't wrong at all once he has a look. There's a few rifles and pistols in separate boxes, knocked off of the racks they'd been packed in.

Link makes a soft sound of acknowledgement. Firearms. That was the word. He'd have to remember it.

Which is good to know, once they find crates full of them. Link immediately begins picking up the ones that have been knocked off the rack, and stows them away in his korok-enchanted pack.

How exactly they all fit in there still remains a mystery.

How much Donnie'd love to have one of those. It would be so very useful for scavenging!

He watches a moment, shaking his head at the feat before forcing himself to continue his own search. There's been plenty of times he's considered making use of a gun himself. They'd certainly be useful for range...

A gleam of metal catches his eye, and the turtlekin moves downwards, eyes wide. Is that what he thinks it is..?

Somewhere across from Link there's a sound, a subtle creak of wood, and in the light of his brightbloom he can make out the shadow of a figure and the dull glint of the barrel of a rifle as someone trying to hide behind another mess of machinery seems to be tracking the turtlekin's movements.

Link's response is swift, and immediate.

And his first instinct is - as always - to protect.

He darts forward, shoving himself in front of Donnie. His shield is pulled from his back, and held forward towards the enemy.

Any bullet fired towards Donnie will have to get through Link first.

It's only Link's sudden movement that draws Donnie's attention, and by that time the Hylian is already there in front of him. The turtlekin gasps in surprise, and then yelps when the sound of a gunshot and the subsequent ping of a bullet follows, ringing off of Link's shield.

He lowers his arms from where he'd instinctively thrown them over his head, trying to figure out which direction the shot had come from, hearing the muffled curse at the miss. Given Link had seen the threat from the start, he'd know which direction to look and see the movement of their would-be attacker, deciding to try taking cover again.

Link doesn't drop his shield. But he does glance back towards Donnie - quickly checking to make sure he's okay - before gesturing towards where he saw the attacker.

Then, silently, he reaches behind him to grasp Donnie's arm. And with his other arm still holding up the shield, pulls Donnie along until the two of them are behind a couple of crates. Now, at least, they have cover too.

Or at least Donnie does - because the moment Link's herded him behind the crates, he swaps out his shield for a bow. Crouched down, he inches around the edge of the crates - arrow pointed right where he last saw the enemy.

By then Donnie's caught up with what's happened, mentally kicking himself. Well of course the probability of survivors had been slim, but not impossible!

Going up against someone with a ranged weapon isn't his forte, and with the uneven 'terrain' between them, it would be difficult for him to try getting close without risking being a big target. He tries to have a look around the crates but he can't see anything, much less hear anything above the sound of his heart hammering in his chest.

There's another crack then, another shot but with no clear target, it wings the crate Link had led Donnie to. The turtlekin ducks his head at the fragments of wood that fly with it.

With their attacker hidden, Link doesn't have a clear shot either. He can't directly shoot an enemy he can't see.

Luckily for Link and Donnie though, he doesn't have to.

Because to his arrow he fuses a mushroom that will be quite familiar to Donnie - a Puffshroom. As it lands, it explodes into a cloud of fog-like spores - and utterly obscuring the area.

Which means that right now, their enemy can't see anything - and Link takes this opportunity to move, heading right towards the Puffshroom cloud.

Like Donnie isn't already having a difficult time seeing anything! But Link clearly knows what he's doing, and so the turtlekin can only watch as he vanishes from sight. Somewhere in the foggy dimness is a muffled curse, but then another shot is taken, still close enough for Donnie to remain where he is behind cover, even if he can tell the shot had gone wide.

The Imperial squints futilely at the growing fog in front of him, his gun lifted, nerves on edge. Where did they go, where-

Link moves into the Puffshroom cloud, crouched down and moving as quietly as possible.

Of course, Link's own vision is impeded as well - but he knows where he was moving for. So when he comes across a dark shape in the cloud, he shifts into position. Draws his sword.

And then strikes, with a vicious stab to the back.

Daring to edge out in an effort to try seeing his targets, the Imperial soldier unfortunately still has his own attention outward that he doesn't realize someone's behind him until it's too late.

Donnie flinches at the muffled, wet cry, and the bodily thud that follows as Link successfully disables their would-be sniper. He listens a moment more to make sure there's no further sound of fighting or threats before he makes use of his magic.

It's not a subtle thing, after all, bright lines of magenta light tracing in the air to the side of him, forming a fan that's tilted slightly towards the opening they'd come from. Though constructed of light, it still generates a breeze that Donnie hopes will clear the fog. No point in stumbling around this uneven area with even less ability to see!

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