abraxaslogs | Catch-All Log (Open and Closed TLs)

Finally, they're allowed to really dig in and aid in the rescue and relief efforts. Nadine is quick to volunteer, and knows full well most of her friends and family will also be stepping up to lend a hand. Escorting supplies would take her too far from Cadens for too long, and she feels she'd be better suited to search and rescue. She doesn't have to wait for a medic, she is a medic. Even if today, for this particular excursion, she's wearing her black leather pants and plain white cotton shirt under a black leather bodice.

After being given her command list and the leash of a very wolfish black hound named Bozey, she hangs about for her companions to join her. She'd already spoken to Jayce about it, and she's sure he's not going to be the only familiar face setting out to search the rubble of Libertas for survivors. It's going to be tough, she knows. Not everyone they find is going to be alive. But the ones that are...

It's no wonder shifts are being limited, with the work ahead of the dogs and their handlers. The destruction is humbling, unlike anything she's seen in real life. It brings to mind WWII movies set in London during the bombs. And the smell...dust and smoke and burnt things. It looks more like the end of the world than the apocalypse she'd lived through.

To keep her mind from wandering, she focuses her attention on the animal that's going to be helping her. Or that she's going to be helping, is more accurate. She doesn't know much about dogs, but they look like a hardy and sturdy breed.

"You know," she says to the hound as she waits, "you actually look a lot like my husband."

Jayce and Nadine are very much on the same page about the situation, having been study buddies for months now in medicine classes, so it seems like their time has come. Leaving Libertas was a no-go, there is far too much that needs to be done here. He has been spending a lot of his time at the hospital itself offering his healing magic, but it is not an infinite source. Their medical know-how comes in handy.

He is wearing clothes he doesn't mind getting dirty which is most of what he owns considering the work in the forge. He does have a special bag with him, slung over his shoulder, a unique satchel that looks very small and yet on the inside carries a full-sized pack. A bag of holding. Jayce has put a collection of the poultices Nadine had them help create and some other supplies for this very situation. He showed her the strange bag and how it worked earlier, it's going to come in handy.

Jayce has never seen destruction truly like this. Piltover was on the verge of a war with the Undercity, and there had been destruction, but nothing to this level. He has no comparison he can make. He grimly takes it in but it's all the more reason they need to be out there.

"Literally or figuratively?" he says as if he's joining a conversation already in progress. He smiles wearily at her.

Jo had shown up with a similar bag thrown over one shoulder, and a sword at her hip (because Ciri had said, at one of her last lessons, she had to start wearing it, whether used or not, to get used to it being there). It hadn't taken long to fill another bag given they had the room, without it putting a cost on how fast they might be able to move while giving them more resources to help more people.

There had been a serious nod for Nadine and Jayce, and she liked that she knew both of the people they'd been matched up with. That she'd already done some sort of work with at least one of the two, too. It didn't hurt to have a healer or someone who definitely knew their way around weapons. Even if everything thought is a shadow before the seriousness of the devastation. Still-cracking, still-falling apart structure. Smoke and fire. The air had blood, and burnt flesh, and worse mixed into the heavy ash that blotted the sky.

Jo was squeezing in more gauze and bandages to the very top of the almost full bag, as she listened. To them.
To the sounds of distress. The parties who're inside. The soldiers carrying back bodies out.
Everything a whirl of chaos all around them.

He's the last of them to roll up, and he does so with a rifle strapped to his back and a sword holstered at his side — not the only weapons he's carrying by a long shot, but they're the most visible. He's dressed like he would for a hunt, and he's got a similar countenance — more grim than maybe any of them are used to, more serious, a hard shift in tone from his usual.

Partly because of where they are, what they're doing. Partly because of the mark on his arm, hidden under his sleeve just at the inside of his elbow. He hasn't told anyone but Geralt yet, and he doesn't plan to — but the subtle change is practically in his atoms.

Judging by the way his eyes sweep over the chaos and rubble, this isn't exactly a new sight for him. There's a familiarity there; he's seen worse more than once. He knows how bad this is about to get.

It's experience more than any alpha male impulse that has him stepping up to gently offer directives — just automatic, calm enough that it's open to be challenged but firm enough to be confident.

"Alright, let's do this. Jo, I'm gonna need you to keep an eye out for looters, assholes, anyone who looks like they're gonna jump in and take advantage of the chaos. Jayce, I'm probably gonna need you to help with the heavy lifting. Rubble or bodies," with a significant look at that last word — it's likely. "Nadine, you got your healer hat on?"

Hopefully they need that more than they need to haul victims out. Hard to say yet.

"A little of both," Nadine replies to Jayce with a faint trace of a smile. At least she can make jokes. That has to be a good thing, a sign of progress. She turns to Jo to greet her with a nod, her demeanor much different than when the woman last saw her. Somber, focused, intent. She's eager to get going and do what she can.

Another nod for Dean as he joins. Good. This is a good group, diverse skills and as far as Nadine knows, experienced. And level-headed, from what she's seen. Jayce she knows best, Jo least. But they've all shown up prepared, same as her, and that speaks volumes.

"I have all my hats on today. This isn't my first time searching the aftermath of a cataclysm for survivors. But we'll probably find a lot more this time." At least the people of Libertas had some chance of survival.

"Jayce, you should probably keep ahold of the communication device. But I think we should only use it if we need it, time can make all the difference and we have strong people and medics. I have magic. I've done field medicine before, that's the first sort of medicine I ever did. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one of us who's done this kind of thing before, we know what we're doing." A moment's pause and then she glances to the well trained hound at her side.

"And so does Bozey, he's helping us out for the next four hours. And no pushing that limit, the handler was very firm about that."

Jayce is also grateful that he knows everyone in the group, it will make them a lot easier to talk to and work forward from here. He really isn't in a place to deal with strangers here, not when he's been doing his best and putting on his extrovert hat at the hospital and shelter while helping. There's a relief in knowing who he's with.

Jayce does not have a weapon with him, but he does have something that might look strange strapped to his back but will make sense if they end up with a rubble situation. He has a long and very strong crowbar and shovel strapped on his back the way anyone else would have a gun. They both have enchantment spells on them to be unbending so even a very heavy piece of wall or ceiling can be hoisted off with the right effort. The toolmaker strikes again.

"Got it." Jayce lifts up a device he was given for this purpose and he's not surprised to be the electrical guy as well as the muscle here. That's two of the things he's best at. "As Nadine knows I also have advanced healing magic and medical training, but she is a much better field and emergency medic than I am." Meaning he is more inclined to listen to her about if she thinks one or both of them are needed and to make the calls when it comes to injuries.

He glances over at the others, not having trouble at all being the follower in this situation. He's the only one this is new to. "Let's head out."

Jo gives a bare, flicker-brief quirk to one of her eyebrows as Dean walks up last, doling out orders from the back as though they'd been waiting for them to do just that. But no one argues, and she knows she isn't going to either. There's wire tension snaking its way through all of her veins—the background current of settling her mind now, already, to the fact they'll all be bringing out more corpses than breathing bodies—but it's something else, too.

Something that makes her gaze linger on Dean. Not for the first time.

"Got it," is the short, forward response,
expression unchanged, directions unbalked.

But something. Something that keeps grating on the edges of her thoughts the last few days, maybe a week. Something in the way he's speaking or the way he's holding himself. She still can't place a finger on it. Days later. But it's there. She's blown off as all of this upended madness several times, but it keeps catching here and there. Not settled. A hangnail refusing to smooth back. But this isn't the time or place to consider worrying against her skin. There are bigger concerns here, and there'll be time later.

Jo closed her bag, throwing it over one shoulder, still marveling at how nearly weightless it was for containing several times its size in supplies. She slipped between Jayce ad Nadine toward the front of them. Between her given objective and the fact both Nadine and Jayce were the ones needed most in one piece and unharried for those who still had a chance, it was easy to slide into place at a diagonal forward side from them, ready to start keeping a sweep of everything as it came at them.

Nadine earns a nod, something like recognition playing about his features. He remembers what her world's like, the plague, the eradication that screwed them up. Didn't know the full picture about her being on the evac team, but that's good. That helps. It's a good group.

Jayce is polite and god damn admirable as always, the handsome son of a bitch. A little more concerning is Jo, but it barely registers — she's a professional. She knows when to push back and when to follow a half-decent plan. He figures now's one of those times.

They move out.

It's a grim atmosphere here. Dangerous, too, with the still-burning fires and the collapsing buildings. As they pass through decimated streets, the realities of war really set in. Half of a family, huddled together outside of their ruined home, weeping. A wounded man missing a leg sits dazed, being cared for by an elderly woman in the middle of the street. Soldiers, stoic-faced, dip in and out of houses carrying stretchers.

It's nearly forty-five minutes before the dog (which Dean deliberately steers clear of himself, discomfort subtle unless you know what you're looking for) seems to alert.

"We've got something."

While Nadine has never been officially a part of this kind of search and rescue before, she still counts her experience after the plague. Half of those first days had been checking houses, cars, churches...looking for anyone else who might have survived.

She'd only ever found Joe.

Today is different, though. There's a better chance of finding survivors. Things that can actually be done for the injured. And she isn't alone this time. Not even close. That makes a difference.

And she supposes that all that time crossing corpse-laden America had at least prepared her for the more gruesome and unpleasant sights through the rubble of the damaged city. Damaged, but not destroyed. It may not mean much, in the grand scheme of things, but it means something to her. Damages things can be repaired. Damaged things have a chance.

She feels the tension on the lead a moment before Dean draws attention to it. She nods, leaning down to unclip the lead and give the animal the command to lead them to whatever he's scented. Her nerves, already dancing a quick little jig, try to frenzy. A tightening of the jaw and a deep breath contain them, but not entirely. This is the first hit of the day, of course nerves are going to skyrocket now, following after the rescue dog.

Jayce's few experiences with violence like this led to him getting physically sick and then freezing altogether, but he has pushed through those reactions and come out the other side stronger and more determined than anything else. Although it's not easy for him to see the grief around him, he's an empathetic person so his heart does ache for them. But the four of them have an exact job to do.

Jayce follows the dog who drags them toward the remains of a once two-floored house, now mostly crumbled into one and a half. Half the ceiling still remains mostly held up from the two walls not quite fallen yet, but it is leaning to the side. The threat of possibly coming down hangs over them. At first it is not obvious what the dog is sensing until a small cry of pain and gasping coughs are heard underneath what must have been the entire left side of the building.

There are two people covered in ash and debris, most of it able to be brushed off but the worst comes in one with half covered in the bottom half with concrete, and the other pinned by the arm. Neither have limbs that have to come off but they are pinned down. It's clear it did not happen in the attack itself but when they tried to return inside, perhaps to gather belongings, that is now thrown around the empty space.

Jayce offers Jo the shovel and Dean the crowbar, they will both be helpful in gaining leverage on the walls, he can help them push the actual debris off, but he glances at Nadine. "Should we look first to see if removing it is the best idea?" His training says maybe, it's like a knife wound, it could just have them bleed out.

"Yeah, we should."

Nadine is already unshouldering her pack. No matter what, pain relief will be needed. She offers soothing words and reassurances as she crouches down to take a closer look at just how the victims are pinned. With actual patients in front of her, she feels a lot more calm and in control. This she knows. This she understands.

She has a few quick questions for the worst trapped of the two, nodding at the strained responses and calling up a little ball of hovering light to help illuminate where the rubble is trapping the man. She may not have healing magic, exactly, but she has magic that's useful.

Including her diagnostic ability, which she realizes is about to serve them well. A laying of her hand on the trapped man and she can be sure of her assumption.

"Okay, I think we got lucky here. He's trapped, but his legs aren't crushed and while there's some damage, I think it's just minimal fracturing. No major internal bleeding, no loss of sensation. Start getting this debris out of here."

With a reassuring word and the administering of a pain tonic, she moves to the other victim and lets the muscle get to work.

Nadine is a different person here, and now than the two times Jo saw her before, disappointedly dress shopping and dressed like a princess in that dress Jo took her to, spinning on Jaskier's arm, happy. Seriousness and professionalism radiate from her, and where Jayce obviously is pushing through being uncomfortable about their surroundings the further they get into the city, Nadine looks like someone who hasn't seen this persay, but she's seen more.

There's a wariness to it, acceptance, to the set of Nadine's posture,
that gives Jo more questions about her than Nocwich had left her with.

Jo takes the shovel, but she waits as Jayce and Nadine start conferring. While Nadine got to work figuring out the answer to the question, Jo looked off further out in the direction they'd come and could still go, listening. There were still voices, shouts of just far enough not to be made out orders, but nothing that needed concerning themselves over while all four sets of their hands would be busy.

Once they have the word, Jo heads over to the rubble, knocking loose first, whatever can be scraped to the side, shattered off the larger pieces as they fell. Once that was all clear from falling on the guy when they shifted the slabs, Jo wedged the shovel head into a good fulcrum point. "Ready when you are."

Dean lets out a soft mm of agreement at Jayce's suggestion — crushing syndrome's no friggin' joke. Granted, he's got no idea how well a healer can handle that compared to a doctor back home, but speaking for the latter the outlook's rarely ever good for the victim without some pretty immediate intervention.

Another nod over the crowbar, this one of appreciation. He puts it to use once the debris is largely cleared, jamming it into a matching fulcrum point on the other side of the guy's legs.

"On three. Ready? One-" Dean starts, bracing himself.

"Wait, wait, w-wait-" says the guy interrupts nervously, his voice high and ringing with alarm. "Is it gonnu' hurt?"

Dean pauses. Glances at Jo, then back at the guy again. Shrugs a shoulder and answers with a short, "Yep, probably. Sorry, pal. One, two-"

Three.

He heaves, muscles straining. The guy beneath them yowls falsetto like a pissed-off cat in a dog factory.

Jayce waits for Nadine's assessment, otherwise they might have wanted to wait for the official medics to get there, but he trusts her opinion. They can use the electric signal to get them picked up instead after safely removed. Or he'll see what he can do for them once they're out, either way, that's the important part. That ceiling may easily come down if they don't move.

With Dean and Jo using the crowbar and shovel to lift up the piece as best as they can, Jayce slides in there to grab the man in question securely. He is fully strong enough to easily sweep grown men off their feet and this is no exception, holding the man behind his back and making certain he sees it lift off him enough to pull him right out.

Jayce doesn't stop only a foot away, he very carefully carries the man right out of the house, so if that ceiling comes down they don't have to worry about saving him again. It's not that far, only ten feet away or so, but out of immediate danger. The man is screaming and writhing in pain in his arms so when he sets him down, careful there is nothing dangerous around him, he gets one of Nadine's potions and offers it to him.

"Drink this, it'll help make this easier until help is here, okay?" The pain at least can be handled long enough for them to worry about the next person.

"How's she doing?" He says to Nadine.

Unlike the first trapped soul, this one doesn't seem to be as quick. Nadine is kneeling with her bag open, pulling out more than just a simple pain tonic.

"Gonna need a couple of minutes." Nadine's eyes flick up to Jayce's, but her tone remains light. "There's an open wound, I need to get a tourniquet on before we free the arm. And then if you could do a little something to help the bleeding?"

She knows Jayce has learned healing spells, and may well be able to slow or stop the bleeding quicker than a poultice and bandages would. Time is of the essence now - and not just because of the nature of the wound. This isn't exactly a stable area, and the removal of debris that Dean and Jo have been handling could cause the precarious shelter to shift.

They don't want to be here when that happens.

She works as she talks, deftly assembling a syringe. This will all be easier with the poor woman sedated.

"If you guys can be ready for when I say 'go'?" This directed at Dean and Jo. A quick jab and the woman starts to settle, her breathing evening and her moans and whimpers subsiding. Nadine gets to work on the tourniquet, wrapping it tightly around the upper portion of the trapped arm.

"Got it." Jayce makes sure the man looks a little better now that he's taken her potion and he steps over to where Nadine is. There is definitely an overhanging sense that they are on borrowed time before the rest of this comes down, a leaning to the still standing walls.

Jayce holds the woman's other hand gently as Nadine works on the tourniquet. "It's going to be okay, we're getting you out right now." He has the bedside manner down well, his kind temperament making it easy. The woman looks at him instead of at her arm.

Jayce touches her arm right above the tourniquet and nods to Nadine, since she's the one to say go. As soon as they lift it up he'll be ready to close the open wound.

There's no talking down the guy on the floor, even if Dean bite's it short and blunt. It's going to hurt like a fucking bitch. It's going to hurt as he realizes the thing crushing him is also, at this point, the thing holding him together. The whole room is a bigger likelihood of that, and while Jo has triage skills for days, she hasn't been trained in the ways either of the other two has; long-term skills or magic.

He starts screaming, and as much as Jo can hear it, it's half-white noise, too, instantly. Training. Habit. The sound of agony is not new, even if it makes her twitch a little at the suddenness—spine straightening, muscles up her arm tightening in her grip on the shovel handle. Jayce is bridal carrying the screaming man, shaking, struggling man outside like it is nothing, and that's good. Another notch in the list of things that mark Jayce down as capable. Good to have here.

Once he's out of sight, he's out of mind for the moments it takes to lower that slab back down, listening to a little too close as the walls creak and grind. A little ominously, she thinks about the inverse of her earlier thought. Maybe it wasn't just the wall holding the guy together, but the guy holding the second-to-last padded brace on the house's support from fully caving. Too.

Jayce is coming back in, but Jo is looking at different points where the wall and ceiling are. The groaning points, the friction between wall and roof pieces digging, scattering small chunks of themselves, were too much for her liking. Parts that are all too directly connected to above where Jayce, Nadine, and the lady on the floor are. Shifting this wall portion isn't going to go well for this place, and for anything, anyone, under it, when it's pushed just that possible too much further.

If Jo keeps her voice business-like, there is a warning in it,

"We might want to make this one real fast." There's a glance toward Dean and Jayce, and then it lands and sticks on their fourth. "Nadine, you should probably clear out before we lift it this time. So anything you think you need to do before a possible yank-and-run, you should do it before we move anything this time."

Yeah, it's a damn good thing they have that pair of healers. Dean can patch up a lot with dental floss and whiskey, but this? A little out of his league. Hell, back home this might be a fatal wound, and he's struck not for the first time by just how goddamn unbelievable having magic like this is.

All those people he could've saved if him or his brother could do something like this.

(Probably Sam, this seems like a Sam thing. God damn, he misses his brother.)

He tracks Jo's sight line. The way it flicks from him to the walls, to the places that groan, to the places everything connects. After a couple of seconds, he realizes the conclusion she's drawing for himself, and he shoots her a knowing look — lips pursed, his expression reading something along the lines of wellp, this might go real bad real quick.

He doesn't say it, though. No point. Either it will or it won't, but freaking everybody out won't help — they need Nadine cool and collected, and they need this guy not to flail around and make things worse for himself.

They brace while Nadine does what she can. He steels himself, and shoots Jo another look.

Ready for us to get our skulls caved in? Great.

"One. Two..."

Heave.

Nadine's moving out of the way for Dean and Jo and into the open even as she's giving the word, already getting out of the path and opening her bag to pull out what she'll need to stitch the woman up. Best to save Jayce's magic for times it's needed more desperately, she knows how tiring it can be to cast spell after spell.

"I'll get this one patched up, it's bad but it's not so bad it can't be stitched and bandaged and good to go. I've got almost unlimited sutures, you don't have unlimited strength." This said to Jayce, voicing her opinion. There are a dozen rolls of surgical thread in her kit.

"If you can try and keep her still and as calm as possible?"

No matter how they spread their energies between the four of them, they're going to be exhausted by the end of the day. From either physical or magical exertion, or both.

Jayce is ready to help the woman out when they heave and he sweeps her up as easily as he did the man. His healing magic may end up exhausted by the end of the day, but he's still got the arms. He manages to move them as quickly as he can out of the possibly collapsing area over to where Nadine went to keep smart and safe. He sets the woman down gently in front of her.

"Get out of there," he says to the other two, although he assumes they're smart enough to do that on their own. Which becomes very helpful when only a few seconds later, Jo's eye is completely correct that once they're moved, it starts to come down.

They saved the two people, but this was still their home, and now it is rubble. It is difficult for Jayce not to see that in the way they look at it, grateful to be alive, but there is pain there too. Jayce nods to Nadine and gently puts a hand on the woman's back. "It's going to be okay, Nadine here is one of the best medics you could ask for, ma'am."

There's another look toward Dean when Nadine is out, and Jayce says he's ready. A grim readiness, even though the result is all but spelled out across eroded walls around and what's left of the dilapidated ceiling above them. It will start giving as soon as they undo the last column of support in the whole place.

He starts to count, and she pushes in, lifting. At first, it's an ominous groan from the ceiling above the part of the wall their shifts; then it bleeds into creaking, coming from all around them. Which is about one second before the cracking, and things are beginning to collapse toward them, crashing into the ground and every other point where gravity wins the war against balance.

"Go, go, go." This at Jayce, and the woman he's dragging out, and Dean, and herself.

Everyone needs out that exit as soon as possible, and Jo yanks the shovel back, headed in the same direction as the other two had gone. Still looking back to where Dean was before she could let herself get that far. There's debris from a cracked, fallen something-or-other that slams her shoulder, but though she grabs from her shoulder, it doesn't slow her down once Dean's there with her.

Oh, yeah. This bitch is coming down.

The second it looks like Jayce is clear, Dean's moving out after. Rather, he's moving out deliberately behind Jo, who he immediately crowds as the roof begins to collapse. He's there towering over her a good head taller (and practically twice as wide at the shoulders), a firm guiding hand at the small of her back urging her on, his physicality engineered to try and keep the falling carpentry from cracking her skull open — which is all well and good, but apparently it ain't quite enough for his subconscious.

As soon as the debris starts dropping in his peripheral vision, the wings come out mindlessly and on instinct. A mass of white feathers arches up high over her head like a god damn fluffy umbrella, shielding them both as they haul two metric tons of ass straight out the door.

Once they're clear, those wings fold into his back again and disappear as though they never were. Dean hardly even registers it, barely realizes he did it — he's too preoccupied with catching his breath and whirling around to watch from a safe fifteen paces away as the structure fully collapses in a near-deafening cacophany of dust.

After a heavy pause, he mutters under his breath, "Sure hope they didn't have a cat."

If they did... adios, Mr. Whiskers.

Edited 2022-10-14 16:43 (UTC)

Nadine is focused on her task, aware of the collapse behind them but unable to turn to look. She's working on stitching the wound, going as quickly as possible. Thank god Jayce was able to help with the blood flow. It makes it easier. And sutures are one of her specialties. Nadine had mastered stitching wounds long before she ever set foot inside the Cadens Academy of Medicine.

But they'd gotten the survivors out, and they'd made it out themselves. It's good, starting out strong. It won't last, she's not naïve, but it's good to start with a win. They can hold on to this, when they need to.

"And you're all sewn up." A small smile is directed to the woman she's just finished stitching up. "We're going to radio one of the retrieval teams, and they're going to come and take you both to one of the medical tents in a safer area. They'll take care of you."

Insofar as care can be given. Few things help with the loss of home and all worldly possessions.

"Everybody good?" Mostly meaning Jo and Dean, who had been closest to the collapse when it all came down.

Jayce's attention goes from Nadine straight to the building, concerned when he hears it going down and steps toward there, since Jo and Dean don't seem to be out yet. But they are hurrying out and he sees those wings, eyes widening slightly. Though he's seen many things that are strange to him, so he assumes that is simply something about Dean he didn't know before. He has wings, and they seem very good for defense, good to know.

Then his attention goes to the house that is fully down now and he sees the faces of the people they saved. They're alive, and glad about that, but there's grief too, at the rubble that was their home. His heart goes out to them and he knows this is just the start. They saved these two, but they won't be able to save anyone. Jayce is soft-hearted so he tells himself to steel his spine for what's coming next.

For now though he takes the radio and tells them where they are, being fairly good at knowing latitude and longitude. The radio is working just fine but he's ready to fix it if need be. "Help is on the way."

Catch-All Log (Open and Closed TLs)

Search and Rescue Quest

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Just gonna make something up! lol let me know if you guys want another idea

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Just doing a quick little 'staunch bleeding'

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