agogelogs | THE SKY WENT BLACK,

THE SKY WENT BLACK,

WHO? Everybody!
WHAT? Agoge's inaugural TDM.
WHEN? The Battle of Hattin, 1187.
ANYTHING ELSE? Violence, as always. Please warn in subject lines for anything beyond physical violence, and move to a personal journal if things go beyond PG-13.

FROM JERUSALEM WITH LOVE;

the horns of hattin, 1187: the holy land

read the jerusalem setting infopage

Your eyes open, and above you is the roof of a tent, a heavy woven material that blocks you from what must be an otherwise glaring heat that is beating down. Near you stands a man - you understand him, but you aren’t sure you are supposed to. Aware as you are that he is speaking Arabic, a trickle of words as he dabs water on your brow, that as you go to reply, you realise, you are speaking Arabic too. Urging you to sit up slowly, and now that you are awake -

“Good, slowly does it. You are meant to have heat stroke. Nothing sudden now. The Commander will explain it to you soon - in here it’s safe, no outsiders can come in. Check your BCE, it will tell you what has happened - ”

As he indicates to the small pack that seems to hold your belongings, he explains: you are in the encampment of Saladin, the greatest commander in all of Islam. He has been fighting the crusading invaders since the death of the Crusader King Baldwin VII. But one of the most important was about to start: you are here, at Hattin, though the enemy hasn’t arrived yet. Not that it means it’s time to rest: this is a war camp. There is much to do. Saladin runs a impressive army, and it wins by its discipline, no idle hands here, and for you, newly awakened to it, there is just as much to do. So enjoy the first few moments of reprieve, there won’t be much of it in the coming days.

MISSION OBJECTIVE

The forces of COST-- allied, today, with the armies of Saladin, though they will never know-- aim to win the day.

This is imperative, because Saladin's victory at Hattin makes his next victory possible: he intends to march on Jerusalem, long held by invading Crusaders, and take his city back. Historically, he wins a Hattin and at Jerusalem. But, the Regency supposes, if they could weaken Saladin in Hattin, perhaps even completely defeat him, he would not be so able to take the city.

Preserve the flow of history. Aid Saladin's army. Defeat the Crusader army at Hattin.

A MESSAGE FROM GROTHIA

>>@CMDR

@ALL I don't have time to explain right now, but the transporters have played havoc on the way in and we think that the - nevermind, the techdacts don't make any sense at the best of times. Your memory has been tampered with, one of the Regency's tricks, no doubt. Price for late intelligence, we didn't know until we made the transfer.

Short of it is, I put you all down as having a bout of heat stroke that knocked you out and that’s the story you need to stick to. Even if you don't want to trust me, you're going to have to follow my instructions if you want to live through the next week. We can do our reintroductions later.

Follow our instructions and we’ll all make it through this with minimal casualties.

Welcome back, soldiers. Good to have you with us again.

WIN THE DAY

MEDICAL

Help build up the army after the Siege of Tiberias.

After this battle, Saladin's forces turn toward Jerusalem, and eventually take it from Crusader control. It's imperative, then, that Saladin's forces are strong, healthy, and most importantly, alive. This is war: there are a larger number of soldiers who are wounded and require medical care to maintain the numbers. Saladin's forces are lucky: their medics are some of the best in the medieval world. But there is constant need for more hands on deck to assist. Whether that’s holding down a soldier to cut off his leg - or dress a wound. Maybe it’s just as simple as a soldier that wakes up from his fever wanting water, there is always something that needs doing.

STEALTH

Sabotage the water supply of the crusaders.

All armies march on their stomach, and in the desert, access to water means life or death. Saladin knows this, and the Crusaders are heading for the largest oasis between Jerusalem and Hattin to replenish their stores. Saladin has placed a line of defense at the oasis to stop the Crusaders. Some truly desperate Crusaders are risking death, attempting to break through the defenses in an attempt to get some water. Your orders are simple: no Crusader should be getting to that water.

STEALTH

You know what else armies need? Sleep. For those brave enough, its been encouraged to try and exhaust those Crusaders. Your orders are vague, leaving plenty of room for creativity: psychologically mess with them, mimic loud animals to wake them up, forcibly introduce these 12th century men to Cyndi Lauper at the top of your lungs. Whatever takes your fancy, just try not wake Saladin’s forces, they still need their beauty sleep. And most importantly: don't get caught.

COMBAT

The Crusaders are here: fight them. Crusaders will in heavy chain mail into battle, often with a padded gambeson underneath them. Aim your weapons for the chinks in the points that quickly immobilize: the throat, armpit, inner elbow, inner thigh, inner knee. You will always want to aim for the veins and joints. This isn't about clean, this is about hard and fast. Battles in the desert are made worse for every hour spent in the gruelly heat.

They fight with heavy sword and shield, and the metal they wear makes them more strongly defended, but also slower; they cannot mount their horses without some help, so if you manage to unhorse a Crusader, they must survive the remainder of the battle on foot. Often if you wounded a horse, it can kill the man riding it.

Medieval warhorses are huge animals that can do serious damage with a single kick; however, by Crusader tradition, many are stallions, which are famously willful difficult to control. Being thrown from one of these horses, especially in armor, is no small thing. This is where by contrast Saladin's army comes into its own. They ride a lighter horse more suited to this kind of warfare, and the cavalry works by spiking in quickly, reigning down an attack, then retreating. The Turks are famous for riding by, and shooting down arrows into foot soldiers before retreating out of range again.

Aside from the knights on their horses, keep an eye on hired mercenaries and others of all classes storming into battle. Watch out for crossbows: a single bolt can punch through thick metal, much less whatever you might be wearing. However, the shots take a great deal of time and strength to load, requiring the user to pull the bolt back while standing on the bow. The weapons are not stealthy, and striking an opponent while they load them is the surest route to victory. More traditional archers are far more difficult to defeat; though their arrows can't cut through metal, they can shoot from much farther away and draw another arrow ten times as fast. Other fighters charge in with cudgels, maces, spears, axes, polearms, and the fervent determination fanaticism brings. Do your fellow soldier on the battlefield a favor: try and take out an archer whenever you can. But for those fielding the arrows, don't stay put, they'll always try and take you out first.

The battle of Hattin is one of the most bloody in the history of the Crusades; famously, it is said that its outcome left the sky black for all the birds hungrily circling the carnage. Your job in this battle is twofold: fight to win, and survive.

COMBAT / STEALTH

Capture Guy D'Lusignan.

History dictates Guy D'Lusignan, current King of Frankish-ruled Jerusalem, is captured by Saracen forces, which later leads to Muslims recapturing Jersusalem from Frankish hands. Help the Saracen war parties ride out, make sure they aren't sabotaged, and attack King Guy's war party. Along with them, you'll find Reynard de Chatillion, another nobleman whose capture will herald a collapse of the Crusader forces. Medieval battle isn't like modern warfare, where soldiers fight on in spite of their leader's capture or death.

A medieval battle ends when one side gives up, or when a leader has been killed or captured. Capturing the heads of an army leads to the immediate death of the battle's morale and will to fight. To win the Battle of Hattin, it is imperative that Guy D'Lusignan and Raynard de Chatillion are captured, as they were in history.

read the jerusalem setting infopage

NAV. NETWORK LOGS OOC PLURK DISCORD

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Black is a good way to find someone. Injury is another, which means Chiron enters the medical tent with eyes fixed on clavicles and not much else. He stops only to pick up a few supplies he knows will be needed (bandages, water, washcloth, tweezers in case there is anything in the wound). The needle and suture is left aside for now, to be called upon only after inspection.

Chiron introduces himself with a brief nod, before placing the equipment he's brought along with him down to the side.

"How long have you been sporting this particular injury?" he asks. There's no going right into poking and prodding. Not yet.

Midnighter, as far as he knows, has always had terrible bedside manner and awful manners. So it's especially hilarious to him to offer a sarcastic grin. "Fine, thanks. Nice to meet you, too."

He has never seen any kind of medical treatment in (his recollection of) his life, and has only sought this out from morbid curiosity. He has no intention of making it easy for anyone.

Ah, names. Chiron, presently, is unsure if he is required to operate under the rules of the Holy Grail War and give only his class designation, or if he is free to speak of himself.

It's easier to clarify aliases after they're shared, he decides, and he gives Midnighter a very thin smile that admits that yes, that was brusque. "I am presently called Archer," he says. "But I do need to move past pleasantries, if only to make sure that whoever needs this bed next can have it as quickly as possible."

Chiron's entire demeanor projects a perfect calmness, unphased by Midnighter's attitude or the other goings-on in the medical tent itself.

"Ooh, Archer. Well, I'm Midnighter."

Shouldn't really judge when his name sounds like a fake alias. He will, but he shouldn't.

He gets Archer's objection, though. It's the kind of caring, thoughtful thing Midnighter absolutely sucks at. It's part of why he doesn't generally go to doctors as a rule. It's a waste of time. This will heal on its own. But Midnighter's also never been in a warzone before, and the thought that this man might be able to make his wound heal faster is a tempting benefit.

Still, he'll try to stall a little less.

"Got it... two hours ago? Hurts like a bitch, probably infected. That's- it's got dirt in it." Have they invented the idea of infection yet? Inflammation? Midnighter has no idea. He never cared about history.

The assumption about understanding infection is warrented, given that Chiron's inital medical knowledge was well, circa ancient Greece and that's when the four humors were viewed as serious medical knowledge. Chiron included. The Holy Grail's information dump upon summoning included a little bit of updated medicine, which covered the actual concept of infection though, and watching the doctors in the medical tent had assisted with new ways to approach the old, perrenial injuries of war.

"It'd be more unlikely if it wasn't," Chiron remarked, crouching down so that he could be on eye level with the wound. "My additional concern would be shrapnel also finding it's way in by accident. I'll clean this first, inspect, clean it again, and then sew it up."

Laying it out plainly was meant to simply inform Midnighter of what to expect, and if there were any questions, to give him the time to ask. Chiron filled in the gap of silence by reaching over towards the wash basin, getting a cloth wet and ready for part one.

"You don't gotta worry about that," Midnighter says. "Anything stuck in will get forced out eventually. Call it a hunch."

He shrugs with both shoulders, not even cringing when he jostles his own wound.

"Just wondering if you got a way to patch up the tendons for a little while. Getting hard to hold two-handed weapons."

That wasn't a hunch, that was clear knowledge. All well and good, but it didn't stop Chiron from begining the process of cleaning out the wound. Infection was still something to worry about, even if all other matters were implied to recover themselves.

"I cannot say that I have. However, if your hunch regarding material being lodged in working it's way out is correct, I will assume that if the tendons are realigned, there will be less energy spent trying to pull them back together and more time spent healing the wound overall. Am I incorrect?"

If Midnighter feels any pain, it doesn't show on his face. This Archer guy touches the open wound, sandy and dirty and bleeding, and he doesn't so much as twitch.

"It'll fix up. Look, let's say my situation is... unique?" The tendons of his arms, reinforced fiber made to be denser and stronger than the average human, it shouldn't look too different than an average human being's shoulder. But it's stronger, coarser, is already showing signs of healing.

"That much is clear."

Chiron had brushed against one of the tendons by accident. The lack of jumping at the touch had been one indication that this was a very different situation than normal, but the texture of it was what really caught his attention. He removes the cloth, satisfied with the overall cleanliness, and folds it neatly so it hangs at the side of the water bucket.

"Self-healing is remarkable. What I might do then is re-align the tendons and sew them together to prompt the process along. I presume that thread would be pushed outward as healing continues, am I correct?"

"Got it in one, Doc." Midnighter gives the guy a thumb's up with his good hand. "Let's say I'm, uh, blessed and leave it at that, okay? Special circumstances."

Midnighter can barely believe in divinity at the best of times, but it seems like a language most people can understand. If this guy's from this time period, it'll make sense. If not, it'll still probably be understandable. Win-win, right?

"Understood."

It wasn't anything unusual, as far as Chiron is concerned. He had spent a lifetime training the offspring of gods, and that meant that they all came with unusual abilities. This particular skill is new, but nothing unbelievable.

Besides, patients know their bodies best. Satisfied with the information he has, Chiron picks up the needle he brought wit him, and threads it with ease. Before beginning in earnest though, he makes a simple request.

"On the off chance that something does hurt, let me know immediately."

"Oh," Midnighter says, frowning just slightly in concern. Is that important? He always forgets about that shit. "Hurts like hell."

Not everyone has the casual disregard for discomfort, the stupidly high pain tolerance he has. He looks over at Archer, showing something like genuine consideration, a rarity for him.

"..." Chiron stops, needle sliding down on thread and getting caught on the knot at the bottom. The look on his face rests somewhere between annoyed and impressed at the pain tolerance. That look lingers for only a moment, replaced by concern.

"Overall, or in a specific place within the wound?"

"Specifically in the place I got stabbed," Midnighter says, with more idle humor than annoyance. This is kind of funny, in a weird way. It's like the guy's trying to be polite and pretend like Midnighter's normal, but also kind of sucking at it.

"If something was extra special fucked up, I wouldn't be able to tell based on pain. I don't notice that crap." Once, a piece of shrapnel had wound its way under his skin, and he hadn't noticed until Andrew had gotten too close and the metal had begun to heat faster than skin. He'd spent the next hour picking it out with tweezers and a boning knife. Not his best afternoon.

In the past, Chiron had had far worse patients than Midnighter. If anything, the humor was quite welcome, even if it took Chiron a few moments to work through the typical annoyance of not having all of the information on hand in order to work. Then again, it is painfully clear in retrospect. The man sitting there with that big a wound, making no noise, plus his healing ability all were signs of an astronomical pain tolerance.

"That is the rather obvious answer, I suppose," he says finally, before focusing his attention to the needle and thread. "And something I should have noticed sooner." The question of why it hadn't been noticed sooner was something for Chiron to sit and determine later. There was no excuse for that, and besides, there's work to be done now.

Chiron takes a pair of tweezers in one hand, and the needle and thread in the other, using the former to carefully match tendon to tendon, before sewing them together with the latter. The work is, admittedly, slow, but that's to make sure that the right parts are reattached. When Chiron has three tendons together, he then pauses, his eyes fixed on the wound.

"Do you feel any of the tissue where I just put the stitches starting to come together on it's own?"

"Don't sweat it. Nothing about me is average." In the mouth of another person, the words would be bragging. Hell, if Midnighter was in a different mood, it'd be bragging. But right now, it's only a bland statement of fact. "Doubt you were trained for science experiments."

Midnighter takes a moment to focus on the feeling in his shoulder before answering Archer; he has to concentrate on the pain and differentiate between it, something he generally blocks out until it becomes a dull buzz at the back of his mind. The computer hates the shit out of Archer and his metal needle, not understanding healing or medicine, only seeing weapon and attacker. It's a fair amount of background static to sift through in order to find a sensation he usually keeps locked off, but then again, nothing about him is average.

Especially fucking lately.

"A little, yeah. It's healing. You're doing good, doc."

"I can't say that I was," Chiron confirms with a little bit of lightness. "I like to think that those who came after me were."

Chiron's delicate fingers are unaware of the concentration and differentiation between pain. They're too busy zeroing in on their own work, meaning that any part of Archer that could respond to an attack is also distracted by this work.

"That'll be good to know for the future in case of something more severe." There are questions to ask on that topic, such as what happens when vital organs are injured, but those questions are hardly a priority. "I'm about one third of the way through. The next tendons are the smaller ones."

"Do I have to pay extra for ominous philosophy?" Midnighter says, eyebrows raising. That was a hint at... something, but he doesn't have enough information to guess. Makes him curious, though, and it provides a nice distraction from the computer screaming in his mind every time the needle pokes through another layer of tendon. "Let me guess. You have a checkquered past. Is it tragic?"

"I fail to see how that's ominous. And no, not very." Chiron's life is downright rosey compared to other heroes in ancient Greek mythology. Sure, there's the whole poisoned-and-immortal-and-giving-up-said-immortality-to-die, but it isn't much. "Give me a moment, these pieces are smaller than I expected."

"Avoiding the question," Midnighter says with a click of his tongue. Any distraction is a good one in his eyes. "Very ominous."

There's a very small laugh that responds, before Chiron's needle tries to repair one of the smallest torn tendons. The size only allows for two stitches, and Chiron's face screws up in concentration as he tried to space them evenly apart. He's satisfied only after a few minutes of staring into the wound and shifting so that he isn't blocking his own light.

Then that gets tied off too and he moves on.

"Hardly. Now, hm," Chiron's eyes went back to the previously sewn together tendons, curious as to how their own healing has progressed.

Midnighter rolls his eyes and groans, all the while careful to keep his arm still. "You're dead set on being a mysterious son of a bitch, aren't you. You know that only makes me more curious." He grins.

All other tactics have failed him; it'd time to move on to flirting.

"You do fairly well in that department yourself, you realize."

Chiron's delivery makes the statement an observation rather than a smart ass reply, obscuring the actual intent. Either way, he continues his work, now focused on the final tendon.

Midnighter provides one flat look. "Hey, hotstuff. I'm an open book. You're just not asking."

Chiron looks up only for a moment, meeting flat look with flat look.

"Very well. How did you come by this healing ability?"

At this point, Chiron's quite done poking at Midnighter's inside bits. The tendons are as together as he can make them, and the next step is to give the area another careful wash before sewing the skin itself back up. He places the needle and thread aside for the time being, and grabs a clean cloth from the side of the wash basin.

THE SKY WENT BLACK,

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