Chunky Start. Your time is now!

"Mom was Nora and my dad is named Robert Osidon."

Thomas rubs his stubble-rich chin.

"Doctor Robert Osidon? The notorious wanderer? He was predecessor as research head, and my mentor's best friend back when I was an associate. A brilliant man I must say, although his tendency to disappear on us when we most needed him was jarring."

It was on this note that Thomas looked even more confused.

"I never knew he had a wife or child in all these years I've known him. Well, actually I haven't seen him in several years to date..."

"From what I remember he didn't leave mom on good terms, so it's no surprise he never mentioned us."

"Hmm strange, but I will speak to you later about this, let us go in and save those poor people."

Thomas also charges into the burning building with Elina in tow.

"Hey wait, Dylan what are you doing? You're not cut out for this!"

"But the senators and our other friends are in there still."

Eryn turns to the boy. "Stay here ok? I'll go look for your family." She heads into the building as well.

As Eryn charges into the building, she bumps into the Obama party on the second floor, while they are carrying a wounded woman out .

She maneuvers around the party and follows after the doctor.

"Be careful, girl"
Michell takes two of the remaining extinguishers and follows Eryn.

Eyrn, Thomas, Elina, and Michell arrive back at the third floor scene with exactly the same conundrum that Obama had, and by now the flames had already moved one more apartment unit over. Only the small strip that Obama had extinguished remains still strangely fire-free.

Eryn, with her keen faculties of observation, is able correlate the place the boy indicated outside with the apartments approximately three units further than what Obama had to deal with.

Also, since there are living units on both sides, Eryn can't really be sure which one the boy meant, although she is able to narrow it down to only two.

Michell taps Eryn on the shoulder
"So, I'm guessing that you came rushing up here because you know where someone is stuck. Where are they?"

Once the rest of Obama's party is finished escorting the woman downstairs, they regroup with Michell.

Not wanting to waste oxygen, she gestures to two units past the fire. "Two people, mother and son. Not sure which one though."

Michell yells down the hall:
"If you can hear us, pound on the walls or something! Let us know where you are!"

There is disheartening silence. The Obama party is also starting to feel fatigued and short of breath, starting with Joe.

After catching his breath, Obama puts a hand on Joe's shoulder.
"You all right Joe? Do you need to sit out this trip? It'll probably be our last. By going any more we would probably be hindering the firefighters rather than helping them."

Joe responds after a heavy sigh.
"Yeah, I think I'll sit this one out. I don't want to drag you guys down."

Obama then addresses the two scientists:
"What about you guys, are you guys able to go in for one last run?"

Rather than actually catching his breath Obama catches a nice deep whiff of noxious fumes, the flavor is rather smoky to say the least.

"I'm fine," says Linda, but John instead shakes his head.

She observes the smoke coming from the two rooms at a safe distance to see if the smoke coming out is coloured differently than normal.

Borack heads back up (presumably with Linda?)
While Joe carries the woman (presumably with John) down to the medics.

Eryn stares until her eyes start watering (which is thankfully not very long), but she can not distinguish what the minute difference between two almost equally black shades of smoke mean. She gets the vague feeling that even tossing a coin would probably yield more concrete results than what she is doing now.

(It's checking for oddly coloured smoke in the case of a backdraft)

Unable to determine the smoke colour, she shouts down the hall. "If anyones in there stand away from the door!" She then backs off a safe distance and after a few moments shoots the doorknobs off with her rifle.

Although the party has been standing still for a while, the flames which creep along the wall seemed to stand still for a moment. Those more magically gifted understand that it is Linda holding back the fire somehow, but her power is waning by the second.

Eryn feels a surge of power before letting lose two bolts of mana. Her aim proves true and blasts both doorknobs along with the locks underneath.

A breeze blows through the newly created hole on the door on the left side, bending the embers surrounding the door slightly. Eryn can glean that this is the side that has been breached by the shell that hit the building.

"I'll check the other living area."
Michell clears a path with the two extinguishers and bashes in the door and checking for survivors.

Eryn nods and heads to the other room and looks for survivors as well.

(I don't know who is going for which door but this is for the person to the right.)

Before the group can move, Eryn observes that the shot off doorknob on the right side of the door starts pulling air rapidly from the hallway into the room from the newly formed breach.

Linda and Borack arrive back at the scene to see the explosion in its full magnificence from the stairway.

She holds up her hand to stop the group and backs up observing the sucking of the air for a few moments to see what happens.

The room to the right explodes after a few seconds pause, the door flies off the hinge, and wood flakes fill the air. Thankfully the party is far enough out of the way that there are no injuries.

After taking a quick look over the group to see if they're ok, she looks at the left door and see if it's doing the same as the right did.

The left is fine, Eryn remembers that a good portion of the wall had be blown away for that unit, so its thoroughly ventilated.

Michell runs in to check for any survivors in the collapsed room while Borack checks the blown out room.

Eryn heads to the collapsed room as well to search for survivors.

With their burgeoning levels of manpower it was not difficult to scour both rooms by expending a few more extinguishers. The collapse room yielded a woman with her head brains dashed upon the wall, and a teenage male who was also unconscious. The teen was bleeding profusely from many areas of his body.

A great deal of the outer wall had collapsed, with rubble strewing the remaining intact areas of the apartment. An upended dining table along with several plates smashed plates with plentiful contents indicated that it was most likely before lunch time that the tragedy struck.

Obama's trip into the blown out house yielded nothing but a severe case of oxygen deprivation and probably a case of lung cancer several years down the road as the apartment unit was empty. The owner was evidently not present during noontime as there was not a speck of a body to be found. There was a charred safe, however, hidden in a bathroom stall. Perhaps one who is sufficiently lacking in morals may pillage its contents.

"Help me stabilize him." She takes out her first aid kit and begins using it to try and stop the bleeding. (first aid skill used)

Eryn attempts to stabilize the teen on the spot.

The bleeding is miraculously stopped by amazing bandage-work, breathing is still absent but pulse is thankfully there.

The member 'Xenoe' has done the following action : Dice Roll\'d

'fudge' :

After finding nothing, Obama rushes to the other room and [activates Obamacare] after seeing the situation. Michell tries to help Eryn as best she can.

There is nothing more to be done for the teen other than get his breathing back his external wounds under control from multiple levels of medical attention, but giving CPR in a burning building might not be optimal.

The party hears some firefighters near the stairwell calling for all remaining people in the building to evacuate.

Grabbing the nearby table she breaks off the legs with the butt of her rifle then has someone help her gently place the teen on the table and carry him out of the room and down the stairs.

Two firefighters rush over and help carry the teen down the stares.

One of the firemen who saw the Obama party go in turns to Borack and asks, "is that everyone who came with you?"

Eryn looks over the people gathered to see if anyone is missing.

"Yes, this is all of us"
Borack and Michell evacuate the building.

Accounting for the fact that Joe and John had already evacuated, Eryn sees that everyone is present.

The party exits the building to a decent sized crowd of people standing a fair distance from the burning building, over half of which are bearing wounds of some kind. The child that Eryn promised to help confirms that the teen is indeed his brother, but is confused as to why his mother was not with the group.

The scientists can not find it in their hearts to answer that question.

The flames, which initially only plagued the single apartment complex, had now crawled their way to the nearby buildings. Four firefighters manned two fire hoses spraying water from nearby hydrants to suppress the spread of the flame, but there was not enough liquid to go around.

After a few more minutes, every last firefighter who was clearing the building out was also outside, and eight of them unhitched four hoses which were linked to their trucks. Upon the back of each truck rested a large tankard which contained a bluish liquid that was evidently wasn't water.

There was a last round of confirmation from the captain of the fire squad before the entire apartment was doused in a viscous white foam that completely stuck to, and enveloped the entire building. The sides of the nearby apartment buildings were afforded the same treatment. Within minutes the flame was snuffed out, and all that was left was a smoking husk covered in foam.

She kneels down to look the boy in the eye, a genuinely sad look on her face. "Your mother...passed on when the building was hit. I'm sorry."

Gersha finishes her first Huggie, a lovely creation of pink wool. Trying it on, she looks in the mirror and finds it perfectly conforms to her arms and body. Good job Gersha, you really outdid yourself this time, she thinks to herself. She decides to celebrate by opening a special packet of tea leaves imported all the way from Vosulil. But of course, tea is best enjoyed in the company of others, and her friends would surely love to try out her new invention as well. Gersha goes into her kitchen and reaches out for the tel- tabletop?
Hun?
Gersha is not sure what she was thinking, but the kitchen counter is not going to help her invite all her friends over. That would be absurd.
She sighs. If only there was some sort of everyday household device that you could pick up to "call" people who are a very long distance away. It would be quite convenient, much better than having to go out and place all your trust in some craven, commitment-phobic, no good man like Markam. Oh well, it looks like the magic just isn't there yet.

The tea party will have to wait. She crochets together another Huggie in light blue and takes it along with documentation on the creation process to the local patent office to apply for a patent on the design.

The boy seems to understand that he should be down, except he doesn't quite full grasp the meaning of life and death. Perhaps that is the saddest part.

After the fire was confirmed to be extinguished, the firefighters packed up their equipment to do their job once more elsewhere. The party can see smoke rising from many locations not that far away from where they are now, the sounds of distant explosions continued like a heartbeat.

While the crew took a good amount of time to recover from their smoggy adventure, the boy's father came running back from what was presumably the docks. As he lay sight upon what was left of what he had, he expressed a twisted, agonizing rage, although he still made sure to thank Eryn for saving his eldest son.

The arrival of such family members persisted, and coincided with a trucks full of Panalese soldiers passing by, with heavy artillery pieces in tow.

One truck, evidently unburdened by large weaponry, stopped right in front of the group of now homeless people, and a Sergeant hopped out with a megaphone at hand.

"Please clear away from this area, you are within the blast zone. I repeat, please clear away from this area and head further inland to temporary shelter, you are within the designated blast zone."

The crowd of people, though reluctant, slowly began to move.

The Sergeant also indicates the Obama crew's automobiles.

"Whoever owns those trucks should move them at once, or else they shall be towed. The army needs these roads clear."

--

@Wayne, your time is now

As Gersha continued to crochet without a care in the world her second masterpiece, she heard a knock at her door. Or at least she thought she did, as she couldn't be too sure with her earmuffs insulating her pretty well from the sounds of the world.

Gersha removes her earplugs and earmuffs, wincing at the renewed racket reaching her ears.
Who could that be at this hour? she thinks, and calls out "Who is it?"

She gets off her knee and turns her attention to the Obama party. "Should we load people up?"

Gersha seems to hear a distant voice with a heavy Eprion accent shout, "Itsame! MARIO". But that was merely a hallucination from prolonged auditory deprivation.

The actual reply was a muffled female voice.

"Oh Gersha, its me Chelsea."

Joe goes around to the trucks and have them clear a path for the army/firefighters.
Borack turns to Eryn
"Yes, lets get them in the trucks."

Borack approaches the crowd of people.
"If anyone needs a ride inland or to the trains leaving the city, then you're welcome to come with us."

Michell and Borack begin leading people to and filling up a few trucks with people and telilng the drivers (scientists that originally drove the trucks) to head inland towards the train stations.
Borack, Michell, and Joe then get into the Codillac and begin leading the remaining trucks to look for more survivors.

Eryn gets in the car she was in as well and keeps a lookout, while also occasionally watching how the driver drives.

"Oh! Chelsea!" Gersha gets up and walks over to the door. "Your voice sounds a bit odd, is something the matter?"

John and the yet unnamed fifth researcher volunteer to drive, each truck is able to "accommodate" approximately 25 people and they drive inland towards whatever shelters supposedly exist there.

Eryn piles into Borack's Codillac, and stares at Borack very intently as he is operating his vehicle. Michell in turn gives Eryn strange looks.

The party's convoy attempts to head towards the other disaster areas, but is blocked off by newly set up military checkpoints.

"Sorry, it is for your own safety that we do not let you beyond this point."

--
@wayne

"I sound strange? But isn't this how I always sound?" the Chelsea at the door sounds puzzled.