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blai in book 11 of asftv
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The bridge is old, but well maintained, with preservation spells on the stone renewed once a year. There are some cracks, of course, where water snuck in between the mortared stones and expanded where it froze, but really it ought to be good for another century. 

It's certainly immensely unlikely that tonight in particular, at the exact moment the priest from another world is at the center of it, is when several harmless-on-their-own cracks will implausibly extend and link up, causing the entire structure to abruptly and catastrophically fail, and send everyone currently standing on it crashing through the river-ice amidst an avalanche of stone bridge components. 

What if that happened anyway

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It feels like a long time that they're falling. Seldan has time to get a Mindspeech shout out to almost every Companion in Haven (not the ones currently in the Nap Stack) and to Leareth's mages, several of whom were on the bridge with them but at least a dozen aren't and can respond from not in the water - 

 

- and then the force of impact tears Blai off his back and they are abruptly both underwater. And, within a second or two, caught in the fast-moving current and under the ice being swept downstream. 

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Blai doesn't have an Air Bubble.

He's got a Light, but it turns out that it's hard to see in turbid water even once he forces his eyes open.

It's so cold.

He's got his armor on, and he's kicking but he doesn't actually know how to swim per se, so he's sinking and the current's pulling and he didn't have time to get a whole lungful of air but that won't be his biggest problem for the next few seconds, his biggest problem is that he can't feel his fingers - and even if he manages to grab his mace anyhow he'll be swept past any given hole in the ice he makes before he can stick his head through it. He's working on the grab-mace step. Positive energy works on frostbite as long as the extremities are still attached. They're still attached. Can he, if he squints, see anything to wedge himself against so he can stop moving with the current, is there anything - how is he going to get Seldan out -

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Seldan is in pain that he's ignoring, but he didn't land nearly as badly as he could have. For a moment in midair he was certain he would break all of his legs and then at the moment of impact he's pretty sure he at most broke one leg and it might only be bruised. He was then briefly panicked about Blai being hit in the head by falling bridge debris and - then it seemed like Blai was fine, actually, and he remembered that his Herald is physically a lot tougher than normal people, so that's all right, Blai is still conscious and able to hold his breath and that means time to strategize. 

 

He's in Mindspeech contact with Leareth's mages who didn't fall into the river along with them (both people who did end up in the water are unconscious and - already more than thirty feet away, unfortunate, he's tracking them as a concern but Blai is his priority right now) - anyway he's bouncing both of their location to the mages on the shore who can maybe do something - 

 

- someone is trying an unscaffolded Gate-threshold ahead of them but they can't get it aimed in the right place and stable in time, magic is a lot harder to control under running water - someone is trying a force-net but they also can't stabilize it in time and Seldan's weight crashes through the threads of magic as they're starting to form - 

 

- they're going to hit a shallower part of the river in maybe ten seconds, there will be a lot of jagged rocks, which on the one hand Blai can maybe wedge himself against, but also he might just smash into them and get injured - 

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Injured is fine unless there are river sharks and possibly even then! Also he's got the armor on and if it's useful for anything that anything includes taking a jagged rock for him! He can channel if necessary to make his fingers work long enough to get ahold of his mace injured and get a hole in the ice! The question is if he can get to and puncture a suitable spot faster than Seldan by enough that both of them will be able to stick their faces out and breathe, and grab hold of the edges of the hole to not be swept away further, and climb out. Is Seldan in range of a channel if he does one? Can they maneuver enough to stay close and not kick each other?

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There shouldn't be any river sharks but also that bridge should not have collapsed for no reason so Seldan does not want to bet on it! 

He can probably get within thirty feet but he'll have less freedom of motion to both avoid kicking Blai and avoid running into rocks at an angle where he'll be seriously injured. ...Also Seldan cannot realistically grab the edge of a hole in the ice, and has less ability than Blai to wedge himself on an obstacle, he weighs a lot more and doesn't have hands. 

 

- Leareth's mages propose Gating two hundred yards downstream - that's about a minute away, at the rate the current is carrying them - and buying themselves time to get a really good force-net in place, which can catch both of them without injuring them in the process, at which point Blai can smash a hole in the ice for both of them and the mages can help haul them out. 

Can Blai handle another minute of holding his breath and being swept downstream? Seldan thinks he can manage fine - unless he hits a rock badly enough, in which case the force-net should still catch him and hopefully Leareth's people can get him out even if he's unconscious - but the cold is probably affecting Blai more, he's smaller and can't do the Companion thing of converting energy reserves directly into unreasonable quantities of body heat. 

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Blai is not positive he has a whole minute, especially not if something happens to Seldan and he has to cast Stabilize, it has a verbal component. He will try.

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It'll be okay. Even if this goes badly and they both end up injured and unconscious before they hit the force-net, Leareth's people will haul them out of the river and a minute is not long enough to actually die of drowning in cold water and there'll be Healers who can do enough to get Blai able to cast spells and they'll be fine. If Blai sees an opportunity to grab a rock and bash a hole to the surface he should take it and not worry about Seldan, but - fifty seconds now - 

 

They hit the rocky section.

The rocks are very angular and awkwardly shaped for grabbing, and very slippery with algae, and mostly at least a meter below the surface such that it would be hard to whack the surface with a mace while wedged.

Seldan has had the unexpected discovery that he can try to be as buoyant as possible and this works! He ends up basically sliding along the underside of the ice and mostly not coming that near the rocks, though the ice has sharp bits as well and his hide is collecting some nasty scrapes. 

Blai in armor is not buoyant and many of those rocks are directly in his path. 

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He's waiting for the part where he tries to take actions, but this isn't that part. He can curl up in a ball and present armored surfaces to the rocks as much as possible and pray for endurance and presence of mind.

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(On some level, Seldan is scared and upset and part of him feels like this is entirely his fault because he told Blai to keep Forbid Action instead of Endure Elements, and he's intensely frustrated that even having two dozen of Leareth's best people is apparently not good enough to get his Herald out of a freezing river in under a minute, and every time Blai crashes into a rock he's terrified that even if Blai isn't seriously injured it will knock the rest of the breath out of his lungs, and he's furious with the Star-Eyed Goddess who is terrible and should stop existing and - 

- and none of that is helpful and what he needs to do is help Blai stay calm so he can hold his breath longer, and so right now all of it lives in a small corner of him behind his shields, along with the increasingly distracting pain from all the ice-cuts.) 

 

The rest of his mind is entirely with Blai and - he's calm, he's here, they're in this together and Leareth's people are very very competent and it's going to be okay. 

Forty more seconds. 

Thirty seconds. 

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They're past the shallower rockier part now and in a deeper section. Blai still sinks and is near the bottom, four or five yards below the underside of the ice. 

...Sometime in the summer, somewhere upstream, a fisherman lost a net in the river. It swept downstream and eventually part of it got tangled around a rock and has been stretched out along the bottom slowly rotting and growing seaweed on it ever since. 

It's extremely implausible that right now is when an eddy in the river's flow will tug the net free of the bottom just enough for the current to pull the net open, at an angle perfect for Blai to run into it and immediately get thoroughly tangled in it.

What if that happened anyway. 

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The current keeps dragging Seldan along and Blai isn't moving anymore and so they're quickly being pulled further apart and Seldan has no idea what's happening! 

:Blai: He doesn't mentally shout it; he sends it calmly even though this is incredibly hard. :What's happening?: 

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Is this not the force-net? - no, it is a material net. :I'm caught in something.:

Does it give him enough purchase that he can climb up these rocks to be able to reach the ice with his mace.

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Nope! The surface of the ice is pretty far away! 

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What if he takes off his shoe, or pulls the gold wire off the - ow his fingers hurt a lot - the gold wire away from the blade of his sword-and-sun, it'll still work for casting without it, and cut -

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The net is somewhat rotted but it's not that rotted, and there's enough algae grown on the surface of the net-cords that the blade slips sideways unless he pushes it hard at the right angle, which is is difficult with his hands not working that well. It was a very well-made net once. A lot of cords would need to be cut to untangle him fully from it.  

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Seldan is now fifteen seconds away from the force-net. Blai is...still thirty seconds away. He might or might not be able to hold his breath long enough to finish freeing himself, but he probably can't do that and, afterward, continue holding his breath for a bonus thirty seconds plus however long it takes to actually bang a hole in the ice and get to the surface. 

And - it would be just like how their day is going so far for him to almost manage to cut himself free, lose consciousness, and then have the net tear the rest of the way so he's swept away downstream five seconds before Leareth's people would have reached him. And then hit his head on an obstacle he can't avoid. And then get eaten by a river shark– stop it.

:Blai. Leareth's people are sending someone to you. They can get to you where you are if you stay there. They're going to blast a hole in the ice and pull you out. It's going to take over a minute and I don't know if you can keep holding your breath that long but - I need you to stop struggling and hold still. They're coming.: 

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Okay.

He lets the net holds him still.

He closes his eyes and focuses on not letting any of his air out, on staying conscious so he can keep forcing his burning lungs into compliance.

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Another ten seconds pass. 

Twenty seconds. Seldan bounces into the force-net. 

Twenty-five seconds. One of Leareth's mages uses some kind of incredibly tidy force-dagger method to cut a hole in the ice without risking blasting Seldan. He bobs up and pushes his head above the surface and pulls in a lungful of air. 

He can't share the air with Blai but he can pull node-energy and push that across, it might help a little with Blai staying conscious longer. 

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Some of the mages are working on shaping a force-barrier to lift Seldan out of the water. Someone is shielding themselves to go in and try to fish out the two unconscious mages who have now fetched up against the barrier but are pretty hard to actually pull out of the water. 

The others are sprinting upstream, and are now almost in position. 

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What if not that, actually? 

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Six mages are now reaching a point on the bank where they can start working on cutting a hole in the ice and sending a strong swimmer in on a rope to grab Blai and cut him free and pull him to the surface. 

Seldan is out of the water, he's fine (well, he's bleeding pretty significantly from all the cuts and scrapes, but there's a Healer almost there and Companions have a lot of blood they can afford to lose), he's here and waiting for Blai.

Another thirty seconds. Maybe less. 

 

(Blai has now been holding his breath in freezing-cold water for well over a minute, though, and Seldan is aware that at some point it's going to stop being a matter of willpower.) 

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After holding his breath for 102 seconds, Blai loses his grip on consciousness, and that's not going to solve itself, because his reflex to acquire more air even when dying was designed for dying above water.

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