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Rob fingered the annoying bandaid on his forehead as he pushed aside more debris in the pile he was currently scavenging. It seemed a little silly to put a bandaid over what amounted to a small scratch, but the bird he and Tara had fought had been flinging poo at them, so better to be safe than risk an infection. That was something else he found odd: the monstrous bird had been attacking them with full force, yet they had only walked away with minor scratches and bruises. Either they were very lucky or this had something to do with being Chosen of the gods. Probably the latter. He'd have to ask someone once they were back at the Prytaneum.

Now he and Tara were helping to reinforce the hotel against further attack. That meant scrounging for supplies to patch up holes and block any way the bird-things could get in. Some work had already been done by the people who had sheltered in the hotel, but there were still gaps that needed patching against the metallic creatures.

Moving aside some fabric, Rob uncovered what looked like a cleaning cart, the kind the housekeepers would push around the halls to tidy up the rooms. This was a good find -- lots of useful stuff on it. Then his eye caught something shiny hiding beneath an upturned table. A platter? Looked to be silver. Somehow it was still holding its contents, plates and silverware intact. Looked like someone just placed it there and then dumped stuff on top of it. Pulling the platter out with care and stacked it on top of the cleaning cart.

He dug deeper into the pile, stopping when his fingers found something plastic and yielding. Kicking aside a chair too damaged to be useful, he pulled at the plastic fabric until it started to emerge from the debris. Shower curtains, from the look of it. He wasn't sure how useful they'd be, but they might be able to at least patch up a window and slow those creatures down.

Straightening, he called out to Tara with a triumphant grin. "Hey, Tara! Look what I found!"

"Brilliant! Maybe we could like carve down the ends of the broken chair bits to make… stabbing things." Rob made the time-honored motion to make his point (haha), moving his arm up and down as if he was holding a sharp object. "You know, wossname. Stakes. If they get close enough to stab 'em. Check out this cart, though." He went and stood by the cart proudly. "There's still stuff on it -- towels, cleaning liquid, toilet paper. We could use the towels like you suggested we use the shower curtains, to patch up windows. Or tie 'em together with the ties to make like slings. To fling, I dunno, toilet paper at them."

Rob snorted at that last suggestion of his, shaking his head. "That sounds pretty stupid, don't it. Maybe it'd be better to use the towels to patch up some of the folks hiding here -- some of them look in a pretty bad way." Picking up the silver tray, he cleared the dishes and flatware off of it. "This would make a good shield, I think." He held it up in front of him, then peered out from behind it with a grin. "Like give it to someone who doesn't have the blessing of a god protecting them."

Rob nodded, his expression sobering. "Yeah, we did get lucky with that bird." He wasn't going to fool himself into thinking it had been skill that took it out -- it was sheer dumb luck. He almost wanted to take out another one, though he wasn't sure Tara was up to it. No, better to focus on the task at hand for the moment.

"Oooh, maybe the shiny thing might not be the greatest idea." He put the silver tray down. "Don't want to attract them, after all. I mean, like you said, we don't even know if they'd be attracted to shiny things, but why take the chance?" Picking up a roll of toilet paper off the cart, Rob tossed it up into the air. "Good point. This stuff's worth its weight in gold." He caught it and put it back, then eyed the towels. "What, use the stakes as projectiles with slings? You think that would work?" Nevermind that he wasn't sure how to make slings out of towels and ties -- he'd just been throwing out random suggestions.

"I bet the stakes could get through those feathers. You hit the thing hard enough, a nice sharp point would absolutely get through. And I bet if you're fighting for your life, you'll hit it as hard as you can." Thinking back to how he had hit the bird they'd fought with his sword, he knew it was a combination of fear and adrenaline that had made him swing hard enough to deal a mortal blow. He felt pretty sure that any of these people could find the same resolve inside themselves.

"What about this thing?" Rob tried pushing the cart, and it rolled with some difficulty. "I think, if nothing else, this can be used as a barricade, like something to hide behind, like a shield or something."

He sighed hard. "What do you think? Any of this sound good?"

Rob nodded, eyeing the tray again. "Yeah, maybe we do need to test it… but I'm not going back out there for awhile. We need to reinforce this place first, I think. Give the people here some sense of security, you know?" Not that the Dionysus Chosen was being entirely altruistic -- he really wasn't looking forward to going back out there and tackling more of those bird-things. Still, he was pretty sure the shiny silver tray would work for either a shield or a bird deterrent of some kind.

The towels, though… "You know, maybe the sling thing isn't such a good idea. They'd be better off used to pad out the medical kits and patch up injuries and suchlike." He listened to Tara offer up a suggestion for the stakes and nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! Fasten the stakes round the windows. Points out. That'd keep those bastards out, or at least impale them or knock some of those feathers off so they could be killed easier by one of us." Eyes widening, he shook his head. "Us in general, I mean, not necessarily us. I know you don't want to kill them, really."

Feeling a bit awkward, Rob turned his attention to the cart. "You mean just rip the wheels off or something?..." Experimentally he kicked at one of the broken wheels; it yielded beneath his boot. "I think that'd work. Just put the boot in a few times and we'd have a lovely barricade."

He smiled as Tara squeezed his arm. "I know, love." Sighing again, he looked at the stuff they'd gathered. "What I think we should do right now is use this crap. We've got some pretty good ideas of what we can do with it -- we should do that, and then we can think about going back outside. Oh." He leaned over and picked up one of the formal dresses, holding it up in front of him. "Did we ever decide on what to do with these?"

Listening as Tara solidified their plans for the random items they'd collected, Rob nodded. "Yeah, all that sounds good to me." Although the idea of trying to learn more about the monstrous bird-creatures, let alone trying to protect them, get them someplace where they'd be safe, as if they were some form of endangered eagle… Well, it seemed to the Dionysus-Chosen like a bit of a fool's errand. But if the thought of doing something other than kill them made Tara better able to cope with what she'd had to do, then he wasn't about to dissuade her.

Better to focus on the task at hand regardless. "Right then. I'll put the boot in on the cart and set that up as a barricade -- I think in front of the hall would be a good place. Shove some debris around it.." He studied the collected stuff. "Put the shower curtains up over as many of the broken windows as we can, after we spike 'em. Tie 'em together with the ties and dresses. Right. I think we have our marching orders then, eh?"

With a reassuring smile, Rob briefly put an arm around Tara's shoulders and squeezed. "It'll be all good, don't worry. We'll help here, and then we can figure out what to do next." Even if that meant going back outside and taking out more of the birds. He didn't mention that, though.