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This should be their moment of victory. The speakers are set up, the hotel is fortified, and all that's left to do is find the rest of the missing resort guests. There has even been a lull in the hammering of birds against windows and doors, a clearing of the skies outside. Everyone can take a moment to breathe, and people who have looked haggard for the past few days are even starting to brighten again.

It's a shortly-lived moment of quiet.

Brynn and Diana come into the lounge of the hotel with a breathless edge, not quite running -- and immediately all eyes turn to them. Their edge of panic is loud and wild in the otherwise calm room, and gathers a crowd around them.

"We don't have the time we thought we did," Brynn offers the moment someone questions what's going on, and this brings in the rest. She takes a moment to calm herself, to gather thoughts so she can sound less like a panicked teenager.

"It's just. Their behavior changed. Scouts in the upper room saw them retreat, and now they see them gathering on top of the lodge. It looks like an attack is incoming, and while there are still people missing, lost on the mountain..."

She hesitates. She clearly hates this.

"It's going to take an hour to get the speakers going, but I don't know how long it'll be before the birds attack. We can stay here and defend the hotel until we push the button and finish this once and for all -- or we can venture out of the hotel to seek out the rest of the guests to protect them from the avalanche…but that'll leave the hotel largely undefended, aside from our fortifications.

"This isn't a decision I can make for us. Everyone gets a say. So please, discuss it, and then say what you want to do. Give your vote, and we'll reach our choice as a group."

Marisol felt the tension rise at the demeanor of the two, a chuckle drying up in her throat, as she listened. She couldn't blame Brynn, it wasn't a decision she wanted to make and the fact that her voice would count... She wasn't sure what to do.

The obvious answer, to her, was to defend the hotel. She'd gone out earlier and rescued those she could find. Perhaps as a group they'd have more luck finding those who they hadn't found, especially the one man she'd found but who had run away. Did they even know how many souls were still missing? Was it feasible to save them all? Was it worth putting the people here in danger? Perhaps that's what it came down to.

And yet she found she couldn't put anything into words. She opened her mouth and promptly shut it, questions and what ifs multiplying only to stick in her throat. This was not what she'd signed up for but apparently it was. And she had to make a choice.

"We can't split up and do both?" she found herself asking. She had to eliminate the middle ground before she could seriously consider either. Neither option felt right, neither option felt easy. So much for that old saying; it apparently was flat out wrong here.

Brynn shook her head, her eyes very big behind the thick lenses of her glasses. "We're only 37. The locals can stay and defend to the best of their ability, but they don't have the weapons to go out looking. We all need to go out there, if we're going to have any luck combing the mountain, or we all need to stay here, to fully defend the building."

Tara had been pretty hopeful that things would just... work after they got the speakers up. They'd go out, find whatever missing civilians there were, bring them back to the hotel, set off the speakers, and things would just... work out.

Instead, the grim news from Brynn made her veins run cold, and Tara felt sure tears were pricking at her eyes from the mounting stress and frustration. So... so what? Leave people to die to protect the hotel, or try and locate the lost people and risk the hotel getting destroyed..? How had it gotten to this point?

Tara fidgeted with her jacket, shifting foot to foot, the options and potential consequences roaring in her brain. The largest, and worst, was condemning people to death. She moved a bit closer to Brynn and Diana, hoping to catch someone's attention. "How defended is the hotel? Could the scouts give any sort of estimation of how big the flock is, and is there any way to tell how well the hotel might stand against it if they do attack?" She hesitated, frowning a bit.

She'd been about to ask if it was possible for them to distract some of the birds, have the birds go after them while they were looking for people. But that would only endanger anyone they were trying to rescue--so likely never mind that...

"What about any signs of other people lost on the mountain? If we had a better idea of where people were, maybe we could cut down the time it takes to reach them..?" The idea of just... leaving people, either way, was a sickening concept. But she hated the idea of just... leaving people to die under the avalanche.

The more hopeful air that permeated the hotel after the speakers were set up had a buoyant effect on Sid, and she appreciated the break from the stress of fighting off the birds. She'd made her way down to join the larger group and soak up some of the interaction now that things were looking more rosey.

Turned out to be a lucky thing, though she wasn't sure she wanted to call it that, because she got to be present when the two older chosen came rushing in with what could only be called bad news. Parked in one of the chairs by a fireplace, her knees drawn up to her chest for warmth, Sid eyed the commotion with misgiving and soaked up the discussion flying about.

Save the civilians, or protect the hotel, hmm? Not an easy decision it seemed, for some.

For Sid, it came down to a few factors; which was more likely to be successful, and which would keep her person undamaged and intact? Yes, it sucked there were people out there, but that was their own fault, wasn't it? They'd been here for a while now, rescuing people and reinforcing the hotel's defenses. They could have made a break for the safety of the hotel at any time, birds or no, but they hadn't. In the end, the Chosen couldn't save everyone, and it was foolish to try. They had to face facts and accept their limitations.

There would be losses. They just had to decide which method would have the least of them.

Turning her head, half buried in the collar of her coat, Sid's eyes searched for a familiar blonde head, wondering what Rob thought of all this.

He leaned against a bit of wall, watching the speakers and eventually giving up on his glasses to take them off and use a handkerchief to clean the glasses. It was a real cloth handkerchief, which was very much him, and he was just glad it wasn't dirty. "The people here at the hotel can fight, but just because they can doesn't mean they will. And there are injured here, too, in some cases they can't fight."

Mal wasn't ready to say yet what his own decision was, but he was willing to poke and prod at the ones who were either too torn or too justified in their own answer.

Mal smiled at him -- still without his glasses, so it was soft and a bit unfocused. "I just want to make sure you're thinking it through. So many people jerk one way or the other and don't think." He shrugged, but he also didn't apologize. Why would he? He wasn't sorry.

Besides, he had a feeling Ewan would feel the same way about it. Sheepdogs and sheep. He put his glasses back on and adjusted them with a finger against the nosepiece. "Sheepdogs disturb the sheep," was the closest Mal got to an apology.

When her questions were met with a shrug, Tara had to resist the urge to shout a few profanities at the situation. At least they knew how many they'd been able to pull into the hotel from out in the snows, which was good for a start but...

Mal's voice acting as the Devil's Advocate irked her, but she did understand his reasoning--they couldn't just jump in head first without thinking through all the angles and consequences. Still, the other guy's reasoning was on the same wavelength of Tara's. "We've done what we can here at the hotel, and we've given these people a far better hand than what we found them with. But the people still out there don't have even a slight fighting chance against the avalanche, and they don't have the ability to fight through the birds to get to us." The Chosen wouldn't have been necessary if they could, after all.

"I don't like the idea of leaving the people here in the hotel without extra protection, especially since things aren't perfect here and there are people who are injured... but their chances are a bit more secure than the folks having to go up against an avalanche."