faderift | OPEN: Cloudreach Event

OPEN: Cloudreach Event

WHO: Anyone at Skyhold
WHAT: Cloudreach showers bring weird shit.
WHEN: Cloudreach 15 onward
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: For information about the illness, its effects, and its cure, please make sure to also read the OOC Post.

This high in the mountains, snowstorms are to be expected. But this one is large and lingering, hanging over the valley and the fortress for days. In Skyhold, with its eternal spring, the snow becomes rain before it hits the ground, leaving inhabitants and visitors to wade through puddles and mud in the courtyards. In the valley, snow and ice accumulate under cloud cover—and worse, when the clouds finally thin, a whole winter's accumulation of snow begins to melt in the sunlight.

Within a day, the ground is sodden and mucky enough to give the survivors of the Fallow Mire (or Ferelden in general) unpleasant flashbacks, and those who live in tents are issued additional hastily-constructed wooden pallets to raise their floors above the mud. It is worse outside the fortress: streams and rivers have overflowed their banks, rapids run twice as fast as normal, and flash flooding has made even road travel treacherous.

On Cloudreach 17 a mudslide buries the pass into Skyhold from the west, and on the 19th a sheet of snow loosened from a mountainside collapses into the shadowed passage from the east. An Inquisition supply caravan is caught in the latter, scattering wagons and goods across the hillside and leaving a dozen people and horses in need of rescue and medical care.

Healers may find themselves stretched thin, as in addition to the usual rash of blisters and sniffles that come from days of rain and flooding, an illness begins to sweep through Skyhold's ranks from around the 16th onward. It's marked first by climbing fever, then by flashes at the edges of vision—green light and jagged formations that aren't there, beings of light and shadow gathering around people or clustering in corners—and distant voices, coherent for brief moments if you're quiet and still and not trying too hard to listen.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Korrin most decidedly does not need those unpleasant flashbacks to the Fallow Mire, and resents their intrusion now. Everywhere she's been afterward was met with the sentiment that at least it's not that wretched place. So she'll put her mage talents to use and energize walkways wherever it's feasible, in an attempt to avoid being soaked any more than she already is. They're left for others to use, of course.

[Healing Tents]

Before long, that irritation subsides but only because something else takes its place. The number of times Korrin's been truly, bone-deep ill, she can count on one hand and none of those times were anywhere recent. Until now. Ignoring it until she can't bear to do so any longer, a decidedly feverish Korrin will make her way toward the healing tents in search of friends that can help. Listless as she is, the Vashtoh woman simply makes a beeline there, no deviating to chat since she's taking notice of very little else, even familiar faces. The observant can catch her cycles of unfocused gazes and then snapping out of it with an irritated, unnerved glance around.

[Herald's Rest]

No, she's not supposed to be here. It's habit to visit the tavern, even when she's in no shape whatsover for drinks or games. Feel free to find Korrin practically draped over a corner table, unable or unwilling to move. The music seems to help her mood slightly, though, so that's something. Drag her back to the healing tents, if you have the strength for it.

[Training Area]

Or she can be found here, either deep in denial or trying to fight off her illness, because enough whacking dummies with a staff will do that, right? Korrin can't last long, though, no matter her determination, and it's highly possible she'll be caught dozing by them before long. In that case, those likewise afflicted can catch glimpses of her dreams; those involving Araceli are either sweet or racy, especially one involving Araceli in pearls and a corset and nothing else.

There is another, much less pleasant, dream that frequents her mind, that of the Temple of Sacred Ashes after the explosion that destroyed the conclave. Its focus is on the charred, twisted forms of several Vashoth, frozen mid-scream. Whether or not they were recognizable as such in the physical world is another issue, but in her dream they very clearly are.

Edited 2016-04-18 16:43 (UTC)

For not the first time, Jamie regrets the lack of anything like proper whisky in his life. It's not that he doesn't enjoy quite a lot of what Thedas has to offer - he does, and quite a bit at that, although it's rare to see him drinking to excess. But while he's found one or two things that are close to what he's used to back on Earth, it's not exactly the same.

Usually his regrets stem simply from the fact he misses having that around, but when he starts feeling ill, those regrets sharpen into something much more specific. Despite having learned about germs and the like from the Doctor, old habits die hard. A bit of whisky would help with the sickness, he's sure. Since he's out of luck there, however, he heads to the tavern to see about finding something else to see if that would help any, only to have that thought go clear out of his head when he sees Korrin using a corner table like it's a not-particularly comfy pillow. He can't recall her doing that in quite that way before, and it raises faint alarm bells somewhere in the back of his mind. Enough so that he doesn't even bother trying to get a drink first, instead crossing the room so he can get close enough to get a better look at her.

"Korrin? Hey, you alright?"

Were they on a battlefield, Korrin would insist she's fine in any state short of bleeding out on the ground. She's a trained mercenary, taught to push past pain whenever she can to get the job done. And now that she's a Knight-Enchanter, such moments are increasingly rare as her barrier tends to hold more often than not.

This isn't a battlefield, though, and Korrin couldn't be more out of her element. The tavern isn't the problem; it's the feverish cast to her skin, those eyes which refuse to focus on anything for long, the fog in her brain that won't go away. And, of course, the spirits.

Thanks to the chatter of said spirits, it takes a moment for Jamie's voice to register above them. She shifts her gaze to meet his, though doesn't lift her head from the table. The bartender keeps casting wary glances over, wary that she'll ruin the table with those horns of hers.

"No." There's a soft, annoyed huff. "Andraste's ass, I haven't been sick in over a decade. What the hell is this crap...."

"Don't know."

Whatever it is, it seems to be affecting a lot of people, and...and...and he doesn't know what. The more he tries to think about it, the more it feels like his head is wrapped in cotton, and he lets out a frustrated breath before plonking himself down in a chair on the opposite side of the table.

"Feel like I did that time I was on the moon," he mutters as he rubs at his temple. It's directed more to himself then to Korrin, but then he blinks and looks at her more closely.

"Wait, have you really not been sick in ten years?"

Korrin almost shakes her head, but manages to stop herself before she either makes herself more lightheaded or gores the table. "Nothing remotely like this, where I'm afraid to move 'cause I'll probably fall over. Mercenary life toughens you up, since there's not a lot of room for coddling. You sink or you swim."

And right now, she felt more akin to sinking than the latter.

Then her brow furrows. "What...wait about the moon? What are you talking about?"

What she's saying does make sense. He knows enough about mercenaries to know that it does take a fair amount of fortitude to deal with what they deal with. If you get sick you still have a job to do, and after awhile he imagines that the small illnesses likely wouldn't even register as anything other than something to be pushed aside in order to focus on the things that are important - and he winds up nodding along with her words.

It's something he winds up regretting, though, because even that small movement is enough to make his head swim. Not badly, since he's keeping from moving anything too vigorously, but it's still enough to get him to close his eyes and press his fingers to his forehead for a few seconds.

"Ooh, my head." There's a brief grimace, but then he opens his eyes again and lets his hand fall back to rest on the table. "Sorry, you wanted to know what I was talking about?"

Jamie's reaction to his own nodding earns him a sympathetic look from Korrin, who has been trying her best to move as little as possible. It's a weird state for her, rather used to the opposite. But her head -and the rest of her- won't allow it right now, not without a lot of lightheadedness and a trip back to the healing tents.

"It helps not to move. If you ask for something strong, that might take the edge off and knock you out, too. It might be better than listening to spirits natter or seeing Fade bullshit." She's not there quite yet, but when Korrin gets desperate enough, she'll resort to that plan. "You and Kain both, talking about the moon. First time he mentioned it, I thought it was just the drink talking, but he confirmed it when sober. It's crazy to think about, people going there."

More crazy than people coming from the Fade, yes. This is Thedas.

Getting a strong drink to knock himself out isn't the worst idea in the world, but he's seen enough strange stuff in his life that right now that part of things isn't bothering him all that much. At least not yet, and he lifts his shoulders in a brief shrug. It's not a very large one, but it's still visible enough - and not as painful as he thought, all things considered.

"Ah, I've seen worse. At least there's not any beasties trying to kill us at the moment," he comments, leaning back in his seat. "And aye, we've both been to the moon. Well. Our moon. I've talked to him a wee bit about that, actually. There's no man in the moon, though, just to let you know. I checked, the first time."

Which probably doesn't make that any less crazy, but he figures it's a good thing to mention, just in case she was curious about that.

"That's why I don't usually bring it up, though. A lot of people think that sort of thing's daft. I used to think it was daft, until I wound up there."

A man in the moon? Not sure why she would have thought that, Korrin's brow furrows. "Did you go up in a giant whale, too, because that's the crazy-ass story I got from him. Or, wait, it was a ship that was called a whale or something. Keeping stories straight isn't my forte right now."

She takes a moment to try and clear her mind before responding, though the mental fog is as stubborn as ever. "It all sounds bizarre, but that doesn't mean I don't want to hear it. I love crazy-ass stories and have a ton of my own. So I'm not judging."

"A giant w...och, no. Now, mind you, I'd thought once that some of these things were flying beasties, but they're more like special ships. Only ones that can sail in the stars rather than on the seas."

Although an airship could possibly look like a great big whale, now that he thought about it. Now that would be a flying beastie for sure...

A faintly distant look crosses his face as his mind winds up wandering, caught up in the thought. After a few moments, however, he manages to refocus on the here and now and glances back in Korrin's direction.

"The first time I went to the moon it was in the ship that I used to travel in before coming here. It wasn't on purpose, mind. The Doctor'd been trying to take us somewhere else, only we'd wound up on the moon instead. The second time...aye, well, that was a bit different."

Those few moments have Korrin distracted again as she glares at chattering spirits wandering the tavern, curious about everything and everyone. She nearly throws a tankard at them, but Jamie's voice distracts her just in time. "You arrived on the moon...by accident. Seriously? What the fuck, Jamie.

...wait, what happened the second time?" There's a nagging irritation in the back of her mind, knowing that it's likely she'll retain so little of this later that she'll have to ask for the story again. Oh, well. At this point, it's less about the tale involved and more about focusing on something other than feeling like utter crap.

"Aye, the Doctor said he was taking us to Mars, but the TARDIS has a mind of its own. If I had a sovereign for every time he'd said he could fly that thing and we wound up somewhere else altogether...well, I daresay I'd have been able to buy your whole supply of maraas-lok and still have some left over for other things."

Although that was the first time, and not the second, and he caught himself before he managed to completely go off on a tangent about the first trip. It wasn't as thought he couldn't go back to it if she wanted him to, anyway.

"The second time there were these machines called a 'T-Mat' that...well, you know how you can get from one side of a battlefield to the other really quickly with that steppy thing? It was a wee bit like that, except using a machine and not magic. Only it was broken, so we had to take a rocket up in order to get there and see what why it was broken."

Korrin's brow furrows, trying to process all that's said though the mind-fog and background spirit chatter sure as hell don't make it easy. But the Vashoth woman is in desperate need of thinking about something other than how miserable she's feeling, so she'll try her best. "Some asshole was messing with it, right? Usually someone's ruining it for everyone else. I almost wish I could see that for myself, and if it's faster than me."

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Herald's Rest

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Training area

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