OPEN: Cloudreach Event

[faderifting]

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.

Comments

[dreadinquisitor]

Maxwell appreciated the rain, at first; it matched his mood, dour and grey, but the longer it lingered, and the more trouble it became, the less he liked it. The chill of the rain got into everything - his clothes, his boots, down to his very bones.

He sought refuge in the hot springs, trying to soak it from his flesh. Clothes stretched out in a futile attempt to dry them, he drifted on side of the pool, eyes half-lidded and distant in the steam. He stayed until he was nearly more prune than man, but he was at least blessedly warm again.

But that too, lingered well past its point of appreciation.

Untangling himself from his sweat-dampened bedroll, he staggered into the garden and back into the rain. He stumbled and caught himself against the well, leaning... leaning... tipping, thumping down to the sodden, muddied ground.

"I'm fine," he told the shadowy figure he could just see, approaching in the corner of his eye. Could just hear, whispering beside him.

He waved a hand weakly at nothing.

"...I'm fine."

[wontforgetyou]

"You're not fine."

Jamie's skin may be flushed and his own eyes bright with the first stirrings of his own fever, but he's in better shape than the man who's just practically fallen over into the mud and started talking to the air.

Although it's odd, if he thinks about it. It's almost like there's something there just out of the corner of his eye, lurking in the shadows like some unknown beastie, but- he shakes his head, dismissing the thought, and finishes making his way over to where Maxwell is sitting, reaching a hand out as an offer of help.

"Unless you'd meant to wind up sitting in the mud like that, but I'm guessing that's not where you want to be right now. Here, let me give you a hand up."

[dreadinquisitor]

Frowning into the distance, eyes darting after shapes only he could see, Maxwell didn't seem to take any notice of the newcomer. Or the rain. Or the mud seeping through his clothes.

"Too fast..." he mumbled, unhappy. "I can't see-- Stop."

[wontforgetyou]

That wasn't quite the answer he was expecting, and his brow furrowed as he took in the other man's distant gaze. It looked like he was looking at something, but even after turning his head to look in that direction he couldn't tell what it might be, and after a moment he turned back again, a look of confusion crossing his face as his hand fell back to his side.

"What's too fast?"

[dreadinquisitor]

"All these--" His brow furrowed deeply, a pounding taking up behind his eyes as he struggled to focus on any of the figures. The harder he looked, the more painful it became. He lifted a hand, rubbing the heel of his palm against his head. "All these people, what's the hurry?"

[wontforgetyou]

Unfortunately, that didn't help matters much. If anything, it served to make his confusion that much more pointed, and this time he wound up making a full circle as he turned around in place, something that made him feel just a touch dizzy. Maybe he shouldn't do that again. Once he stopped moving that felt a little better, though, and he was able to refocus on the other man.

"They all look like they're moving normally to me."

Except maybe those ones that he kept seeing out of the corner of his eyes, but those couldn't be real. Given how warm he was feeling right now, he was probably imagining them. It wouldn't be the first time...and if Maxwell was seeing something like that too, then maybe there was a reason why he didn't seem to care that he was sitting in the mud.

"Look, are you feeling alright? You don't look so good. Maybe we should go to the healers."

[dreadinquisitor]

"I..." The wrinkle in his brow deepened, even so simple a thought difficult for him, the pounding in his head, the sharp flashes of light, blocking out all else. "I feel... I don't know." He shook his head as if to try and clear it. "It's so warm..."

[disgracedchampion]

"Truly?" Michel quirked an eyebrow inquiringly at the idea that the man might be fine, might be anything remotely resembling fine. Michel knew the difference, he was fine, he was standing on his own two feet and not slumped in the mud, his hand wasn't limp on his wrist. The Chevalier crouched down in front of the crumbled figure and took note of him.

He smelled of sweat, not from exertion, but from illness, it was completely different...there was always a staleness about it. He had a far away look about him like he was not altogether present. Something seemed to be going around, this wasn't the only strange occurrence in Skyhold, but perhaps that was it, perhaps it was this place...an old curse? He wasn't certain, but something was going on and when he laid a hand on the man's forehead he knew it wasn't fine.

"You need a healer."

[dreadinquisitor]

He startled abruptly at the light touch, his focus on the darting shapes along the edges of his vision, he hadn't even noticed the man, sudden and clear before him. He blinked. His brow furrowed. He scrunched away, shoulders pressing into the hard stone of the well.

"Who-- where did you--"

The voices continued to buzz and whisper, even as the blond stood silent above him.

[disgracedchampion]

"It was not my intention to surprise you, monsieur," while he remained standing, he made no move to follow the man as he flinched away from his touch and back against the wall, "you simply look unwell."

It might have been pointing out the obvious, but if this man thought that he was alright, then perhaps the obvious needed pointing out.

"I am Michel de Chevin and you needn't fear me," unless of course he did something that inspired a need to fear, but otherwise Michel simply held out a hand, "can I help you up... take you to somewhere, to someone?"

The healing tents perhaps?

[dreadinquisitor]

"I don't--"

His eyes continued to move, tracking after something only he could see, just behind Michel and then off to the side... Then they squeezed shut, his head pounding painfully.

"I don't have anyone. ...I think I just... I need to rest, but it's so warm."

[disgracedchampion]

"Of course...you're running a fever," so naturally he would feel warm, or cold...sometimes there were transitions between the two. Whatever the case he could not walk by the man and simply leave him in the mud.

It didn't appear that he could rise of his own accord either, so Michel had no other options. He stooped down carefully and hoisted him out of the mud.

"I can take you to the healing tents or to your quarters...though you might be best served seeing a healer."

[dreadinquisitor]

He was nearly dead-weight, neither resisting nor particularly proactive as Michel hauled him from the wet and dirt. He tried for a moment to find his feet, but they seemed to tangle together, clumsy and unhelpful, and he slumped heavily against the man, the heat drifting off his skin.

"I... I don't know what's wrong with me."

[slipshot]

It made a strange sort of sense - finally being released into the open, only to find himself in the rain. He stood under it for a while, letting it soak through his clothes and pour down his face - tilted up, eyes closed.

He wasn't alone when he went looking for Maxwell. He wasn't going to be alone, now, ever, but at least the scout that was supervising him at the moment gave him some space when he explained what he wanted to do.

He checked Maxwell's hole, first - his little spot carved out near the gardens, but the man wasn't there. He wasn't sure what he expected, but even that small set back had his ears dipping low, and then he heard someone walking through the gardens - nearly tripping - and then landing with a hard thud. He whipped around, ears pricked high and then ran forward when he saw who it was. "Maxwell? Maxwell, are you alright? What happened?"

[dreadinquisitor]

He was laying in the mud, in the rain, heat rolling off his skin. There were strange, disquieting shapes moving to and fro out of the corners of his vision, and there was a light - green and sickly, lapping about like noxious waves. There were voices, whispering to him, words he could barely hear - more sound than substance.

But none of that struck him as odd as the sudden appearance of Gavin. That didn't make any sense.... His eyes pulled from the distance, glassy and dark, and blinked. Once, twice.

"Gav--"

His head cocked, mud pooling behind his ears, as he frowned up at him.

"...where did, how did..."

[slipshot]

The tears were hot and sudden, nearly blinding. His arms immediately went to pick up Maxwell up, and he barked back at his supervisor: "Help me!"

"I've been released," Gavin said quickly as he got his arm under Maxwell's shoulder. "You're going to hurt yourself, being out here - We'll get you to the healer's tents -- Maxwell, I'm so sorry, please--"

[scuzzy]

Back behind Gavin, his babysitter looks unimpressed.

He also looks fevered. It would be nice if that were the source of his attitude, but no—he's just really unimpressed by the fact that he has to be here at all, by the human falling down, by his charge running off to help him, by the fact that he's being forced to care, etc. Basically everything.

"'Released,' yeah," he says, coming closer despite all of that. "You've been real fucking released. Me, though—" Chained to Dalish. Metaphorically. Ugh. But he slides under the human's other arm and does some ungentle and slightly ineffective (on account of being short) hefting-up. "Good to know people with no blighted sense run in packs."

[dreadinquisitor]

He didn't to notice the pulling and prodding, all of his bleary attention focused on Gavin's face, staring at him as if he expected him to disappear. To flash away like the others, in and out, in and out...

He started to reach out, fingers trembling toward Gavin's face, just as the other elf hauled on him hard. Off-balance his dead weight nearly sent them both back into the mud.

[slipshot]

"Don't mind Dax," Gavin said quickly over the Elf's muttering. "He thinks he's a cactu--" He quickly shifts his weight, slamming his back foot hard into the ground to keep himself up right.

"It's okay. You'll - you'll be alright, I promise, we'll just -" He shot Dax a helpless look. "-- We'll get you to the healing tents."

At the end of the Illness, after Maxwell's Fever breaks

[slipshot]

It had been several days, but people were finally starting to recover. Maxwell had been sleeping the last several hours, and Gavin had fallen asleep next to him - head resting on his arm against the bed, sitting on a stool he had managed to scrounge from somewhere. He woke first, feeling Maxwell stirring, and sat up, blinking.

"Maxwell? Are you alright? Do you need anything?"

[dreadinquisitor]

Days of fever and sweats that left him weak and shuttering. Days of sights and sounds only he could hear, leaving him wondering after his sanity... Maxwell wasn't sad to it see go. However dry and cracked his mouth felt, how his Adam's apple seemed to grind in the dust of his throat. At least all he could see were the familiar walls of his room, and Gavin, tired, but wonderfully real beside him.

He blinked blearily and tried to work himself up onto his elbows.

"...Water?" he croaked.

[slipshot]

"Of course," He murmured, quickly stepping over to where a jug of water lay, filling a glass and returning.

"You should sit up," He added, frowning, holding the glass in one hand as he grabbed a pillow in the other. "Here - I'll put this behind your back--"

[dreadinquisitor]

It took some effort, but he managed to - for the first time in days - get himself upright, bending forward until Gavin slipped the pillow behind him and he could lean back with a sigh.

"Thank you--" he rasped, holding out his then free hands to take the glass.

The water was cold, so cold against his so dry throat - it almost hurt. But the edge was quickly followed by relief, and he swallowed deeply. Again and again, until he'd reached the bottom and he had to gasp for a breathe.

[slipshot]

"Easy - Easy, Maxwell, you'll hurt yourself," Gavin said, worry creasing his brow, his hand resting on Maxwell's shoulder to steady him.

"There's plenty more, but - please take it slowly."

[dreadinquisitor]

Already worn out from just holding the water filled cup aloft, his arm dropped heavily, empty glass at his side as he breathed. Deep, full breaths. Through his mouth first, then through his nose, as his heart steadied and he relaxed.

His immediate, desperate concern seen too.

Then he was free to turn his eyes to the elf beside him, gaze still tired, but clearer than it had been. Actually, truly, seeing Gavin for the first time.

After a moment, he smiled, his head turning to rest his cheek against the pillow.

"You're actually here."