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

[fleurdesel]

She tries not to let it sting, that uncertainty, that wariness. It is one thing to discuss the nature of a spirit of an Abomination with Maria and assure her that it can be cured- another entirely to have her aware of Compassion's presence in her life and her healing. For her to see it for herself and seem so tense...

She ought to have expected this. Templars do not care for spirits anymore than they do demons.

"It is a symptom of the illness. The Veil is not thinned but...less opaque. For me it is slightly less disorienting as I have heard spirits to some degree or another my entire life. But those unaccustomed to it- even Dwarves are seeing these things." And dwarves do not dream. "How long have you been ill?"

[nofury]

"Maker preserve us. The dwarves..."

She could not imagine it. To go a life time without dreams, without even the touch of what lyrium could do. Then to have it all opened up...

Maria doesn't quite break contact, but she brings a hand up to cover the lower part of her face.

"We'll need an announcement within the Inquisition. A calming voice to explain what is happening, before they all go mad."

The personal questions are either not heard or brushed aside, her focus on the wide spread effect of so many seeing what they could not explain. What they had no training in dealing with.

[fleurdesel]

"Maria-" Well. She makes a point. With everyone that is working to find the source of this illness, to mitigate the spread and try to find a cure? They have no excuse not to write up some sort of missive about what the symptoms are, what to do, and how no one truly needs to panic. "I will speak to the other healers and see it done."

That much she can promise.

Adelaide's hand drops from Maria's forehead to her shoulder, squeezing to get her attention. "Maria, how long have you been ill?"

[nofury]

"I- I'm not sure."

She gives a shrug with it, dismissing it as unimportant. Maria was accustomed to shrugging off small aches and pains, minor fevers and headaches. It wasn't until she began seeing that she was concerned.

"I've seen them for the past day. That's the issue that needs to be solved."

[fleurdesel]

"It is a symptom of the illness." And Maria has been seeing them if not ill for a day. Likely longer. "Come with me to the healing tent- we can assist with some of the sickness."

[nofury]

She gives a small shake of her head.

"I'll survive- I'm not happy, but it's not life threatening. Unless what you're doing is some secret form of restful healing?"

She raises an eyebrow, daring Adele to challenge her that she must go to the tent when the equally, if not more so, mage was running around as if nothing were different.

[fleurdesel]

"You should be in a proper bed, not sitting in the library waiting for me." For she has no doubt in her mind Maria was waiting for her to offer something a little less public than she'd have gotten in the healing tents.

[nofury]

"Is it deadly?"

There is heavy doubt in her tone, but she'll ask. If the answer is yes, quite few things will be changing.

[fleurdesel]

"Any fever might be if neglected." But so long as they are treated, as it breaks? All might be well. "You need to be resting, Maria."

[nofury]

"Most of Skyhold needs it. But if anyone starts attacking vague blue glows, there needs to be someone."

Particularly if there were mages going at it. Maker forbid.


"Just like they need healers."

[fleurdesel]

"And you will be better able to help them if you've taken some time to recover. Two hours without you will not be the end of Skyhold."

Stubborn woman.