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

[ancarrow]

Eirlys drags one of the camp beds they've been using for the sick and wounded closer so that Korrin has somewhere a little safer to land if she keels over again. "Can you sit down for me? I need to check you over."

[gatheringstorm]

"...alright." Heaving a sigh, Korrin rather gracelessly plops down onto the cot. Her shoulders sag almost instantly, and she has to hold her head up with a hand. Should Eirlys touch her, she'll realize quickly that the Vashoth woman is burning up, the flush of fever visible on her cheeks.

[ancarrow]

She places the back of her hand on Korrin's forehead, feeling the familiar burn of fever and frowning a little. "Have you any other symptoms?"

[gatheringstorm]

"Well, either I'm hallucinating or I can suddenly see and hear spirits and shit like the Veil's nothing. But the Veil itself isn't any thinner, I know that much. It's all brief snippets and muttering, though; if I try to focus, it all slides away and they shut up." Korrin frowns, deeply annoyed by that nonsense. She's no medium and she doesn't want their 'gift', if it's anything like this.

[ancarrow]

Eirlys holds Korrin's cheek in a way that her eye won't blink shut then holds a candle close by, observing the way her pupils dilate. "Any headaches? Keeping your food down?"

[gatheringstorm]

"I haven't had the appetite to test the food thing, but yeah, the headaches are there. Pretty persistent, too. I wouldn't call it a migraine, but still." It's not pleasant and she's not going to pretend it is, though Korrin will stay still so Eirlys can have the needed examination.

[ancarrow]

"And when would you say your symptoms first came on?" She wished desperately that she could write, could take notes to compare from patient to patient instead of committing it all to memory.

[gatheringstorm]

"Um...." Korrin needs a minute, her mind isn't as clear as it is usually. "...maybe a day or so ago? Not much longer than that. I was just fine before then, and I can't think of anything that would have made me sick. Nothing that stands out, anyway. But become come and go all the time, right? Someone could have brought it and left before it spread."

[ancarrow]

"That's likely," Eirlys agrees, leaning over to route through her supplies for anything that might relieve Korrin's symptoms. "If it were anything native to Skyhold, we should have got sick long before now."

[gatheringstorm]

"Exactly." She huffs, then reaches up to rub at her temple. "If I have to rest, I want something to knock me out. Don't want to deal with Fade-stuff more than I have to, especially now."

[ancarrow]

"I have something that should knock you out for a few hours." At least, she hopes it will, but she's never tested any of her concoctions on a Qunari before; it's very likely it will have a weaker effect on Korrin. "Though I can't promise these hallucinations won't still be there when you wake up."

[gatheringstorm]

"Maker bless you, Eirlys." Not even one mention of Andraste's various body parts, a true sign of illness if there ever is one. Korrin nods, understand the limitations as best as her fogged mind will allow. "They probably will be, but to escape them for even a few hours is something. I'll take it."

[ancarrow]

"Unfortunately I'm going to have to ask you to stay here to keep an eye on you for the time being." She rises, holding out a lozenge she's made up, containing Prophet's Laurel berries to knock her out and Embrium to break the fever. "It's likely this sickness has spread all over Skyhold by now, but we'd rather keep anyone with confirmed symptoms somewhere they won't spread it further."

[gatheringstorm]

"You ask so much of me." Korrin sighs but can't deny the logic behind all that, much as she hates being in the healing tents any longer than necessary. The company is fine, but idleness doesn't wear well on her, even like this. "Araceli will come looking for me, then. If see a tiny human woman with a lot of curls and what seems like an Antivan accent, that's her. Oh, and she has a fox."

[ancarrow]

"I'm afraid I won't be able to let her in to see you, in case she gets sick too." Although she supposed it wouldn't really make that much difference, with how rampant this illness seems to be around Skyhold. "But I'll look out for her. Is there anything specific you'd like me to tell her?"

[gatheringstorm]

"We share the same quarters, the same bed and the same food. She's probably going to get sick anyway, because of me." Korrin sighs, already feeling guilty about that...but knowing that Araceli will do as she pleases whatever the orders from the healers. So, there's no point in protesting, when that rule will inevitably be broken. "Just that I'll try to get back to her as soon as possible. I don't want her worrying more than she's already doing. And...thank you."

[ancarrow]

"It's possible she'd get sick regardless of that," Eirlys says quickly, knowing that such close contact with an infected person would of course magnify the chances greatly, but feeling certain there's nothing worse for a patient than to be blaming themselves for either their own condition or that of others. "Or it's entirely possible that she won't get sick at all, and that's the best you can tell yourself for now." She holds out the lozenge and a glass of water. "Here, take this. While you sleep, I'll try to find a way to make the hallucinations stop."

[gatheringstorm]

Vastly preferring her bedside manner over some of the other healers she's met, Korrin obeys this time. She's been known to resist out of sheer contrariness, but right now the lack of antagonism combined with that bone-deep weariness are winning out. "You'd have a lot of grateful people if you could pull that off, me included. I'll...try to sleep. If the spirits can shut up."

[ancarrow]

"Then sleep well. I'll have some soup waiting for you when you wake up." She squeezes her shoulder reassuringly, then leaves her to lay down.