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

[justice_is_blond]

"I'm not sure any healer is going to avoid that for much longer," he says quietly, but he's not really arguing. A glance up tells him who it is, because apparently Cole's drawings had been spot-on.

"Solas, right? Cole did an excellent job with his depiction of you." Then again, a bald elf would stand out as it was, facial features notwithstanding. A bald elf that... didn't seem to have anything hovering around him. As Bruce did not. As Anders did not. Maker's breath. If there are three of them running around possessed in Skyhold, then... Then it's not his business. It's not. He doesn't have to deal with everything, and many spirits aren't as volatile as Justice and even Justice can't argue that point.

"I'm Anders, which you should probably know before calling me friend again."

[singularwill]

"I am Solas, yes." A flicker of amusement passed his eyes at the mention of Cole, amusement and a hint of fondness. "I am glad he so easily captured my likeness."

He didn't look surprised, at the name, and instead even smiled, his hand on Ander's shoulder squeezing a little.

"Anders. I will not retract my statement, and indeed, will name you friend twice. It is a rare soul, that is willing to take up arms in the name of freedom. Rarer still, who will brave his people's hate, to ensure the survival of their world."

[justice_is_blond]

He, however, was surprised. A smile and a squeeze of his shoulder were a very rare response to his name, and Solas gets a longer look of appraisal. In response, he actually does take a seat. Justice doesn't approve, but they'll be back to work soon enough.

"No one deserves to lose their freedom simply because of their birth. To bow to a system that bases its power on putting down two groups is, should be, unthinkable. But the majority have been taught fear for all of their lives, and fear and hate are what they know. What they thrive on. No matter how low life drags them, at least they're not a mage, at least they're not an elf. Maybe they can learn to look beyond this and see what comes from equality and actually working together."

He didn't have the highest of hopes for this happening, but that wasn't going to stop him from working. Nothing worthwhile was gained easily.

"What brought you back to Skyhold?"

[singularwill]

"The majority are taught to follow rather than to think for themselves," Solas agreed. "And for a long time I had thought it impossible to find those that didn't simply strive selfishly for power, and crush those beneath them. But perhaps there are a precious few."

There was a slight twinkle in his eye, and he paused as he moved to the next patient, checking their bedding and forehead.

"I had been studying the rifts on my own, through the fade, and managed to find where the next shards would be released. But I am but one elf - I can not take the breach down alone. This is where the rest of the shards have been brought, and though I thought I could help more on my own - thought I could avoid some unpleasantness that I feared would come in the wake of the herald's death - it seems that this is where I must be, for the time being."

[justice_is_blond]

Surprise lingers on his face as he watched Solas work and heard him talk. Here, at last, was someone in the Inquisition's inner circle who wanted people to think. Leliana may seek equality, Josephine is kind, Varric decent, but this is a good sign.

"It's... easier to do things with a group than alone. Generally speaking. Though you don't want people who will simply go for the easiest way. Making change, making progress, is a balancing act. Then again, I say that as one who isn't particularly good at balancing matters." There'd been no little fear and panic and frustration involved in what he'd done.

"Would you share what you've learned of the rifts? Or a little of it. I've not the time to make a study of them, but if there's a way to use one to get a wayward spirit home..." Everyone who knows who he is knows he's possessed. It's just the way of things, at this point.