faderift | 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

"Hear some. See...some." She leans, propping her chin on her arms and pouting. "I'm not going to ask the stupid question and ask if this is what you guys see all the time, because it's obviously not. Or you wouldn't be arguing with the air. But you have to be at least a little more used to this...whatever is going on." Honestly it's freaking her right out.

Korrin shrugs and turns up the palms of her hands. "Only slightly. I'm no Spirit Healer or medium. The only times I see spirits or demons is near a rift or when in the Fade. This whole song and dance of noticing them wherever is very much new...and I'm no fan." Even the more benign ones she'd rather have out of the way, so her expression is nothing short of sympathetic. "I can't imagine how much weirder it has to be for you. It's like a taste of being a mage, without the good parts."

She doesn't want to admit to weakness (the whole being terrified out of her mind thing), but she isn't going to lie and say she's fine. "The only times dwarves see...weird visions, I guess you could say is when some of the miner caste starts suffering from lyrium poisoning. They start going mad. It's the closest anyone gets to seeing spirits or entering the Fade. So...yeah. It's weird. And even though I know other people can see them now, too, I still feel like I'm going crazy. I don't know what it means. Dwarves can't...they just can't. Everyone knows that."

"Yeah, exactly." Korrin nods, sympathetic even as she can't quite comperehend what it must be like to be completely separate from the Fade. "At least they shut up if you focus on them, for whatever reason. Passive-aggressive shits. But even that gets old, after a while. So, my brilliant idea is find something strong enough to knock yourself out with, then you won't have to deal with them for a while. Gives the healers more time to focus on fixing this, too."

"More like give the healers a big drunk passed out sick qunari to haul to the nearest bedroll," she points out. And healers tend to, from what she's seen, not be the most muscled and physically hardy people for carrying around...yeah. "Maybe for a change you should try listening to the ones that aren't talking directly at you. So you don't threaten thin air that you're going to fuck it up."

Rachette has a point, but Korrin's not entirely discouraged from her idea. "What if I drink it by a bedroll and then pass out on it? Then they won't have to drag me anywhere." She smirks at the notion, then grows more thoughtful. "As long as they aren't demons, I might see if they have anything worth listening to. All I know is that the Veil isn't thinned, but -maybe- they know something more."

"Spirits, demons, I don't know how you people tell the difference," she scoffs with a shake of her head. There are things out of the corners of her eyes. Far away voices that blend with the dampened tavern chatter. "At least back in Orzammar, you had darkspawn and...darkspawn. You didn't have any difference, it's just all evil. And able to be stabbed. You can't stab a spirit."

"Demons are assholes, usually trying to tempt you into doing something stupid. Spirits more often do their own thing. That and most are as ugly as sin. Makes 'em easy to tell apart." Noticing the same things, Korrin tries to keep her gaze on them without moving, so they'll shut up or at least be quieter. "Believe me, I'd take fighting darkspawn in the Deep Roads over this crap. At least then I could do it upright."

"There's never been any qunari Grey Wardens, have there? The Deep Roads tunnels are more than big enough for someone that big. And I bet they'd do an impressive job helping clear out darkspawn." She shrugs. "Maybe there's too much bad blood." Hahaha. "I'm pretty sure this is the biggest concentration of qunari this far south, and most people have never seen one."

Beats talking about the Fade and spirits and demons more. Better than letting panic get the better of her.

"Yeah, I get reminded of that a lot almost everywhere I go. At least in Skyhold the staring is usually just from the newcomers now. And...good question. I've never heard about qunari Grey Wardens either, but now I want to ask someone about it. Not to join them, just because." Korrin smirks weakly as a memory comes to mind. "I was in the Deep Roads before, with my company. We camped and I was foolish enough to try Asaaranda's new hooch...and I woke up in a Legion of the Dead camp sometime later. They told me I tried to join them, though obviously that didn't take. The others found me not long after."

"Bet they loved the help of a drunken mage qunari though, throwing around lightening at all those darkspawn. They usually don't mind getting some help." She makes a face, both amused and disgusted. "You'd have to get plenty of tattoos on your face, though. Not exactly the same as that paint stuff I've seen some of you put on. You'd probably have regretted it."

Wrinkling her nose, Korrin sighs. "I'm not fond of anything on my face, vitaar or tattoos. I'd totally get something on my ass, though, so I could moon darkspawn with it." And isn't that what's important, in the end? "They thought it was fucking hilarious, at least. I guess if you're fighting darkspawn day in and day out, it gets monotonous. Anything that breaks it up is a welcome change, however weird."

She snorts a laugh, almost inhaling her drink. "You'd have to be quick about mooning darkspawn or they're liable to get you right where the fire don't light. Might as well paint it a target. 'Place sword here', that'll wake you up to sobriety real fast. Could at least buy you dinner first."

"Ugh, no mention of food, please. Ever since this crap hit, I can't stand to even look at it. Nothing wants to go down. And I'm sure if I tried, it wouldn't stay down either."

OPEN: Cloudreach Event

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