In the turning of the seasons, in life and death

[motherfucking_ghost]

WHO: Church, Malcolm, Rachette, YOU
WHAT: Present timeline catch-all
WHEN: Guardian /wiggly hand
WHERE: Up down all around Skyhold
NOTES: Nab me on plurk if you want a specific starter

Church is starting to spend a lot more time in the tavern than he ever did before. Sometimes he's just hanging around, taking some notes. Sometimes he's cleaning up tables with a rag. Sometimes you can actually see him in the back doing what may or may not be actual work. Crazy! He's also spending quite a bit of time around the stables, trying really hard not to look intimidated by the steeds, learning to put on saddles, and you may even see him up on one. This is madness. This is Skyhold.

Rachette does a lot of training, whether it's with her blades, doing her best to cut up a dummy, or doing sick backflips off walls or generally trying to get her parkour on, or at a table with a bunch of scrap fiddling with traps. She's also fond of going out hunting. You can perhaps find her debating with a merchant about the price of turning a rabbit pelt into a pair of gloves or a nice hat. She sometimes hangs nearby classes without trying to look like she's actually sitting in. Learning but not like...being a nerd okay shut up who likes learning not her.

Malcolm hovers around the healer tents more than he ever usually does, either visiting those injured or getting injuries checked up on. He also seems to be making a point of starting to see if there's anything he can do to help despite not being a healer. His training has more to do with keeping the skills he does have sharp, whether through archery (where he has an interesting new bow that hasn't made an appearance yet), or working out, or sparring. He's willing to give advice to people that seek it. And as ever, there's always some point where he can be seen around the kennels or otherwise being with is poodle companion Milady, playing, training, being at least mildly adorable.

Comments

[sistertohermen]

She drops in on classes from time to time, when she stumbles on them, because sometimes it's better than anything else she could be doing. She's picking up odds and ends. Korrin's talking about grenades, which is something she's honestly only heard whispers and rumors about before, not seen or used. Supposedly her Carta buddies had looted a whole crate of them at one point, but, well, she hadn't seen it for herself. The coin from it was pretty good, though.

So when the class collectively moves, she goes with them, curious. So it's her curiosity that gets the better of her when she raises her hand and jumps a little, eager to try out something that should pack a lot of oomph to it. "So how very careful is very careful? Is this, you should be an archer careful, or just don't be an awful throw careful? Just need to get it to the dummy, right?"

[gatheringstorm]

"Well, look at the set-up. The dummies are spaced just far enough apart that if you aim it right, you won't singe any others. That's why they're staggered, too. We need you to incinerate your enemies, not your team. Some upgrades can expand the range, too, but we'll get to that later. Go ahead, let's see what you can do with it."

Korrin nods encouragingly, as the precautions given are enough where there aren't too many other volunteers. They're waiting for someone else to take the first shot; better that than being foolhardy, but she'd much rather have active volunteers than volunteer someone.

[sistertohermen]

"Yeah, but...if you're going to throw something like this, you figure you'll throw it into a pack of bad guys instead of using it to try and take out one. It's not really an assassin's tool."

Buuuut that is entirely beside the point, she realizes, eyeballing the range. She's tried out throwing knives before, finds it better to just hurl her dagger at someone if she really needs to. So she knows she's got good arms, it's the aim that might be...off. She gives it a chuck from the invisible throwing line, landing it behind and right of the dummy she was aiming for, and it singes one she wasn't going for and just misses doing anything to the one she was. It still looks impressive to her, though.

"Heh...whoops."

[gatheringstorm]

The burst of flames has nearly everyone taking a step back, even though they aren't in range. Korrin's eyebrows raise for a moment, but she quickly recovers to make it a teaching point.

"Some of you've seen me throw that kind of grenade before; see how much brighter the flames burn now? That's why you have to be so careful; grenades don't discriminate. She's right, though, the best thing you can do with these kind of weapons is chuck them at groups of enemies. It doesn't even have to get them all to be effective; if some scatter unharmed, it's still easier to deal with them than as a united force."

She nods back to Rachette, not upset since she was expecting this to need some practice. No one got hurt, and that's what matters. "Aim isn't mastered in one throw, anyway. That's what practice is for. We have enough for several more attempts, so have at if you're ready. That goes for the rest of you, too. Let's see what you've got; and take the tonics class, if you get the chance. You might not always have a mage to make a barrier for you, so it's smart to have your own means of defense."

[sistertohermen]

Wow. She's all grinning for the brief semi-praise, and also? This is cool. Underground, it would only be effective when getting a lot of darkspawn in a small corridor, or in a vastly open space. The blowback might be extreme, or the old roads of the deep too uncertain to remain standing, but out here there's less chance of accidentally roasting yourself.

"Oh, what sort of fighting would you recommend this for? Everyone could use it, yeah, but if you're some swordfighter running in to slash people, you're probably not going to have a lot of these stored away. Could you use them as a distraction, or is that a waste of resources? Would there be a practical use for making one really small?" Maybe this is one of the reasons she doesn't go to classes much. The eternal string of questions.

[gatheringstorm]

Well, Korrin doesn't seem to mind the questions as long as they're genuine and she isn't just asking them to be a troll. Knowledge of how best to use grenades in battle could prove to be vital, after all. She gestures for the others to begin their throws, speaking over the blasts as they happen.

"Well, how small? If you need to stretch out your resources or make sure they can fit through a thin opening, I'd say you could probably get away with smaller grenades...to a point. Make them much smaller, though, and they won't be very effective unless you're fighting a mouse or something. Which, don't waste grenades on those.

"Also, I'm a firm believe in there being no such thing as a waste of resources when it comes to distractions. Even if those aren't your forte, it's good to have something ready just in case things go tits-up and you're suddenly the only person who can pull that off. Though unless there's a reason you need set something on fire, I'd go for jars of bees in that case. That's next class." It's said with a completely straight face, too.

"This is best for when you have plenty of room to maneuver or your enemy doesn't, so they can't escape what's coming. Just make sure you can. Being surrounded by pitch or having your mind fogged can end up being just as deadly as antivan fire, if your enemies take advantage of it."

[sistertohermen]

The questions are indeed genuine and honest. This isn't a class she drops in on much, missing a lot of the details, and she always wonders. She might have to come to jar-of-bees class, though. Jars of bees. Which ones are bees?? Why would you put them in jars?? She almost veers them off asking those, but--next class.

"But say there's some lock you can't open, and you don't have time to brute force it. Could you blow one up with a small enough grenade? The...boom kind, not the pitch or the any other ones." Of course the rogue asks about lockpicking uses for explosives.

"And if you did get caught too close, if you've got a mage along with, could they be able to help negate some of the effects?"

[gatheringstorm]

That's an interesting approach, and Korrin grins after she checks to make sure that no one's blowing themselves up. "You know, you probably could. I haven't heard of anyone doing that, but I punched through a locked door with a Stonefist spell, once. Why not a grenade, too? Though keep in mind, even if it's small, it will still burn the shit out of whatever's in range. If you're after something important and you want it intact, you'll probably want to use other means.

And it's possible, yeah. Any mage that knows Barrier could possibly help, and that fire resistance tonic definitely would. Though if you don't want to rely on those, I'd say get a belt of fire resistance or something."

[sistertohermen]

Fire resistance might help if she has a fire rune, so she doesn't set herself on fire. That might be nice. "I promise I won't go running off to make some kind of lock blowing grenade. Yet. I should probably sit in more classes before I do that." She's not rash. Just...excited sometimes. "Figure if you're breaking into bad guy places, who really cares what's inside unless you're out to loot the place, and if you're dumb enough to keep the expensive stuff right by the door, maybe it deserves to get the shit burned out of it."

[gatheringstorm]

That gets a laugh out of Korrin. "I like the way you think. Even if we can't use it, if they can't either, it'd still be a bonus. And absolutely sit in on more classes if you want different recipes. The more versatile you can be out there, the better it'll go for all of us. We have non-flame ways to blow shit up, too, that's just the most common recipe. Ice flasks are pretty awesome, too, if you want your enemies to be ice statues for a bit."

Noting that most of the dummies aren't long for this world, she raises an eyebrow thoughtfully. "That might give our next test dummies longer lifespans, too. But first, the bees. We'll need actual targets for those." Dummies don't panic, after all.