Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
faderifting) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
faderift2017-11-02 10:53 am
faderifting) wrote in faderift2017-11-02 10:53 am
OPEN: Satinalia
WHO: Everyone
WHAT: SATINALIA
WHEN: Firstfall 1
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Party hard, use content warnings, move explicit content to inboxes.
WHAT: SATINALIA
WHEN: Firstfall 1
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: Party hard, use content warnings, move explicit content to inboxes.
Named for Satina, the smaller of Thedas' two moons, Satinalia is a celebration of freedom, marked by wild celebration, pranks, the donning of costumes and masks -- not the fine, delicate masks of Orlais, but animals and caricatures and playful horrors -- and the exchange of gifts both sincere and satirical.
There is no party at the Gallows, but those who can be spared on Satinalia may be given the night off to join Kirkwall's celebration, which spans the entire city and will take several days to peter out. Hightown plays host to lavish balls—but you'll need an invitation, and the unlucky guards posted at the stairs leading into the nobles' district are especially on guard for mischief-makers. There's no such crackdown in Lowtown, where masked revelers spill out of taverns and into the streets, often bringing barrels of ale along with them. Even Darktown gets involved, in its own way: anyone who can afford a celebration goes to Lowtown, but some of the roving bands of thieves in the tunnels don animal masks for the occasion.
And near the docks, enterprising children draped in white cloth are selling admission to a "haunted" warehouse for one copper. Adorable—except that some of the partiers exiting seem genuinely terrified, with one unfortunate man even having wet himself. Taking the children up on their offer will reveal that they have a genuine haunting on their hands. Doors slam, objects fly, footsteps appear in the dirt floor. There's laughter at the edge of hearing and movement on the edge of vision, and brief snatches of a sea shanty sung in a monotone. Make a hasty exit, or try to find the source.
no subject
Jogging to catch up, Kit is actually a bit winded by the time he catches up to the Medicine Seller, waving off the kids with a couple of candies and a few coppers. He heads into the crumbling building--and then jolts with widening eyes as the pot hits the door right above his head.
"Sodding ancestors--" He crouches down to examine the pot guardedly, then shoots a look at the Medicine Seller. Any annoyance at him over trying to sneak away is gone. "We've got to find something else to do for fun one of these days."
no subject
Without another word, he pressed on into the darkness, already lighting one of those paper lanterns. When that was floating serenely above their heads, the Medicine Seller got down to his real work.
With a gesture, one by one the scales levitated from their drawer in the medicine box to land in single file along the edge of the wall. This was routine - they seemed to know where the Medicine Seller wanted them even before he had the drawer open.
"What a dark place. I wonder if we will run into others."
jumpin' in as per liz, if you'd prefer separate threads no sweat just lmk ♥
Intoned abruptly by a deep, hollow voice. A tall shadowy figure looms up from the darkness behind Kit's shoulder —
"Most of them left." Casimir unfolds his hands to prod lightly at one of the lanterns. "But it's still here."
He turns his eyes over them both with bland disinterest; they're both plainly Inquisition (everyone with the anchors acts under their domain). It slots them into ally as much as anything might.
"Did you speak with the children?"
no subject
"No," he says after a pause, recalling the question, and looks from Casimir back to the Medicine Seller. His eyebrows draw together into a deep frown. "...Mind clarifying what you mean by 'it'?"
no subject
"That they permit people to leave is peculiar."
He glanced over his shoulder, the deep shadows making his mask only more ferocious looking.
"Perhaps who they want has not yet come."
no subject
"I didn't speak with them either," Theys blend, but children and spirit alike have evaded that much. The former seems an oversight now, but he doubts it would have gotten very far. "The visitors left afraid. We saw, and we came,"
More of us. It doesn't mean that whatever's here wants fear; it does mean it probably isn't friendly.
(Are there friendly ways to pitch pots at skulls?)
"What are those measuring?"
no subject
--that's when he hears it, so faint at first that he's sure he must be imagining it, hearing as bad as his:
...my clothes are all in pawn,
go down you blood red roses, go down...
He rises up from his crouch and fixes the doorway leading into the rest of the house with an intense, scrutinizing stare. "Either of you hear that?"
no subject
He seemed about to ask a question when he too heard the song, probably quite a bit more keenly with his ears that seemed big even as elves went.
"I did," he confirmed, as the final three scales that emerged from his pack settled on each of their shoulders. They bowed in turn to Kit and Casimer. They may have been strange little devices, but at least they were polite.
"I doubt it needs to be said, but let us proceed with caution."
no subject
Not quite interest, perhaps, but attention regardless. An afterthought to comment upon the song (how often, how literally these places echo): "We'll want that direction."
Whether it intends to mislead them or not, following its wants is the surest way to divine its reasons.
"I'll go first," He offers, moves around Kit with an offered smile. It doesn't track with the rest of his face, caught and skewed crooked by lantern-light. "I won't interest it."
The boards creak beneath his feet.