faderift | OPEN ↠ HARING EVENT

WHO: All
WHAT: WINTER IS HERE
WHEN: Haring 15-Wintermarch 1
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: You can use this post as an event-style mingle log, or just use it as background information for your RP elsewhere!

It's been a chilly month already, but in mid-Haring the temperature suddenly plummets. One day it's merely cold, and the next morning the Inquisition wakes to frost on the inside of the window panes and an icy draft whistling through every crack in the tower's masonry. Downstairs, the pipes that feed the bathing chambers and the kitchens creak in the walls, loud enough to be heard even out in the courtyard, where they run beneath the stones, and around midday, when the sun has failed to raise the temperature above freezing, a blocked pipe finally gives, cracking open to spill water across the central court and send it running down side passages. The whole area floods several inches deep and almost immediately begins to freeze, presenting at first a gigantic, treacherous slush puddle and, after a few hours, a sheet of sheer ice.

Melting a safe path from door to door and laying down sand or wood to keep it from becoming slick again is a simple enough undertaking, but before the entire courtyard can be thawed, someone appears with ice skates—and that’s a better idea, surely, for at least a few days. Anyone who complains about the frivolity can be assured it’s good exercise, not to mention good training for a force that may have to travel or fight on ice in the future.

Temperatures remain cold enough that even some parts of the harbor begin to freeze, first just at the calmest edges of the shoreline, and then the more protected nooks and crannies of the bay, inlets and the spaces between piers and beneath docks. It snows most days--not real storms, just a couple inches here and there--little enough for the window to blow most of it off the icy plain of the courtyard and other wide open, paved spaces, accumulating on branches and in alleyways, and creating growing drifts in corners and against walls.

After a week or so actual chunks of floating ice begin to fill the narrow channels of the harbor, threatening smaller and less-sturdy vessels, and the situation in the poorer parts of the city begins to grow dire. With the Viscount's blessing, Inquisition teams (particularly mages) are called in to help. Some are assigned to the docks, to clear ice that makes landing and unloading treacherous, others to help escort ships into harbor by melting a path ahead. Others are sent into Lowtown to clear ice and snow and to provide warmth and medical attention where needed. At least one mage is sent with each team, and while many neighborhoods are pleasantly surprised and grateful for the quick work fire glyphs make of cold hearths and frozen streets, a few are unable to overcome their distrust, and refuse the teams entry, determined to take care of their own without the help of dangerous outsiders.

In the last week of the year, a true blizzard strikes, snow falling steadily for more than a day, blanketing the city at least three feet deep. Digging out the Gallows will be a group effort, and most non-essential trips outside the base will be cancelled for a few days until travel is less difficult, while those who reside in the city or elsewhere may be encouraged to stay a night or two in the fortress so they might continue to work without traveling through the storm. But on the first day of Wintermarch the First Day feast goes on as planned, with modest but plentiful food and ale served in the Gallows' dining hall for anyone who wishes to celebrate the new year.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

'Ask one of the mages' probably had been the other thing someone said. After all a bunch of them were being tasked with thawing out chunks of snow and ice every which way since the temperature had started to drop. And from the looks of it - which was slosh about a few inches deep by now - Sam was going to have a lot of work ahead of him.

And this is how he met Kit. Quite the introduction.

"Yeah, sure," he says, stepping closer and holding up said axe. "Do you need me to hold the torch, or... you know, make a better light?"

"No, no, no magic, just--just hold the torch," Kit says a touch quickly, glancing back at Sam to offer him a quick smile of thanks. He offers out the torch, then takes the axe by its haft and looks back to the pipe, leaning this way and that to sort out the best way to start.

"Shit. What a mess."

How quickly Kit responds to the suggestion of magic is noted, but it doesn't seem to bother Sam at all. Course it's nice that it's being said in a kind manner, and a smile to boot; a nice change of pace.

With the torch and axe being traded off, Sam falls silent for a time, trying not to crowd the dwarf while trying to get a better look himself.

"Tell me about it. Taking a soak in freezing cold water wasn't really on my list of things to do today. Or ever." Look he liked cooler weather, but this was too much.

"Starting to understand the appeal of a dust bath," Kit says dryly. "Not that there's much of that to be had around here right now anyway. Way too much sodding snow."

Doing this properly would require more precision tools--and expertise--than Kit actually has, but what he does have is an axe, some spare piping, and... and that's it. Hopefully no one plans to turn the water back on anytime soon.

It only takes two solid swings of his axe to cleave out the section of pipe that's been damaged by the cold. Once he's affixed the new section into place, applying a bit of some sealing unguent in the process, he steps back and grimaces. "That needs to be heated up for the seal to hold, I expect," he says grimly, hesitates, then glances back at Sam. "Don't suppose you know how to summon just a little bit of fire, do you?"

"Not as appealing as you might think. At least I hadn't found it fun." The Western Approach kind of forced it upon you, and Sam had not been a fan of how it got everywhere, and stuck. He'll take water, thanks. Even cold water, he can deal with that. Freezing though was a step too far.

When it becomes obvious that Kit was going to start swinging, Sam takes a step back. As much as he wants to see what was going on, he certainly doesn't want any unnecessary injuries to transpire - he's not looking to get a black eye or anything, thanks.

Sam doesn't say anything right away when he hears the bit about the pipe needing to be heated. From the sounds of it, Kit already knew that magic was going to be needed - obviously they sent a mage for a reason - but he didn't want to right out suggest using magic considering the discomfort the dwarf had expressed about its use not too long ago.

"I certainly don't need a lot of fire. So, yes. But it's going to need to be about the size of my hand... and it's going to take a little bit of time. We'll have to be careful not heating it up too quickly or the metal will become brittle. I don't fancy coming back out to fix a broken pipe again."

That gives him a pause, and Kit raises his eyebrows, quite intrigued. "Sounds like you know your way around this kind of thing better than I do, salroka," he remarks. Clambering down the small ladder and, very reluctantly, dropping down into the ankle-deep frigid water in the corridor (with a mutter of "sod's balls," as he does so), he motions to the ladder, for Sam to climb it instead. "I'll hold this thing steady."

"Pipes? No. But I'm a blacksmith, so you can say I know a bit about metals," he says, chuckling lightly. "Guess that's how I got picked to come out here."

Sam holds the ladder as Kit climbs down, then offers him the torch once he seems steady on his feet. He gives a soft 'thanks' at the offer of holding the ladder then proceeds to switch places so that he can climb up to where he needed to seal the pipe. Taking a moment to make sure his feet were secure, Sam then proceeds to produce a small flame in the palm of his hand, and starts to warm the section of pipe where the unguent should be.

"What's 'salroka' mean?"

"Oh. It means, 'friend,'" Kit says absently, like he hadn't really thought about it in a while, which is probably the truth. The word has layers of meaning to it that make it a versatile term, one that can be hurled at an enemy before a fight or shared with a friend over a drink.

He mulls it over while watching Sam heat the pipe with the flame conjured into his palm. The sight of the magic unsettles him, but he keeps his grip on the ladder steady. "A blacksmith and a mage? That's a first, in my experience."

"'Friend', huh?" He guesses there is multiple meanings to that seeing that at this point of time they wouldn't be considered 'friend-friends', considering they had only just met. Honestly, Kit could have said the word meant something completely else and he would have believed it.

Even though he was pretty steady as it was, Sam does appreciate that the ladder is being kept in place, regardless of Kit's current predicament - not that he can see that since he's rather focused at the moment. "First in a lot of people's experience really," he says, followed by a pause as he moves his hand to better warm the backside of the pipe. "My father, and my father's father, were both blacksmiths. I grew up expecting to do that same... up until they took me to the Circle that is. When I joined the Inquisition... I was given the chance to do it again. So here I am, a blacksmith and a mage."

OPEN ↠ HARING EVENT

Damn pipes

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