OPEN ↠ HARING EVENT

[faderifting]

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.

Comments

[misdirection_hex]

It's a joke that actually makes him laugh, in spite of the circumstances--a joke perhaps even funnier to an entropy mage, who never can escape the teasing (at best, and condescension at worst) from creation mages accusing them of just the same flaw.

Then again, perhaps they have the right of it to be so self-satisfied; he'll need one of them or another in the event that he does need to grow back a bit of earlobe. But he has not been given any reason to doubt Araceli's well-sung skills with a blade, even if it proves less effective in the end than her fingers, and he manages to keep the little yelp of pain to himself when the thing finally comes free and takes several strands with it. "Venatori do," he points out, "and if we can unleash enough of these things on them, we'll have all Tevinter at our feet in a fortnight. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what they were in the storeroom for."

It's as neat a removal job as he could possibly ask for, and he's about to thank her profusely for it when he spies the little flung-away menace rolling back toward them, going for Araceli's leg. Quickly, trying to aim well even with two of them still fluttering spiny little leaves in his eyes, he makes to stomp on it before it can get there.

[foxsays]

Oh Vandelin, do you know how long it's been since hearing someone laugh so easily over something so little, so simple happened in her life? Too long. Too long. She'd pause if the things weren't in danger of coming for her fingers, instead she smiles, soft, a touch of fondness to it with a murmur of apology about his hair.

(Her own is of course one of if not her chief vanity. She would have screamed the place down if it had been the other way about.)

"If I'd have known only weeks ago--" Well, there were Venatori in the Gallows after all. "Perhaps I'd have thrown these rather than knives, it might have been less messy in the aftermath. Still, they should be in a box. In a box. With locks." Is she being dramatic? Maybe. But consider that Kirkwall and the Gallows decided to freeze worse than Skyhold ever had then be full of extra little hazards; holes in the roof to try not to fall through, strange little sea urchins on land that want to eat whatever they come into contact with.

Rude.

Araceli jumps when Vandelin moves and-- "Not these boots you little shit!" Yes that hair pin is also a knife, she is half-sea, half-knives, tossing one even to scare it (can you scare such things willing to eat everything in their path from the hair onwards?) as she redoubles her efforts in the Let Vandelin See initiative.