faderift | MOD EVENT: WINTERMARCH WINTER MARCH

Entry tags:

MOD EVENT: WINTERMARCH WINTER MARCH

WHO: Anyone & Everyone
WHAT: Winter adventures as Riftwatch heads up into the Vinmark Mountains to do some work for (Provisional) Viscount Bran of Kirkwall
WHEN: Throughout Wintermarch and early Guardian
WHERE: Vinmark Mountains
NOTES: OOC post

Still-Provisional Viscount Bran has received a number of requests for aid from communities in the Vinmark mountains outside Kirkwall. He wants to keep them happy so that they continue to pay taxes to Kirkwall and don't become problematically independent or allied with some other state. But he also doesn't want to deal with this shit, and the City Guard isn't really equipped to go tromp around the mountains in the winter. So he has asked Riftwatch to deal with this, casting it as a shared danger (if any communities were to break away, they'd be more vulnerable to enemy collaboration, or hampering travel through the passes, and things like that) but if necessary will imply that Riftwatch's refusal would weigh unfavorably against the decision to allow them to remain in the Gallows for free.

This work isn't done at the exclusion of all else--other normal (and especially high-priority) work continues. Any work that isn't especially time-sensitive may be postponed, and otherwise agents will simply have to forfeit their free time and fit this work in on top of their other responsibilities. Something for people to complain about while they're tromping through the snow.

It's not a long trip back and forth to the Gallows, so people can come and go if they want, but Bran has also agreed to allow Riftwatch the use of the Viscount's hunting lodge, a rustic mountain retreat traditionally used for hunting parties, which happens to be in a roughly central location. As Viscount Bran is both Provisional and profoundly not the sort of man who holds hunting parties, the lodge has gone unused for some years now, and Riftwatch is bringing in its own supplies and a skeleton support staff to man the place for the duration. Those traveling up in the first group will have to help escort supply wagons through snowy, muddy mountain roads, unloading casks and crates into the cellar, and pitch in cleaning, making minor repairs, and generally getting the building set up after a decade of neglect.

The lodge is organized around a central hall with a massive fireplace, and a small library and study that will be used as offices shared between those visiting. Up the grand wood stair is a mezzanine level that looks down on the hall and leads to three corridors, each with a couple rooms. Rooms will be shared by groups of 2-4 people, the exception being the two suites generally reserved for the viscount and his wife, which will now be assigned to whichever of the Division Heads are in residence (and if there are more than two at a time, then to whichever Division Heads win a coin toss or something). Each room has basic furnishings, heavy and rustic, and its own fireplace. Bathing facilities are communal, provided by natural hot springs pools. While these are outdoors, there is a roof, and there is also a small springhouse alongside for changing, as well as a separate sauna.

The stables contain a number of sleighs in varying states of repair, which can be signed out for use. They're often the best way to get around this area in winter, and can be pulled by a team of Vinmark Goats, a big-horned shaggy breed of unusually massive mountain goats that are often used in place of ponies in this part of the world. The Viscount had a herd of them, which has since run more or less wild on his land and will need to be rounded back up for use.

There are a few communities with different problems, spread out some ways apart through the mountains:

ICE RIFT: The village of Erith has been plagued by shades and despair demons, which can be traced to a rift that has opened under the thick mid-winter ice of the frozen lake just outside town. Trying to get at it from above would mean cutting into the ice and fighting off demons while underwater and very likely freezing to death in minutes. So instead they'll need to traverse the ice caves beneath the lake to reach it, which will be complicated by the nature of shades, which leech off the energy of the livings' psyche, causing confusion, fatigue, and fear.
SNOWMONSTERS: Cragfield has been cut off by an infestation of what's only been described as "snowmonsters," that have been harrying travelers around the village or anyone who strays too far from the edge of town. They will prove to be some unknown variation of giant, even more aggressive, though a bit smaller and nearly covered in white hair. They have some resistance to magic, especially ice magic, and one seems capable of using ice magic, if crudely. They can be tracked through the forest and picked off a few at a time, or traced back to one of their lairs, usually in a cave or tucked into a rock formation.
THE GRIPPE: Galssop has sent an urgent request for healers to help combat a particularly virulent strain of the illness many in Kirkwall are suffering. Most of the town has fallen victim to it, including their only healer, leaving the rest without care. Complicating matters, reaching the town in winter (especially while transporting supplies) requires traveling up the frozen Wye river, using skates and iceboats. The villagers there will be wary of magical healing, and Bran as urged trying to use non-magical means of healing first if possible, though he and the sick will ultimately come round to the necessity of using some magic rather than see dozens die.
THE GRINCH: Lerwick's trouble is a young man who recently inherited Touraigle, the fortress above the village, and who firmly believes that Lerwick is also his inheritance. When the Mayor of Lerwick refused to enforce Lord Bertrand's taxes, the lord's guards ransacked the town, helping themselves to most of its winter stores, among other things. Riftwatch diplomats have been asked to help entreat the lord to be reasonable and return what he took. But the road up to the castle has been blocked by a combination of overzealous defenses and weather, forcing all visitors to climb a treacherous hill of downed trees covered in ice and the occasional, possibly-frozen (if they're lucky), booby trap.

In addition to these specific issues, Rift Watchers can expect to encounter the usual Vinmark winter hazards: unpredictable weather, hungry animals, bad roads, scarcities, and so forth. Once news of their presence in the mountains gets around, they may be asked to take on similar small problems for others, like dealing with wildlife issues, helping search for a missing child, rescuing a hunting party trapped by a minor avalanche, etc. There are also basic chores to keep the lodge running that will always need extra hands, like chopping firewood, hunting down dinner, safeguarding supplies on their way to and from Kirkwall, and so on.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There is a glad cry from off in the direction Val had indicated, and Alexandrie comes to a graceful stop and bends with what is perhaps infuriatingly perfect balance to reach her hand towards her half-buried raspberry biscuit before pausing.

“Oh! Do I play it from here?” she calls in Wysteria’s general direction—which is also Val’s—as they had decided with firm resolve the new game belonged to her.

"Drifting," Val notes, lightly. "If you move while you stand you will not lose your balance so easily. There is no need to step so elephantine."

He plants the shovel in the snowbank and leans his weight on it, elbow resting on the end. His portrait might be painted so: elegant, relaxed, well-dressed. The cold is not so cold as to be truly unpleasant. Indeed it makes for a nice change.

"We have mages in Kirkwall. Why do we not ask for them to cast some magic to turn our courtyard to ice? It could be sustained for some hours. And then you could better learn to skate. By Andraste," as he cranes his neck to look at where Alexandrie has found her biscuit, "that will be a difficult shot for the lady. Do you think she will manage? She is fairly sporting."

"I believe her to be perfectly capable. It is what makes her such a pleasantly challenging adversary," Wysteria shoots back rather than discuss her footfalls (which are not elephantine), then brightens and raises her voice so that it might carry across the ice: "Yes, dear Alexandrie! You must play it from where it lands. But as this is a very new game, we might discuss a change of the rules once this round has been finished. I see no reason why we cannot be adaptable at this stage of development."

She moves to shield her eyes - as if that will somehow improve her perception of the shot - and then abruptly changes her mind as the sway of her arm jeopardizes her balance and she is forced to resort to another series of herky-jerky rearrangement of limbs to stay upright. "I'm sure the Gallows mages have better things to do than ice over the courtyard," she insists, to avoid any remark on her near spill. And a change of tack for good measure: "You're not planning to stand there at the edge of the ice all afternoon, are you?"

This is not exactly what Ellis had expected when Wysteria came knocking, but then again, that's on him for expecting anything at all.

Just as guilty as Val is for lingering at the edge of ice, Ellis shifts the hilariously ornate walking stick he'd appropriated from one shoulder to the other and looks at Val expectantly. Obviously he's the one being spoken to here, and not Ellis, who is absolutely planning on standing on the edge of the ice waiting for some sort of injury to manifest.

Oh, both of then are terminally useless.

Wysteria gives Ellis an emphatic and truly long suffering look, before wobbling closer toward the edge of the ice. She gingerly extends her hand before her.

"Come along, Mr. Ellis. If Monsieur de Foncé will not stoop to show us how it's done, we will have to muddle through on our own."

"Mr. Ellis is very well-armed for a skating partner," Val observes. "The walking stick is a formidable tool. I think it could drive out someone's brains and crush their skull if it was so wielded. Terrifying!"

He does not look very terrified. Nor does he look at all challenged by Wysteria's challenge. Instead he smiles at Mr. Ellis, very friendly, and with only a little bit of a smirk. (Perhaps that is just his face.)

"Mr. Ellis the Crusher: I will give you a silver crown if you skate with dear Mademoiselle Elephant-Foot, both of you without falling, and without being struck by any biscuits while Madame Yonder continues her shot. I should like to see this trick done."

"Tempting."

Ellis isn't specifying what's tempting: a silver crown, or violence via walking stick.

"But Wysteria, you and Lady—" Ellis hesitates, momentarily uncertain as to how she should be addressed. "The two of you seem to have this under control."

If Ellis has a biscuit, he's long since lost track of it. He isn't pointing this out, but he's hoping that if he can't deflect attention onto Val he can claim disqualification on the grounds that his biscuit is lost in the snow.

"Come now, Mr. Ellis. I insist. Lady Asgard will do quite well without our"—she scrapes one of her feet back from where it had started to drift out from under her—"assistance. She is quite accomplished, I assure you."

And the game is no longer the point, unless by some holy miracle the biscuit comes flying this direction to strike Val square in the head.

"Come along. It is perfectly safe."

The biscuit comes flying, but the holy miracle is that it doesn't strike anyone on its merry way through the air.

"Andraste misericordeaux!" exclaims Lady Yonder in equal portions alarm, amusement, and consternation that the merry way ended in the snow on the other side. She glides through in pursuit. "Hearth brooms seem to have a spring to them that mallets lack," she comments lightly as she passes through the little group, "we ought to make note of that for future endeavors!"

"Madame makes a point of excellence. You should write that down," Val says to Wysteria, helpfully. "Drifting, again, by the way."

With a click of his tongue, ah, well, he steps gracefully from shore to ice, somehow without any of the usual awkwardness one finds when making this transition from one surface to another. And because he is accomplished at many things--unfairly so, such is life--Val's skating is equally smooth and easy, as he glides out onto the surface proper. His shovel he rests on one shoulder, easily readied should any opportunity for a shot come his way.

"We should abandon the wickets! They are getting in the way. Madame, the biscuit--send it back here! Mr. Ellis needs it."

"I thought the wickets were how they were scoring points," Ellis objects, having begrudgingly left the safety of the bank and is now gliding in lazy, ever-widening circles. The walking stick is still over his shoulder as he observes the biscuit sailing past.

Is he supposed to be making a move to get that? Oh well.

Ellis, for all his objections, is not supposed to be an able skater. It is decidedly annoying that he is upright, or proceeding in a way that can be described as gliding, and for a moment Wysteria wobbles there in the midst of them trying to decide who she dislikes most (Alexandrie being naturally exempt).

"We should not eliminate them entirely," she says decisively, getting her feet under her by degrees and then tentatively, laboriously pushing off to skate awkwardly after the single biscuit in play. If Ellis isn't willing to play, there is no point in losing track of it (and she now cannot remember where her own has landed). "Perhaps we might widen them instead, so they can be shot through without so much stopping to align shots exactly and so on."

"And how can you even speak of scoring a point if you do not pursue," and Val uses his shovel to point out the biscuit, helpfully, as it goes past, "that?"

He certainly is not interested--at least not yet, he isn't. Instead he skates over to one of the wickets, glides to a graceful stop, and leans down to examine it.

"I like the idea of wider," he says aloud, thoughtfully. "And perhaps there are too many? The work of skating, at least for some enough, makes for a good enough competition. The scoring of points is nearly secondary."

This time the snowbound biscuit is extracted with the care an archaeologist might take with a relic and gently ushered to Ellis as requested.

"Have you an implement with which to provide forceful encouragement, serah?" Alexandrie inquires with a bright welcoming smile, "Or do you require mine?"

Orlesians.

Both Wysteria's companions are so aggressively chipper that Ellis can do nothing but find it suspicious. Between all the playful antagonistic chatter and mild consideration of rule changes, Ellis is left to weather the same low grade jangle of nerves that he had previously associated with walking into the den of something dangerous.

Still, at the lady's prompting he swings the walking stick in a lazy arc down and upwards. It doesn't disturb his balance initially, which gives him license to consider the biscuit in earnest.

"At the wicket?" He questions, as no one has decided otherwise, before taking his turn.

Unfortunately, the second swing tips him off balance. The biscuit sails, undisturbed, into the snowbank across the ice as one of Ellis' legs skids wide. He doesn't fall, but it's a near thing, and only because he brings the walking stick down with a crack to steady himself on the ice.

"Nearly secondary is not the same as actually secondary," Wysteria is in the middle of saying just as the biscuit sails in a lovely direct line between them to punch into the snow bank at the far side of their field of play. The summary crack of the walking stick is quite loud enough to disturb her train of thought, and the sight of Ellis with one leg sprawled at some comical angle is enough to improve her mood enough to allow:

"But if you insist, we might try it with half the number and see where it gets us. Three for each team, perhaps. I trust you and Lady Asgard with the arrangement, Monsieur. "

And then she is off, all stubby little strides and overworking arms, to rescue the biscuit.

"She is so industrious," Val says warmly, mostly to the wicket. Then he plucks it out of its place and goes skating over to the next closest one, and plants the wicket about a foot to the left of it--then fetches the next closest, and brings it back to place it to about a foot to the right.

Now there are three wickets, all in a row. Val takes a moment to beam down at them before he waves his shovel to get Madame Asgard's attention.

In straight and quick Orlesian, simply for the joy of speaking his native tongue (and, secondarily, for the sake of obnoxiousness), he calls to her: "Madame! What of this arrangement? We can give them three chances at it. Surely then at least one stroke of the biscuit will find its goal. We must play a game that these our companions will have some success with! Mr. Ellis is a fine enough skater but cannot hit--and the mademoiselle is a ferocious striker, but as a skater, she is hopeless still. My heart feels for them both."

Orlesians.

Using the stick as a crutch, Ellis readjusts, straightens up, and skates around the edge of the lake as Val and Lexie readjust the wickets. No, he doesn't understand Orlesian, but 90% of what Val says sounds smug.

"Maybe we should try something larger than a biscuit," Ellis advises no one, because no one is probably listening to him.

In a shocking turn of events—

No, no one is. From where she's hacked the biscuit out of the snow, Wysteria calls—"Eyes up, Mr. Ellis!"—and chips the petrified puck back in his direction. It flies very straight and very fast.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

MOD EVENT: WINTERMARCH WINTER MARCH

Betrayed by notifs!! (slaps track)

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barges in.

excellent. also im decreeing that tag order is for suckers.

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