MOD EVENT: WINTERMARCH WINTER MARCH

[faderifting]

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.

Comments

[nonvenomous]

Richard listens in silence, chin tipped down to his pushing and probing the shard’s glimmer just beneath the water’s surface. There’s no substance, of course, to the magical thorn in his paw, and nothing for him to find purchase against, save the usual tissue and bone. He knows, distaste for the compulsion to try pulled briefly taut through the flank of his jaw.

He’s quiet for too long, after Ellis has finished speaking, acknowledgment in a glance that does -- inevitably -- scope out whatever ink is there to see. He drags the soap in that he brought, lathers it in his hands, scrubs over his face and behind his neck, under his arms. Going through the motions of doing what he came here to do.

“I don’t condone suffering,” he says, finally, to a ring of grey suds.

“Freezing to death is a gentler end than gangrene, or complications from the amputation of crushed limbs. Sometimes mercy is allowing a friend to be crushed in the jaws of a dragon rather than tearing half of him from the teeth.”

[heorte]

"I don't disagree."

Though there's a difference between the throats he cut in the desert and putting a knife into a downed comrade's chest when there's nothing else to be done. And beyond that, it's hard to apply any of that to civilians. They existed outside of the realm of violence Ellis had existed in for so long.

"But it's a last option for me, when it comes to situations like that."

Innocents. People he was supposed to be protecting from the worst the world has to offer.

"I'm not trying to change your mind. I think there's value in understanding each other, so I don't mistake your intentions a second time."

[nonvenomous]

Richard stretches long, as the murk of soap suds around him thins and separates, one arm rested back into the rock behind him. He’s scarred like a melee combatant in spite of his stature, one particularly wicked attempt slashed back to front, starting behind the shoulder and vanishing beneath the surface on its way to his hip.

No tattoos, though.

“How long have you been with Riftwatch?”

...Isn’t an explicit agreement, but it isn’t a challenge either, mildly posed. He is naturally polite. His interest is genuine.

[heorte]

If Richard were someone else, they could compare scars. Slash for slash, ugly gouge for ugly gouge. But Richard isn't a warden, and Ellis doesn't get the sense that he'd care to part with his stories so easily.

But Richard has those stories. Maybe they aren't about darkspawn, but there have been monsters. Ellis is polite, doesn't stare, but he takes in the marks and sets them against what Richard has said so far. All of it paints a particular picture for him.

"Six months," Ellis answers after a momentary, considering hum. "I was on the road before that."

[nonvenomous]

Not much longer than Richard and Loxley, then.

Ellis’ response heads off Dick’s real question with an almost ethereal lack of specificity. On the road. Most natural follow-ups would frame him up for an easy sidestep into yes or no territory -- agreement with or denial of any natural assumption. Where did you come from, who were you with. East or north or south or no one.

There’s an odd remove to Richard’s consideration, his watch steady through the steam. What he could really use is a bottle of wine to share.

“What made you decide to join now?”

[heorte]

Sorry Richard, he's a man of mystery.

"The sooner Corypheus is taken care of, the sooner we can divert resources and attention back to dealing with the darkspawn."

Nevermind how scattered and fractured the wardens are. Nevermind that Ellis is here because he couldn't expect to be welcomed by the wardens outside of the Anderfels and he couldn't bear traveling on his own any longer.

"There were already Wardens here. It felt natural to join them." Natural in the most loose application of the word.

[nonvenomous]

More silence. Richard stirs water and steam with his draped hand. It’s warm here, and he isn't in any hurry to retreat from the ledge he’s coiled back into.

“I don’t know much about the Wardens,” he says, conversationally. “Only what I’ve read.

“Is it something children aspire to?” Being solemn in the baths with a strange man whose leisurely approach to civilian casualties you don’t care for? On the premises of the (provisional) Viscount’s weird swinger den?

Something slender and dark squiggles free of the belongings Dick left up on the rocks and drops, plop, into the water near his elbow. He doesn’t seem to notice.

[heorte]

Dick might not pay it any mind, but Ellis does. He doesn't comment, but his gaze moves from the disappearing ripples in the water to Dick's face. His expression is questioning but whether he's trying to be polite or focusing on Dick's question, Ellis doesn't explicitly ask about whatever it was that just joined them in the water.

"I suppose it depends on the child," Ellis answers, before admitting: "No."

He certainly hadn't aspired to this life.

"But I assume most children want to be chevaliers."

[nonvenomous]

There’s a patience to Richard’s prompting. He’s watchful without any pressure or expectation, interest lain slack across the water between them.

“Being a chevalier would certainly be more romantic,” says Richard, “if less vital to the survival of civilization.”

Their visitor from the rocks bobs up through remnant film and ribbons across the surface spidery quick, dark scales on dark water. It’s a little grass snake, head held just above the ripple of its own wake, intent on Richard’s stirring. Dick turns his wrist to assist it lacing up into and through the easy splay of his fingers.

“Maybe what you’re missing is better representation in literature.”

The snake settles in its new nest, coils adjusted, tail tightened snug between little and ring.

“How did you get involved?”

[heorte]

"The dwarves tell stories of us still, I believe."

But the rest of Thedas is another matter, one Ellis doesn't feel entirely qualified to tackle. So the Wardens kept secrets. They're hardly the only ones, simply the organization that circumstances implicated first. What little Ellis knows of other nations and royalty, he knows that there are things they keep to themselves that would be equally paralyzing if dragged into the light.

Watching the snake curling through Richard's fingers, Ellis' eyebrows raise slightly higher before he leans back, shoulders against steam-warmed stone.

"A man named Joppa recruited me."

An exceedingly simple sentence. Yes, it is the truth. No, it does not touch upon the entirety of circumstances in which Joppa found and conscripted him. However—

"Would it be rude if I asked about the snake?

[nonvenomous]

Would it be rude if he asked about a man named Joppa?

Probably.

Richard’s regard flattens as it angles sidelong, the fuzzy lines around his mouth gripped deep in mock disapproval. Fine, keep your secrets.

“A woman named Nassirah gave her to me."

[heorte]

Maybe not rude, but certainly harder for Ellis to smoothly avoid giving a concrete answer to.

It's a relief when Richard lets the subject drop. Of course, he doubts that's the end of it. Richard doesn't seem as easily diverted as Ellis' usual companions.

"Here as a boon, or did she accompany you through a rift?"

The rules around what can and can't come through the rifts are ill-defined for Ellis, despite having been dragged to so many of them to do Science.

[nonvenomous]

“Through the rift,” says Richard, who looks away to the serpent in question. She’d be indistinguishable from a clot of algae tangled in his knuckles if not for the pale stripes down her flanks, and the needle flicker of her tongue. She doesn’t budge when he wiggles his fingers right to left.

“What are you concerned might happen if you mistake my intentions a second time?”

He asks down towards the snake, dipping neatly backwards in the chronology of their conversation so far.

[heorte]

The urge to be flippant in return rises and passes in the span of a few seconds as Ellis looks across the pool at Richard. He could certainly joke. I'd kill you, he could have tossed back, then laughed, and perhaps avoided the question entirely.

But he doesn't.

"Disciplinary action is not left to me." is Ellis' answer, which feels like a crucial point. This is not the Wardens. The rules are very different.

[nonvenomous]

There isn’t much for Ellis to see: a strange man and his snake, markedly more lax in his complacency now than he was when he initially slipped in and recognized Ellis in the water. It’s been well over a minute since he last glanced over to mark Ellis' mood, or the distance between them.

“You would file a complaint.”

Dick seeks to clarify, flat affect offering little insight into the extent of any challenge to the idea.

He's just curious.

[heorte]

"I would inform Commander Flint of anyone I felt was endangering the objectives of our missions."

Which to Ellis' understanding, involves protecting the locals. He knows more than most that it isn't always possible, but there's so much more opportunity to prioritize saving lives rather than minimizing destruction and death.

"I wouldn't kill you."

Since that seems like the question this is leading to, and he feels it's better to take that off the table right away.

[nonvenomous]

“There are plenty of pages between a formal report and murder,” Richard has hiked his brows, eyes keen and clear in their renewed interest across the steam, “but good to know.”

His look is a little too dead on, prickling at the payoff from his own insinuation.

Surely Ellis insinuated first.

“I’m glad we had this talk,” he adds, super punchable, tbh. “We’ve averted up so many misunderstandings already.”

[heorte]

Ellis is apparently unruffled by Richard's insinuations.

The need for understanding makes sense to him, but understanding doesn't stretch far enough to pull specifics. Why spill out his own sins, the worst of his impulses and history? He has managed for months here to get by without sharing those aspects of his life.

"Have you had occasion to fear misunderstandings in your previous work?"

[nonvenomous]

Nothing seems to leap to his mind -- there’s no tell-tale flash of ire or darkening behind his eyes. Richard thinks about it, attitude girded back while he peruses his own files.

“Not really, no.”

He shakes his head, milder still upon further reflection. The snake in his hand stirs, and he reaches long to let it wind back up onto the cooler stone, closer to where he left his clothes.

“I’d say the real threat was always more an unaccounted for excess of understanding.”

[heorte]

Ellis hums in answer. That's not an affliction he's ever been particularly subjected to, mostly by careful design.

"Spare a thought for those that can't defend themselves, and we won't have any trouble," he says finally.

The wording is specific. Spare a thought, not necessarily an action.