open: mabari crawl.

[cozen]

WHO: Open (with a closed starter)
WHAT: A team takes dog sleds into Ferelden's snowy southern reaches to procure an antidote to poison. So: a Balto knock-off and a game-canon body heat meme.
WHEN: Haring 9:46 (pre-dream plot, so no need to take it into account)
WHERE: Southern Ferelden
NOTES: OOC post. There's a closed starter for people who signed up to talk to the herbalist, but otherwise this is open to anyone, make-your-own-adventure style.

The team's journey takes them from Winter's Breath, in the southern foothills of the Frostback Mountains, to the even-more-southern foothills, just north of where the map they've been given fades into ambiguity and a few depictions of enormous, cold-hardy beasts that may or may not truly exist. There's a smaller village there—Talon Point, named for a jagged rock formation in the surrounding mountains, under the protection of the Bann of Winter's Breath—that serves as a waypoint for traders and travelers to and from Orlais during the few months a year the mountains are traversable and the rest of the year as a conduit for trade with the Avvar and Chasind.

Other than the map, their guides are the dogs themselves. The lead dog for each sled team comes from a locally-bred line of particularly fluffy mabari. They're clever and communicative—albeit a bit less affectionate and more stubborn with these strangers than with their currently-absent masters—and used to making this journey. They know the way to Talon Point; it's a cold, snowy journey that requires making camp in the woods at least once, but otherwise, it's a straightforward trip.

The local accommodations are not much to speak of. With the inn shut up for the winter, the only place anyone can offer them to sleep is a barn. But it does provide a place to come back to, between bouts of splitting up to seek out the herbalist, who lives to the west and further up the mountains, or fanning out to the east to gather eshimeric. It's a reddish lichen that can be found growing in small quantities in the cracks and crevices of rocks, if they aren't covered in snow or if the snow is knocked away. Scraping together enough to allow for one dose and one do-over will take several days of dedicated searching.

The landscape they're searching is inhospitable, to put it lightly: deep canyons with narrow paths carved into their walls just asking for someone to nearly fall off the edge, pockets of dense woods that are difficult to traverse and easy to get lost in, expanses of barren land with no shelter from the wind at all, and frozen rivers and lakes which, of course, may not fully support the weight of someone trying to cross them. The sparse wildlife is mostly typical of the region, but now and then there's something—maybe a wolf, maybe a rabbit—that's unusually aggressive and still showing lingering signs of the blight.

Comments

[acreage]

It's a good thing, he considers, following after her through a bright world of biting cold, that he doesn't offend easily. But the truth is that he enjoys the way she speaks, explains things. Her answer makes sense, one of those things that's obvious once it's been told.

"You're right, I wouldn't want to be stuck here that long."

The expanse of snow, all sparkling and unbroken, is something he hasn't seen in such a long time. The kind of sight he'd never really expected to see again, save maybe on some alien planet or other where the Roci's needed.

"Yeah, it is. We used to get snow kind of like this." Not this extensive, nor this cold, with how global warming has ravaged his Earth. He looks to her as they make their way. "You?"

[deceivingly]

"This is home!"

Doki shoots him a grin over her shoulder. One of them is so clearly enjoying life and her name starts with a Y. She points to the cliff, to the sharp peaks of the mountains off there in the distance.

"These are Frostbacks. This is where the Mountain-Father hid His heart. Everything here is His. He carved the tunnels in the deep places. He gives the animals for the hunting, and the summer fields for the goats. The Avvar know how to please Him so we are allowed to walk here, better than any lowlanders. This place, it is playground to me. I jumped from cliffs into snowdrifts and swam in hot pools and ate lichen when I was only a little bitty baby. You are again lucky to be friends with me now, Rifter. If you have not seen snow like this in the recent times, you could be lost so soon."