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open: mabari crawl.
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.
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.
no subject
"There was a time, years ago, I'd gotten hit hard enough that it caved in my armor, broke some of my ribs. The bone," Ellis pauses over this detail, clearly deciding it's unnecessary as he lifts a hand to tap at his chest. "Here, was where it hit me. Hurlocks carry bigger weapons than I do."
It's an easy story to tell. He'd traded part of it away when he'd first arrived because it was straightforward, unremarkable, and everyone survived it.
"The Senior Warden had to drag me out. We were lucky we'd traveled with a healer, or else the wound would have killed me. But it only managed to wreck my breastplate."
It's a ways away from falling through ice. But still, the end point—
"But I didn't feel any particular way about it then. It happened too fast. If you had time to think about it then, it might have been different."
i thought it had been like 1 month which was bad enough but i see it's 2!! so feel free to ignore
The fire flickers, and she nudges at the end of a log with a toe, inching it slightly deeper into the coals.
"When you think back on that now, it doesn't bother you? To know how near you came?" Her mouth almost immediately curls into a smile both self-deprecating and apologetic, and she waves off any need to answer with a flap of fingers. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound dramatic. I will simply have to get used to such things."
gently inches towards putting a bow onto this
Yes, he had been bothered. But not for the reasons Maud might have assumed. Ellis doesn't volunteer the answer regardless.
"We'll work on avoiding you repeating the experience," is maybe the better option, in his opinion. Maud may very well be right, and her work with Riftwatch might require her to get used to near-death or at least, some level of danger, but still.
He clears his throat, straightening in his seat.
"Are you hungry?"