OPEN | Straight Chillin'

[wythersake]

WHO: OTA
WHAT: A field trip to the Thedas arctic.
WHEN: Vaguely post-Satinalia.
WHERE: The Sunless Lands
NOTES: This is a sandbox log! Do whatever you like, I'm not DM-ing. If you want to do something you think needs mod approval, submit it.

(greg rutowski)


An eccentric merchant is funding fossil hunters in the far South. They've hit a big one.

Now he needs an escort to the site. Special Acquisitions has volunteered to help in exchange for a little goodwill —
and first dibs on any artifacts uncovered along the way.

Though the route promises danger, Riftwatch is thin on personnel. There are deals to broker and data to review.
Researchers and diplomats are as likely to have been sent as scouts and warriors.

Comments

[reparo]

He's not selling her on not being a show-off with that comment about hunting under an aurora. (Vlast is cool, we get it.) She can't imagine it for herself, but if it keeps him happy, glory to him and all that.

There's a quiet moment, between the hopping and the sudden warmth, where he approaches as she studies a painting that's faded with time. "Do those look like deer - oh."

The heavy cloak brings up the temperature by at least a twofold, and startles a laugh out of her. "So are a Rifer's wages," she points out in jest. Then, pause. "How is the inside of this so soft?"

[allthatgleamsisgold]

"Rabbit fur," he explains, "and lambswool."

It's not a pretty cloak - the wool is undyed and there's no uniformity in the colours of the pelts used to line it, but it's warm and relatively lightweight like the rest of Vlast's attire. Best of all, it doesn't itch.

"The pelts are easy enough to get. Better, some clothiers offer discounts if you provide some of the materials."

[reparo]

"It's so soft," she murmurs. And honestly, what does it matter if it's pretty or not, as long as it's functional? It's a warm cloak, in a frigid environment; Vlast is winning at being prepared.

Hermione isn't one for heavy armour (she's not worn armour in her life), so her clothes are mostly that. Clothes. Whatever Riftwatch gives to start-up soldiers, like Rifters who just join Forces because they want to be useful on the field.

She's making a note to keep an eye out for pelts.

"You'll have to point me to clothiers, in that case. I would hate to wander into a store that thinks the best way to dress people is to skimp on fabric." Orlais.

[allthatgleamsisgold]

Vlast's minds eye also conjures images of the absurd Orlesian fashions; gaudy without a hint of practicality that are little more than displays of wealth.

"I will show you when we return. In the meantime, you can borrow this."

If he gets cold while they travel, he has a quilt that he can improvise into a decent substitution.

"Why were you curious about the deer...? Are they not usual subjects in human painting?"

hi zeus

[reparo]

It does not fully compute that he intends to lend her his cloak, because she's deep in the woods of her own thoughts. See, fashion.

Sometimes, she spots a person wearing one of those masks, and what they think is the height of fashion, and she can't help but wish Wrathion were here to witness them. Then again, either they'd both share a Look, or he would start to incorporate Orlesian details into everything he creates, so maybe it's a good thing he's not?

(It's a good thing it's just her. She tells herself this every day: it's better that it's just her, and nobody else from either Akhuras or her world. She misses her friends, she misses her found family, she misses her actual family, but she has to accept the fact that somewhere out there, Hermione Granger is carrying on with her life without any awareness of the split. It's a good thing it's just her, and she does not feel lonely at all.)

"Oh no, they are, I just haven't seen them much here - I keep noticing halla instead, so I was curious if they exist as a biosphere's replacement for deer." A pause, then as an aside joke: "Like chickens, instead of harpies."

[allthatgleamsisgold]

"Chickens exist in my world," he insists with a sprinkling of petulance in his tone. "I just preferred hunting harpies."

He gives due consideration to the paintings of deer...? Maybe harts or elk this far south. The work is a bit too stylized that to his own eye it could be any of the three.

But it brings up something that's been niggling at the back of his mind since arriving here.

"It's strange," he says slowly, "what commonalities each world has and doesn't have."

[reparo]

She bites back a smile, head facing forward - gaze deliberately on the paintings. "That's fair, I suppose. In my world, chickens are basically domesticated animals - you'd barely need to actually hunt them..." Not that Hermione tolerates the idea of hunting harpies?

A core memory gets triggered at the thought of harpies. The top of a fortress, four factions fighting off armies of undead and harpies swooping in. A harpy's clawed feet catching Hermione's cloak, flying up and up and up, only a severing spell managing to get her free, and plummeting, plummeting, -

On second thought, maybe not all harpies have rights.

"It does. Makes me want to keep a written record of it," she admits, a bit more chipper. "But methodically. Maybe go at it in categories. Plants and flowers, animals and magical creatures, cultures and historical events."