OPEN | Civil Blood Pt. 2

[northcliffpass]

Civil Blood: Part 2

It is February 1313, the dead of winter, and everything sucks.

To say that the garrisoned soldiers have long outstayed their welcome in Northcliff Pass would be, by and large, a massive understatement. After a series of events resulted in one soldier sporting a broken jaw and a local guardsman flogged at the request of the garrison commander, tensions between the garrison and the local population have been running high. And with no marching orders yet received to send the regiment down the mountain and to the front with Black Rock, this situation is a powder keg waiting to explode.

I. LESS COLD, MORE SNOW

The bitter cold that has had its talons sunk deep into the village for the last few weeks finally begins to ebb to more seasonal norms--which doesn't mean it isn't still frigid, but at the very least running your daily errands is less likely to result in blue lips and fingertips. The whole village, and even some of the soldiers, breathe a collective sigh of relief, and for a brief moment it seems as though the improving weather conditions mean that soon, the regiment will be on its way and life can resume its normal pace again.

That would be far too easy a way to wrap up this particular plot arc, of course, and so that isn't what happens.

Instead, near the end of the first full week of February, another massive snowstorm blows in from the north, bringing with it a veritable avalanche's worth of snow down from the Fjords. It strikes with so little warning that many would not be blamed for suspecting that the cause was an avalanche, and the volume of snow that soon piles upon sheds and rooftops causes thatching to leak and rafters to creak and groan under their new burden. Many villagers once again have no choice but to seek shelter in the chapel sanctuary or in the Town Hall, which has space and resources remaining to accommodate.

For everyone else, it is yet again time to dig yourselves out of your homes, hurl snowballs at your neighbours, and--if you had plans to depart--settle in for a longer stay in this tiny backwater village, for the roads out of Northcliff Pass are yet again impassable.

II.DIG OUT AND DIG DOWN

a. help pls

The sudden and unrelenting storm that has left Northcliff Pass yet again impassable and buried under meters (plural) of snow, has also thoroughly wrecked the soldiers' camp. For at least a day after the winds abate and the skies clear, the only sounds that can be heard coming from the festival grounds are the angry shouts of instruction and calls for assistance from soldiers increasingly desperate for aid.

Whether you answer those calls to provide assistance, or show up intending to get some payback/stir shit, you will doubtless have to deal with the surplus of snow one way or another. Better bring a shovel.

b. the mines

(OOC: responders to this log may occasionally be asked to roll dice for specific encounters)

At some point when a single location has been subjected to enough snow fall in a limited amount of time, it has to be acknowledged that there's really no point in continuing to shovel the snow... because there's just nowhere left to put the snow once it has been shovelled. The problem this creates with a large encampment of soldiers is rather instantaneous: where do they go now?

It's not precisely clear who suggests the mines first, whether it is a soldier with a keen eye or a villager with an axe to grind, but the idea is not as terrible a one as some might think. For one thing the more stable of the shafts have been shorn up over many years by solid and reliable timber, and there while there is no large single chamber for a group to congregate, there is about half a mile of mapped underground tunnels into which a regiment of men may find a tolerable place to bunk down until a better place can be found. The air will be close, but it will be breathable, and the risk of freezing to death at night is removed almost entirely.

It is still a terrible idea, but the amount of bad blood existing between the villagers and the soldiers, the likelihood of anyone opening their homes to the regiment is low.

The garrison commander puts out a call to the villagers (despite knowing very few will heed it given he is such a fucking prick) for anyone familiar with the mines' tunnels to make themselves known. Anyone willing to provide some assistance with setting his men up will be compensated accordingly.

III. THEOBALD, HO (DAMN)!

Despite Brave Sir Theobald of Haguenne's glitzy arrival in and departure from Northcliff Pass some weeks ago, the ensuing drama between the villagers and the soldiers has somewhat cast most thoughts of the would-be hero out of people's thoughts--particularly given there's been no word either from Theobald or his retinue since. If anyone has thought of or discussed him in the intervening weeks, it has probably been to speculate on which scenario the odds favour more greatly: that Theobald and his grew fucked back off to Haguenne, or that the griffon ate him.

And on one bright winter morning perhaps three or four days after the soldiers have finally settled themselves into their new, temporary quarters in the mines, the enquiring minds of the village receive their answer.

It begins innocently enough, with the beast in question seen gliding along the wind currents near the mountaintop. But then its trajectory seems to shift against the wind, and slowly what initially appeared as a distant silhouette soon grows in size and definition: the griffon--for that is clearly what the beast is, now--is gliding towards the village.

Not with any immediately predatory intent, it seems, though it does seem to be occupied by something; its long, leonine tail gives the occasional excited thrash that a cat's might when excited, and every so often it dips its large raptor's head to pick at something in its claws.

Then it drops that something with a piercing shriek of displeasure, and dives, swift as a kestrel, to snatch it out of the sky. Its prey recaptured, it swoops back up in an elegant arc, and wings its way back towards its den on the mountain top.

And yet some part of its prey continues to fall, trailing blood and gore and viscera like a gruesome ribbon behind it through the sky, until it at last lands with an unsettling 'pfffstlch' sound right in the middle of a massive snowdrift in the centre of the village. There is quite a lot of red blood circling the suspiciously human head-sized hole in the snow.

Whomever decides to brave the macabre scene first to dig down into the snowdrift will discover the bloodied head of Sir Theobald.

(OOC: Anyone may post a starter observing Theobald's, uh, return to earth as it were, but please limit the actual retrieval of his head to one thread.)

Comments

IV

[ragweed]

Kit's ill-timed smoke break while repairing a cottage's thatched roof meant that, as he stood by a massive snow drift, minding his own business while enjoying his cigarette, that bloody head and its trailing ribbons of red had made contact with the earth not five feet away from him. And so when Lorne approaches, he might notice out of his peripheral vision the village carpenter wearing a look of some grim disgust as he examines the spattering of blood and other assorted nastiness across the front of his work jerkin.

Someone else might faint, but Kit is made of hardier stuff. (And he's seen far worse.)

"Fuck," he settles on, and gives his non-cigarette-wielding hand a bit of a shake, spattering a bit more blood onto the snow.

[ellrigaeta]

The fact that Kit doesn't immediately flail around trying to get blood and guts off of him says a lot about his resilience, if not other qualities. Lorne gives him a sympathetic grimace as he pauses with a shovel full of reddened snow.

"Yes," the guardsman agrees. "You alright? Other than the obviously disgusting problem you're wearing."

[ragweed]

Kit makes a noncommittal grunt in response at first, then crouches down to snatch up a handful of clean snow, which he uses to try to scrape off the worst of it. "Could've been worse," he replies, taking the situation with surprisingly good humour, "the thing could've landed on my head." Then Lorne might be dealing with a bigger, bloodier pile.

He wipes his hands off, then nods towards the suspicious hole in the centre of the snow drift. "Did you get a look at--" a vague hand gesture, "--whatever it was?"

[ellrigaeta]

Lorne only nods. That would definitely be much worse, even if Kit weren't harmed by it. Yeuch.

"I have a suspicion," he says grimly, resuming the shoveling. He's trying to keep everything to one area just so the blood doesn't get tracked all over the street. "Which if I'm right would be better than not."

Given the size of the hole, Lorne would much prefer to find a head than some indistinguishable chunk of flesh. He clears away enough snow to trudge closer to the depression without stumbling about, and peers down. And sighs. Yep.

"Looks like a head," Lorne announces, turning back to Kit. "Going to take a bit of digging to reach it. Do you have a basket or a sack I can use?"

[ragweed]

"Oh." A beat. "Great."

At least there is no mystery about how the dead person lost their head; the griffon swooping gracefully away back towards the mountaintop is evidence enough of that. At Lorne's question, Kit does a bit of a double-take back at him and blinks. "Uh. Yeah."

It's a smaller burlap sack that, up until this very moment, was going to contain some baked goods and other parcels for his return trip home. He hauls it out and comes near enough to offer it to Lorne. "Any idea who it is?"

[ellrigaeta]

"Thanks; I'll replace this soon," Lorne says, taking the burlap sack. If Lorne is going to carry a severed head around the village, he's at least going to cover the damn thing. And he's sure Kit won't want the sack returned after it's used for this purpose.

"Not sure, it's facing down. I'll have to pull it out." To avoid adding to the damage the griffon already caused, Lorne clears the remaining snow by hand. His sleeves and gloves will take the worst of the staining, but most of that ought to come out with prompt washing. Actually touching the remains is enough to make his stomach twist uncomfortably but he ignores the reaction, lifting the head from the snow.

Although bloodied and mangled, some features are undeniably recognizable. "...Blond hair. Damn. Looks like Sir Theobald." He puts the head into the sack as gently as he can manage and extricates himself from the snowbank, then looks to the mountaintop. "If anyone in his retinue is still alive, they're likely trapped up there by the snowfall."

[ragweed]

"...Blond hair. Damn. Looks like Sir Theobald."

He raises his eyebrows dubiously. "Really? How can you tell?" To Kit's eye, the head and scalp just look like a hunk of discoloured, bloody meat with some hair still attached to it. As for the rest, he glances up towards the mountaintop and grimaces further.

"Poor sods," he mumbles around his cigarette. Then he glances back to Lorne and eyes him and his newly acquired souvenir. "What're you going to do with that thing?"

[ellrigaeta]

"Because the late knight seemed to favor appearance over practicality, strikingly blond locks included," Lorne says dryly. He's fairly sure if there are eyes left, they might yet be a discernible blue. Depending on how long he's been deceased, anyway. He doesn't want to check. Perhaps Lorne shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but what he says isn't slanderous: Theobald had shown up with quite a bit of glittery fanfare, and it had been hard to take him seriously as a result.

"Hm." What is he going to do with this now? Lorne thinks about it for a moment, runs through the various authorities in the village. "Probably take it to the church; even if I'm wrong, they deserve proper funeral rites and someone will need to send word to Haguenne. The surgeon may warrant a look, too, for identification."

[ragweed]

"Right," Kit replies, and if he sounds a touch distracted, it's probably because he's just discovered a clump of Sir Theobald's... something... has begun to dry on his cheekbone. He pulls a face and gingerly peels the viscera off his face, looking a touch ill, and flicks it away into the snow.

"Would you mind, uh," he makes a vague hand gesture, "handling that on your own? I think I need a bath." Like, immediately.

[ellrigaeta]

Lorne can't help but grimace sympathetically as Kit picks more of Theobald's entrails off his face. Asking him to come along would be incredibly unfair, and in any case Lorne can attend to this on his own.

"Of course, absolutely." He shakes his head at the absurdity of the situation, waves Kit off towards home. "Go, clean up. I'll see you later."

Or around. The village is tiny, after all.

[ragweed]

"Yeah," Kit answers, although if the track record of their friendship history is any indication, they probably won't see each other later. It's nothing personal--or maybe it was, once--but some connections are just better left fraying.

Lorne's a good guy. He'll be fine even without counting the village carpenter among his close friends.

He picks his way back onto the road and heads back towards his shop, where hopefully a bath awaits him, and an argument does not.