Event: August 1312

[northcliffpass]

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: further inconvenience
WHEN: mid-August
WHERE: townwide
NOTES: get your wellies on

It's not that there was a rainstorm. There was, but they happen every so often without any real incident: this one is just happening A Lot, and for a very long time.
It started on Saturday and has not let up since then, with rainfall varying from a smattering to torrential but never abating entirely. The roads are muck, travel and market hours are miserable, and any who have to spend any considerable time out in it (the local Watch, for instance) have the look of drowned rats even with the aid of oilskin cloaks and the occasional break under an awning.

Sands Creek has swelled considerably even in the span of a day or so, and as many of the local old-timers might have predicted, the mudslide follows. Because more mud is exactly what everyone needed.
No one is injured outright, but several of the buildings near the mountain-facing edge of town experience cave-ins: namely, the stable and a few of the houses on Hill Street.

Dealing with it will not be pretty, especially with it being so impossible to stay dry. But it's happened before, and almost certainly will again, some other year from now.

Comments

ota

[infinitewatch]

I. Schlup Schlup

Not rain nor snow nor wind nor hail can stop the poor bastards of the Watch (all two of them) making their rounds, albeit now much, much more slowly. Lance looks like a cat being forced to wear booties as he high-steps through the mud, simultaneously energetic about never letting his feet remain long enough for his boots to soak through, and absolutely dead tired straight down to his soul.
He usually has at least a pleasant glance to spare for people, but at present it's hidden under his oilskin hood and the miserable glower of someone who has never had a day of rest in his life and didn't want one anyway, thanks.

II. Thud Thud

He doesn't live in the house anymore, and many won't even remember that he ever did, but it still belongs to Finian and therefore having part of the roof caved in is a problem. With Kit no doubt slammed by the sudden influx of necessary structural repairs around town, some things are left to the rest of them to figure out.
Lance and Finian are working on it together, a half-useless burlap tarp thrown over the hole which Lance holds in place atop the roof while Finian struggles to patch it from the inside. There's a quiet conversation occurring, a little louder than it normally might to be heard over the rain, but perhaps it's nice to see father and son interacting directly for once.

III. Wildcard

On top of his regular duties, Lance is generally around to help in anyone's moments of crisis.

I. and III. an indecisive moment of crisis.

[blindsainz]

Arlene, lost in the middle of the small village she's been living in for the last several years, has been talking at no one in the heavy drizzle for the past several minutes, asking for help, hoping for someone to come across her. That changes when she hears the schlup schlup of heavy footfalls wading through puddles and muck.

One of the Watch, surely, but she can't tell who it is beyond that. Lance? Deron? Damn this rain.

"Excuse me?" she calls out. "I shouldn't have tried this, I -- I need some help."

She doesn't say I'm lost, partly because her pride won't let her, partly because it sounds ridiculous, and partly because she's said it a few times already when she was relatively sure no one was nearby to hear her.

[infinitewatch]

"Arlene," comes the quiet exclamation, and the guardsman is at her side, bumping her arm lightly with his so she knows where to grip.
"Where are you trying to go?"

[blindsainz]

Arlene sags, relieved, and lowers her cane to rest on the ground so she can take Lance's arm.

"Colin," she answers. "I need more bread. Am I...?" She huffs, almost self-deprecatingly. "... anywhere near there?"

Spoilers: she's not. She's not anywhere near there. Given enough time, she might have been able to find her way back home, but there's no telling what illnesses she might have caught in the meantime.

[infinitewatch]

Lance's slightly anxious silence is answer enough: no, they are nowhere near the bakery. But she's sensitive about the confusion, and he's not about to go out of his way to rub it in.
"I can... guide you there," he says instead, "if you like."

[blindsainz]

She grips Lance's arm tighter, out of gratitude and relief. "Thank you."

As they walk, feet splashing in the occasional unavoidable puddle, Arlene raises her head. "What is the village going to do," she asks, "if you come down ill and can't make rounds? This seems like it's going to go on forever."

[infinitewatch]

He gives a quiet scoff of a laugh, barely enough to make a sound.

"It's happened before," he murmurs, "we'll make do." He doesn't like to say 'I'll probably just keep working' because it makes people frown, but that's the usually been the truth of the matter and is unlikely to change.

He gives her a little nudge with his elbow as they step around a particularly deep puddle. "Maybe we'll finish paving the road someday," he muses, "...like in Cliffside."