Northcliff Pass

WHO: EVERYONE WHO WANTS
WHAT: it's springtime! and there's some bullshit!
WHEN: April
WHERE: The festival grounds and a bullshit place
NOTES: bullshit

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.)

Civil Blood

I. News from the West

The story of why gets twisted and distorted between its departure from the Crags and its arrival in Northcliff Pass, but the town criers maintain consistency on a few points: Althea of House Jessamy, Duchess of Black Rock, has at last thrown down the gauntlet against the Duke of Cliffside, and has called on her vassals to rally their bannermen. It seems there will be war within the borders of Maireglenne for the first time in a hundred years.

Given the state of the roads leading through the pass, it is understandable that the news is a few weeks’ stale by the time armed soldiers sporting Duke Galein’s colours march (or gallop, if they are astride a horse) past the village walls and garrison themselves on the festival grounds. Anyone objecting to this new arrangement is encouraged by the soldiers to bring their objections to the garrison commander (who, rumor has it, personally oversees the flogging of objectors himself).

Like it or not, the regiment is here to stay, at least until they receive orders instructing them otherwise. On the bright side, the soldiers did the hard work of clearing the pass for the season; travel between Northcliff Pass and the city of Cliffside just got a heck of a lot easier this winter.

II. Cold Snap

And it’s highly likely that those orders will be as delayed as the news, for the regiment has hardly been within the city walls a week before the temperatures plunge to dangerous lows. This is not the seasonal frigidity accompanied by blustery blizzards that encourage snowball fights and a bit of ice fishing down by Sands Creek, but a cold so biting and bitter that any prolonged period spent outside in it runs the very real risk of hypothermia and death. This is the kind of cold that leaves the air clean and clear, with nothing to impede the watery white light of the sun for the few hours it spends above the horizon each day before setting again; it cuts the lungs when inhaled and bites straight through to the bone. Many of the village’s poor are brought within the sturdy walls of the Town Hall and the chapel, because the alternative is finding them frozen solid in the streets.

The silver lining to this development is bare indeed; avoiding the cold means that, for a time at least, the village residents and soldiers are too preoccupied hunkering down to endure the cold to be at cross purposes.

III. A Howl in the Night

On the third night of the deep freeze, an animal’s piercing howl shatters the oppressive silence that has settled over the village.

It’s not a wolf’s howl; it is far too shrill and keening, and comes from a great distance away, that much is clear. The few villagers brave enough to risk exposure to the cold will find nothing of immediate danger within the city walls--but should they lift their eyes and look to the gossamer clouds near the summit of Gods’ Reach, they will glimpse the dark silhouette of a massive winged beast circling the mountaintop in search of a safe place to roost.

𝕒 𝕨𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕣𝕪 𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕝

surprise!

I. Snow!

A mere week after the grisly discovery in the Deep Forest and the subsequent dispersal of the eerie spectral visitors, all Northcliff Pass residents wake one exceptionally frigid morning to find themselves buried under several feet of snow. It is of the light and fluffy variety--at least for now--which provides no shortage of entertainment for the village children, and means one is less likely to throw one's back out while trying to shovel it clear of doorways and the streets.

That is your first order of business, as it happens: free yourselves from your wintry entrapment. Or don't, if you've got enough food and drink squirrelled away in your tiny peasant house that you don't need to venture out into the elements. The world is your cold, shitty, socially stratified oyster; ditch your responsibilities, sleep in.

II. Fete! at ye olde tavern

All Souls' Day came and went, and nobody can really be blamed for forgetting about it what with the ghosts and the gloomy business of seeing to the bodies. All that aside the Hammer and Spoke seems especially welcoming that first wintry night, once all the snow shovelling is finished and the streets are clear enough for foot traffic again; lit lanterns glow warmly outside the door, and from within come the sounds of joyful music. Fiddles, whistles, a drum, and plenty of laughter; it seems the snow has stranded a troupe of minstrels in the village, which means at least two or three nights of great fun for village residents.

In truth it will take more than a few nights of drunk mischief to lift the pall cast across the village after the previous month's discoveries, but maybe that's why so many people gravitate to the light and levity and warmth of a party. After such a close call with so much death, it's good to remind oneself that there's joy in the world, too.

III. Cramped Quarters

The nights might be filled with good company, food, and drink, but during the day the village has to contend with another frustration: the roads in and out of Northcliff Pass are closed until the snow melts.

This is a common experience--in late December, January, and February. Not so much in November, when farmers are preparing to take their surplus harvest and livestock down the mountain to Cliffside, or when caravans with schedules to keep to are preparing to head east towards Woodsedge. (The only road clear in that direction is guaranteed to take them past Turn--something no one wants to risk.) Even a few late-season pilgrims have found themselves stuck between Gods' Reach at the summit of the mountain, and the creature comforts of Cliffside below.

There's nothing to be done for it, of course, except to endure the unusually crowded streets, the lack of vacancies at the tavern, and the occasional herd of sheep or goats picketed in very odd places.