Festival colors. Shimmering heat. The noise of a joyful crowd echoing off stonework baking in the noon sun. The scent of flower garlands and spiced drinks mixing in the bright air... all of these are an intoxicating combination, and the city of Heirwater is happily drunk on summer and celebration and--well, sure, okay, drunk on wine, too.
"Names and purpose! NAAAAAMES and puuuuur-POSE!" shouts a red-helmed guard from the shade of the drawbridge gatehouse just ahead.
You're standing on the broad stone surface of one of the two great bridges that lead from the Market Square to the edge of the Hill. Far below, the River Heirwater courses along its banks, filled with boats of every size, sporting sails, pennants, and banners of every color. Today, on the great festival day of Riverthanks, the Hill is open to the public. Normally, walking through the gatehouse doors would require a thorough cross-examination, or papers identifying your business in the Fortress or Academy of the Heir. But today, all the guards want are--
"NAAAAAMES!!" bellows the guard. "State your NAMES and your PURPOSE! If you're here to view the grounds, SAY so and be QUICK, there's plenty of folks before AN' behind you!"
He's not wrong. It's taken the better part of an hour to get to this gatehouse, filing up the drawbridge in an ever-narrowing line. What had begun as a milling throng has become a series of ragged bunches of friends or strangers, linked together like sausages roasting in the summer sun. These groups shuffle forward together as those ahead are let through the gatehouse doors by threes and fives. Your group is a strange one, and you have attracted some odd looks from those around you. A guard in green Fortesqueue armor, a woman alone, an unassuming merchant... these three might have passed without much comment. The scholarly half-elf might have been of some interest to those waiting in line... if he had not been overshadowed by the enormous form of a bull-headed minotaur, breathing heavily in the baking sun.
You're starting to wonder whether it was really worth it to leave the cool breezes and amusements of the Market Square behind. Of course, you want to gain access to the Hill, but maybe noon was the wrong time to do it. Of course, it's not like you can really turn back now. Behind you stretches a long line of peasantry and merchants, filling every inch of the drawbridge, all the way back down to the packed square. You see the grand facades of the Six Shops, bedecked for the day in flowers and ribbons, and beyond them, the wide bowl of the city rising up the sides of the great valley through which the Heirwater runs.
"YOU LOT!! NaaaAMES and purpose!" The group of robed figures ahead of you steps forward and mutter to the Montulet guard at the gate, casting squinted glances back at the minotaur and the Fortesqueue in your midst. After a moment, the guard lets them through. They move quickly, whispering rapidly as they disappear into the shadow beyond the gate.
"NAAAAMES and puuuuur-POSE!" shouts the guard at you.
Finally.
OOC: Roll initiative, then step forward and state your name and purpose to the guard!