0.1 | Riverthanks in Heirwater

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!

Tosher, roll a quick intimidation check?

Even a half-hearted attempt at intimidation by the minotaur is enough to make the guard cringe. "Hey, look, I'm just a recruit--you can go in, the Hill is open today." He steps back, allowing Tosher and the others to pass. Trying to reclaim a little of his dignity, he sneers at Eldrick's green uniform.

"Try and keep that beast from killing anyone up there, Fortesqueue. It'd be a shame for that to happen on your watch. NAAAAAMES!!"

You all filter into the relative darkness of the gate. It's an enormous stone pylon 2/3rds of the way along the drawbridge, practically a fortress in itself, filled with the heavy machinery required to raise the drawbridge in case the Hill were to ever be attacked... although, of course, that's unthinkable. What army would be crazy enough to mount an assault on Heirwater?



Your vision goes green from the sharp contrast as you step out of the sunlight, and as a group you practically barge into the robed figures who had walked the bridge in front of you.

"Watch yourself!" one of them hisses, whirling to bare his stained yellow teeth. The three are dressed alike, in black cloaks held across their tunics by a red cord with a single knot in the center, strung horizontally across the neck--almost like a wound.

Dex saving throw

The man with the yellow teeth reels backwards, knocking into the stone wall. His two companions hang back with him, allowing the group to pass. Around the party, the mood of the crowd shifts from good-natured impatience to wariness... although fights are inevitable on Riverthanks--with that much wine flowing, things always get looser towards sundown--most fights don't involve a minotaur. Those ahead of the group hurry ahead, and those behind hang back, leaving a little empty air around them as the party passes over the end of bridge and onto the cool grass of the open courtyard of the Hill.



You step back into the brilliant summer sunlight—much more pleasant here in the green quiet of the courtyard. It's filled with festival-goers milling around, gazing up in wonder at the stately buildings. Some of them have been here before, on previous Riverthanks visits, but for many, it's their first time glimpsing the soaring walls and flying buttresses of the Fortress of the Heir, and the two Colleges of the Heir's Academy to the left and right. Guards are positioned throughout the crowd and at every door, to prevent access to the interiors of the buildings, but small paths wander through groves of finely-cultivated trees and under shady archways.

It's a beautiful place, and it echoes with sounds of wonder and the sound of falling water at the central fountain. The crowd around you is eager to disperse, to see the sights and--to be fair--to get away from the party, who receive more than a few wary looks.

OOC: It's common knowledge--although Tosher seems to have gotten some misinformation--that if you touch the central wide, flat paving stone in the middle of the Market Square at midnight on Riverthanks, you'll have incredible luck the coming year. Well, that's what the legend says, anyway. It may be frustrating for Tosher to learn that the Market Square is where he just came from, an hour ago, across the drawbridge.