Great Courtyard

This large, well-kept courtyard is often a bustle of activity. Carts roll by, their beasts braying and making all manner of animal noises as then trudge on through to the inner courtyard. Drudges bustle back and forth on their various errands. The smooth rocky ground is kept swept clean of growing plants and mosses, staunch tradition upheld. Two large bronze doors, each inlayed with a rearing runner facing inwards towards each other, lead into the hold. Smaller doors off to each side lead to the infirmary and tavern respectively. A tall wall, decorated with reliefs of frolicking runners, surrounds the courtyard and leads up to the great tower, which along with the lesser tower, flank the large iron gates leading out of the hold, to the ramp and beyond. The watch wher's den is snug up against the smaller of the two towers. Reliefs of familiar frolicking runners dance about the courtyard walls, flanking the hold crest that decorates the middle of each wall.

The snow finally stops falling but leaves Keroon covered in a winter wonderland blanket of white. Temperatures stay just below freezing which keeps the snow from melting away. Clouds begin to clear and the nights are sparkling clear and days are sunny and bright.

It is winter.
Perched on the iron gates are three firelizards.
You see Jef, Dinner, and Timoney here.
Obvious exits:
Ramp Inner Courtyard Infirmary Great Hall Tavern Trader's Courtyard Watch-Wher's Den

Swinhar walks in.

Esther walks in slowly, letting her hair fly around like fire. in from the The Hitching Post.

Swinhar stand up from where he's been kneeling near the base of the old wall, drill in hand and powder on his back. He looks around, nods an okay to Nati, and waves to Esther. "Who wants to light it off?" Of course, the holes still have to be filled, but...

Esther watches them work, not really expecting to see this kind of thing going on at her calm Keroon. She was just going to the kitchen, okay, the long way. She stays where she is, not steping back or anything. She eyes her cold flit, suprised he didn't leave once she stoped.

Natali backs away slowly, like a culprit about to make a dash out of the area. "Not me... you saw what happened the /last/ times.." Well, not the last "I lit somethin'... it ain't happening. Sorry!" At least she's grinning, right?

Swinhar chuckles, and nods. "Yeah, this is true..." He starts putting good sized bags of powder into the holes and attaching fairly long fuses... "Esther, isn't it? Wanna light all this off?"

Esther eyes Swinhar for a second, before walking closer, lazy 'lizard cherping for her to stay where she is. Smart Lizard! "You don't want to?" She asks him, closer now. She kneels down to his level. That's her saying 'yes'.

Natali is just going to back away now, towards cover, but before she does, "Oh, should I get muffs? Y'know, to protect our hearing? It's going to be a loud bang..." And Nati likes her hearing. Without waiting for a response, she hurries over to the workshop, returning shortly with several pairs, slipping one over her own ears.

Swinhar shrugs, stuffing the last hole. "Well, I can't have /all/ the fun, now can I? Yeah, Nati, muffs would be good... And the fuses will take a while to burn, about two minutes or so?" Yup. And then a series of booms. And then, no more wall. Nope.

Esther then stands, still close to what is left of the wall. She looks back and takes a pair from Natali, but doesn't put them on yet. She really is just waiting for Swinhar and what she's to do.

Natali is here to supervise and stuff, yeah. Watching, she gives the go ahead, but quickly waves her hand to stop. "Wait for a moment... I had gotten word from the miners that one or two of 'em were coming down to help... so, yeah." And that's her advice.

Swinhar stands up, stretching, and looks down at Esther... Well, this'll be fun... "Alright, you see this fuse right here?" He points to the /one/. "Just light it and run. We're gonna be hiding behind that stuff," points to a large pile of rocks. "Alright, they can check the placement..."

Esther nods, watching the large fuse. Now wait a minute. Why don't they all stand there with her? Oh well, she's not one to be scared of some explosive anyway.

Jossie walks in.

Derina walks in.
Iisana walks in.

Swinhar waves to the miners, and gestures to the now stuffed holes in the base of the wall. "Care to check my work?"

Iisana stomps through the snow, hands in pockets and looking distinctly pale and nauseous from her flight down. "Jossie, Derina, Natali." she nods in greeting to the people she knows. "And... the rest of you." she adds, with a vague glance at everyone else. She puts her hand over her mouth a moment, swallowing hard a couple of times to settle her stomach.

Derina watches silently at first. She's not exactly the expert about that since blowing things up isn't required of her when keeping the hold in top shape. She smiles "Hey there Iisana." she greets back then also nods to the others.

Esther watches everyone come in. She just stands there, waiting to get the job on-ward.

Jossie is used to those wonderful dragon rides, you see. Sorta. Well, at least this one didn't bother her. "Ooh, it's so nice here!" she beams as she makes her way towards the smith types. "Alrighty..."

Swinhar ohs... He should probably intoduce himself. "I'm Swinhar, the apprentice... I'm rebuilding the tavern here for my project, and we need to get rid of the old wall first... Yeah."

Natali just nods her head in agreement, turning it into a greeting towards the miner folk "And... well, I'm here to supervise and help." Basically. They probably wouldn't like it if she got near the explosives, anyway.

Iisana gets motion sick on draggies, which explains why her usually acerbic acid is somewhat dulled while she attempts to prevent herself from losing her breakfast in a spectacular fashion. "Oh yes." she says, nodding towards Swinhar. "So I recall. Well..." she waves a hand vaguely. "Do whatever you're meant to do. It's too cold out here to be working until the next interval." She glances warily at Natali. No. Natali and explosives. From previous experience, the miners know it's a baaaad combination.

Derina blinks and does hope Natali stays away. She couldn't fr(forget) the mess that was made and all that wrok (work) she had to do repairing the place. As long as she watches though, this Quartermaster is alright with it all.

Swinhar nods, double checking everything, then motions every body towards the aforementioned paile of rocks. It's quite a large pile. "Alright, everyone behind there, except Esther..." He hands a punk to her, and lights it. "Now, just touch that to the fuse, and come join us. It should take a while to burn down..." At least, he hopes so...

Natali is back there before Swinhar even speaks. She's taking the precautions and really doesn't need to spend another month or two in the infirmary. No siree bob! "Go for it!" she squeaks from behind.

Jossie joins the others after nodding approval. Like she really works with explosives? Hardly. No, geology is the place for her. But anyway, that's her, crawling behind the pile. "This isn't going to fall on us with the blast, is it?"

Iisana has a healthy fear of any Smith weilded explosive material, and she needs no further prompting to take cover. If it weren't unseemly to dive behind something, she would do just that. Insteads, she spins on her heel and stomps through the snow some more to where she's to hide. "This had better be done properly." she grumbles. "I don't want some smith blowing something up the wrong way and causing us all to die horrible painful deaths." And if that happened, once they got to the afterlife, she'd sue like mad.

Swinhar nods, and ducks. The rock pile is fairly large, and most of the explosives should be absorbed... "Go ahead, Esther!"

Esther takes the punk in one small hand, nodding. Yes, they better all go away. Give someone who has no experance with exposions, fire and watch her burn everything down. No, that's just her low self-esteem comming through. She's done harding things than this back in Gar. Finding the fuse she picks it up, an slowly connects it with the fire she's holding. After placing it back down in a safe spot, she snufs the tip of the punk and watches it a second longer before quickly jogging back with everyone else. Geeze.

Derina shudders at that comment and quickly gets behind the rocks with the others "I hope so too.. I'd certainly like to be able to get back home." she comments and her just an innocent bystander. She's no expert on these explosives.

"Home?" Okay, now Nati's starting to worry here, y'know, that something might go wrong? So now would be a good time for her to squeeze her eyes shut "Oh faranth I hope this goes well!" she squeaks, awaiting the boom.

The fuse slowly burns, hissing in the snow. Then, at the point where they've all be tied, it starts burning /very/ fast, followed by a series of mid sized explosions. A cloud of dust shoots up and out, covering everything, and destroying vision.

Jossie blinks. And blinks some more. Then a sneeze and a cough follow, and finally, she attempts to look around at the others. "Uhm... is it over yet?" Is her question through the haze.

Swinhar is the first to rise, wanting to see the results of his handywork... Hey... There's no wall... And a /big/ hole. Oh, that's where the foundation eroded... "Yeah, it's over... They all went off. Good job, Esther!"

Iisana's coughing can be heard long before the grey dusty lump that is the miner journeywoman pushes its hood back that she tugged all the way over to protect her face as well. "I'm not dead." can be heard after a moment. "Well, it's an improvement. Although dying would have saved me the return trip." Even more clouds of dust rise from her jacket as she slaps at it.

Esther is somewhat blocked out of thinking with the screaming flit on her shoulder. He must have been alseep. "Shh." She sternly tells him, and then covers her face with her hands, getting off any dust that might have landed there.

Natali stands, patting herself down to relieve her clothing from the clinging dust, and then beams "You did it! We're alive! I think... unless we're all dead and we don't know it. Quick! Poke each other!" Will that work?

Derina still huddles by the rock. After that she is a little dazed "We made it? Didn't we? I hope..." she trails off and looks around her. It appears that we all did, maybe.

Swinhar chuckles and thwacks the Nati. "Shh. We're all alive. You didn't doubt me, did you?" Well, he hopes not. "Hey, Miner peoples... See that /big/ hole? That's why the wall went down in the first place... We need a new foundation."

"Poke me and break an arm." Iisana growls distinctly, from where she's trying to clean her nice jacket. She paid good marks for it, darnit. Of course, it would be the only stuff she has that are suitable for snow. She runs her fingers through her hair and looks at Swinhar, narrowing her eyes as an /apprentice/ addresses her as 'miner peoples'.

"New foundation, huh?" Well, at least Jossie's not offended by the 'miner peoples', but she'll correct so that Iisana doesn't have a bovine "Iisana... Jossie and Derina." There, clarification. "Alrighty... shall we get started?" Work = staying warm, no?

Esther sighs again, fingering through her hair. After shush'ing her flit, she looks around at everyone. Yes, they seem to be fine. Just a little cranky, but she's not one to judge. Hopefully she just did a good job.

Derina nods and comes back to reality. "yes.. time to get to work I suppose. She rises and peers at what was once a wall. Lots to do of course.

Swinhar nods, remembering the names and faces. "Sure, the day is young..." He gestures towards another pile of bags containing foundation, and a large water supply. Yup.

Iisana sniffs archly. "Well, I suppose so." she says, looking around at the devastated wall. "Although this does have it's charm." Is that a mischievous glint in her eyes? "You know... the 'under construction' look." She glances at the other miners, notes that her opinion if probably not going to help, and just heads for the materials without another word.

And, at this point, Swinhar's evil parent's made him get offline. ICly, the next few hours were spent clearing debris, mixing cement and pouring it to fill the hole left by The Storm.