faderift | OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

WHO: Many People
WHAT: Cleaning up Kirkwall
WHEN: Cloudreach 1-21
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: This log post is for characters who go early to Kirkwall to assist in preparing it for the rest of those assigned there. We strongly encourage IC discussion of things left to character discretion—someone should definitely do a crystal post to discuss what to do with the personal belongings left behind in the Gallows or what new form the statues should take!

Kirkwall once lived on the edge of the Tevinter Imperium and was home to nearly a million slaves. Stolen from elven lands or shipped from across the sea, all slaves fed the Imperium's unquenchable thirst for expansion. They worked in massive quarries and sweltering foundries that produced stone and steel for the Empire.

The city's complicated past is not easy to forget, history having earmarked many corners of the stone city. A ship approaching the harbor spots the city's namesake: an imposing black wall. It is visible for miles, and carved into the cliff side are a pantheon of vile guardians representing the Old Gods. Over the years, the Chantry has effaced many of these profane sentinels, but it will take many more years to erase them all.

Also carved into the cliff is a channel that permits ships into the city's interior. Flanking the channel are two massive bronze statues—the Twins of Kirkwall. The statues have a practical use. Kirkwall sits next to the narrowest point of the Waking Sea, and a massive chain net can be erected between the statues and the lighthouse, closing off the only narrow navigable lane. This stranglehold on sea traffic is jealously guarded by the ever-changing rulers of the city as the net trolls taxes, tolls, and extortions in from the sea.

—From In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar, by Brother Genitivi

Establishing a presence in Kirkwall is a delicate matter. First, there's Provisional Viscount Bran Cavin—a man so used to batting back friendly offers of entirely harmless occupation of the battered city-state that his first three responses to the Inquisition's leadership appeared to be slightly personalized form letters. Proving that the Inquisition is here to work and not to conquer will be a process. The first step in that process is the second reason the move is delicate: the only building the Provisional Viscount is willing to part with is the Gallows, left quarantined and unoccupied since Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard's famous crystallization into red lyrium in the courtyard. The Gallows have since overgrown with red lyrium. If anyone is going to live and work there, there's a lot of work to do.

↠ Cloudreach 1-3: The Journey There
↠ Cloudreach 3-4: Arrival
↠ Cloudreach 4-14: Haunted
↠ Cloudreach 14-21: Spring Cleaning

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Medicine Seller fit in among the Lowtown merchants who wore gaudy attire to mimic their upperclass counterparts. He'd sold quite a lot of medicine that day and was packing up his wares when a man who was clearly a Rifter passed him by, muttering to himself.

"Many things," he said. He didn't know Kirkwall beyond vague and often differing details. But he had a gist of its history and he knew cities, he knew slums, and he knew how class systems worked. When strife came it was places like Lowtown that were hit first, hit hardest and the last to recover - if they ever did.

"Troubles have a habit of stacking up," he continued, closing the bottom drawer of his wooden pack.

"One. By. One."

Prompto gets an answer he wasn't expecting. He turns, looking for the person who responded. The Medicine Seller sticks out a bit, with his attire and wares, but Prompto focuses more on what he said.

"What... sort of things? I mean, obviously fighting broke out. Or some kind of destruction. But that's a lot of troubles stacking up for something like that to happen."

The Medicine Seller had done a good deal of reading his first month in Thedas, and while it largely consisted of the exploits of the Chantry, various kerfuffles between Fereldan and Orlais, and darkspawn troubles, there had also been a good deal of documentation on how terrible Tevinter was.

Kirkwall had come up maybe a few times.

"This city began as a center of the slave trade long ago. It would seem it's history did not get any less bloody as time progressed."

"Slave - seriously?" There's disgust in his tone. Slavery is awful, but more than that, the subject hits a nerve. It's... personal. But it's not something he wants to dwell on right now.

"I guess that would explain the decorations." Those statues in the harbor, the paintings on the walls in the Gallows... "But it's not anymore, right?"

"I seldom joke," he said. And then realized that it was a pretty blatant lie. He joked all the time - it was just others' bad luck they didn't get how funny dramatic irony was.

"...About something that tasteless," he amended, and hefted his pack onto his shoulders.

"Slavery is illegal here, if I recall. ...But there are always other troubles."

"Yeah, like, houses catching on fire and debris falling on them kind of trouble." It's a question of what exactly caused that to happen to begin with. "Maybe it has something to do with what the Inquisition's doing?" They're fighting a war of sorts, right? Had a battle taken place here?

"They say that a few years ago, this city was a powder keg. Conflict after conflict, and then something finally exploded."

He looked up at the hazy gray sky, and smiled his sharp, thin little smile.

"If I was told correctly, those events helped lead to the Inquisition's formation."

A bit of quick and dirty history, but he wasn't really one to beat around the bush about these matters.

"Figuratively and literally. It'd explain the damage and debris." Though he wonders how that was accomplished, given these people don't even have guns, let alone explosives. But they did have access to magic Prompto had never heard of. Not that he's an expert, but it seems way more diverse and powerful in a lot of regards than what could be found back home.

"And that would explain why we're here, besides, well, the obvious. This place looks like it could use some help."

He glances over, forcing a happy smile. "Ah, sorry. I didn't introduce myself. I'm Prompto."

"Indeed, there are terrible things that linger here," he said, not sounding particularly torn up about that. Terrible things were part and parcel of his trade, after all.

"It is a pleasure ser," he said, having already picked up the polite ways of referring to people in Thedas. "As you can see, I am just a medicine seller."

"Just medicine seller?" It's not the profession that has him tilting his head, but rather, it's how he introduced himself. "You gotta have a name, right?"

The big question finally hit. Names were pretty things. Powerful things. It was very difficult to control what you couldn't name.

"If it rankles," the Medicine Seller said, "Kusuriuri is fine."

It wasn't a name. It just meant 'Medicine Seller'. But in a place like this, it would sound like a name, and that was good enough.

Prompto feels like he's hit a nerve here, and he's not sure how or why, but he has enough sense to back off. "Oh, uh, no rankling or anything. I just never heard of anyone go by their profession before, but that's fine!" And he's not sure he could pronounce Kusuriuri anyway without absolutely butchering it the first several times. "So, uh, are you with the Inquisition?" When all else fails, topic change.

"There are names like Smith, Potter, and Baker after all," he pointed out, his eyes shifting to the side to look at Prompto.

"I am with the Inquisition, yes." As much as he could be 'with' anything, so to speak. "It seems the best course of action in this... unusual predicament."

There probably weren't that many who would refer to being drawn into another world and having a glowing green magic shard burrowed under their skin an 'unusual predicament'. It was like referring to a stab wound as an 'inconvenience'.

Prompto would argue that those are last names that people adopted over the years, but he keeps his mouth shut. No point in arguing this, really.

"Unusual predicament? Wait, are you a... you know?" He shakes his hand, the one that the shard is buried in. It's the first thing that pops into his head. And the medicine seller doesn't seem to be from Kirkwall, so he must have come with the Inquisition.

"I am a medicine seller," he said in response to Prompto's question. But now he was just being blatantly difficult.

"...But not one from Thedas, if that is what you ask."

His gaze wandered to the camera.

"Are you a news reporter?"

Even if he hadn't admitted that he wasn't from Thedas, the fact that he seems to recognize the camera - and what a news reporter is - would have been a dead giveaway. Regardless, he's glad to see someone else from, well, not Thedas, and better yet, who knows what a camera is.

"Nope. Just a photographer. Mostly do it as a hobby, though I hope maybe it'll help make money here if I can get my film developed."

"They are such interesting things," he mused, "to show the world as it is, unclouded by perceptions."

He cast a sidelong glance to Prompto, his lips curled into a small smile.

"What will you do with it while you are here, I wonder."

"Unless you count filters. But uh, don't have those with this camera, so I guess it's a moot point." He chuckles and rubs the back of his head.

"Good question! Might try and make some money off of it, if people don't completely freak out at the idea of it." He shrugs a little, still smiling. "And I'm sure the Inquisition could have use of it."

"Such as colour photographs...?" He asked. "Those have become fairly more commonplace where I am from."

Which is to say, the late 1920s.

"I imagine it will be useful either way. Perhaps you will uncover a scandal."

...okay, with that bit of info, Prompto's just gonna glean over the bit about the filters, because that's apparently ahead of his time. "Uh, yeah, something like that."

He laughs. "A lot of photographers make their big break that way, but I'm not sure how much trouble I want to start here. I'm an outsider, and it's not good to draw negative attention."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

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