faderift | 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 gave the box what could only be described as a dirty look, as it were its fault he'd been deprived a tasty treat.

"...Only disappointment," he said, his attention straying briefly as the paper talismans on the wall went from blank to displaying black writing. It seemed something in the room beyond was moving back and forth, but not making any move - he watched until the rectangles of paper went blank again and relaxed.

"May I examine it more closely?" He asked, extending a pale, manicured hand for the curious mystery box.

The Doctor finds it oddly humorous, so he chuckles softly at the 'disappointment' comment. He holds the small box out to the Medicine Seller. He's not worried about the other man -er elf? being able to open it, since it's delicate and takes focus.

"Be my guest."

He allows the other man to take it and watches him carefully...

He was glad for the distraction - there had been a general lull in the poltergeist shenanigans and the sheer amount of Red Lyrium had left him unable to go investigate.

He turned the box over in his hand, examining it closely. He even gave it another perfunctory sniff, before finally holding it up to his ear.

"...Nothing," he said at last, offering the box back.

"What is inside?"

Because of course he had to ask.

"You're sure? You hear nothing, sense nothing? To you it's just an empty box?"

Details, they're important. The Doctor will tell the man, but he needs to make sure... before he reveals the truth to the man.

The Medicine Seller cast him a suspicious, side-long glance. Did this man really just ask him to detect anything coming from an empty box?

Probably not, but he was game to play along.

"I cannot recognize the metal," he said. "And it is a bit heavier than a box its size should feel. But nothing else."

The Doctor grins. This is good new. Very good indeed.

"Well the materials that make that box up don't exist on this world. Well, at least as far as I know. Maybe they do and I just haven't found them yet. But I doubt it. Would it surprise you to know it contains Red Lyrium?"

Again, phrased as a question, not as a way to say what is in the box.

The Medicine Seller looked at the box. Then to his left where people were hard at work getting the Red Lyrium out of the walls. Then to his right where people were setting up the runes to keep it from growing again. Then above to where they had so much more work ahead of them.

"Would it surprise you if I said... 'no'?" He replied, finally meeting the Doctor's eyes.

He bites his lips. "Are you saying that because of something you sense from the box, or because of an inference you are making?"

The Doctor noticed the man looking around, it wasn't hard. But he had to be sure.

"Only the latter," he assured. Or attempted to at least. His slow, quiet monotone probably didn't sound particularly reassuring at all.

"After all... there is much ado about it here."

Of course he had to ask -

"What is the metal?"

"Well there is. Which is why I wanted to try to find a way to contain it so we could research it."

Unfortunately, he only had the one small box.

"Limspathoid it's a mineral that is similar to a cross between lead and diamond. Do you have lead or diamond here? That might not be a good comparison."

"I am familiar with both," he said. He couldn't speak for the people of Thedas in that regard, so he didn't. "A peculiar alloy, indeed."

Of course one question came to mind. The box may protect from the adverse effects of the Red Lyrium, but...

"How do intend to research it if it is in a box that denies all detection of it?"

The Doctor nodded. Good, if he had to dumb it down any further, there'd be problems.

Oh. That was a good question.

"Well, I was thinking I could keep it in the box for now, but then go find a hidey-hole in some corner or another where it wouldn't hurt anyone and run my tests there."

"Oh-? By yourself?" He asked. He may not know too much about Lyrium and its red counterpart, but he knew enough about the effects of both that what the Doctor said sounded like a monumentally bad idea.

"Without anyone there to make sure it doesn't drive you mad?"

Or start growing out of the skin. He'd heard the horror stories about the Red Templars.

"Just for the tests. I'm still going to live on the boat. Plenty of time for people to check on my madness. Assuming of course I'm not already mad. But not from any lyrium"

Because, well, the Doctor has to be a bit mad, or he wouldn't think to carry it around with him.

"Oh? If that is the case, then it may have no effect."

There was another customary pause from the Medicine Seller, the sort he dragged out as long as possible while he considered his next question.

"What kind of tests?"

The Doctor smirks. "Or it might affect everyone but me."

Because that's how things usually go for him. All or none.

"Well, the technology is rather limited here. But, I was thinking of trying to make contact with the song."

To make contact with that strange and haunting not-quite-a-melody... it was hard to say if it was a good idea or a bad one, but he had felt it after being in a room with the stuff for only a couple hours. It clung to the animal part of the brain, echoing long after he'd excused himself.

There wasn't much that could frighten him, but something about the song had left him... unsettled.

"How do you plan to do that?"

"Well. I'm a bit of a musician. And I have the ability to connect to things like that."

He is absolutely not going to mention that he's telepathic and he hopes to follow the song back to it's source by touching the Red Lyrium.

"My, my. How profoundly talented you must be."

The Medicine Seller may not have had the word 'telepathic' in his vocabulary, but he'd been around strange, supernatural phenomena his whole life (being a strange, supernatural phenomenon himself). He had at least a vague idea of what it meant to want to try to connect to a 'song' that bypassed the ears and bore itself directly into the brain.

"One must hope it does not find you an easy target. Do you intend to do all of this alone?"

OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

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