OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

[faderifting]

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

Comments

[kartereo]

Waver turns to see who is making the offer to free him of a lock that is probably rusted shut, full of magic, or both. Without missing a beat, he nods then moves aside.

"Please and by all means. I've lost twenty minutes to this thing and I don't wish to lose even more."

[limier]

Light gleams from her fist, silvery and smelling of ozone, as she rips at the thing with a solid yank.

Nothing happens.

Attempt two: A pry-bar fished from her side (the doors here have a habit of closing themselves) to lever against the lid. No joy. Alright — plan three — Wren smashes a few solid hits against the hinges, and,

"Well. Shit."

She rocks back to her heels to regard the chest. It looks for all the world as untouched as when they began. The odds that it holds anything worth their time are… slim. By any rational estimation, Waver's already spent far too long at it.

But now this is personal.

"Suppose that we might drop it off the battlements?"

[kartereo]

"I considered that," Waver admits, his arms folded over his chest and scowl directed at the offending chest. There was no leaving this thing unlocked or un-destroyed. That was the plain truth.

"But two complicating factors: there is something broken in there and throwing it off the battlements will smash it to bits, or there is magic in there that will explode if it is dropped from a height."

He frowns, considering other options.

"A sledgehammer might work though."

[limier]

It's not a bad point. If there is anything in there — anything that might react with the thinned Veil, with the creep of lyrium —

He's right. Better not to find out. Wren stoops her way back up, shakes an irritated glance to the box.

"Give me a moment."

A hammer might smash the contents as cleanly, but it'll at least be satisfying. When she returns, perhaps ten minutes later, it's with a pickaxe in hand. Close enough. She offers it out,

"First blow?"

Noodle arms or not, he's earned that much.

[kartereo]

Waver's standing by the time the pickaxe is brought in, glaring at the box with all the hatred he can muster. This thing is going to go down one way or another.

He takes the axe with both hands though, and nearly sags from the weight of it. But there's no falling over, only a few moments of adjusting his grip.

"Thank you. Would you mind putting some kind of weight, or even your foot, atop the damn thing to keep it steady?"

[limier]

"If this does not work,"

Wren watches him struggle with the weight, plants a boot in place atop the box. It'll be terribly embarrassing if this how she loses a toe, but what can you do.

"I vote that we get someone to burn through it."

It'd take a long while, but at least it'd give the mages a break. Something simple and therapeutic to rip their way through.

(It is of course absurd to suggest the same might be said of the two of them.)

[kartereo]

"I do not object to that at all."

With his grim now comfortable with the axe, Waver takes a calculated moment to figure out the trajectory the axe needs to follow. He then follows through, the sound of metal on metal ringing through the air. There's something that's moved, but Waver's noted that the lock simply hasn't fallen apart. So he takes another, then a third.

It isn't until the fourth that the lock seems to have split open, and he grins.

"Looks like we can use this thing as a lever to take care of the rest of this chest."

[limier]

"Excellent work."

Wren steps aside, reaches out for the pickaxe.

"Perhaps best if I handle this part," Just in case. She's more likely to shrug off any magical unpleasantness within. "Was there anything distinguishing of the room's other contents?"

[kartereo]

"It looked like someone's room," Waver says, happy to hand the axe off. Once it is safely in Wren's hands, he rises to his feet and is quick to move out of the way.

"I'm expecting books, possibly clothing, and if there's anything else stashed away in there then hurrah for us."

[limier]

"With any luck, something identifying. They've a list of names back at the docks — we might reference it —"

She wedges the pick beneath the edge of the lid, slowly pries it up, expression braced for,

For. Well. Something.

[kartereo]

Something was trousers on the top layers, slightly stale from being locked inside for so long. Waver crouched down, and gently pushed them aside. He had no doubt the trousers of the dead would find some use, but what had his attention was the fact that under the trousers there were two compartments within.

To the left, in the light, was the glinting of glass. Dark blues, greens, and browns shone upwards, and he gave a content hum as he picked one up. "Potions," he declared, before moving to the right.

Spines of books stared upwards. They were all bound in plane ivory covered leather, the names of potion books and herbals written on the spines. It was a practical collection, and Waver picked up one of the books and began to flip through it.

Illustrations. Excellent.

"There's no ex libris in this one, but the other books might have one--"

[limier]

Pants.

Pants and potions and books. Wren steps back, lays the axe aside. Best they didn't throw it after all — it's been rare to find any of the Circle's collection intact.

She stoops, pries off her gauntlets to begin picking through.

"One of the Enchanters," No one of lesser rank would have kept their own quarters. "Ah, there are some marginalia,"

Nothing useful as yet, unless you count some lewd little drawings, but they're getting closer.

[kartereo]

Waver's focus shifts to the potions, carefully plucking them out of the box and putting them aside. They're all neatly labeled, which is a blessing in and of itself, but there's something else that is bothering him.

"The depth here is wrong," he murmurs, once all of the potions are out of their compartment. "These shelves should sit at the bottom of this, but it looks like this isn't the bottom of the trunk at all."

[limier]

"A false bottom?"

Wren cranes her neck to glance at the side. Perhaps it hides only smut, or smuggled letters, a diary; something private and petty. Perhaps.

(How seldom does perhaps end so happily. Logen had kept similar tricks, of his time.)

She snaps the book shut, sets it aside.

"Your tools again," She suggests. "There may be a catch."

[kartereo]

Waver immediately began to muck about in the pile to his right, searching for something slender. There might not be a keyhole, and if that was the case he needed something to wedge into a slim opening and lift the bottom upwards.

"Probably. I'm not seeing any indication that there's a keyhole on this side," he said.

Placing one palm on the now bare wood, he tried to wiggle the thing about, hoping for a thin piece of wood that hid such a keyhole to reveal itself. When it was clear nothing was going to do that, he began to pile the books aside.

"Likely over here then."

[limier]

"You have done this often, Monsieur?"

Her inclination's once more to turn the damn thing over and hit it a few times. But they've evidence enough by now to know that would be a poor idea.

She shuffles the rest of the stack from the way, investigates the mouldering pants once more. Her fingers linger on something in one of the pockets — oddly hard, against the rotting cloth. Wren fishes out a slim bit of metal (peculiarly distinct in its shaping) to pass it over.

[kartereo]

"Truthfully?" Waver says, tsking at himself. "I read a lot of bad detective novels."

The rest was just educated guessing. But no matter how he arrived at the conclusion, it was all just trying to figure out how to get around the way this thing was built. Moving the books aside, he finds the keyhole hidden in the far right corner. Perfectly times with fishing Wren finding the key, he grins.

"Ah, excellent. Thank you to whoever's stuff this is for making this part easy. Would you like the honors of this part?"