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

For lack of being good at things like heavy lifting, mucking about with the herb gardens had become one of Waver's new jobs. Most days it meant playing in dirt and removing things, but for the past two or three days it has meant putting things in ground.

There were, now, a few plants that had no space available to them in the beds. Culinary herbs rather than ones used for potions, which had given him an idea on where a new home for them might be found. Carefully putting the four stragglers into a small crate to make it easier to carry them about, he headed towards where most of the cooking was happening for the group.

"I have a stupid question that requires an answer."

Busy as she so often is in her main role in Kirkwall which is going around and talking to people and dealing with everything else associated with that because apparently that's tacked on with being a bard when you transplant this sizeable a chunk of the Inquisition in one go, she raises an eyebrow at first. And hopes that there's no flour on her face from earlier efforts in what they're calling a kitchen (and if there is, that he'd be good enough to tell her. Or if there's something else on her face. Or in her hair. It's been that kind of day since she got here.)

"Compared to some of the things I've been asked since we departed Skyhold and set foot in Kirkwall, your question might not even hold a candle. Ask away." Waver's Inquisition after all, so that's going to filter out a good half of the idiocy that's come her way.

"I have a few extra herbs," he explained. The box of herbs had been placed down on the ground rather than have Waver try to knock with the crate in his hands, so he gestured down to them. "They're not going to fit in the existing gardens, and they're all culinary. I was wondering if you'd like to have them either here by the door or in a window box."

It was a practical question, but also a very small one within the grand scheme of life and the Kirkwall operation.

Araceli's eyes light up. Her own stock of spices has been generously donated to the cause after the Tal-Vashoth chefs gave her what they could so that people wouldn't be without but they need to make it last, don't they? And spices are one thing, herbs are another matter again. Kneeling down next to them, she looks up at Waver with a grateful smile because they're real. Alive. It's a thing she'll be able to put into words later but it settles something in her right now that had been a stone in her shoe.

"I don't know how to look after plants." An admission of not being good at something doesn't come easily to Araceli, not at all. The plants however are things that need to be nurtured and cared for so they aren't wasted. "Maybe the window? Do you know how to keep them from dying? I only know things that can grow by the water and these-- I don't want them to shrivel up and die on me." The words rattle out of her, accent thickening as she goes, but it'd be a bad omen if that's what happened to them.

"Hey, neither do I, but I got put on gardening duty anyway," he said with a grin. Waver was just glad that his instinct was right to bring them over to Araceli over anyone else. They'll be used no matter what. "I imagine put them where there's the most sunlight, and poke at the soil to make sure it is moist but not overly so."

A window box was probably a good idea. "The one thing with the other planters is that they all have drainage holes for run off water. So that'd be something to keep in mind. Everything else will be an experiment, I suppose."

"Do you enjoy it? We need all the hands but you could ask for a reassignment or I can put in a good word with the right person." Araceli's good at that, the polite smile and the polished little talks, insistent as she would be with some of the council members back home fighting any of them tooth and nail, all on Leandra's behalf. Maybe that's why Kirkwall doesn't get under her skin the way she feared. It's different but parts of it feel so familiar she has to catch herself. "Everyone will appreciate them, when we first use them you need to come - and you must tell me your favourite things to eat! I cannot promise them, not right away given-- given everything but in time."

One day they will be better supplied than they ever were in Skyhold. It'll make all this upheaval worth it just for that in her eyes. Fresher food right off the boat, right from the market stalls, actually haggling with merchants for it. Maybe even her own little place one day with a kitchen she only has to share with Korrin. Living the Thedas dream.

"Everything where I live can only survive a barrage of salt-spray from the sea. Hopefully Sina won't mind if I send her messages over the crystal and sound like an idiot, panicking. She was so good with Skyhold's garden, I couldn't ask her if it pained her to leave it behind." To Araceli it seemed too cruel to ask such a thing when there was a long voyage ahead of them.

"It's different work than what I usually do, but honestly, I need to be better at being practical." Gardening required physical effort but not so much that Waver didn't feel he could give it. Besides, there were elements to it that appealed to his nature of research and planning, so long as he had the right resources to access. Half of an herbal found around the Gallows was proving more helpful than anticipated, and once there was time, Waver was planning to seek a non-damaged copy out.

"Just let me know when you're planning to use them, and if at all possible I'll come up with sundry half-remembered recipes. Back home I mostly survive on take out." A life of true glamour, really.

"I doubt it, if it was something she was that fond of." That did leave Waver with another question. "Small wonder I haven't seen her about where I am then."

"This feels like what we did when we would establish a presence somewhere, I suppose it is. The Fallow Mire, Emprise du Lion, the Western Approach. No one asked what you were good at then, you just got told what you were doing and found the other person or people you'd be doing it with. Here we can get to see it grow into something more than an outpost most of us will never go back to." Maybe that's what she's been enjoying so much about this part of the challenge. The idea of building a more lasting foundation and foothold that they can shape themselves. Skyhold had too much history attached and as much as Kirkwall does too, there's a chance for a very different direction for all of them to move in now in the heart of things.

"Lux will find you." Lux will always find the person(s) she dispatches him to hunt down. When he's not on patrol here to inhale the scraps on the floor or look pathetic enough for someone to come pet him, tell him he's a handsome chap and so on. "I miss all the little shopfronts on the market where I would get my breakfast on the way home or off somewhere first thing. I liked being on the docks then to see what was going on. I wonder though if you have food more like Church and Cosima."

(One day. Blooming onions. She has to see such wonders.)

The smile on her face slips away as she moves to go back and check on one of her pots, indicating for Waver to follow and take a seat since she's still technically working right now. "The voyage unfortunately took a lot out of Sina, I have never seen someone so seasick in all of my life."

"That's a lot of optimism for this place," Waver admitted. Almost everyone he had spoken to seemed to be mentally going goddamnit, Kirkwall and what had been encountered so far only furthered such thoughts. The idea of this thing having any staying power alone was, well, a nice surprise. "Or for such adventures in general. But perhaps I'm too much a critic."

Always a critic, really, and in a way that rarely served him well. Waver knew that about himself at the very least, and had long since learned to rein it in.

"I'll keep an eye out, and trust that the delivery system will work." The best thing Waver could think of for the time being was the sundry pies that he consumed from shops and the rare time he decided to sit in a pub for a meal. Those things could last a while too, which could only be a good thing. "I think you'd like where I live back home, come to think of it. The shopfronts are there, so's the food, and the river snakes through the centre of the city." The international cuisine reputation of England not withstanding.

Waver follows without hesitation, and instead he crouches down beside her to help examine the pots. They're all small, in plain pots made of peat. Getting a better container for them is on Waver's to-do list, but he'd rather know the area they'll be in first so he can get the best housing for them. "Oof. She's taken this long to recover from it?"

"Some of us have to have optimism. How you think and feel about a thing colours how you do it, and there are always eyes on us." People see what they want to see but more than that now, the people of Kirkwall need to see the Inquisition being the Inquisition it can be and that it must be when putting its' best foot forward, even if it isn't at this particular moment giventhe state of things in Kirkwall. "I have never been one to back down from a challenge. This is a challenge with stakes as high, if not higher, than what faced us in Orlais. When we spoke before I said I had as many ways in and out of a place as I needed, but I still went in each time thinking I can do this. Not thinking about how high the odds were stacked against me."

If there are people who are lining up to call her naive - and Araceli doesn't consider herself naive enough to think that there aren't already if they hear this sort of thing from her - then they're free to do that. She'll keep moving forward, keep trying.

"It's the lifeblood, having a thing like that, no? My whole home is made of many islands but I live on the main 'heart' and all the waterways cut through it. Makes you stop and appreciate things, take in the view. I can do that here. Watch the ships come and go when I have a break." It's one of the things that's so small it's hard to explain why she missed it so much but she did it every day. She could hear them in her room. Hopefully they can live somewhere else than the accommodations afforded to them thus far because she likes the idea of the docks longer term.

Sighing quietly, Araceli nods. "Her journey to Skyhold in the first place involved coming by sea and she didn't enjoy that one. I hadn't planned to come so early but when I heard she was coming I said I would go with her, thinking that I might be able to help. Where her mark sits...well, that complicates things too. She was struck in the chest, not the hand like the rest of us."

"And no one appreciates a room full of cynics." A room full of cynics could be right, but endless negativity never assisted anything. It only bogged it down in doubt and worry and the feeling that nothing would ever be good enough. Waver respected anyone who could do otherwise, especially since it was his own nature to look at something and see right through it. "Orlais seemed easier to account for though, from what I heard. Kirkwall's own history suggests certain ends, and it feels less like fighting odds and more like fighting history. And I think that's a scarier force than anything else."

There was an unsaid but not impossible. Waver had considered such things in regards to magi matters back home, but those were deeply private ruminations. Only a few people knew about those thoughts.

"Mmm. I think what our ships back home look like would surprise you, but there's a combination of comfort and luxury in knowing some things and patterns endure through centuries." London survived plagues and fires and wars and the Thames still flowed, and it still was a pleasure to walk along in the early spring evenings, before the tourist season kicked off properly.

"That is strange. Is there a reason for it, or just chance?"

"Take the bitter with the sweet, we have to be able to see and hear all sides of an argument, you miss things if you don't." It's all about having the right things in the right amount at the right time. "The problem of Celene and Gaspard causing a civil war was fairly recent but that whole conflict with their families had gone back a very long time. We have to seal rifts, deal with Corypheus and all his followers. If we cannot reconcile things with Kirkwall? Perhaps we have something more fundamental to worry about."

And that's something Araceli has been concerned about, looking over at Waver to see what he thinks. He hasn't been here as long as she has to see some of the divisions and resentments that lie beneath the surface but those things can't go unnoticed either. Skyhold offered a place to hide them. Kirkwall cannot. Will not.

How many in the Inquisition are willing to accept and understand it, she's not sure, she'd accepted it as part of her life already when she'd joined the queensguard in Castileos.

"How different could they look?" The prospect excites her, honestly. "We have some of our earliest designs kept preserved and to see how rough they were in comparison to all the variety we have now? It's breathtaking, no? What people will accomplish that way." Or so she thinks because she couldn't design a ship even after living around them and helping on them all her life.

"From the way I recall Sina telling me, it was how it struck her. Fate, chance, luck, interchangable words but they're all a little different."

"It sounds like this situation could be viewed as a crucible." At least, that was a potential metaphor for it. Mix together so much material, place into a container that is supposed to stand high temperatures, and then either melt or alter what's inside. If the thing cracks, then there's a bigger problem at hand. "But if the issue is fundamental, what's the restructuring to be like? The enterprise will still need some level of functionality in order to survive rifts and Corypheus."

If there wasn't a plan for that, there needed to be one. Sooner, rather than later.

"--Find me after dinner, and I'll have a few attempts at drawing them to try and illustrate my point," Waver said with a grin. "They're not powered by wind though, I'll tell you that much, so without that particular need for sails there's a lot of modification to be done."

That seemed a strange deviation for the marks of rifters, and Waver's eyes narrowed in an attempt to unravel the meaning. "I'd almost call it an omen, but that doesn't sound right either."

"There have always been issues that at times caused me to wonder how the Inquisition would pull together, it felt as if we walked upon eggshells. If we had a singular leader, perhaps, but I cannot imagine there would ever be one that could speak for all amongst the Inquisition without some group being overlooked or resentment stirring in some corner. The advisors are there, the Mages have a council but spend too long debating and there's the risk of inaction. Sometimes we have to look at the hard truths, I don't know if everyone wishes to do that. The past is painful but it's a thing to be learned from so we can move forward and not repeat it the way Thedas has done time and time again. Allowing the past to rule you gives it power, Kirkwall has enough of that."

Maybe it's easier for a rifter removed from the situation as she is and she'd accept that argument if she didn't care so much about this place and the people in it. She's in this fight too, not just because she's here and has nowhere else to go. She could do the bare minimum. But she doesn't. She pitches in. She works as hard as she can. Araceli Bonaventura is Inquisition, not rifter and has been for a long time, a distinction that matters to her.

"Gracias, I look forward to it." No sails? Araceli can't really picture what the hell those sort of ships would look like when she's been the one up in the rigging or in the crow's nest of her father's ship as much as she's been on the deck itself but that only makes her more curious.

An omen. After Sina had opened a rift in Skyhold...No. No she isn't going to think about it so she breathes out, only realising she's curled her hands into fists when she's uncurling them again. Worrying about Sina is so easy to do because she's delicate and dear to her. "She's still with us and I met her shortly after I arrived in Skyhold, I prefer to think of that as my omen or sign: that despite such odds, she is here with me, a dear and cherished friend."

"Do you feel like this is another eggshells moment?" The question was asked in earnest, because Waver felt he was a poor judge. He could only go by what he had heard from so many other people, and Araceli's perspective was different. Getting that was always key. "Beyond eggshells, I feel like the history of the place is going to force truths and past actions to the forefront because well, there's so much to look at and can be learned from if done well."

There was also the question of what is 'done well' but one massive question at a time.

"I'll also try and explain some of the component parts, but I'm not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination," Waver said. Explaining steampower would be one thing. Motors? Not remotely his field. "So forgive me if I sound slightly inexpert on some parts."

Magi weren't known for being practical or involved in the world. Waver tried his best to counteract that, but it wasn't as if he knew he'd need to talk about engineering while in another world entirely.

"I like that interpretation," he said with a smile. It suited Araceli too, and the nature of the whole conversation come to think of it. "I don't think there'll be a better one."

"Ask me again once everyone arrives." Maybe that's trying to dodge the question but until they're all here trying to figure out their new lives, she won't be able to tell and any answer she could try to give now would feel wrong. For one, she's too tired half the time to know if she's getting the right read on people if it isn't part of her job. "Hopefully it can be handled tactfully, if not gracefully, each person here is part of something so much larger than themselves now."

Always reflections to be cast upon the Inquisition as a whole or any number of smaller groups within and outwith depending on who the person might be and where they came from.

"If you can forgive some of the questions I'll ask, from the sounds of it I don't think we'll have what you have. The wind and waves drive everything where I am, even our lights." Yes. Yes they figured that out and not the combustion engine. But hey, they won't have the pollution angle to deal with.

"Hopefully you'll get a chance to meet her, I do not think that in all my time here I have ever met a more kind person than Sina Dahlasanor."

"Fair enough," he said with a brief nod of his head. The question was hard to answer without more data, and Waver would never begrudge that. "But that brings up a point I've been curious about. Once the Inquisition accomplishes its goals, what happens?"

It seemed like the to-do list was pretty straight forward. How an organization evolves beyond it's initial purpose is always something worth pondering.

"--Okay, now that I want to hear about." Wind power for electric felt like a pipe dream half the time. "Fair trade of technology from home?" It seemed the only real way to discuss both things.

"I'll keep an eye out."

"A future has to be decided upon for the Mages and Templars first of all. It was the Mage-Templar war that gave rise to the Conclave in the first place, without a path set for them then everyone will be back where they started again, when the Inquisition has so many members involved? It would be a good mediator at the very least. The elves too, they should have a greater say and Briala being granted Marquisate of the Dales is a good start but so many elves in the Inquisition? It's a strong position to fight for more for them. If the Inquisition is daring enough." It's a polite way to say that she hopes the Inquisition is good enough to believe that the people fighting just as hard as anyone else should be granted something lasting for their work with them.

(She won't hold her breath, not in Thedas.)

"Of course, I don't know how all the moving parts work but it took a very long time to stop missing it here. Being by the water again ony reminds me more."

Waver nods, listening carefully. Too much was in the air, but the mediating role, that was a good angle to hold onto. "A general mediating body might be what this place needs. Then again, I do wonder if an outsider's perspective contributes to that."

Always, always, always Waver's mind came back to that point. At the end of the day, he wasn't born here. He'd never have that perspective.

"That I understand. The stuff this place is missing sometimes just," he shakes his head, trailing off. Thedas was interesting, but it was so behind on little things that made life easier.

"There's always an argument to be made for outsiders being free of bias. Most nations will have an ambassador to another land to represent their interests to some degree, being able to see things more clearly for not having a vital stake could be an advantage. And a disadvantage, since we won't have a stake in this future so we could likely find ourselves accused of who knows what." She rolls her eyes, a memory of innumerable council sessions replaying in the back of her mind but a challenge is a challenge.

Still, there's so much to fix before they can even tackle that. So many rifts before they can touch Corypheus. Probably making sure they've hunted down as many of his supporters as possible too.

"When you run out of candles in the middle of something important or interesting and sometimes it's the mad dash to get more? Or the wind blows the flame out. Or the rain." There are magical options but those aren't always available, affordable or practical so usually? Candles. "I hope it's less drafty here than parts of Skyhold."

"Honestly, I don't think we're free of bias. I think we just lack particular baggage which means that when we ask basic questions, it indicates a certain level of problems with a given approach." It is something he had been thinking about a lot lately. "And that is a problem, but if people are intending to stay, that should count." People may well be.

"Mmm, exactly sow. And candles are limited in how much light they can cast as well," Waver's tone immediately becomes the tone people used for taking issue with the weather. "I've been squinting to read so much more since I got here."

He pauses, taking in their surroundings. "The drafty part depends on our handiwork, I think."

"It depends how you sell it." That could be her mother or father talking, but it feels more like her mother in her mind. "But I've been in Thedas a long time now and even compared to a lot of people here, I've had an education and opportunities they haven't. What I chose to study in Thedas required having to learn much more but I can look at it as someone who had none of it - magic was only in stories, there were no elves or dwarves, no Qunari or Tal-Vashoth or Vashoth, none of the sorts of religions that Thedas has." So again, she sees it differently but Araceli has had practice knowing how to talk around a problem if she wants to or needs to. Waver's name is worth passing on to Church if they haven't spoken or he doesn't seek him out himself so she makes a note of it. Even if she isn't involved, she's still involved by virtue of being here.

And Church is a dear friend, she wants him to do well.

"You'd think these," she nods to her hand, "would be a little better for having something to see by. But no. Now we're here in Kirkwall, it might be easier to get hold of a lantern even if it's only oil. Better light, doesn't blow out, I might even be able to adjust it." She's not holding out much hope but it'd be nice to have something like that to work with sometimes, maybe on the desk she imagines having in her future.

"Korrin and I are hoping we can live somewhere in the docks. She doesn't want to live in the Gallows given the history it has and I understand that. I miss living by the sea so if we have a chance? That's what we're doing. Right now we've just hung the fur blankets we brought with us up to see if that helps a little." Actually it's to see if it muffles the noise so people won't complain about them but it's also for that too since they're at least not going to freeze like they would in the frozen shithole that was Skyhold.

"I can see that argument," Waver agrees. Perspective was an easier thing to see from various angles here. It was freeing, in a way. "The only thing I've realized that I have strong feelings on is how this treats magi, and that's only because of my own background."

Waver can pretty easily picture how he might've survived, or not survived, as a mage. It isn't something he likes.

"It says everything that you say oil lantern and I go oooo excitedly," he says with a low laugh, directed at himself. "I'd try and get a thick wick, so that there's maximum light"

If there was only a spell for light amplification.

"If you guys find a place, let me know. Iskandar'll probably want to do the same, but for different reasons." The man wanted to see the ocean at the end of the world. This will have to do for now. "Stupid me I listened to him talking about wanting to build a place in the forest around Skyhold and tried to do some mapping, but then," he snaps his fingers. "Nope, moving time. I spent hours washing spring mud out of my hair because of all that work."

And now she knows where he has a stake though they did discuss mages and magic before, it's still good to hear it. "You would have a different perspective to many, having lived a life unlike any of them had. What you offer, should you choose whenever the time may come, could prove to be incredibly valuable when a path must be chosen."

Because Araceli wants to volunteer her own services to that, in places where mages can't go quite so easily, doing things that are best left to bards instead.

"Wouldn't it be so nice though?" A real working lantern? She's going to have to go poke around the markets and if she honestly has to, she'll deal with the shadier folk since she had no qualms doing that before when it was actually her job. They need to be aware of the criminal element anyway and it might be a good test to see what gets in and out, starting with something so innocuous as a lantern.

"If we get a good deal, I'll try to get you one as well, hopefully the rates will be more reasonable in the docks when they have bodies willing to live in them. He was the one crowned at the one of the festivities?" Araceli had been limping around with a cane, still gritting her teeth through most of it to carry out her duties in front of the nobilities, eager to pretend to be normal in front of her friends at the other party. Paying attention to some of the other parts hadn't been high on her list of things to do.

Waver laughed nervously at that point. "I'd probably be best at going well that'll lead to this terrible thing that magi do back home." At heart, Waver was a critic. Useful for poking holes in plans, but it was something that could turn off a great many people rather than endear him. "Truthfuly, I'd worry that my cynicism might take over any helpful critique. But if given plans, I could likely identify the potential errors and offer ways to deal with them as they arise."

Pre-triage for problems, really. It wasn't going to change Thedas, it'd just be useful for whoever came next that had to deal with the previous generation's decisions.

"If only there were little pieces of household magic to amplify light, or make it endure," he said with a sigh. Waver hated the little changes the most. Back home he could enchant his own cigars to provide protective fields around him when he lit up. Here, well, that wasn't possible.

"Yes, that'd be him," Waver confirmed. "Big redhead, loud, built like a house. Conquered the known world back home when he was alive." Never mind the time difference between when Waver lived and Iskandar lived. Magecraft had filled in that gap.

OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

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