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

[crowncitizen]

It takes getting used to, but nothing stays new forever. Prompto understands where this guy's coming from. He focuses on that, rather than the whole bit with the walls. Because that sounds like a barrel of crazy and he's had enough of that for quite awhile.

"Just have to adjust, I guess. My world's a lot different than this place, so it might take awhile." But he'll get there. And immediately he hates himself for the sentiment. He should be trying to find a way back, not settling into this place. Noctis and the others need him. They have to be looking for him, wondering what happened.

If they haven't just written you off and moved on.

No no, there's no time for thoughts like that.

"O...kay? What do you want to show me?"

[alankazam]

"Over here,"

The ghost of a smile. He shifts up, glances to see whether Prompto follows. It's a short walk back down the hall before he shifts to his knees at the far corner, with some effort wiggles a loose hunk of stone aside, waves Prompto down beside him. Between the thick crumbling edges, a thin vine climbs and spiders through the cracks, alive and startlingly green. Tiny buds sprout here and there, threatening to bloom.

"It's different. And it came back." His fingers brush a bit of rubble from the plant's path, smooth down the ingrained dirt. "It always comes back."

[crowncitizen]

He follows him, his steps right behind his. Curious as to what he's going to see, he kneels next to the stranger as bid.

The little vine seems such a stark contrast to the rest of this place. Prompto almost reaches out to touch it, but refrains, fearing damaging it in some way.

"...if you're trying to say what I think you're saying, then thank you." He glances over at him, offering a smile. "How did you know this was here? I wouldn't think anything would grow in this place."

[alankazam]

"I found it earlier," Alan admits. It's a lot easier to catch with your face an inch from the floor. "But it's better with the mystery, isn't it? It wouldn't mean the same thing, if we could see it right away."

"It's surviving, somehow, and it doesn't have any idea how miraculous that is. I suppose we don't either." A shallow glance up, as though he'll see anything more than ceiling. "It still matters that we try."

[crowncitizen]

"Focus on the good, right? What remains and endures, rather than what was lost." He tries to do it, especially back home, but it's overwhelming when the losses pile up so much. Perhaps that's at the heart of the problem, here: it hits to close to home, and not in a good way. "It'd just be nice to see a place that was doing okay, that wasn't suffering for once. Seen a bit too much of that lately."