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

"You'll have to tell me about those stories sometime when we're not surrounded by that shit on top of being overworked. And--wait, what? You know Cassandra, the Seeker? She's pretty grim, but I don't know if full-on pessimist applies." Korrin raises an eyebrow at that, automatically going there since she doesn't know what else he'd mean.

"And as much as we could just trade quips, preferably over drinks, I'll take the real answer. We could use some of those around here, as I'm sure you've noticed by now. Your reputation is safe with me."

Waver shook his head no, immediately and emphatically. "Absolutely not, it is the name of a character in ancient mythology." He didn't hesitate as he gave the brief version. "She was cursed by one of the gods to see true visions of future events, but never be taken seriously by anyone. So invoking her name just means you're gonna be right, but no one'll believe you."

That was the quickest version he had. But at the idea of overwork and at drinks, Waver admitted that those sounded pretty good right now. "I think that there will be a peak of success, then everything will go down even faster than anyone expects. Maybe two to four years to do well? A year or two for it to go to shit."

"What a depressing myth. It sounds almost Thedosian." Korrin's lips twitch, knowing just how dark some of those can be. Thedas may have a lot wrong with it, but there's a dubious pride in knowing they can match such things, if not exceed them.

"That might be all the time we need, to beat Corypheus. If not, I hope to hell we have a backup plan. If there is, though, I haven't heard of it. The Inquisition's not wrong about us needing a better base than one in the middle of knowhere. But Kirkwall? Fuck, I'd take Orlais over this instead."

"What she ends up predicting is even more depressing," Waver said with faux cheer. He could probably bribe Iskandar into retelling the whole thing far better than he ever could, but that was a drunken evening to be had another time.

"It seems to me like anywhere that isn't Kirkwall has factors that can be reasonably calculated into any particular thing," he continued with a sigh. "This place is a child of chaos and so any planning is probably going to be a fools errand. I'd start considering other cases now, if I was higher up."

"I seriously hope they are, to be honest. I can sort of see the logic; Kirkwall has a terrible past and if they can redeem it, the Inquisition would gain a lot, reputation-wise. But there's 'difficult' and there's 'damn near impossible'. The most we're doing is slapping on a fresh coat of paint onto a crumbling building that's on fire." It's rotten to the core, probably literally thanks to all the red lyrium. How can they overcome that?

"Tell you what, I'll give you a chance to get changed and you can meet me at the kitchen and depress me further."

"I mean, it does make you wonder why this particular challenge was so uhm," Waver stopped, wanting to find the right diplomatic word. "Why it was taken on. Either there's a lot of confidence to do what needs to be done in a short amount of time, or there's a whole lot of hope."

Waver would be far more comfortable with the former. The latter was just begging for someone to show the whole enterprise up and chide them for being so ambitious and optimistic without factoring in the real world.

"I'll try and make it an interesting sort of depressing."

That gets a quiet laugh out of her and she nods, willing to hear him out. "I can work with that. Meet me when you're ready and I'll make sure there's room for us." Given her size, Korrin's a master of claiming space. No one seems to want to argue with a qunari, Inquisition-affiliated or not.

"Sure thing."

Admittedly being ready takes a good half hour, mostly because Waver spends a little too much time scrubbing dirt off of every bit of him not covered by clothing. That his hair has clumps of dirt in it as well doesn't help anything, and by the time he's done, well. Simply put he has no pride in what a mess he made of himself.

But eventually he finds Korrin again, wearing fresh clothes and with his hair now pulled back into a neat, albeit slightly damp, ponytail.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to take that long."

By now, Korrin has improved her own appearance, at least to the point of not trailing dirt. She wasn't too worried about that anyway; clean clothes are not a priority for anyone right now, save for the diplomats. She's been there just long enough to get comfortable and manages a lazy smile when Waver joins her, sliding over a glass of ale.

"It's no problem. We've had better, but it'll do."

"Only a jackass complains about the quality of libations when there's no control over them."

Waver took a sip of the ale, unsure of what to expect. It was simply mild, unoffensive ale. Nothing noteworthy, but watery either which was what Waver feared.

"So, I believe I owe you a story."

"Yep, that you do." She takes an appreciative sip of said ale, less interested in its quality and more in the novelty of just sitting still for a few minutes. "So, how bad is it? 'Rocks fall, everyone dies' depressing?"

"A combination of that and the gods are dicks," Waver said. His hands folded around the mug, and he let out a low rumble as he switched gears. This wasn't quite lecture mode, but it was close.

"So for context, by my time this story was considered mythology rather than an account of true events. But the concept's stuck, and people like the story. Anyway, in this story Cassandra was a daughter of the king of a particular city called Troy. There's a lot of stories about Troy and you could probably get Iskandar to tell you more, but just know that this is an offshoot of a way bigger group of stories."

"One of the gods saw her as particularly attractive, and made advances towards her. Some versions of the story say she consents then says no after asking for the power of prophecy, others have Cassandra saying no from the get go and remove that element. Either way, that refusal results in a pretty angry sun god, and Cassandra is cursed to always be correct in her predictions, but never believed."

Waver pauses, debating if it is worth butting against the Iliad, then decides that it isn't as if he wants to do anything else this evening. "One of the predictions she had related to the destruction of her father's city, and that entire event looms large in mythology."

As he speaks, she nods a little, filing away mention of Troy to bring up with Iskandar later, because why not? It's another distraction from Kirkwall and she's never running out of reasons to have those. Slowly but steadily draining her ale as he continues, Korrin frowns and shakes her head. "Ah, so it's the fault of a god's bruised ego. That seems to happen a lot in mythology no matter what the world, doesn't it? And talk about disproportionate retribution. What good is foresight when everyone rejects it?"

"The gods enjoy large scale irony," Waver deadpans, before a grin slips through. "And it makes for a good story, which is really the point in the end. And I wouldn't even call this the worst example of godly bruised ego."

That was the Bacchae, and that was something best experienced rather than explained.

"What other bruised godly egos have you encountered?"

"You've read the Chant of Light by now, right? That's all about the Maker's bruised ego. Because of the actions of a few, he turned his back on his creations. He did it when mortals were seduced by jealous spirits into worshiping the Old Gods and because the magistered dared to reach the Golden City, so he cursed them into becoming darkspawn. If creating the Blights that have nearly destroyed the world five times by now isn't disproportionate retribution, I don't know what is. And then he did it again when Andraste was betrayed and martyred, once again condemning everyone else for the actions of a few. His ego is so easily bruised that if he returned, I bet he would leave again just because someone sneezed wrong."

"I've only skimmed the surface, I admit," Waver said, a tinge of color in his cheeks. Boning up with religion was on the to-do list, but that list was a mile long at this point and it wasn't at the top.

Clearly that needed to change.

"But frankly, that feels less like bruised ego and more like a deeply childish personality."

Korrin notices the tinge of color and grins. "Don't say that near a Chantry sister, they'll guilt trip you like it's running out of style."

Taking another swig, she glances lazily around before looking back to him. "I'd say both. One can feed into another and blur the lines. The Dalish might have some interesting stories about their Creators, too. One of them was the god of vengeance and he fought the sun or something like that. You'll probably want to ask one of the Dalish for better context.

"I can survive a guilt trip or ten."

He could tune those out rather easily. "I can ask Merrill then, since she uh," he paused, then shook his head. "She indulges me asking very stupid and obvious questions."

Mention of Merrill gets a warm smile out of her, though one tinged with a slight sadness. Dammit, Mal. "She's very patient like that, I've learned. And she's also spent several years in Kirkwall before, so she could be a good person to ask about local stuff."

"Now that part I didn't know," Waver said. He mostly spoke to her in the capacity of a student, which meant that he rarely inquired about inner lives. Respecting that kind of privacy was something some students back home forgot to do, and so Waver made an effort not to be that guy.

"The way everyone talks about this place, I might've expected it to be reflected in personality."

"Heh, right? It's an undeniable shithole, no denying the facts. Some people behave as though they were born to it, whether they were or not. And others...well, either they don't last long or they have some secret they aren't sharing with the rest. I wouldn't ask Merrill for directions, though. Varric said she got lost here almost every day." She smirks and pauses for another sip, remembering his story about the ball of twine.

"Well, it isn't like this place is on a grid." Then again, many old cities weren't. Not being on a grid was no excuse.

"But it was that bad?"

"...yes?" Said in the same tone as 'do bears shit in the woods'. Then Korrin remembers he's a rifter and that context is important. "Ice-queen Meredith was the Templar in charge for a long time, and though she technically answered to the Chantry, the Grand Cleric basically sat on her ass and let her abuse mages as she pleased. Normal Circles are pretty harsh; compared to those, Kirkwall was a hellhole prison for them. Between Templar treatment and the already thin nature of the Veil, it's no wonder that so many turned to blood magic in their desperation. A stupid, stupid decision but that's what happens when people are grasping at straws. Between a mage -Anders- blowing up the Chantry and destroying a lot of the city and lives in the process, and the Qunari rampaging through the city some years before that, the fact that I'm both makes it ever-so-fun to be here, let me tell you."

Edited 2017-04-14 02:27 (UTC)

"I meant about Merrill getting lost."

Moreover, that was a lot of information to take in in one go, so Waver breathes out through his nose and slowly rubs his temples.

"The rest I can only react to in a single word, and that is fuck."

Korrin laughs quietly at that, raising her drink and flashing him a crooked smile. "Yeah, pretty much. There's no part of it that doesn't suck. I'm telling you now so that you have some defense later for when you hear it's even worse. Because I've only passed through here before, not lived in it, so I'm sure there's a lot of shit I don't even know about."

Or probably wants to know about, ever. "...and yeah, that's what Varric said. He gave her a ball of twine so that she could find her way back, I think it saw use for years."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject