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

It feels a bit odd, going to Kirkwall. Of course he had heard about everything that had happened there while he was still a soldier - even Qunari gossip sometimes, and there had been a lot of discussions about the former Arishok and the mission to this damn place.

He used to be disgusted at the amount of Tal-Vashoth the event had created. Now he kind of understood it. The Triumvirate deciding to play things that way was not exactly what the Qun meant to some people, and with the proof of humans - Hawke - being powerful enough to take down the Arishok had changed the view of the bas to others.

It all makes him a little uneasy, but the Inquisition was going, and something he was good at was following orders.

...nothing really prepared him for the statues at the bay, though. Giant slaves crying in defeat. Chains everywhere. "That is disgusting."

Taas isn't alone in his feelings towards Kirkwall's cruel decor. When news arrived that they were there, and that sea voyage was finally over, Beleth was glad to get to deck and watch the approach to Kirkwall. The gladness lasts for a handful of seconds.

She heads over to the railing near Taas, looking up at the statues, a frown heavy on her face. "It's gh--" A pause, and then turning to look at Taas, so he can actually see her lips. She's got a little of the sign language under her belt, but nothing that could describe this.

"It's ghastly." The declaration is followed by a headshake, frown still fixed in place. "And people wonder why Kirkwall is so...how it is."

He gives her a little smile in greeting, even if it doesn't fully reach his eyes in the shadow of these massive monuments to hatred and suffering. "They should tear it down." Taas says softly, shaking his head again.

Preserving history was one thing, but what kind of madness didn't spread in a place surrounded by imagery like this? He could understand the disgust his people still had for Kirkwall even better, now - and the amount of viddathari.

A place in the Qun offered a way about of this horror.

"Hopefully they are not too visible from where we are going."

"I don't know how you could tear it down. It's massive." She's not even sure how they made it. Maybe it was chiseled out of the cliffs? She spends some time studying them, drumming her fingers thoughtfully on the railing. "You could focus on the base, if you had strong enough explosives, but...I'm pretty sure only the qunari have that. And even if you did, you'd have to account for the thing falling down. You'd have to clear the harbor and the docks, and the tidal surge would be drastic. Maybe if you started at the top, cutting off chunks at a time--"

She pauses, then shakes her head, turning to Taas with a sheepish smile. "But I doubt the statues are coming down any time soon, and I'm sure no one will be consulting me about how to remove them." Not that she's any kind of expert at it.

"As for where we're staying..." She glances at the island approaching them, that housed the Gallows. "...I hope not. But I think that we'll have plenty of things to worry about besides the statues, for a while."

Taas sighs at that, but she's right. In all of it.

Walking further to the railing, he leans over it a little bit to watch the island. This 'Gallows' didn't only have a morbid name, but it clearly looked uninviting.

"Under the Qun, our mages are bound and leashed... but not like this. I'm honestly not sure what is worse." Mages were not considered prisoners that had to live in places named after death - like their lives were only a long death row.

"It's going to be a mess to clear up... and not only because of the debris." He turns to Beleth again and gives a little shrug. He shouldn't be talking about such dour things, should he?

"How are you holding up?"

"Mages are leaders in the clans," Beleth replies, with a little shrug. She's not sure which is worse, either--they're both wrong, as far as she's concerned, but they also don't really concern her. It's not like any of this will ever really effect her family, after all. So Beleth can only give her distanced opinion. "They are holders of the lost lore, the knowledge that we would forget otherwise. It's an esteemed position."

And a position she had once wanted. Maybe still did. She would never understand why so many outside the Dalish turned on the mages.

Turning the talk to herself is a surprise, and she blinks a little, startled. "Um--I'm alright. I'm glad to be back in the Free Marches, to be honest. I've never been to Kirkwall, really...Or any of the other cities. But we'll be far closer to my clan, now." She smiles warmly, ducking her head. "It'll be nice to be able to visit them more regularly, now. I missed them. I mean--I enjoy the friends I've made here, but--" She glances off into the distance, as though she could try to see beyond Kirkwall, and into the Free Marches proper.

"Sometimes I feel so alone. It'll be nice to be home."

OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

Taashath

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

i lost this and thought i had replied aaaa im so sorry this is so late