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

Snorting a laugh through his nose even when he needs to stand back and peer right the way up for a proper look at her (honestly where is her face, it might be in danger of just disappearing off into the sky one day) Yngvi continues without fear. "Because you could really reach me before I'd be off, get tangled up in your own legs like them fancy horses for the jousts."

He's been to Markham.

"What? This place? Inquisition's the first time I've seen it from this side. Saw up its petticoats for years if you catch my meaning. It'll cost you for a tour, I'm not the Chantry."

"Try me," Teren replies, but without much furor-- she's not willing to put up too much of a fight here, not with a dwarf. Historically, she hasn't much luck with them.
"If I wanted a Chantry tour I'd ask a bloody chanter," she points out, "up its petticoats is the angle I don't mind learning, and you're like to earn a bottle of good whiskey if you'll do me the honor." Though he's little and filthy, there's a certain relief in talking to someone who's ...well, on her level. Someone Teren understands intrinsically, because she's right there with him.

Another dwarf is watching the scene, one with a proper beard unlike Yngvi, one that Yngvi flips a coin too more neatly than someone with Yngvi's reputation (artificer or not) might be credited for. He moves on, disappearing back into the crowd again.

"It's only funny if you see an Orlesian cry." The makeup, the masks, the perfume, the accent becoming so thick as to be incomprehensible? What isn't funny about sobbing hysterical Orlesians? (Well, historically everything but it's two people, having a laugh, let's not bring up history today more than they have to.) Her willingness to admit to what she wants is refreshing with the whole spiel the Inquisition is going with right now, enough that it gets a laugh out of Yngvi. "Well well, there's life in you yet. Best if you state your preferences for rats, they're unavoidable and please, no one's ever accused me of having honour in my life, can't have even the edge of a word getting out about that. So. I'm Yngvi Congealedinagutterson, I'll be your guide, yes I did rise up out of the gutters in Darktown. Where should we begin our tour?"

"Yngvi," Teren repeats, and holds out... or... down, her hand in proper greeting. "Warden Teren von Skraedder. In my experience, there are far worse places to congeal. Such as Orlais." They already agree on several important points, which is a good start.
"Show me who's got the most questionable goods at the best prices," she decides. She takes her duties as quartermaster seriously.

Warden, she says, and Yngvi has managed to shake hands (his own hand dirty, cracked, raw in places from whatever work she might imagine he gets up to) with plenty of people he hasn't liked. But something makes the smile freeze on his face. Him stuck in Kirkwall and Wardens in Kirkwall.

Great.

"No one's ever told you where dwarf babies come from, but then none of you ever do. Orzammar doesn't like folk to know." Who likes Wardens? Orzammar. "What goods are you looking for? Because it's a big place, depends what you want, what day it is, what you're willing to arse about with for certain things y'know? Can't just broad stroke this thing, you need a beginning."

There are several things Teren has had to learn to do well to live as long as she has, and reading people is among them. Her eyebrows raise slightly at Yngvi's reaction, and she fold her arms over her chest, momentarily sidestepping his questions.
"You don't like the Wardens," she observes.

"You're putting words in my mouth, not once have I said that." Not when his body has said it for him or he's said plenty of words to that effect to others but the point stands to him. There are precious few things Yngvi has right now so he'll have his few words thanks.

"Been to your camp plenty though, met the constipated looking one." He pulls his features into his best impression of Nathaniel because of all the tents in all the camps, he rolled into that one. "Reckon a lot of folk don't really like you though, s'why you're here talking to me innit?"

She raises her hands in concession when Yngvi makes his point. Being of the prickly persuasion herself, she's not about to lose her patience with someone else. "So you've met His Lordship," she replies, unable to suppress a smirk at his impression, "I'm the quartermaster, and I'll be a fair weak one if I don't know the market." She cracks her neck, looking around. "I'm hardly concerned with being liked. If you're not interested, I'll ask someone else." No skin off her back.

"He does have the face of someone so full of his own importance he can't quite get it out. Enough that it's making him uncomfortable. They've got prunes around here. Or you can say they're prunes." Most people don't know what a prune tastes like if it's something laced with a powerful dose of potential hilarity at the most opportune moment. "I'd say avoid a lot of the fish from the bottom end of things unless you've got a particular dislike of someone, tends to taste a bit like pork and do weird things. Can't help what they eat but you can."

His way of saying it's fine, let's do this, he'd rather not have to go talk to the family if he's escorting a Warden around.

Teren pulls a face- she knows a thing or two about bad fish, but doesn't interrupt Yngvi's prattle as she strolls along beside him. "Noted," she murmurs, eyeing over the various stalls. "Who's got the most drinkable wines?"

"There was an Antivan before, ignore everything he says and just get the wine, don't bother with the Orlesians because it's overpriced." Also half the time the bottles get swapped out if it's Orlesian and they dilute it down, slap a different label on it, mark the price up. "Or you'd go all de Launcet on them and as hilarious as that'd be, I don't want another de Launcet. Ever again. It ain't gonna drown out the smell of dog or the scratching at the doors and walls in the middle of the night, mark me."

"I try not to bother with Orlesians in general," Teren muses, but as Yngvi continues, her interest is piqued. "de Launcet? An unpleasant incident, I imagine?"

"They're fun for some parties if they want you at the party but they don't want you at the party? I don't get it." He gets it. He absolutely gets it. He wants to know if she knows the same sort of deal, the thing where they like to show off a mercenary crew that did an incredible job for them all the while looking down their noses like they were about to piss on the carpets.

(It was one time and Gunnar took two months to pay up when Yngvi made that bet about Asher doing it, totally worth it.)

"We did a job for them, if you've never seen a middle-aged minor Orlesian noble and her terrible embarrassing social climbing daughters attempt to drink a fucking reaver under the table then you're not missing much. I've never wanted to climb out me own skin before but that was a night. We had to carry her back. Me and Gunnar. Asher had a lass under each arm. Messy."

"Being wanted at an Orlesian party is like being popular with pigeons," Teren mutters with a roll of her eyes, "it's worth it if you don't mind being left with nothing but shit all over you and several diseases." It's not a perfect analogy, but it suits her just fine.
"Nobles, drinking with mercenaries? That must've been some party." She chuckles. "They have a stick up their collective arse when it comes to socializing, at least as far as I've seen. It's important to fit in." The last sentence is spoken in nearly perfect Orlesian, though slightly accented. She's out of practice.

"But you're wanted at Orzammar parties and I know what those are like, that's being popular with slugs with particulary sensitive bowels and stomachs." Teren you are not one-upping him. (Or maybe he's flirting. Asher's instructions were unclear, dick caught in beartrap.) "Takes a few layers of skin away when you scrape that off with the knives." After all, if there's always going to be a place where the Wardens have an at least tepid reception, it's going to be the place with the Darkspawn nestled close to them.

"And it's not exactly a party if you're working," he points out as he stops by one stall where someone is indeed also doing that. "Some of us have to do that. Asher was fine because he was big enough and loud enough but some of us-- hang on, do I still get my whisky and my brandy at the same place as my wine? I do? Great, cheers. Silver for the trouble. Orlesians like having oddities other people don't have, believe me, s'what the Boneflayers are."

If he's flirting with her, Teren is mostly oblivious, because he is too short and all she can really see is the top of his head. But at the mention of Orzammar, her lip curls subtly-- she remembers that place, she was there for that fiasco with the time rift or whatever it was. Hit her head on every fucking doorway in the place.
"I suppose," she muses, "they would like that, wouldn't they. And I can't imagine your lot would fit in too seamlessly, no offense." Seeing dwarves among Orlesian nobility is about as common as seeing elves, which is to say, it's almost never. "Got good snacks out of it at least, I'd hope."

"We've me and Gunnar, he's the less charming, less handsome version of me obviously. Our new leader comes from Halamshiral so obviously that makes her popular. New second was Coterie from here but some of them didn't like an elf-blooded one rising too high so that's how she ended up with us. Got a mage born of two apostates and she'll set folk who look at her wrong on fire. Most normal one is Nasir but some people get weird about commonfolk and he's Rivaini commonfolk." Let that sink in Teren. Perhaps apply whatever truths and half-truths and blatant falsehoods of Asher Hardie that might have made it through the Warden camp and popular tale to that band.

To the people Yngvi is in his blood and bones happiest with.

"Had crumbs down my trousers for weeks. Weeks. Why is the food all flaky? You lose half of it before it ever gets in your mouth!" Yngvi says this loud enough and sincerely enough that it can only be taken for the true outrage that he perceives it to be.

"Obviously," Teren echoes, obliged to keep him talking while she peruses the available wines. Though she's listening, Yngvi has... a lot to say, and she has to compartmentalize his torrent of words against her own thoughts, mainly about wine and Wardens and what to do next.
"Because it's expensive to make it that way," she answers after selecting a bottle, turning it over in her hands. "And if it's expensive, that's what's in fashion. ...but." She offers the merchant a coin, making her decision. "...they're not so bad, the pastries."

Out the side of his mouth, Yngvi nudges her in the hip and glance at a few bottles then waves to one of the butchers raising a cleaver. He assumes butcher. Could just be a mercenary Yngvi doesn't know, faces change in that line of work. "Pick his back bottles, won't turn to vinegar." Or not so fast. Or maybe she wouldn't notice, most Wardens are drunkards so he heard. Too busy boozing to know there was a Blight getting started in Ferelden ten years ago so that's why they showed up now.

"But it's the same thing making other things. It's eggs and flour and sugar and milk and maybe some extra bits but it's not-- I've had nicer stuff from taverns than the fancy parties where someone probably got a finger cut off because they made an arse of the icing job."

Though Teren has been on the verge of accepting the bottle, she instead pauses in thought again, and the merchant cringes. "On second thought," she intones, handing it back and gesturing to one that Yngvi indicated, "I'll have that one." For the same price, of course. Being formidable as she is, the wineseller isn't in a huge hurry to haggle again.

"True that," she murmurs, stepping away from the stand with the new bottle, "though you can never really guarantee there won't be blood in those too."

Snorting a laugh out his nose, he moves only so far as the next stall to buy himself beer, good dark malt he can practically chew for breakfast and probably will. The beer disappears into his coat, the multitude of pockets having some of their contents rearranged to let him keep his balance.

Handy thing about being a dwarf is the low centre of gravity though, let's you just keep ploughing forward.

"More honest in a tavern innit? Know why you're bleeding and either you were an arse, they were an arse, your mate was arse, some combination or they don't like your face." Or another thing but Teren isn't Wren, she doesn't get him.

"I'm certain I don't know what you're talking about," Teren loftily replies, scanning over the area and pretending she didn't notice Yngvi lifting the beer. Her, an arse? Unthinkable.

"...though there are a fair few faces I haven't liked, in my time."

Edited 2017-05-24 20:35 (UTC)

Excuse you he paid for at least two of those seven beers. "See, you get all the luxury, my mouth doesn't know how to put those words together like that." Maybe his mouth does, when it's a guard, when it's an annoyed noble, when it's the merchant's guild but he has to do it carefully with some company. Being what he is. Teren looks human enough to him. Tall enough (more than tall, got extra rations of tall she did) and Grey Warden-y enough to avoid some level of scrutiny.

"Half the Wardens come out of dungeons and the hangman's noose, not surprised." People say it doesn't matter but your past is there, it's always there and that's the bit that'll have them staring a Warden down or even having the Wardens at each other. He'd put a few coin on that.

"Not luxury so much," she muses, "practice. I had to be taught the Trade tongue, same as anyone else." And Orlesian, and technically Nevarran, though that was learned more through osmosis, listening to her mother speak. "There are those expect to hear certain things of certain people in certain places, and perhaps had I not learned to say those things, I wouldn't be here." She might be dead. Or worse, a toothless old whore in the gutters of a fishing village no one's ever heard of.
"Funny you say that, as the majority of Wardens I meet have more honor than the rest of the world put together." She pauses. "Myself excluded, naturally."

Yngvi rubs his nose, doesn't say what he could. Luxury is a skewed thing when children are expendable, scrapping for a mouthful; consuming his siblings in one sense is quite literal. What went into him never went into them. Dwarves are tougher than anyone except grey folk with horns but that just drags it out.

"So where was that when Kirkwall was on fire a while back? Cause I saw some of them. You're shite at lying low," it comes out less sharp than he'd like, as if he's been punched but he's still struggling on. "Got proper involved in fuckin Ferelden. Sitting around now."

OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

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