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

Gardening

Ugh, Felandris. Demon weed, the elves named it, and for good reason. It's overabundance is just another reminder of the problems that surround the Gallows, and getting rid of them will be another sign that this place is slowly being healed. With that in mind, and thick leather gloves, Beleth begins the slow, careful process of pulling up the whole lot of it. A small spade is utilized to break up the soil around the plants--it makes sure that she can get the roots, and replanting other herbs will be easier.

Some of the felandris is set aside for her personal stock, another portion for the Inquisition supplies--after all, while it's not a particularly pleasant plant, it's an ingredient in plenty of poisons. And it's always good to be prepared.The rest are chopped up and put into a crate. Next to the crates are bags of soil, and occasionally Beleth will cover the chopped up felandris with a layer of the soil, before starting yet another layer of the herb. Composting the felandris is a great way to get rid of it all, and provide fertilizer for the new plants. Highly symbolic as well, in its own way.

Off to the side is Kolgrim Jr, who does not appreciate symbolic gardening, but does appreciate the hot stones of the courtyard, and is currently splayed out across them, napping peacefully. Beleth is careful not to disturb him, casually ducking around any small blasts of fire from him as he snores. It's tempting to just sic him on the garden, but--she's not sure what felandris does when burned. And she doesn't want to find out.

Cleaning

It's better than Skyhold in some ways, worse in others. Beleth once again makes use of her limberness and climbing abilities to scramble around the nooks and crannies of the Gallows, scooting up into hard-to-reach places to retrieve old birds nests, and whatever else has collected up there.

But not all of it is simple, or fun. At one point, Beleth wrenches open a particularly difficult to open door, only to discover several skeletons scattered across the room, settled over with a thick layer of dust.

It should probably be expected, and Beleth isn't exactly surprised by the skeletons, but she's still take off guard. For a while, she hovers at the entrance of the door, peeking in, then stepping back out, looking around the hallway. How is she supposed to move them? They're going to be burnt, right? Should she just shove them in a bag or something?? Is that respectful to the dead???

Clarke nearly walks past her; she tends to walk like she's on a mission even when she isn't, and at the moment she does have her own work to do. Seeing Beleth in the hallways only makes her shift her trajectory to walk around her. But Clarke is also observant—and nosy—and on the way past she cranes her head to look into the room beyond her.

That makes her stop. She turns back for a better look.

"Oh," she says.

"Oh," Beleth repeats vaguely, mind still preoccupied with pondering over this mystery. But wait--That's a human. Exactly what she needs.

"I'm trying to figure out how to move them," She explains, gesturing vaguely at the skeletons. "Without, ah. Being disrespectful." Her current best plan, getting a big bag and throwing the bones all in there, would probably qualify. So she's open to suggestions. "Not that I know where I'd put them. But there's probably a place we can...make a pyre...?" Once again, this would be easier if everyone did everything like the Dalish do, but alas.

As this, she turns to Clarke, clearly waiting to hear if she has any ideas.

"Yes," Clarke says. For a moment she's distant, somewhere far away, but only a moment. Then she starts moving, past Beleth and into the room. "Have you seen any boxes big enough for them? We could pull the drawers out—" of the armoire. She finishes the sentence by stepping over a femur to the furniture and opening its doors to see if the drawers will come loose.

It's a struggle. She could fairly obviously use help pulling on the other side.

Beleth isn't exactly a person you normally turn to for aiding in feats of strength, but no strapping muscley warriors are about, and it's just a drawer, really. Besides, it'd be rude to just stand there and stare. So Beleth gingerly steps over a collapsed ribcage, and skirts around what she's pretty sure is a spine??? And arrives at the drawers, which she's quick to aid Clarke in prying loose. There's a moment where the wood groans but stays put, and Beleth wonders if they're going to have to fetch someone else, when the crack of splitting wood erupts into the room, and the drawer wrenches open. It's worth celebration, and there's even confetti in the air, now!

If you count years of dust as confetti, at least. Beleth opts to pull her scarf over her nose, then peeks into the drawer.

"Is it okay for us to just...pile them in here? Should we keep track of whose spine belongs with whose skull, or...?" It's not as much a matter of asking for leadership as trying to gauge what humans consider appropriate--she's seen plenty of them dead, but most of them still had enough meat to keep everything more or less attached.

OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

Gardening and Cleaning

cleaning.

no subject

no subject

no subject