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

[justice_is_blond]

[He's young. Anders frowns at Alan as he steps forward, uncertain about him taking the lead, but he's not going to treat him like a child. If Alan wants to take the lead, Anders will simply have to watch his back.

That decided, Anders tosses up barriers around the pair because he'd rather like them both to stay intact.

The cry changes as they get closer, turning to someone begging, pleading, and Anders pulls his staff off his back. He can't hear the words yet, but something is up ahead.]

Let's...

[And then they're around the corner and while he can't see who was screaming, what he does see is a Templar, holding a red-hot rod with a sunburst at the tip. For several moments all he can do is stare in terror.]

[alankazam]

[ Alan recoils, staggers back into Anders, briefly boneless.

The man before him wears a face he's never seen outside of engraved coins, ink-printed portraits. Jonas Cousland can never have been so large in life, hunched at improbable height, armor shining bloody and silver.

The demon (the templar) turns upon them with an air of faint curiousity, advances (brand raised) in strange creaking steps, and Alan snarls. He throws himself forward —

In less than a moment there's not a boy but a wolf. With its lips peeled back over bright teeth, hackles lifted, it's a fright of its own.

Or perhaps it would be, if it didn't falter just a foot or so from its path (the templar's free hand lifts too now, twisted with a sudden rippling of the Fade). The wolf whines, low and strangled, frozen between them. ]

[justice_is_blond]

[...A shapeshifter. That explains the lack of a staff; it'd fall off, right? Or something. Anders' thoughts aren't exactly organized in any sort of way right now. Being made Tranquil is his greatest fear, even beyond that of losing Nate, and Anders feels sick to his stomach.

Somehow, he doesn't know how, his training kicks in. Question everything. How had a Templar wound up in here with a brand? It didn't make sense. Why hadn't they been silenced? That should have been the first thing used against them, so that's another thing that doesn't make sense. If they're not silenced, then that's not a Templar, which means... demon.

The knowledge doesn't defeat his fear, but it helps him get it a little bit in check as he sends a blast of air in its direction, staggering it back.]

De-demon.

[He takes a breath and tries again.]

Fear demon. It has to be. We're feeding it.

[It's not a Templar, he's not being made Tranquil, he repeats to himself, over and over, as he brings up his staff and follows the wind with a wave of fire, making it shriek and lash out with lightning.]