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

He looks enough like someone who knows what's going on, which is certainly more than what Diana has. Her own mark is unbound, flashing slightly as she waves to the bartender. The green light catches on the silver bracers on her forearms, at odds with her threadbare trousers and tunic and well worn boots.

"Diana," she says, returning the smile easily as the bartender brings a pint for her new acquaintance, "I'm afraid I can't treat you to anything finer, but I hope it will suffice." Coin isn't something she has, aside from the bit from the few odd jobs she's run, "And what should I call you?"

"The way my days have been going, anything is a wonder," he assured her, catching the flash of the green shard, but not really needing that to tell him she was a Rifter. "My thanks," he nodded and took a sip from the drink to show good will, though unlike most in the bar he didn't make to immediately wash it down.

"Full name's James Tiberius Kirk, but just Jim will do," he smiled, just a little crooked but charmingly so. "Whom do I have the pleasure of sharing a drink with?"

"Just Jim then," she says, tilting her head slightly to look him over, size him up enough to get a better sense of him. "I'm a bit of a stranger, you could say. I'm educating myself on this strange new land." She gestures to the bar as a whole. "But you don't seem to be a local either, Jim."

Not immediately inhaling the drink was a good clue. The populace did seem to be fond of their ale.

"No, I come from Skyhold, across the water where the Inquisition has a stronghold," he said aloud for anyone listening, but for Diana he raised his hand slightly to get her attention and pulled at the bandages across the back of his right hand. A flash of green peeked through them, a duplicate to Diana's own, then disappeared beneath them once more.

He shot her another one of those smiles. "But you still haven't answered my question. I can't properly thank a person without knowing their name."

The flash of surprise is brief before Diana schools her expression back to something a little more neutral. "I see..." She knew there were others like her, had even met one or two, but how many of them there truly are remains a mystery to her, "I've heard much of this Inquisition. I believe they're the ones to throw ones' lot with around here."

His smile pulls one out of her, with a light laugh, "Ah, forgive me. I'm Diana."

"If you're of a mind," he shrugged. "Personally, while I do help them from time to time, I don't call myself one of theirs. If I believe they have a just cause, I throw my lot in, as you say. Otherwise, I keep myself back." For the most part he felt the Inquisition was just, but he didn't want to get caught to deeply in a web and find himself unable to work his way back out if things changed. He didn't have the same faith in it as he did Star Fleet.

"Diana," he repeated and inclined his head in a psuedo bow. "A pleasure to meet you, though I wish the setting were a bit lighter."

"A wise course," Diana says thoughtfully, then she leans back in her chair again, humming a bit, "At present, at least they're offering a place to sleep and work to do. What is this business with those red stones?" She's heard rumors and tales. She's gathering up as many as she can, hoping to find something that's approximately the truth.

Even for her, magical evil rocks is a touch fantastical.

"And a pleasure to meet you, James."

"Nothing good. They essentially drive people mad, especially mages," Kirk explained. He did not quite understand it himself, but he did know that Samouel was properly scared of them, as was practically everyone else who talked about the stuff. He had no idea how it would effect a Rifter, but he didn't want to find out himself. "From what I understand, once the red lyrium infects you, there's no cure."

So watch your back, Diana. Or your hands. All around you, really, this was Thedas after all.

"So, from what world do you hail from, Diana?" he inquired, leaning forward slightly with a bright gleam in his eyes.

"Ah," Diana made a face, "Lovely." There was just something unsettling about the earth itself going wrong. There was probably a clay baby joke in there somewhere, but it was hardly the time or place.

She smiles at James instead, "Earth. The Isle of Themyscira, specifically. And you?"

Kirk couldn't say it surprised him. There was plenty in his own world and others than could, well, kill you if you spent to long around it - mercury, for instance, and other gases. But, yes, it was a very creepy sort of thing, wasn't it? He hated the thought of it, especially since he was good friends with quite a few mages.

"Earth, Riverside, Iowa, to be exact, though I have't been back to Earth in around three years now," he mused. "Well, four if you count my time here."

"A long time to be away from home." This is said with some feeling, though a little banked. Diana has long outgrown the young woman fresh on her first adventures away from home, but now, with Themyscira again folded into the hidden mists of other realms... The pain was an old and familiar ache.

She rouses herself from it quickly enough, "Then you've been here a year. I can't say I relish the idea of staying the same, but there does seem to be quite a lot of work to be done."

"Well, the first three years were planned," he chuckled and gave a shrug. He missed Earth less and missed his ship more. That was where his real home was, his family. Earth was just a planet, a little ball of rock in a big, big ocean, and if he was pressed he could honestly say he didn't have any deep, meaningful connection to it the way he did his ship.

He glanced around the bar, though of all the buildings in the area it was one of the ones in least need of repair at the moment. Townsfolk had their priorities. "Yeah, there is. Kirkwall's seen some of the worst of it, it seems. Which makes me wonder why the Inquisition came here, precisely, but I'll spend my time helping where I can personally."

OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

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i c what u did there

Re: i c what u did there

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I AM SO SORRY, I thought i had replied and clearly I did not

no worries! i was failing at tags anyhow

Re: no worries! i was failing at tags anyhow

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