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

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Ioane isn't exactly accustomed to effusive praise. Any praise is unusual enough to be notable. She grips the gory poker in her hand a little tighter, staring up at the other woman. Is she a fighter? A warrior? She seems to know what she's about, anyway... Hm.

"Can I?" Ioane asks, like this woman is in charge of her. Then again, if she has any position at all within the Inquisition's hierarchy, she probably ranks above Ioane. "I won't steal it."

She's been hesitant to take anything, or even hold it for too long, fearful of being accused of theft. It only takes one infraction, one mistake, and she's out on her arse.

Honesty. How bizarre, when so many pockets have been jangling today.

(Thievery is a skillset of its own, one less readily-replaced.)

"Consider it yours." Perhaps it's not hers to give away, but it's been easy here to slip back into the assumption of authority. "If anyone gives you trouble of it, you may send them to me."

It’s in the Inquisition’s interest if they don’t lose the — what? Hired hands? Servants? Whatever Ioane is, the supply’s a little more finite than this.

"Ser Coupe," A belated introduction. She stoops to haul the fallen corpse up. "Grab the sheets, will you — ?"

An expectant look. She wants a name. Ioane wears a Ferelden accent, but that could place her in Kirkwall as easily.

Look, there is nothing wrong with stealing, okay? But there's everything wrong with stealing and getting caught. Ioane knows what end of the equation she'd end up on.

She grips the poker close to her, and begins wiping the grime off on her apron.

"Ioane," she says, and rushes over to help. A general eagerness to prove herself makes her quick to the task, whatever the task may be. "Uh, Ser. Are you with the soldiers?" She looks like she could be.

"Yes," She says, because it’s simpler than explaining. "Some four months now."

Five, she silently corrects. It's easier to rewrap the thing with two sets of hands, but it's still a bit of a shit job. Too many holes in the sheets, and without the energy binding it together, the body's quick to shed bits.

"Have you signed with the Inquisition, then?"

She's never wrapped up human corpses before, but she's dealt with animal waste plenty. They always tied up the bodies, though, rather than wrapping-- that gives her an idea. She starts taking apart the bed, and finds the hard cords underneath that kept the mattress up. A few are rotten through, but there are enough to hold the little bundle together long enough to get it to the pyre.

She looks up at Ser Coupe, wiping grime and sweat from her brow, and nods. Something like pride colors her expression. "Yeah. Just signed on. House and scullery, but they need all hands for this." House and scullery just sounds better than I'm a maid now. More professional, like maybe she's done this before.

"Hands and heads, Maker knows." A small nod to the rope, "A fine cause to have chosen."

And likely a decent letter after — if the Inquisition makes it through this, if the girl lasts. Ioane's accent, her pride of this particular work, neither points toward a past or future wrought fine.

That's well enough. It takes no shortage of ugly tasks to keep others sitting pretty.

"This one," She brushes the cloth above its face, the gesture soft. "May not be alone in these halls. Do you know what it is that moves them?"

A decent place to start, she supposes, if she's going to attempt to explain any further. If it's got glowing eyes fucking run, only works so well without context.

Ioane isn't quite sure if that's a joke, so she doesn't laugh. Ser Coupe is proving difficult to read, not that it matters. People who rank above you don't really care if you 'get' them. They just care that their orders are listened to, and so far, Coupe has proven herself someone who doesn't give stupid orders. Ioane can live with that, for now.

She looks up at Coupe sheepishly. Okay, some orders. Ioane wasn't exactly hired to think. "Uh, magic...?"

"Of a sort," Still crouched, she rocks back onto her heels, considers how to put this. "Lesser spirits — demons — cannot recognize living flesh."

"When they cross from the Fade, they see the dead for an easy host. One which shall not resist them. Too, one which they cannot escape. They attack. They destroy. Simple actions, yes?"

Wren pauses, regards her evenly. It's a check: Any questions? Do you follow? She can't say what the girl will take it for; but that's information of its own, a small unknowing trade.

Ioane makes a little sound in the back of her throat, something nominally at odds with her hard expressions and generally blunt nature. She lurches back on instinct, before she realizes it doesn't bloody well matter. "It was demons?"

And then- "I killed it, though."

I killed a demon. Even if it was a small one, a dumb one, a weak one, she still killed it. Ioane feels the tiny ember of pride begin to light in her chest. She takes a step back toward the corpse, and gets back to wrapping it, but her eyes are still on Ser Coupe. "Okay. Demons. Got it."

She needs to know more.

"You killed it," Wren affirms, eyebrows lifting lightly. Adaptable. Doesn't spook much. "But there may be more. Those with greater control."

"So I need you to do something for me, Ioane," Wren fishes for a piece of chalk, snaps it in two. "Any that you find, mark the doors after."

This is the harder part:

"And if you see any with an odd light about them, anything that feels wrong — I need you to run." Her expression stills once more. "Run, and tell me; tell another templar, a mage, a soldier. Tell them that you have seen a revenant. These are not to be handled alone. Do you understand?"

Edited 2017-04-17 23:28 (UTC)

Ioane is being given a duty beyond cleaning and stupid labor. The ember within her is fanned further, and begins to spark a fire. Maybe it reaches her eyes. Determination rests there, and she takes the chalk with a new sense of serious purpose.

"I can do that," she says, and tucks the chalk away carefully. She picks up the poker and tucks it in her apron; it's no longer an object of convenience, but a tool of intent.

She can only keep that seriousness up for so long, though. Her expression flattens back into hard work and vague confusion. "Do you do this kind of thing a lot? Because it sounds like you do."

Another nod: Good.

"More often than I would like." A thin smile. "I began when I was your age."

Or near enough to serve. Wren shifts to stand, offers, "The Inquisition has commissioned drawings of the varieties of demon. There is a copy with my papers — I should be glad to pass it on."

Better to have an informed informant; though Maker willing, that won't be necessary.

So she's either a Templar or some kind of professional mercenary with a very specific skill set. Either way, she's no one to underestimate. Ioane will keep an eye on her. And probably try to find out what she likes, so she can make sure her rooms are properly tended to. There's nothing like currying favor to get the job done.

"Oh- yes, please." She nods eagerly. The corpse is all bundled up, and Ioane carefully cradles it in her arms, beginning to lug it out of the room and toward the pyre. "If this is gonna be a regular thing, I'd like to know what'll take my head off."

Her suspicion is: most of them.

The prints will be delivered by runner later. If the boy turns up an eyebrow at Ioane, he also doesn't ask about it.

Wren collects the foot-end. There's probably a real word for that, but whatever. It's the end with feet.

"It shall not be much longer, I hope. They are working to strengthen the Veil here." Much fucking luck with it, the whole city's tenuous. "Have you always been in service, Ioane?"

Are all the Inquisition's maids so ready to throw a punch?

Those better be heavy on the pictures, bro. Anyway, Ioane keeps carrying the corpse. She shrugs at Ser Coupe's question.

"No," she says. "But all the other recruits were country folk, so they took me on even though I ain't got experience. Denerim ain't Kirkwall, but it sure ain't Gwaren." Or wherever the fuck all those other girls were from. Wispy things, all of them, with big cow eyes and dimple smiles. She could take them out easy.

Look kiddo, there’s a picture of a pretty lady, there’s some monsters, do you really need to read?

(It would help, yes.)

"Only one way to learn."

Perhaps that explains the scrapping. Wren knows little of Denerim, beyond Ferelden and city and attacked by an Archdemon — which all combine to mean: bit of a shithole.

"Your first impressions of the Free Marches?"

More than a bit of one.

She nods emphatically at that. There's only ever one way to learn anything; you jump in, and count your bruises later.

Her voice is thick with irony when she speaks next, "that it's full of demons and idiots? I been worse places." Traveling on foot through the Frostbacks was not fun.

"Do not tell me," Deadpan. "That you have been to Nevarra."

Stairs ahead. Wren signals for pause, maneuvers them around to put her back to the steps.

"We may at least deal with the demons — tell me if I am about to trip into one, yes? — And perhaps that shall calm the rest. It is fear, not discomfort, which most drives the current temper."

Scared people do dumb shit. The move wouldn't have been an easy sell, even without the Gallows in this state.

Ioane is so surprised by this accusation-- Nevarra! Her!-- that she laughs. "No," she says, "not Nevarra." And she doesn't elaborate, because nobody asked.

She knows what fear does to people, even if her scratches of memory of the Blight are hollow at best. She knows riots and getting rocks thrown at you isn't the result of calm, cool logic, anyway. Ioane keeps moving.

"You worry about keeping calm," Ioane says, "I'll worry about not getting killed. Sounds like your odds are better."

Is that insubordination? Well, too late now.

"Anyone who gets themselves killed has to carry themselves out,"

The slip of a smile. Insubordination by another name is ease — or at least, creeping by slow inches closer to it. That's more likely to be useful about the fortress. Ioane's a servant, not a soldier.

"Have we a deal?"

"Too stubborn to let anybody else do it," she murmurs, but there's a little smile on her face. This Lieutenant Coupe, she's trustworthy. She has that sort of backbone, that no-nonsense honesty that Ioane associates with Ferelden, but she'll be nice and not say that aloud. Andraste, an honest Orlesian? Takes all kinds.

Ioane goes to spit in her palm, but stops a moment too soon. Remember where you are. She just nods, no handshake needed. "Yeah. Deal."

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OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

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