faderifting: (Default)
Fade Rift Mods ([personal profile] faderifting) wrote in [community profile] faderift2017-04-02 10:59 pm

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
motherfucking_ghost: (a: man my missions really suck)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2017-04-16 12:53 am (UTC)(link)
"Sup." He knows a bare spatter of Spanish, but he's not about to bust any of it out right now, even for a laugh. Like an automatic reaction, when her head rests on his shoulder, he leans his head against her in return. It's nice not having helmets in the way, and clunky if effective space-age armor.

Huh. It's been more than a year, and he's still alive. This must be a record.

"I mean, yeah, in theory we're allowed to rest. In practice, it's a little more difficult." Everyone has to pull their weight, and it's the same amount of weight all around, from top to bottom, as far as he can tell. "And then there's a little extra on us with rifts involved."

No, she doesn't want to get lumped in with Rifters, but she does have a pain shard in her hand whether she likes it or not. So 'us' it is.
foxsays: (the sea the wind my heart)

[personal profile] foxsays 2017-04-17 06:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Why are the big warm fur blankets Korrin got from Asher packed away in a chest somewhere still because honestly she could go for a nap right here, right now. Ignore the surroundings and just. Doze off. Just like this.

"Pass out in the middle of fighting something and I won't be strong enough to drag you to safety, what will I say to your loved ones? How will I face them again in public?" With as little jostling as possible, she starts to clean off her rapiers of whatever viscera demons and shades leave behind. "When it comes to rifts, yes, we seal those but the dungeons...I saw the dungeons in Dairsmuid. You'll want to be able to stand up and breathe before you go to the dungeons here."
motherfucking_ghost: (yeah. that's right. I'm a gay robot.)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2017-04-20 11:11 pm (UTC)(link)
"Just hurts. 'm not gonna pass out. Takes more out of me than throwing up a shield, and I've been doing that, too, lately." He shrugs one shoulder, so as to not bother her too much. "I figure it's like working out and shit like that. It'll hurt, but the more you do it, the more endurance you'll start getting. Don't know if it's the truth. Besides, I'm sure you'd find some way of dragging me out, even if you have to bribe someone to do it."
foxsays: (There is no song a sea)

[personal profile] foxsays 2017-04-21 10:50 pm (UTC)(link)
"Is it strange? Being able to do those things with your mark? I can only close rifts with it, I haven't ever been able to do anything some of you have learned to do." Not yet, perhaps not ever, and she was...reluctant to learn to close rifts at the start until Martel took her by the hand really. Working out isn't really 'a thing' but she can parse it. Remember running rooftops until she got good at it or all those numbing hours of training with Marjani until she could be exhausted and still twirl around gracefully with rapiers and pistols. "Don't remind me, but if you end up seeing a healer because you've overdone it I'll smuggle you the good stuff. No one thinks to check corsets."

(Or people are too scared of what Araceli might do or what Korrin might do or what both of them might do so that's probably why she only got inspected at the Winter Palace.)

Nodding in agreement with him, she sheathes one cleaned rapier, moving to the other. "I'll be dealing with paperwork for who knows how long, if they know what's good for them they won't need to be bribed." Church behold that smile, it's so innocent and sweet. Like a really adorable shark before it comes and chomps someone in half.
motherfucking_ghost: (feels like home)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2017-04-26 11:47 pm (UTC)(link)
"It was a shock to me when it first happened. I don't think it's something you learn as much as it's something that just happens to you? Some people can shoot shit out of their marks; I can't do that." Yeah, because knowing your luck, you'd miss every time. "Shield's a pretty good deal though. Bounces rocks off. Keeps from getting speared too badly from red lyrium. Stuff like that. Makes it feel a lot more useful than just closing rifts, even though that's also the really, really important part. But good to know you can stuff something in your corset and still breathe. I thought that was part of the deal, not being able to breathe in those things. Not that I want to find out."

Please imagine Church in a corset now. You're welcome.

"You know how hot it is for you to say that while you're cleaning a weapon? From one friend to another. That's hot. In a scary way."
foxsays: (I know no religion)

[personal profile] foxsays 2017-04-27 10:06 pm (UTC)(link)
"The amount of focus it takes to close the rifts, it must take much more to do something else with them." Or maybe it becomes second nature. There are things Araceli only thinks about now when she has to teach them that she just does without paying any real attention to in the moment. How to time a jump, how to stop herself from going tense when she falls or jumps from a great height, reading someone's tells at the table and how you work it out away from it. Maybe the marks become just as natural. (But would she ever want that, she doesn't know.) "It would have been useful at the Winter Palace, Korrin and I running around with a group of nobles, Red Templars on patrol and next to nothing for us to use of any value. A corset is tight, I had to learn how to run and duel in it because that's the Castilean way and it helped here but even guards checking guests have a sense of propriety. The cleavage is off limits."

In return, please imagine the amount of cleavage Araceli gets in a corset. It's a deadly weapon.

"Should Korrin be worried?" Araceli's only teasing. And it's a suggestive gesture, she just likes to pretend she's not always aware of more or less everything that she's doing all the time. "Plenty of things come from being the daughter of a pirate and a whore after all."
motherfucking_ghost: (yeah. that's right. I'm a gay robot.)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2017-05-04 01:40 am (UTC)(link)
"It...yeah, I mean, it's...a redirection of power. I don't do or think the same way closing a rift as I do throwing up a shield, but in a lot of ways, it just feels like an extension of me. Like...of my will, I guess? There's a lot of things people can do here that seem to be pure willpower, if not straight up magic. And it can fail on me just as much as anything else, or I wouldn't have ended up with a chunk of the red stuff in my shoulder."

He can laugh about it now, but that shirt hurt. And burned. And there was a very long moment between when his shield fluttered, stuttered like a skipping heartbeat and the projectile came hurtling through where he thought this is it. Another death on the counter, but if he dies here, he has no idea what happens. Does his spirit go back home? Does it linger here? Is he just...dead? He can't answer that for himself or for Christine.

Thank god for Araceli being distracting as fuck. "After everything I heard about that fun, I'm glad nobody asked me to go. Bad enough I got all dressed up when those dignitaries came and we had that soiree. I mean, I looked good and all, but can you imagine me in a palace ballroom on Orlesian home turf? Is there any way that would've ended without a straight up beheading?" Okay, he probably wouldn't have been that bad, but he was kind of bad at the Skyhold ball. Really best not to have a mouthy Rifter running around Empress Celene, etc.

"If only Korrin has reason to be worried. Thankfully for all of us, you're just the hot friend. Like, honestly, would if I could, but alas, we're promised to different people. And, occasionally, genitalia."
foxsays: (All the sounds I love)

[personal profile] foxsays 2017-05-05 07:05 pm (UTC)(link)
"Maybe that's what magic is, at the end of it. Something about their will and how it connects to the Fade that allows them to do what they do." Maybe something to bring up with a person who might understand magical theory but who actually really does because even most mages just seem to shrug and roll with whatever they're able to do, warding off demons and dangers more than anything else. Hearing that he was struck with red lyrium makes her jump, hand hovering as if going to touch. "Church! Why was I not told?" She'd give a gentle punch but Church you saw her in a state, she should've been there.

She knows what it's like in a way, having something wrong in you, not knowing if you'll be okay, all the people who say it'll be fine when they don't actually know.

"Some of the people there were fascinated with rifters." She chooses the words carefully, glancing up and down the hall to see if anyone's around but it's just them so she can say what she wants to say without having to worry too much, trusting that Church isn't going to go announcing what's probably already known at this point. "Enough that you know the want to put you on a shelf or lock you away in a room so they can look at you. The 'oh how exotic you are, my dear' sort of thing. But they like knowing things about rifts. Where some of us come from. What we've done. The more daring the better if it's the right sort of person. People were boasting if they got to hear a song from beyond the rifts first, that sort of thing."

Sheathing her blades, she works silkdart out from where it's tucked up her sleeve because Orlais took but it also gave so it's a nice fancy dagger Araceli's finally getting to put to use in Kirkwall now. "And you're too old. Any men are only ever the same age as me. Older women? A lot of fun but you must know yourself that the aches and pains and complaints set in far sooner in men."
motherfucking_ghost: (yeah. that's right. I'm a gay robot.)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2017-05-08 12:32 am (UTC)(link)
"I was fine! I ended up fine. I healed. I has Christine on hand to do the immediate healing...thing." Maybe the shards are a big of magic, or something that lets them conjure just the slightest and most specific form for magic, but that doesn't mean he just rolls with it. Having someone do healing at you without a single stitch or bandage is just weird. "Got her a nice parting gift of red lyrium to poke at in a box once she got it out of me." Not a super pleasant experience, overall.

"I like the idea of people being fascinated with us and our cultures than, y'know, torches and pitchforks. I gotta give the Inquisitioners that much, even the ones that didn't like us were still on our side so long as we didn't end up being...demons." Isn't that right, Cassandra? "I'm happy to tell as many stories as I can if it means people staring at me with stars in their eyes instead of disgust."

Her commentary about men, though, has him mock offended, sitting up a little straighter. "Wow, I'm not old! I'm not old at all. You're like, what, 20-something? I'm...uh. Hm. I uh...huh." He has to think about it, which is bad. Like...there's the sort of age he's pretty sure is fake, and there's...the actual number of years he himself has been alive, and he has no idea what that number is. "Y'know what, forget it, I'm just not old. I'm a healthy young man in his prime, ain't no aches or pains for me other than shardy mcpainfulhand."

Don't make him flex. Don't--oh god, he's flexing, stop it.
foxsays: (the rosyfingered moon)

[personal profile] foxsays 2017-05-09 08:38 pm (UTC)(link)
"I am sure that the contribution to her cause and research was appreciated in spirit, if not entirely the manner by which it came into her possession." Why does that seem to apply to an awful lot of conversations she's had with Church? "You have the whole Gallows to compete with now, are you up to the challenge?" She'll be your hype man Church. Because do you know what helps to work out tensions with people? Duels. Duels are good. Duels are always good and you could probably fight the Gallows if you really put your mind to it. Maybe. Look it takes time to craft a narrative they'll have it at some point.

Sometimes stars in their eyes becomes something more dangerous, but Araceli doesn't-- well she does know how to word it. She just doesn't know if she wants to say it to Church. There are things some people understand and things some people try to but won't quite get and she doesn't know. Perhaps she doesn't want to be hurt or to say something out of turn. "Just. Be careful? There are people that collect butterflies and put pins through them, keeping them behind glass. Or other people that want someone kept away from the rest of the world just for them, a private treasure they can pore over or where the price of admission for others to stare at is the cost of their company." Her eyes don't quite meet his, voice tight but steady. Still steady.

"I'll be twenty-two soon." Congratulations Church you are the second person that isn't Korrin that she's told her actual age to. Look at this tiny youth. Also everyone over their mid-twenties automatically falls into the positively ancient to her eyes bracket, even if they only look that way so there's that. "Lying about it already? Tut tut, it's only rude to ask it of a lady--"

Whatever other smart reply she had is lost when she tries to stifle the laugh. For about three seconds. Then it explodes out of her.
motherfucking_ghost: (feels like home)

[personal profile] motherfucking_ghost 2017-05-10 10:16 pm (UTC)(link)
The funny thing is that he's got a pretty good idea of how dangerous that fascination and want to possess is, just...on a level he doesn't quite connect with. At the end of the day, the Meta wanted him, and the other AI wanted him, and he didn't know what would happen if they got him. It took him so long to start coming around to the idea of everything that happened before landing in that fucking marsh. (Thank god he doesn't know of Hargrove's trophy room.)

He understands a little better than she thinks, but he'd still take that over pitchforks. At least he'd be alive and might be able to find a way out rather than, y'know, dead. Maybe he'll try to explain it to her someday. Might even go better than when he explained it to Christine.

So making her laugh instead is a much better use of time, something to distract from the darkness and dankness of the dungeon, the pain and weariness. Her laugh is infectious, and he has to laugh at himself along with her. And it feels so good. Slouches forward, almost doubled over for it just because it echoes and rolls around the air and sounds great, the two of them laughing it up in a place of despair.