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

[kartereo]

"--Uh."

Waver stares, cigarette barely just hanging onto his lip.

"Has anyone gone to double check this dragon situation? Because if there is one there, maybe we should take care of it sooner rather than later?"

[gatheringstorm]

"Why, you volunteering?" Korrin stretches, looking thoughtful. "I wouldn't mind going. It'd be a break from Circle mage hell, anyway. Since Kirkwall hasn't been put out of its misery yet, I'm guessing either the mines are still empty or whatever's there doesn't give a shit, but it never hurts to check it out, just in case."

[kartereo]

"I wasn't, but now it seems like I'm going to." Waver's inner monologue chided him for opening his mouth. "As long as we don't have to engage the thing in combat, I suppose I'll survive."

[gatheringstorm]

"Though it is the ultimate way to put those grenades lessons to use. Think it could work as a final exam?" Korrin flashes a grin, obviously not about to endanger students like that. They're lucky not to be part of some merc bands she knows, because they absolutely would have done that. "It'd be scouting, not fighting...not unless we've no other choice. I'll ask Fenris about going there soon, since he's been to that area."

[kartereo]

"I'll agree to this only if you get Fenris to come along with. Because we'll need a third person to go run for back up if it comes to it."

Part of Waver worried that a grenade might only make a dragon very, very angry.

"But otherwise, sure. Let's blow up a dragon. If nothing else, we'll bear distinction for the sheer novelty of the kill."

[gatheringstorm]

"Alright, I'll contact him over the crystal soon. If nothing else, he can confirm or dismiss any new sightings, and that will give us an edge." Korrin forces herself to stand, so she can refill her glass. "Call it crazy, you're probably not wrong, but I'll just be glad to be somewhere that isn't here for a while. If the Bone Pit has a dragon but the Veil is less fucked up than here, I'll still consider it a nice break."

[kartereo]

"This place has oppressive baggage. I don't blame you for wanting a break." Waver flicked some of the ash off his cigarette, then realized there was no tray.

"If you're refilling, can you grab me some kind of metal bowl so I'm not flicking this stuff everywhere like some kind of monster?"

[gatheringstorm]

"Can do. Though if ash was the worst of our problems, we'd so have it made." If only. Korrin gathers both before she loses the willpower to move, ready to refill his glass as well if need be. "That's a good reason to check out the Lowtown market, too, for supplies. Contrary to what you might have heard, it's alright to go there during the day as long as you keep an eye on your coinpurse. It's only at night when the stuff from Varric's books happens."

[kartereo]

Waver places his free hand over the top of his own glass. There's about half left, meaning that there's no point in a refill yet.

"I may take advantage of that in a day or two. But believe me," he grinned, gesturing to the great red coat he had on. "A picket pocket would need to find which pocket was the right one before anything else happened."