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

[doneisdone]

Hopefully not.
"...not unless it becomes necessary," she says, a bit evasively, but with a touch of weariness. She's all mixed up these days, uncertain of whom to trust and why, if anyone. Perhaps she doesn't deserve to trust anyone.
"But what I want has... rarely factored into things, as I've come to see." It's been a hard lesson to learn.

[justice_is_blond]

"I understand that." Not like he'd done well when trying to go for what he's wanted. The only exception was what's happened with Nate. Everything else has backfired.

"For what it's worth, Teren, I hope it doesn't become necessary. You seem tired, and Kirkwall's not going to be any less tiring, but it's better with people around who care about you. And you have that."

[doneisdone]

She actually drops her gaze, and doesn't seem to know what to say. It is possible that, in Teren's fifty-some-odd years of life, she has never been told she was cared about. It could be inferred, certainly. But said outright? Not in the life she lives.
Teren opens her mouth to respond, then simply closes it again, glancing only briefly at Anders before looking away and pursing her lips with the subtlest of nods. "I have things to do," she abruptly decides, and turns to go. A system error has occurred, she has to restart.