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

"Got me this far." Some people make a good living from talking all the time but he knows when not to talk, when that's valuable, but keep talking and that's when it all gets good and interesting. It's not like he's got the imposing stature to do things other ways if he wants to go working things out. "You don't have anything against elves, do you?"

Doesn't hurt to check, to make sure because he's going somewhere.

"They do good work because they need to. Obviously. Shoddy work for them isn't a slap on the wrist. Or if it is then it stings more than it would for you or me." It'd sting for Yngvi too but differently, probably same for her, she's not noble. Anyway. "I know someone, she's still set up at her stall, I mean it's through a man and he's a human who thinks he's something but he's never dirtied his hands through hard work a day in his life."

Well, that's on odd question. Shit, is that what this is all about? He thinks she's some idiot who goes around waving a knife in alienages? Ioane just barely manages to keep from rolling her eyes. Who's got the time for that kind of hate? "Only if they got something against me first." Like the cutpurse-in-training, little whelp.

"I've known the like. Look, there's something in it for you if you just stand about looking menacing. Don't need any folk trying to skimp on my order because I'm, oh, you know, a doglord?" She says it with an amused smile. The fact that people think it's an insult has yet to get old. It will eventually, she's right sure, but it hasn't yet, bless it.

"Not everyone wants to go buy things from an elf." Or not everyone that's taller than Yngvi that happens to be a human. Seems they get a bit twitchy about it, start wondering about their place in the world and all that weird nonsense and all.

"This one's known me a long time, we go back. I look menacing she'll get right offended it's why I'm going to take you to see her so that she'll see you're with me and get a deal that way instead of seeing a human asking about a deal with a dwarf ready to throw a bear trap at her face." By the way he throws bear traps. Usually at the undead. Or demons. Or men. At crotch height because that's optimal throwing range for a dwarf of his stature. "She can't skimp you though. She's an elf. It's how it works?" It turns into a question because yeah, Ioane's a doglord so Yngvi can call her what he likes and so can other people to their peril but this one has to go off to the alienage at the end of the day, where could she ever really get away with anything like that? Unless places started looking up since Yngvi last toddled through Ferelden's more civilised parts.

Oh.

Well, that's damn nice of him. She'll have to thank him, one of these days. Not now, obviously; he'd brag over it. She'll find a time when he's soused. Maybe then he won't even remember.

Her expression is a bit softer, though, not that it matters. She's always had a hard face. "Being picky's always been more expensive than I could afford," she says with a shrug. "Ain't one of the fancy doglords. Sorry to let you down."

She doesn't sound sincere at all. You could even say she sounds sarcastic.

"Never get to meet the fancy ones," he complains. Also a lie because he's worked for some but again, fancy is a relative term when you've done jobs for Orlesians and Nevarrans and Marchers because it's harder to pick out the titled Fereldans from the ones who fell off the turnip cart than it is with others. "Always the farmers and the farmhands and the ones sent on the errands, it's like people don't want to bend the neck to talk to a dwarf."

They could just lift him up to be at eye level, provide him a box, bend the knee - he's not fussed but do they? No.

Anyway, a short walk. Yngvi points out people, assigns them as 'good guy, arse, handsy drunkard, can't count your coin or his so check three times' and so on before grinning and leaning on a counter. "The prodigal boyo returns if you hadn't heard, this is a friend, she needs-- cloth stuff?" He flaps. Tries to keep the dirt off the goods.

The elf, a small woman in her mid-forties with lines on her face, grey hair and white streaks at her temples tries and fails not to smile at him before she gives him a swat. "You've got two legs you urchin, use them. Tell me what you're looking for mistress, I'll do my best to provide."

Ioane listens close, trying to memorize every word. She'd be a fool not to. She'd figured this dwarf was a native, sure, but she hadn't realized he was her kind of native, the sort of folk who know the byways and the unspoken rules, the shortcuts not just through streets but through people.

It's important to know, and since she don't know it, it's important to know him. She'll keep an eye on him in the future.

From her own experience, she can plainly see the elven woman's fond of him. No shopkeep ever gave her that sort of supressed smile, but she recognizes the look from others. This dwarf bloke's in thick with the locals. He's annoying, sure, but he's either done them a good turn, or they know him from somebody's someone, or they're just as used to him as the scenery. Doesn't matter. She ought to be smart and cut a deal with him, something to soften her doglord disadvantage. (It doesn't occur to her to befriend him. That's never how it works, for her.)

She smiles at the elven woman and hands her the shopping list she was given; of course Ioane can't read it. But the elven woman seems to understand well enough, nods, and says she'll have it at the ready in an hour or so. Ioane nods, curt, and thanks her, before turning back to the dwarf.

"Alright," she says, "thank you. Did me a right favor." She's not dumb enough to think it was freely given, but she'll worry about that later. "Name's Ioane, by the way."

Hopefully not too close an eye the nights he goes boozing. Or when he tries something a touch stronger. True, there's always something to be learnt but oh at what cost will it be?

The thing about growing up short is that he knows how it goes for everyone getting the short end of the stick but elves and dwarves in the cities? More in common than some understand. He's only got so much in him for casting his lots and he threw it in with the elves before he ever had a gripe with doglords. Some things live in him. Older than he is. Bigger than his skin. The smile of an old elf woman like he's just another grandchild is part of.

"Yngvi. Congealedinagutterson. Come by the Gallows if you fancy Diamondback with me and the nugs."

Most poor folk don't have last names, so plenty make their own. Ioane isn't sure if it's funny or stupid to weave a joke into yours. Probably both.

Still, she appreciates the offer. "Owe you a favor, I do," she says. Her family has no honor, but she's not of them anymore. She's a different person, if she wants to be. So she'll try this 'paying debts' thing. "Ever need it, call on Ioane. I'm an Inquisition servant."

OPEN LOG: Establishing a Base in Kirkwall

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