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

[foxsays]

"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]

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.