[OPEN] A new world hangs outside the window

[ragweed]

WHO: Kit + OPEN; starters for Cade and Benedict
WHAT: Just a catchall kind of post for early September.
WHEN: Throughout early September; sometime after Benedict is removed from solitary.
WHERE: Halfway between Lowtown and Darktown; around the Gallows, generally;
NOTES: None yet, will update as needed.

It's not quite mending broken fences with the people he's most recently pushed away, but Kit has taken some concrete steps towards getting his shit carefully pieced back together after the end of a particularly turbulent previous month.



I. A HOVEL SOMEWHERE BETWEEN LOWTOWN AND DARKTOWN

This is his home turf now:



It's a ramshackle sort of hole in the wall just off one of the too-beaten footpaths leading from Lowtown down, down into the dark; but in the morning, there's still a sliver of light that comes through the window, and that's enough for Kit.

Sharing lodgings with some other Inquisition personnel, while ostensibly the safer option, just doesn't suit him right now. And besides, one can hardly call his existence here lonely. Just about every evening when he comes home, he's got to escort the same blear-eyed drunk out of his dining area; "c'mon, Chuck, we did this yesterday--your place is just down the street a way's, need me to walk you there?" Etc. (Who even knows how the guy keeps getting in.)

Whoever used to make use of this hovel left some of their belongings behind; at present, Kit is setting out old crates of random junk near the street. Already, some of the stuff is being picked through by street kids and other urchins.



II. THE GALLOWS DUNGEON (BENEDICT)


Word reaches him via some avenue that the Tevinter kid has (finally) been removed from solitary confinement and placed in a new prison cell--this one far removed from the magister's. Kit isn't sure how much interaction those two are allowed anymore, and decides that it isn't his mess to sort out or clean up.

The guards don't give him any trouble when he arrives at the dungeons and states the purpose of his visit, but give him straightforward directions on how to reach Benedict's cell. Down the stairs he goes, a freshly lit cigarette tucked into one corner of his mouth, and he wanders down the corridor of cells--some empty, some sporting the odd occupant--until he finds Benedict.

Kit stops just outside the bars and looks in at him appraisingly. "Hey," he says--it's a pretty straight-forward greeting, all things considered.



III. AROUND THE GALLOWS


Whether or not the Scouting Division has staked its claim on specific hours for the purposes of training exercises, Kit has set aside time in the very early morning for taking certain members of the division (i.e., anyone Beleth Ashara has sent his way) through some remedial work. To him, the exercises are fairly basic: fighting stances; weapons and armour maintenance; how best to engage an opponent in close-range combat when one doesn't have the training in close-quarters combat. He'll save reconnaissance and other skills for a time after he's sure his current gaggle of students know enough to keep themselves alive in combat.

Once the training session is over and his students have dispersed, Kit takes a smoke break by the dingy ferry that shuttles Inquisition personnel back and forth between the Gallows and Kirkwall, then heads up to wherever the Other Powers research offices are situated.

[OOC: Please feel free to interact with Kit at any point during this series of events! Want to be part of the remedial training session? Go for it. Want to ambush him for conversation in the mess hall? Ambush away! This would also be an excellent opportunity for him to interact with anyone else who is part of the Other Powers special project.]



IV. LOWTOWN (CADE)


Whomever previously squatted in the hovel Kit has recently begun renting left behind a few belongings that seem too valuable to just toss out like garbage. He gave first dibs to the homeless and the urchins that haunt the roads and alleys near his new place; however, after a handful of days, there are some plates and other bits of crockery left behind that he's got no use for, and evidently no one else in Darktown does, either. Kit won't get much money selling them, but he knows of a place somewhere in Lowtown that will take donations for the poor--or at least, they did so when he was last in Kirkwall, after the Blight.

So that's where he is now, milling around in Lowtown after dropping off his donations (along with what little money he's got left that he can spare). He's ambling away from the front door of the shop when he spots the back of a familiar blonde head, accompanied by some drooping, hunched shoulders that belong to someone who looks so generally defeated by life that Kit finds he recognizes the fellow instantaneously.

He cuts his way neatly through the middling crowd to catch up to him. "Cade, right?" he starts, coming into his line of sight, and offers him an easy-going grin. "How's it going with you, salroka?"

Comments

II

[altusimperius]

There's been a change in the boy since he came back from isolation, though not everyone would perceive it. He's still sullen and sour, still inclined to talk back, but it's all underpinned now by a tangible fear, the slow encroaching realization that he is completely without power and at the whims of his captors.
So even when Benedict is back in a normal cell, with sunlight and voices and a bed, he sits hunched in the corner and glares, unprepared for further abuses but trying to anticipate them anyway. The magebane is so constant that he's not sure he even remembers how to cast anymore, and the mere sight of a smiling face makes him want to rage.
But there's Kit, the only face that smiles.

"Hello," he says petulantly, glancing around in case it's a trick.

[ragweed]

His smiles don't come too easy these days, but it's better to give the kid a kindly look than a troubled one he doesn't deserve. Kit glances back at a guard, who loiters nearby just out of sight, and motions him over. "Unlock the door, I'm gonna go in."

The door is unlocked, and Kit ambles in with a little wooden stool for sitting on. Once the door is locked behind him, he plants it on the floor, drops down onto it, and gives himself a second or two to look around. "I guess this is better," he muses.

[altusimperius]

If Benedict is tetchy, it's no longer because he feels that he's entitled to better treatment. Now he's simply on the defensive, afraid to do or say anything that will get him thrown back into That Place. He shrugs at Kit, an almost aggressive motion, as if to say 'whatever asshole'.

[ragweed]

He's got his suspicions about where the hostility is coming from, and so doesn't hold Benedict's defensive posture against him. Taking a quick pull from the cigarette, he blows the smoke off to the side and then leans his elbows on his knees. "You're not gonna go back there. All right?" Then, a small shrug, "Unless you attack someone again--but I don't think you're going to do that."

III

[fireandsmoke]

While Kit is having his meal at the mess hall, a certain... presence hovers gently over his shoulder. It honestly starts out looking like little more than a soap bubble, its mirror finish reflecting Kit's face back to him, a giant, flimsy fish-eye lens. But then it begins to bounce and glide this way and that insistently, pulsing and flickering and silently buzzing like a pesky gnat, just barely holding on to tangibility with every faint pulse.

Hurry up and finish, Kit. Or else this thing will start buzzing faster, in more dizzying circles, until you choose to get up and follow its lead.

[ragweed]

He's about a quarter of the way through his stew when he notices it--and possibly it takes him that long because the buzzing is occurring just to his left, rather than his right, and he just couldn't hear the damn thing. Then it floats into his line of sight--

"--the fuck?" He sets his spoon down and leans in to squint at it, then reaches out a finger to try and pop it so he can go back to his lunch.

[fireandsmoke]

The thing, for lack of a better word, flickers a bold, cool blue, and nearly bursts when Kit attempts to poke it. Somehow, it manages to be agile enough to slip far enough away from the dwarf's grasp to avoid contact. The bubble-like apparition pulses, annoyed, and the reflective surface shifts to reveal not a mirror image of Kit's face but an alchemic laboratory, full of tiny burners, glowing flasks, and vials the color of eerie lyrium blue.

The message is meant to be clear: You Are Being Summoned. Kit has exactly one guess who it could be.

III

[paladingus]

Simon customarily uses the training yard at the asscrack of dawn as well, and is not accustomed to finding it this crowded. It's still easy enough to find a spot to do his own exercises without getting in the scouts' way or they in his, but he finds himself periodically watching them nonetheless, evaluating their efforts and how Kit teaches them.

He's pretty sure he recognizes Kit by voice and accent, but he's not sure enough of it to say anything--what if he's wrong, and then it'll seem like he thinks all dwarves sound the same? But waiting for the ferry together once axe and sword have been hung up for the morning calls for small talk, and he supplies it after a minute's silence.

"Would have been nice to have an instructor as pleasant as you while I was in training," he says. "Knight-Captain Viljam once told me to stop breathing so hard because I was wasting air that could be going to the better recruits."

Re: III

[ragweed]

"Knight-Captain Viljam sounds like a real hard-ass." The dwarf in question greets Simon with a lopsided grin before finishing off his cigarette and tossing the remains of it into the channel. It's probably the least disgusting thing to find its way into those waters this morning. "What'd he expect you to do, hold your breath through calisthenics?" What an idiot.

He'd have pegged Simon for a Templar even without the armour, but while his voice is a little familiar, he can't quite place where he knows him from. "Sorry if we've met before," he says, genuinely apologetic, and makes a vague gesture at his head, "I'm shit with faces and names. I'm Kit."

[paladingus]

"I'm really not sure what he was aiming for. I think, in some sadly mistaken way, he thought it was motivating." He shakes his head ruefully at the memory. "I guess it might have worked on someone."

The more Kit talks, the more distinctly familiar he sounds, to the point where Simon is confident associating the nickname with the introduction he'd been given over the crystal. "Serah Gandir, is it? I think we've spoken before, but nothing more. Simon Ashlock." It may not have been the most amicable of meetings, but he extends a hand anyway.

IV (ME)

[onlyhymns]

Cade looks around when he hears his name, and takes a little too long to finally realize the voice is coming below, but he looks down in mild surprise to see Kit.
He's on his way somewhere, looking none too happy about it, and when Cade reveals his face it also becomes quite obvious that someone has worked it over recently. The swelling isn't what it was when he was first dragged off the street, but the bruises are an awful yellow-grey color that nonetheless proclaim just how bad his bad night was.

"Um... hello," he says uncomfortably, with his usual demeanor of looking like he wants to crawl out of his own skin for even being witnessed in public. He doesn't answer the question, since he doubts Kit will really want to hear the truth.

[ragweed]

"--oh, shit," is Kit's tactful response as soon as he gets a good look at Cade's face. He winces in sympathy. "Well I guess that answers that question. What happened to you?"

[onlyhymns]

Surprisingly enough, Kit's answer actually merits the tiniest of smirks from Cade, with a snort that's almost like a laugh. Yes, oh shit. He appreciates that the dwarf isn't addressing him like a criminal or an errant child, a factor he'd never have noticed was a thing until someone didn't do it. Like now.
"Um... fight in the pub," he says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck, "...I think." Mistakes were made.

I

[wardeneructate]

Why Oghren was here was a mystery that even he couldn't solve. But there he was and there he was spotting Kit at the same time. A grin came to his face when he saw the dwarf that he'd adopted as a friend. He was a good guy and they got along great. Course a lot of that came from being able to bond together before and he didn't regret that time for even a second. It had been awhile since he'd been able to talk to anyone from Orzammar who didn't hate him so this was...a relief actually.

"Huh. You know it actually looks pretty cozy here. Might even see if I can take up one of these places myself."

He laughed a bit. "Don't have a welcome present for you but I could treat you to a drink later."

[ragweed]

"So long as you don't mind the occasional vagrant mixing up your shack for his, it's all right," Kit says, chuckling, and steps around the stack of junk to greet Oghren with a firm handshake and a smile.

"Good to see you again, salroka--and I'll take you up on that drink. What brings you down here?" Kit supposes it's possible that Oghren managed to sort out where he was living now from the Inquisition's personnel records, but figures it rather unlikely that the other dwarf would seek him out all the day down here on purpose.

[wardeneructate]

"Eh. I think I probably felt like going right instead of left and ended up here. Saw you were moving things about and figured this was probably where you ended up living. Seems I guessed right. Heh." He gave a cheesy sort of grin. Sure wandering around and ending up in unsavory parts of town made him look stupid but Oghren had never claimed to be the brains of this lot.

"What's with all these crates anyway?"

He glanced into one of them. Sure was a lot of junk from the looks of it. Probably treasures to the urchins around here so he sure wasn't going to stop them from looting them. Might be able to get a bit of coin for some food honestly.

[CLOSED] starter for Vandelin

[ragweed]

(OOC: Continued from here.)

It's late enough in the evening when Kit arrives at their predetermined meeting place in the library stacks that most of the other apprentices and researchers have left for dinner, and to find other things to occupy themselves for the rest of the night. Only a few die-hard stragglers remain--including that creepy magister, though thankfully he's on the opposite end of the library from where Kit loiters now. To give his hands something to occupy themselves with (as he can't very well light up a cigarette here), he reviews the dossiers he'd brought with him as his pretence for speaking to Vandelin, alone.

[misdirection_hex]

This is all, of course, strictly professional. He's here to give his diplomatic opinion on some profiles and show off his (rusty and largely irrelevant outside of academia) skills in Tevene. After all, he's sure Kit wouldn't really have it any other way, and that's for the best.

But all the same, he's glad their corner of the library is deserted, if only because it means fewer people around to see any vulnerability he might display.

"Good to see you," he says, when he arrives, but his tone gives the phrase the distinct impression of a business pleasantry, something he'd have said to anyone. It doesn't convey the actual, underlying sincerity of how glad he actually is to lay eyes on Kit, even if it's only been a few weeks since he last did. But the way his gaze lingers tells another story.

[ragweed]

"Good to see you."

"Yeah--you, too," Kit answers, the corner of his mouth quirking lopsidedly, even if Vandelin's tone is anything but warm. His eyes linger, too, and it's impossible to keep his thoughts from wandering to an inn room not that long ago. Abruptly he recalls himself to the present and looks down at the dossiers in his grasp, then offers them out.

"Slim pickings, I'm afraid," he says wryly, "but Durfort-Lacapalette apparently managed to make it all the way to Par Vollen before she was forced to retreat, so might be a person worth reaching out to." Once he's able to do the same, that is.

That done, he chafes his hands together once in lieu of having anything else to occupy them with, then tucks them into his pockets, stilling them. Already he's got words he wants to speak on the tip of his tongue, but can't seem to find the right way to phrase any of them.

[CLOSED] starter for Julius

[ragweed]

The Other Powers project office is mostly a collection of boxes and disorganized files, but Kit is doing what he can to sort through it, discerning what's useful from what isn't. That's a tougher task than one might expect; Kit's predecessor evidently had greater expectations of his own abilities than were warranted.

Still--at least this office has a window. Kit currently has it cracked ajar so that he can lean against it, smoking a cigarette while sorting through some paperwork and waiting for his guest to arrive.

[overharrowed]

Julius is slowly getting the hang of the Gallows' layout, for all it's different from what he was used to. Given the nature of the Inquisition's activity, he suspects there's an element of controlled chaos now that will never quite disperse.

He knocks on the doorframe, so as not to enter unannounced. "Kit?" It seems casual, but that's how he'd introduced himself and if there's a title for project heads, Julius hasn't heard it yet. "I hope I haven't kept you waiting."

[ragweed]

"Yeah, I'm in a real rush," Kit replies dryly, but he's smiling when he looks up from the paperwork he's sorting through to wave Julius in with the cigarette-wielding hand. "Come on in--pardon the mess." There's a lot of it.

He tosses the paperwork onto a desk already drowning under it, then taps the excess ash off his cigarette into a tin that's been converted into an ash tray. "So I guess you're a new guy here too, huh?"

I

[meds4sale]

The Medicine Seller looked rather out of place among the shabby, Lowtown merchants with his colourful robes and the spread of elaborately decorated bottles, boxes, and jars. Why was he hanging around this dingy part of town? No one could say, but even though he drew a few curious glances, most gave him a wide berth.

The Medicine Seller had attracted much less wanted attention, however. There were three muggers, watching him from an alley like a hawk. He was an attractive target - he seemed absent minded, he didn't look particularly strong, was dressed in expensive looking clothing, wore far too much jewelry, and who knew what kind of profitable things he carried around in that giant box he had strapped to his back...? And who was going to miss some weird elf if, in the end, he decided he valued his money more than his life and they had to chuck him off the docks tied to some heavy rocks?

The Medicine Seller hadn't looked at them once, opting to seem oblivious, instead glancing down only occasionally at a set of bejewelled scales that swayed and turned on his finger like a weather vane. When Kit brought out a particularly large and shabby looking sealed pot, the scales tipped and the little bell hanging from the tray chimed softly.

He stood, and approached. The lurking muggers stared incredulously as he just left the huge wooden box as though he were certain no one would take it. In Lowtown of all places. Was he mad? He was probably mad. One of the smarter ones was already seeing red flags.

"Forgive my forwardness," he said, bowing his head to Kit. "But where," he inclined his head to the pot that a few of the urchins were already trying to make off with, "did you get that."

[ragweed]

An elf in Lowtown is a common enough sight, but an elf dressed in such weird and colourful clothing definitely is not. Kit pauses en route to the front of his shack again to give his strange visitor a clear double-take, watching the peculiar tilt of his head and the attention he paid to a mundane-looking brown pot. The pair of urchins bickering over which of them was going to take it home suddenly turn on the Medicine Seller with all the fury of angry kittens, glowering up at him.

"We sawr it firs'!" one of them snips.

And they had. Kit, getting the impression that his new visitor (hopefully) isn't the kind of guy to steal from a child, offers the odd elf a relaxed kind of smile containing only a trace of guardedness. He strolls back over. "Just some junk left behind by the last tenant, I guess. And I think it's been spoken for, salroka--sorry about that."

That's when he notices the muggers on the periphery, two of them already making a beeline for the large box sporting the same assortment of strange colours, meaning it could only belong to this guy--

"Hey!" he calls out in sharp warning at the muggers, and starts to come around the crates to confront them.

[meds4sale]

In most circumstances, the Medicine Seller wouldn't object. But whatever was in the pot was the sort of thing that shouldn't be handed off to children.

Not that he articulated this like a reasonable adult. Instead, he watched the muggers impassively.

"I have no intention of taking it," he said in that slow, dragging monotone as the ringleader reached for the wooden pack. The Medicine Seller simply gestured, and the top compartment opened. The other two muggers who had some sense realized between that, and the approaching dwarf who clearly looked like the kind of fighter who regularly mopped the floor with men like them, they should probably book it. The third, however, had caught a glimpse of something glittering, and he reached for the jewel encrusted box -

Which opened on its own as well, and a strange sword rose from the box, the grinning goblin-headed pommel staring at the man with orange eyes that seemed almost alive.

That was enough to send him bolting after his compatriots.

"...But something is inside it that I will need to kill, if it is all the same."