exequy: (Default)
Kostos Averesch ([personal profile] exequy) wrote in [community profile] faderift2018-04-15 03:44 pm

The Days That Bind Us 2: Still Bound

WHO: Mages, anyone else who cares
WHAT: Give us liberty or give us potatoes, or: a most noble strike for a most noble purpose, or: pissy mage babies throw a tantrum
WHEN: 14-19 Cloudreach 9:44
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: This is for consolidating RP regarding the strike. Your character doesn't have to be striking themselves to top-level or tag around, as long as it's tangentially related.


The morning of Cloudreach 14, with minimal fanfare, a significant fraction of the Circle mages working with the Inquisition across Thedas stops showing up for work. On the other hand, a significant fraction doesn't stop. But the not-working fraction is significant enough to cause problems, and for the Inquisition to not delay or prolong the discussions already set to take place at Skyhold with a few representatives of the aggrieved mages and a number of Templar and Chantry representatives.

In the Gallows, most of the mages who are refusing to work relocate—voluntarily, unless being scowled at by Kostos Averesch qualifies as being forced against one's will—to the dusty recruits' quarters in the former Templar tower for an indefinite, politicized slumber party, featuring uncomfortable bunk beds and a lot of unseasoned starches. For a cause.

ooc | Remember that striking characters are generally losing access to confidential information, Inquisition equipment or materials, and any amenities, comforts, or privileges beyond the "plain potatoes for dinner" and "not thrown out into the streets" level.
galvanising: (011)

[personal profile] galvanising 2018-04-22 01:22 am (UTC)(link)
[ He's not the only person in the Inquisition who's been told that, nor the first to've sent her a message out of the blue. Needless to say they have not all been supportive, so there's some wariness, but her tone is polite enough. ]

If you mean the mages stopping work, yes. Who is this?

justnice: ([ green: hhuh ])

[personal profile] justnice 2018-04-22 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
Finch, um. Finch Wicker.

[ like that's going to help. it's easier to catch her own voice; aren't a great many nevarrans about ]

When are you going to... start, again? Start working again, I mean.
galvanising: (018)

[personal profile] galvanising 2018-04-22 01:42 am (UTC)(link)
[ nope, doesn't help. but his question is pretty civil and nothing about it sounds like someone about to go off on her, so there's that. ]

We'll be back at work as soon as the Inquisition agrees to destroy the phylacteries it has. We don't want to cause trouble, but the Inquisition asked for our help as allies, and we've given it, so we want to make sure it can't change its mind now and make us prisoners instead.
justnice: ([ grey: listen ])

[personal profile] justnice 2018-04-22 02:19 am (UTC)(link)
Haven't those always existed, though? No one's made you a prisoner yet.

[ it's not as though all this is really impacting his job (mages generally being too important to get asked to do the washing up), but everything's in a bit of disarray, and —

well, good things don't often happen when people gather like that.
]
galvanising: (015)

[personal profile] galvanising 2018-04-22 02:35 am (UTC)(link)
[ she might sigh, off-crystal, but nell's had plenty of practice responding to this question lately without making it sound as if she's tired of doing so. ]

They have, and when the Chantry had them it did use them to keep us prisoner. And then some Seekers found them, and they used them to attack us for weeks. Mages were getting set on fire and punched by giant stone fists over and over every day from hundreds of miles off. And now the Inquisition has them. We don't want to be prisoners again and we don't want to be attacked again, and the only way to be sure those things won't happen is for the phylacteries to be destroyed. We just want the Inquisition to treat us the same as it does all its other members.
justnice: ([ grey: comment ])

[personal profile] justnice 2018-04-22 02:54 am (UTC)(link)
[ if he's got a different notion over what being a prisoner entails, neither is he about to go turning in fern — ]

That's awful. I'm sorry you were hurt. [ it was. he is. but, ] D'you think it's treating you the same as it does anyone?

[ feeding and housing them and letting them come and go. without doing anything for it. ]
galvanising: (Default)

[personal profile] galvanising 2018-04-22 04:16 pm (UTC)(link)
[ nell's misunderstanding is...partially intentional? not entirely. she can guess that he probably does not mean this the way she's answering it, but there's no guessing precisely which unsympathetic implication this one's aiming for ]

No, I don't. The Inquisition would never even consider treating its other members or allies like this. It's asked nothing of Wardens, or mercenaries, or Templars but their aid. Even Rifters it's taken in and given positions of power without question. We work for the Inquisition the same as any of them do, but we are the only ones it's trying to keep chained.
justnice: ([ blue: listen ])

[personal profile] justnice 2018-04-22 11:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Rifters can't up and take off, I reckon,

[ if finch understood a little more of the state of the world, he might argue those other groups as well. but he doesn't. probably templars get their powers from the maker, and what the heck is a first warden, anyway. ]

That's why they can stay when they don't do anything. It's only, if me or some of the others around here, if we go sit in a room all day knitting squares, and eating cream and bacon, and playing with dogs —

— Well, I don't figure we'd still be here the next day. How's that working the same?
galvanising: (016)

[personal profile] galvanising 2018-04-23 12:36 am (UTC)(link)
Maybe Rifters can't but if it's true that's nothing the Inquisition's done. And if you stopped working or decided to fuck off tomorrow and live some other life, could the Inquisition use your blood to track you down anywhere in Thedas no matter how well you hid? Disable you so you can't defend yourself? Burn you up if they couldn't drag you out? Everybody sitting in that room has a knife to their throats. Still jealous?
Edited (SORRY) 2018-04-23 00:37 (UTC)
justnice: ([ red: heck off ])

[personal profile] justnice 2018-04-23 01:25 am (UTC)(link)
[ with a frustration not wholly for nell — ]

Why're you even here, then? It's nothing the Inquisition's done to you neither. If you think they want to hurt you so bad, why are you even here?
galvanising: (015)

[personal profile] galvanising 2018-04-23 02:42 am (UTC)(link)
[ she is trying so hard not to match his frustration, and hopefully it comes across as passion for the subject. that's the goal, anyway ]

Because we want to help stop Corypheus. Because we want to believe that the Inquisition is the force for good it claims to be. Because we want to believe that they respect us as allies like they said they would. So we're giving them a chance to prove it and do the right thing instead of just walking away now. That's why we're doing this. It's not that we don't want to work with the Inquisition, it's that we do. But we're not in a position to just take their word for it.
justnice: ([ blue: judge ])

[personal profile] justnice 2018-04-30 02:56 am (UTC)(link)
And how do they know they can take yours? That you won't just do this again next time you want something? If they say no to this, if you all go off and leave, where's that leave other mages? Where are they supposed to go, with everyone riled at them again?