Down in the charred remains they stripped the chassis clean

[kantikoy]

WHO: Adrasteia, Erik, others
WHAT: a catch-all with starters in the comments; will match format
WHEN: early Bloomingtide
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: Erik comes with a built-in language warning

Comments

adrasteia, a grey warden | ota | wildcards welcome

[kantikoy]

A set of unused rooms that were once apothecaries or something like it, attached to the herb garden, exist in the Gallows; Adrasteia has set up in one of them, early. There's a variety of smells coming from the gap where the door is nearly but not quite shut, and once in a while, the sound of shattering glass or a muttered swear.

Please knock before entering. Or don't, and startle the elf. Not the boss of you, here.

She's also around in the infirmary, not because she doesn't think that Brother Gideon, Sister Sara, or Colin have a handle on things, but because she wants to help. Be useful. Do more. Because helping to throw a wedding and being the Morale Officer is not enough.

Apparently.

Mostly she's taking notes of potions that are needed and doing some light cleaning, following up with patients that should've checked in with the infirmary and tracking them down when need be, and filling the tea stores with more than just deep mushroom tisane.

Also, there are a lot of romance novels in Orlesian and Trade in the library now.

You're welcome, Riftwatch.

herb garden

[sparklequeen]

Glimmer is still getting used to the Gallows and still tentatively exploring all of its various nooks and crannies. That's how she ends up in the herb garden. For one, there's green, growing things here which make her very happy--greenery is one of the things she misses from back home. She's wandering the rows of herbs, trying to pick out anything familiar when she hears the sound of breaking glass from the attached room. She pauses, then walks over the door, unsure as to whether or not she's supposed to bother whoever's in there. Or maybe they're not supposed to be in there? She gives the door a gentle rap and then opens it.

"Everything alright in here?"

[kantikoy]

Adrasteia is currently standing on a step stool so that she can reach the entirety of the table in front of her, which is between her and the door, where Glimmer is standing. There's a set of books in Trade open on the table, along with a mortar and pestle, several herbs arranged in small bundles (mostly elfroot), and a multitude of glass flasks.

One of which seems to have been accidentally pushed off the edge of the table in Glimmer's direction; that's probably what she heard.

"Oh, mind the glass!" Adrasteia pushes a few loose strands from her elaborate braid/bun updo off of her forehead, where she's begun to sweat, before stepping down from the step stool, small broom in hand. "Let me clean that up, actually."

[sparklequeen]

"I have good shoes on--" Glimmer insists. And they are! Nice leather boots helpfully provided by the good folks of the Riftwatch. She steps to one side and lets the door close behind her.

"Anything I can do to help? I'm not doing anything else and, well, I'd hate to just stand here and watch you clean up."

[kantikoy]

"Good. Sometimes people go wandering around here shoeless, and while I try not to judge... I'm judging, a tiny bit. Seems dangerous."

Adrasteia is halfway to bending over when Glimmer makes her offer, which causes the elven woman to pause and cast a look at the table. "That bowl, there," she points, "with the purple concoction, can you stir it counterclockwise for me while I get this?"

[sparklequeen]

"Oh! Yeah!" Glimmer edges around the broken glass and then hurries over to the indicated bowl. Picking up the implement at hand, she begins to stir it as instruction. She peers over as Adrasteia begins to pick up the glass.

"...Is it okay to ask what you're working on in here? I was just exploring--still getting used to this place, honestly."

[kantikoy]

The glass gets swept up, and placed in a bowl of other glass shards elsewhere on the table; Adrasteia hasn't figured out what to do about them all just yet, but not gathering them up seems wasteful at the very least.

"Oh no it's fine. I'm trying to get better at my skills as a healer, and part of that can be making potions like this one. When it turns completely red —" and Glimmer can probably see streaks of red slowly appearing as she stirs — "and very liquid, it's ready! It'll be a healing potion when it's done, nothing too intense but helpful in the field in a pinch." She starts busying herself with getting a funnel and a new glass flask together. "Do you mind if you keep stirring while I get another flask ready?"

erik stevens | ota | wildcards welcome

[clawings]

Erik has a sword with a fire rune in it, now, and thus has taken to practicing even more often than his every few days at the training grounds; he doesn't always use the sword, because he doesn't want to damage it or set too many dummies on fire. Instead, he fights with a sword with a similar heft to it and switches between the two when he doesn't practice wielding them both.

Of course, all of this physical exertion means that he spends some time recovering in the heated baths in the former Templar tower. He's not going to be shy about using them; his muscles ache, and he knows that rest is as useful as training.

He spends some time in Kirkwall proper, mostly in the various markets looking at all and sundry, or in the evening drinking in taverns at the edge of Lowtown. There's also the ferry.

markets

[hornswoggle]

"Looking for anything in particular?" comes a voice.

John's hands are empty, but he's paused in his journey to veer in towards where Erik has lingered. There's an appointment he's meant to keep in Hightown, but there's time enough to wind his way up to the estate in question. Leaving time for a scattering of conversation as he moves through the city is habit by now, three years in to his residency here.

[clawings]

"Nah, I tend to just look around and see what's what." Erik looks up with a shrug, nodding in John's direction. "Lot more handmade shit than back home, which makes it interestin'. How about you?"

[hornswoggle]

"I've an appointment in Hightown, at Lord Archard's estate," John answers, one hand coming to rest on the surface of the table. "But I like to look through the stalls, if I have the time."

John likes to greet the men who work these stalls, stay on good terms just in case there ever comes a moment when he needs something or other from them. But that's neither here nor there.

"Between the two of us, I'm fairly certain you're about to have the better afternoon.'

[clawings]

"Am I allowed to ask who Lord Archard is?" Erik picks up a small armored soldier that was once probably a Tevene's child's toy but is now being sold here; makes him wonder just how far those fleeing the war from Tevinter's borders have reached. "Sometimes the stuff that gets here has me thinkin' about how people move across Thedas, and the goods that follow or proceed them." A shrug. "It's something to do."

[hornswoggle]

"You are, but I won't promise the answer is any more interesting than the offerings on hand here."

The meditation on goods and their transport isn't something John would devote his thoughts, despite qualifying as one of the individuals Erik is indirectly speaking about. Has John not moved back and forth across Thedas, flung to far reaches of the north and drawn again southwards in pursuit of—

Well.

"Are you looking to travel, as our work permits?"

[clawings]

Erik lets out a little chuckle. "Fair enough."

The question John poses elicits a small but certain nod from the man. "Definitely; I traveled a lot back home and there's some shit you just can't learn only stuck in one place." He's liked the traveling he's done so far, even; seeing more of Thedas can't be a bad thing by any measure as far as he's concerned.

sword sword sword!!

[archademode]

A fine blade.

[He cannot claim responsibility for the decision to carry fire along a sword’s honed edge, but he does endure a keen flicker of pride at the knowledge it comes in the wake of a battle where Erik had wielded Chaos Blade— his blade— so deftly.

It is a sound decision. Of this he has no doubt.]

I’ve seen precious few who utilize similar techniques here. [Spoken as he fits himself at the edge of the training ground to play spectator to Erik's work: something to lend him room to continue on uninterrupted aside from conversational demands.]

Yet there is no accounting for how valuable searing heat can be in the fever of battle.

[clawings]

Thanks.

[ A grunt of effort; Erik has worked up a sweat and he can't imagine how Gabranth manages at all hours, in all temperatures, in that suit. Granted, Erik's skin is also covered in unique scarring that the tunic he's wearing doesn't do much to hide, half damp as it is already.

He hits the side of the dummy with the sword, and a scorch mark is left in his wake. ]

It's new. Wasn't ready when we left before.

Dunno why more don't use the runes, though. They're expensive but not impossible to afford.

[archademode]

Many in this world fear magic, as I have seen.

They often spurn its benefits, even knowing how their lives would improve within the span of its cast shade.

[All for entirely legitimate reasons, he’s been told— but Gabranth is a stubborn man, and the Mist of his own world was too invaluable a thing to waste, even in its capacity for destruction.]

[clawings]

Yeah they had a whole fuckin' war about it, it's part of how we got here.

[ Erik? Of the opinion that magic is badass and he wishes he could use it. Or more of it. He's heard tell of something that might be magic related to the shard in his hand but he hasn't looked into it properly. ]

Like I get that it's a powerful minority or whatever, but not everyone is hellbent on world domination.

[ Spoken like a man who was once hellbent on something that looked just like world domination, Erik Stevens. Another few hacks at the dummy; he's realizing that he needs to get better at swinging the flaming blade upwards if he has to do that, but it's a strain on muscles that have barely been trained to work that way, even after months of being here. ]

[archademode]

My perspective is that of a foreigner to this world and its ways, so for that alone I cannot speak of acute comprehension— however my own suspicion is that many of those who lack power fear it only because they know it cannot be theirs.

The rest, perhaps, is more to do with tradition and the safety it provides therein. Eventually I will need to press someone for better information...

[He watches the blade do its work, catching and faintly scorching thick wood. inhaling the soft scent of smoke in the air, though it's harmless for how carefully it's being utilized.]

...though I have been advised that it is unwise for me to do so.

Griffon flight training with Ellie

[kantikoy]

"Alright." It's chilly, this morning, but chilly in a way that promises to burn off by nearly noon; a thick fog hangs over the Gallows island, but they're just a little above it here in the griffon's roost at the top of the central tower. Adrasteia has clapped and rubbed her gloved hands together in preparation for TEACHING, which is what she's doing today.

She's very excited about it, clearly. Granted this is Adrasteia; the elven woman is excited about most things. Today has called for riding clothes, which are a little less flowy than her usual fare of dresses and battlemage armor, and her hair is in braids up and tucked away.

"Are there griffons, where you're from?" She knows that Ellie is a Rifter but not much beyond that. Besides, there seem to be cats in every world, as far as she knows; griffons could be much the same.

[notathreat]

Adrasteia is someone that Ellie's been introduced to in passing, and then once she'd more definitively joined the Scouting division and expressed an interest in learning to ride the griffons (which may or may not have involved being caught sneaking up to see them at odd hours and giving them snacks) she'd been pointed out as someone who could teach her.

The most Ellie knows about Adrasteia is that she's a friend of Ellis, and he's all good in her book. So she's shown up for riding dressed in appropriate but plain clothes, the kind she had to have borrowed piecemeal from the armory. Her hair's tied back in a simple twist, just barely long enough for it.

Ellie pulls on the leather gloves, fumbling a bit with her left hand. It's both where the anchor is and where she's missing two fingers so it takes a little wriggling to get things in the right spot.

"Nope," she answers, while she fiddles with them, clenching and unclenching her fists. "Horses, sure, but griffons are supposed to be a myth, like dragons."

... though those are apparently real here too.

[kantikoy]

"Interesting." This is not the first time she's heard of something being 'mythic' in that same sense, and she wonders suddenly if any other Thedosians (or Rifters, for that matter) has considered putting together a selection of stories from their native worlds. A question for the crystals, later, she supposes.

Right now, there's flight training. And trying not to worry about how a girl Ellie's age manages to lose fingers. She can think of too many ways for that to have happened, easily, and it's frankly none of her business.

"Well, griffons are much like any other rideable creature, in my experience, which is to say: each one has their own personality and proclivities, but responds well to food and positive reinforcement. Have you ridden before? A horse, I mean, or anything."

[notathreat]

"That's one word for it. We've got a bunch of other bullshit to make up for it."

Ellie gives a light shrug, like it's no big deal, and reaches into her pocket, where she's secreted away some jerky treats. Easier to carry around than a sack of dead rats, which she's also found that some of the griffons really like.

"Sounds fair. And yeah, I had my own horse for a while back home. We used them for all our patrols in the mountainside." She shrugs a little. "And I rode double on Aenor's dracolisk for a while, if that counts?"

[kantikoy]

"You'll have to tell me about it sometime. Maybe we can exchange stories."

She sees that affectation of 'it doesn't matter' and raises you an honest, listening ear Ellie. But no pressure.

"That's perfect, and definitely counts. Have you had much of a chance to get used to the griffons, figure out which one you'd like to try riding first? I usually ride Potato," she explains, pointing the griffon out, "because she's sweet and cuddly and I like that sort of thing."

[notathreat]

"Uh. Yeah. I'd like to hear about the stuff you've seen," Ellie answers, awkward but sincere. It's a little gruff; she's still not completely used to people actually giving a fuck right off the bat. (Stop. Perceiving her. Stop that.)

Ellie has a visible flicker in her expression at the name Potato, but it's quickly gone, and she manages a soft smile.

"I've snuck up here a few times, so I've said hi, but I didn't know their names. She's a real nice one." Less aggressive with her cuddling and less free with her beak.

Ellie lifts her chin towards a big, grey griffon, one that looks very muscled, particularly rough and tough. She flashes a wider smile as he spots her and ruffles his wings, clearly intent on coming over to investigate.

"That big softie right there."

(Who is Artichoke, though she doesn't know it yet.)