MOD PLOT ↠ Endlessly Far Beneath My Feet

[faderifting]

WHO: Open
WHAT: A visit to Orzammar
WHEN: For about 10 days in early Bloomingtide
WHERE: Orzammar
NOTES: OOC post. Please use content warnings in your comment subject lines as required.

Orzammar is not all that far from Kirkwall: a short trip across the Waking Sea to Jader, then an even shorter (though much more exhausting than it seemed in dreams) hike up into the Frostback mountains brings them to the great stone doors that stand between Orzammar and the surface. Once those doors creak and groan shut in their wake—and the next set of doors, too, designed like a waterlock to keep the sky from reaching the city—it is no easy thing to open them again. No one's going to see the sun until they leave.

The great thaig within the mountains is much warmer than the chilly pass through them, thanks to the molten lake beneath it, which also keeps many of the open streets at least dimly lit 24 hours per day, until they wander off further than the glow can reach. The thaig is magnificent, brimming with distinctive angular architecture and statues honoring dwarven Paragons and ancestors. It's also sprawling. Despite giving the deceptive impression at the entrance of a hollow dome that can be taken in with a single look around, the thaig is home to one hundred thousand dwarves, give or take a few thousand. And that's with a dwindling population. It was built for even more. Buildings with narrow facades burrow and wind deep into the stone behind them. So do side streets that branch away from the Commons at every level. Most of them are lyrium-lit and safe to travel. But given the absence of any sun or moon, the way they ascend and descend and loop through the rock, they can be very disorienting to navigate without stone sense.

Among the locals on the street there's a lingering, palpable sense of relief that the worst seems to have passed, so far as the darkspawn at Orzammar's doors is concerned. It's put most people in a particularly good mood, and made them a bit more disposed than usual to treat the influx of visitors from above as an entertaining novelty. That won't stop the occasional dwarf from being suspicious of outsiders here to interfere with the Assembly or bitter that they want something when Orzammar never asked them for help, but friendly interest will be more common by far.

ACCOMMODATIONS

Riftwatch's Division Heads and Project Leaders will be the personal guests of House Bemot and put up in the house's sprawling, mazelike estate in the Diamond Quarter. The residence is brimming with artwork: statues of the house's prominent ancestors, dazzling stonework on columns and doorways, mosaics on the floors, and art both dwarven and imported lining the walls. They're given private rooms—many far from each other, down different turning corridors carved back into the stone—with large beds and hot water piped up from nearer to Orzammar's molten depths. The rooms are nice but don't mistake this for only an unfair perk; there are servants listening and marking their comings and goings at all times.

Since visitors from the surface are much rarer and their stays usually as short as possible, Orzammar is minimally equipped for large swells of visitors, so the rest of Riftwatch's personnel will be packed into one of two inns located in the tier of the Commons where merchants and other surface-dwellers typically reside when they're permitted access to the thaig.

The Paragon's Rest is the nicer of the two. Two ages ago it was the grand home of a prominent merchant house that has since died out; its name comes from the fact that two (two!) paragons have stayed there since the time it was converted into an inn. It boasts a modest number of small, private rooms and shared rooms with artful dividers, all with stone walls that have been carved with intricate geometric patterns. Meals and drinks are available in an expansive hall where local well-to-do merchants frequently play Diamondback and make expensive deals. The inn's position near the gates and something about the design and directions of the corridors minimizes the heat from Orzammar's molten center and even allows for a breeze to reach the common areas now and then.

Unfortunately, the Paragon's Rest doesn't have room for everyone, and the Buttered Nug is less pleasant. The inn was more recently a shop with expansive back storage for its inventory. The shop is now a cramped, sweaty tavern room, where no matter the hour a nug is always roasting—and constantly being basted with butter—over the fire, while more nugs snuffle in a holding pen in a corner, awaiting their doom. The proprietor tries to encourage everyone who passes through to have a plate. It's his grandmother's recipe. You're going to love it. The diners and residents are mostly merchants of the struggling and/or shady variety. The former storage rooms are unadorned, nearly more cavern than room, and large enough to be shared by large numbers of people, with stone lattice-work dividers between beds that provide very little actual privacy. Choosing the room deeper into the stone will make the temperature less sweltering but significantly increase the number of spiders in your bed.

Fortunately, no one has to do more than sleep there if they don't want to. And maybe try just one plate of grandma's buttered nug?

WORK

Riftwatch's primary objectives in Orzammar are sharing information about the war and making a good impression. While speaking to the Assembly might be the centerpiece of those efforts, it's not the extent of them. The noble caste may sit at the top of the dwarven hierarchy, but they're not the only ones with sway or useful resources and nudging public opinion more generally could have its benefits.

There are some specific ways Riftwatch can make itself visibly useful to Orzammar, to help counter the argument that the surface is asking for help without being willing to provide any in return. Assisting with red lyrium removal, installing cleansing runes, and teaching members of the mining caste how to do both for themselves will be priorities. And while the enemy's retreat to the north has lessened the pressure on the thaig, Orzammar lives in constant fear of darkspawn all the same. Riftwatch members suited for combat will be assigned shifts with the dwarven troops on patrol in the near sectors of the Deep Roads or standing watch at the great doors that block off the ancient tunnels.

Meetings with various members of the middle-rank castes (warrior, smith, artisan, mining, merchant) have been arranged and assigned, some with an explicit focus on discussing the war effort and providing information about what Riftwatch has learned and experienced, while others are focused on building trade connections or exploring potential opportunities to collaborate on research—and if opportunities to tell them more about the war effort in the process just happen to arise, all the better. These castes span a wide swathe of dwarven society between nobles and servants, and the meetings will reflect that, ranging from elaborate dinner parties with merchants as wealthy as any lord to casual chats over a pint with a busy blacksmith in a lower-tier tavern. Reactions will also vary, but most are interested in hearing what Riftwatch has to say, even if they're not necessarily disposed to agree. Nearly all visitors to Orzammar are merchants, and having access to this many surfacers and non-dwarves is a novelty.

Members of the Shaperate will take a more pointed and professional interest in their work. Shapers may set up appointments to talk to anyone who's able to speak about their experiences in the war so far, taking copious notes. (On paper. You're not special enough to go straight into the Memories.)

For everyone Riftwatch set a meeting with there are ten more they didn't, so a major part of the company's work in the city will be cultivating more casual interactions and both gathering and dispensing information that way. Someone might be assigned to frequent a particular tavern popular with Warriors and make connections there and find opportunities to discuss what's going on above. Someone else might be asked to drop in on a series of armorers and try to get a sense of current prices, how busy they are, and where most of their stock is being sold. Other assignments might be even more general--spend time in this cafe, or at the nug races, or chatting up merchants in this sector of the market, and see what conversations you can strike up or overhear. Talking folks into support for the war effort is great, but any generally positive interaction counts at this point, so Riftwatch members will be encouraged to pitch in wherever they see help needed, but also to be careful not to get entangled in controversy.

To coordinate all of this work, Riftwatch will have command of a private dining room in the Paragon's Rest to use as a meeting room, where everyone can come back to report, regroup, and strategize after a meeting or outing.

LEISURE

Anyone who finds themselves with downtime will also not have trouble finding things to fill it with. The Commons is lined with merchant stalls selling street food and a wide variety of fine dwarven crafts: metal goods ranging from knives to toys, clothing and bags covered in carefully placed little beads, intricate jewelry, and mechanical and enchanted inventions rarely seen on the surface. There's also an artisan who will hammer your likeness into a sheet of metal while you wait. It's all cheaper than it would be in an above-ground marketplace, as long as you're willing to haggle. Shops and smithies built into the stone sell weapons and armor—or do custom work, though getting anything completed before Riftwatch leaves Orzammar will require paying a premium.

The centerpiece of the Orzammar Commons in the Proving Arena. Currently there are no ongoing provings, but there are warriors and aspirants hanging around the surrounding areas to practice and posture. They might invite a competent-looking newcomer to spar.

An alternative to violence is nug racing, where hungry, specially-bred nugs are painted with house symbols and raced through open-topped tunnels, dug into the ground to allow spectating from above. With little happening in the Proving arena at the moment, this is the more popular spectator event in Orzammar, drawing observers from every caste to cheer and gamble on the outcomes of a series of bracketed races. House Etoras' Deep Fried (called Fred) is favored to win, but House Aratack's Hops & Grain (Hoppy) isn't a bad bet, and Keltar's Perfect Baby (Baby) might pull off an upset.

And there is also, of course, an enormous pit of lava below the Commons. (This is not deadly somehow. We don't know.) A favorite game of some of the local children is collecting trash and inviting newcomers to guess or wager on which items will burst into flames before they hit the lava and which will not. These demonstrations usually end by either a fake attempt to toss a friend over the edge as the final object, or a gleeful (and disprovable) explanation that this is why no one in Orzammar is ever found murdered. They only vanish. Fun!

If they'd like to explore beyond the Commons and the Diamond Quarter, no one will actively prevent Riftwatch members from venturing into Dust Town, the dilapidated sector of the city where the casteless live and the Carta rules. Outsiders might even be able to stumble into the area without realizing it, if they get turned around in some of the narrower back streets carved through the rock. But however they arrive, visitors to Dust Town are unlikely to make it very far without running into trouble.

Comments

elsewhere in Orzammar; ota

[kantikoy]

Adrasteia has been to Orzammar before, roughly eight years prior to now; then she was just all of nineteen and very wide-eyed about the world outside of Amaranthine. She'd barely even seen a dwarf outside of random traders in her hometown at that point in her life, had definitely not exchanged many words with them much less been in a city full of them.

The thing about Orzammar is that not a lot of it has changed. It feels... almost frozen in time, in a way. Part of her keeps expecting to turn a corner or enter a doorway and find herself face to face with Warden Alphonse, being irritated at her for something or another. It's an odd feeling, for sure.

That, combined with being unable to see the sky, has led to a quieter, more reserved Adrasteia on the whole.

As a Warden, she feels more than a little obligation to help keep the city protected from darkspawn; as such she can be found on patrol more nights than not, though usually not alone, so feel free to join her either by choice or assignment. During the day she can be found at various merchant stalls, discussing how a particular piece of jewelry is made or haggling over the price of a set of very sharp knives. One can't have too many knives.

She's not even a rogue, y'all.

Other places Adrasteia can be found include assisting with red lyrium removal and talking to people in the Commons about healers and where they're needed, red lyrium, the war, etcetera.

commons.

[indissection]

Sidony is not a particular fan of being anywhere near dwarves, anywhere near anything to do with being underground, but she is making do. She has a job to do and she already has some sets of dresses and skirts that are more appropriate for wandering around rather than for sitting and looking pretty, so she's brought those along with her and intends to make good use of them.

At least she can do something worthwhile with herself while she is here and she intends to make use of it. She wanders around to try and find more about what they do in terms of healing here, in terms of looking at bodies, anything that might help her own research and studies.

Of course, she spots Adrasteia as someone who stands out and she offers a small smile and a curtsey as she makes herself more obvious, brushing her hands on her skirts.

"Are you making yourself useful, my dear?"

[kantikoy]

Most dwarves don't know elves. They know of elves, certainly, but it's rare for an elf to make their way to the underground city. Suffice to say, this has made the elves of Riftwatch somewhat popular.

It doesn't hurt Adrasteia that she is a Grey Warden mage as well.

When Sidony makes eye contact, Adrasteia smiles in welcome at a familiar face, returning the woman's curtsey with one of her own. She likes Sidony— she likes most everyone, truth be told, but the Navarran woman is an accomplished non-magical healer in her own right. Adrasteia has felt fortunate to work alongside her.

"Certainly making my best attempts. Dust Town has the greatest need for people like us, but being well-received there even as a healer has its problems." Which is to say Adrasteia would rather not get jumped while representing Riftwatch.

"Have you eaten? I haven't yet and I was wondering if you would like to join me?"

[indissection]

On the other hand, Sidony is nothing more than the embodiment of uselessness to most people - or at least to those that don't know her well enough. She has the appearance of nothing more than a noble lady, someone who cares for very little more than her dresses and her money, and maybe that had once been the case. She had been rather obsessed with fashion for a while, but work with Riftwatch was a quick cure for that.

She is wiser in a great deal many things these days.

Arms crossed behind her back, she lets her smile settle into place. She is certainly fond of Adrasteia - there's no reason not to be - and her eyes skim her up and down before she makes herself properly comfortable in new company.

"They are rather insular people, as best I've heard," she admits with a nod, thoughtful. "I wouldn't trust strange outsiders if I were them, and I doubt we've done much to offer them confidence in us."

But, oh. The offer takes her by surprise for a moment (people want one thing from her and that is healing) but she nods her head.

"I would like that."

[kantikoy]

Her smile widens.

"Oh, good. I'm at the Buttered Nug and don't tell anyone I said this, but I think I've exhausted my interest in that particular meal early on." They've still got days of this mission to go, and she doesn't want nug.

The dwarves would probably never speak to her again if they overheard her at this point, she figures.

She crosses the space to stand closer to Sidony, inclining her head upwards at the other woman. "There used to be a small restaurant in the lower area of the Commons that serves a very hearty and delicious stew with thick noodles that I think are made from mushrooms. I never asked exactly what was in it, and I shan't start now."

[indissection]

"Do you really think I've been eating there this whole time? I've been desperate for anything remotely different. You would think being married to the Head of Diplomacy would ensure more perks, but alas."

She scoffs, shaking her head as she moves closer to Adrasteia, offering her arm with a soft, slow smile. It's a dangerous game, mentioning her husband - not because people might be offended but because they might get the wrong idea about their attachment.

"A stew and noodles sounds divine. It's not what I am accustomed to, but what is life without a little adventure?" She hums. "I'll tolerate mushrooms, for the good company."

[kantikoy]

The Grey Warden takes the woman's arm easily and with a smile to boot; the first time she'd spoken with Sidony she had clocked that the woman shared a last name with someone in the Riftwatch's upper echelons. Now she's actually interacted with both of them, and while they seem... not oddly matched, exactly, there is something there.

Something that Adrasteia will not be mentioning, because it is none of her business.

"Did you at least get a room alone? I'm in a room with several others of Riftwatch and various merchants coming into Orzammar." A small eyeroll. "One of them snores something terrible, honestly."

[indissection]

Sidony is aware that there is a coyness about her, that her natural flirtation is something she's never quite been able to swallow, but she's not trying to actively engage it here. She genuinely likes this woman, genuinely likes her company, and she's being warm. Being herself. It's something that only a few have been able to draw out of her - and she smiles, leaning close as she speaks.

"I try to get a room alone no matter where I go," she nods. Is it supposed to be a secret she doesn't share with her spouse? Who cares. "But I was less successful here. It's not Nevarra, after all."

A sigh, and she looks forward again, patting Adrasteia's arm.

"I'd rather sleep outside than share with someone who snores. Honestly, I need my sleep."

merchant stalls~

[coquettish_trees]

After the merchant's second offer on the knives— one which is, as to be expected, still too much even given the quality— and before Adrasteia's return salvo, a third voice chimes in.

"But surely you can make her the gift of a more generous offer. After all, I am sure the Warden intends to valiantly protect your beautiful city with them this very night, and it is no poor thing to be able to say ones blades are in such hands." Alexandrie, smiling broadly, with wide and guileless eyes.

[kantikoy]

The merchant stutters briefly, before correcting their offer to something closer to what Adrasteia is willing to pay.

She smiles at the Lady d'Asgard before responding with another lower figure, and the merchant accepts with a little bluster. "I hadn't realized..."

"Oh, it's fine," Adrasteia responds because she knows she told the dwarf she was a Grey Warden and it hadn't mattered at first, not until they were reminded that they should respect that title. "No harm done."

Except for a lower price for these nice knives, which she'll take, thanks.

As the merchant steps aside to wrap the knives, she turns to Alexandrie and mouths 'Thank you.'

[coquettish_trees]

'Quite welcome' is mouthed in return with a twinkle in her eyes before she exclaims "But I am so pleased I have run into you!

"Tell me, how should you like to attend an event you need not have any hand in running at all?"

[kantikoy]

"I would like that quite a lot."

The merchant comes back with the wrapped knives; Adrasteia pays, and then fixes the Lady d'Asgard with her full attention. "What would be required of me?"

[coquettish_trees]

"A longer tour of duty in the markets than you perhaps anticipated, enduring my comprehensive sartorial fussing, and cheering for racing nugs in the company of myself and a number of well-placed and well-funded members of merchant houses I have managed to ingratiate myself to," Alexandrie replies brightly, inclining her head along the row of stalls in that universal gesture of invitation to accompany someone.

"I should like to have further Riftwatch accompaniment, it hardly goes ill down here to show we have Wardens in our ranks," a flicker of her eyes toward the little bundle: as recently demonstrated, "and I thought you might enjoy the chance to be entertained, morale being important for its officers as well."

[kantikoy]

"I believe I can do all of that, though I don't think I've ever had anyone commit to 'sartorial fussing' over me... " She tilts her head and smiles, however, easily falling into step next to Alexandrie as they walk, and the package of knives goes into a pocket of her robes. She can only imagine what that sort of thing might look like in the hands of someone with such a well-placed sense of style as the Lady d'Asgard, and she twists her fingers together to try and hide her nervousness at the idea.

Maker, please don't let there be anything disgusting in her hair. She's done her best with washing it but... eugh.

"I'm excited though," she says, and means it. "It'll be nice to do something other than a patrol for the evening."

[coquettish_trees]

"I cannot imagine Darkspawn make the most hospitable entertainers," Alexandrie replies with wry sympathy.

"Do you prefer silver or gold?" She pauses in her movement to turn and examine Adrasteia, an unconcealed evaluation much as an portrait artist might turn on their subject. "I feel I so often see Wardens in silver and blue, which would not go ill, but with your colouring," a little illustrative gesture to hair, eyes, skin, "I think you should look warmly resplendent in gold.

"We might try both, of course! It little matters how I feel. The most important thing one can ever wear is the genuine confidence that one is set off to ones best advantage."

meeting room, at some point;

[pittance]

It's just them, just now. Strange hours — stranger, if you reckon the sun to pass them. So maybe it's breakfast, maybe it's not. The clocks aren't so hot you can't pretend.

"Hey," Entered basket-first, held aloft only to nudge her way. Snap-peas: Fresh and sweet and impossibly green. "You holding up?"

She'd been weird. Then he'd been gone. Hasn't been more than a glimpse about their work here, a name on patrol lists and never the same shift. He looks better, cleaned up. Stands straighter.

(Grinds his teeth a little harder —)

[kantikoy]

Having been staring at some fixed point in the wall, Adrasteia refocuses her eyes and attention on the basket between them before she manages to brighten up a little. "Peas," she exhales a little comically, picking one up with a gloved hand and biting into it. A couple of chews and a swallow later and her brain helpfully reminds her that he'd asked a question.

"Ehhhn. It's both different and not, from the last time I was here. But, I have news." She pulls off her gloves before cupping her chin with her right hand and opens her left on the top of the table between them, wiggling her fingers.

There's a green shard there.

[pittance]

There's weird for you. He leans up to squint, and the frown that pulls at his mouth isn't only gravity.

"When'd it happen?"

[kantikoy]

The girl is strange, Vance. Sorry about it.

"Just before we left for here."

merchant stalls.

[heorte]

"I didn't know you were partial to daggers," comes Ellis' voice, an interjection made only after the merchant in question has turned huffily towards another customer.

He'd been meaning to seek Adrasteia out. Here is as good a place as any, considering patrols have pulled him in one direction or another since they've arrived. This is chance, but he'll take it.

[kantikoy]

Adrastiea is surprised, but not exactly startled, by Ellis' appearance at her side. She turns up to look at him and smiles. "My father taught me everything he knew about knives when I was a child. He was hoping for a rogueish type, I think." She has no idea what he'd have thought about her being a mage and avoiding Circle life, but that's a consideration for late-night insomnia, not right now. "One of them is a gift, anyway. How have you found Orzammar?"

[heorte]

Adrastiea has a way of volunteering pieces of herself, passing them over without any hesitation. It feels remarkable, even though Ellis has in some ways begun to grow used to marveling over it.

It registers. He takes it in stride as he eyes the blade in her hand, sizing it up as he considers the question.

"Much the same," he says after a moment, only to add, "Preferable to the time Riftwatch dispatched to Orlais."

For many reasons, not solely because he's far too Ferelden to ever be at ease on Orlesian soil.

"It's early yet, to be buying for Satinalia?"

Prompting, but not prying. He's curious, but not enough to press her for an answer as to who she'd seek out a dagger for.

[kantikoy]

"I'm afraid I might have preferred Orlais." Adrasteia gives a little wince; sorry, Ellis. "Just a tiny bit." She holds her thumb and forefinger apart less than an inch.

"It is, at that, and yet..." Adrasteia gives a little shrug as she puts the knives away in a bag she's carrying expressly for the purpose of gifts she's purchased, "there are two things I know. One: there are fewer craftspeople finer than those of Orzammar, especially when it comes to weapons and armor. Two: there is no such thing as too early for a gift."

She'll definitely get everyone she knows something for Satinalia, but in the meantime, there are so many days between now and then. So many opportunities for gift-giving.

"Perhaps I should make gifts of them both." A small headshake, a problem for a later train of thought. "Have you eaten? Would you like a drink?" A seat and an ale would be preferrable to standing here chattering on in front of all and sundry.

[heorte]

A brief flicker of humor at her answer, the minor preference for Orlais cause for some amusement. The unspoken joke: What kind of Fereldan are you?

But as to the purchases—

Yes, Ellis has come to the same conclusion. He'd already given Wysteria what he'd meant to save for Satinalia, purchased on their detour through Orzammar earlier in the year. When it comes to her and Tony, this place seems uniquely equipped to provide.

But Ellis doesn't volunteer this, nodding as Adrasteia stows her purchase. The question makes him hesitate, if only because he hadn't sought her out to prevail on her for anything other than conversation, but—

"I've not eaten," Ellis answers, after a moment. "And I've some time, if you've finished your business here."

[kantikoy]

A terrible Ferelden, clearly, to have been comfortable in Orlais for so long. She's used to the joke.

She's also never gone back home since leaving Amaranthine, so perhaps it hits more true than she'd like to admit.

"Then we should eat," she says with a definitive nod, shouldering her bag. "Have you found any favorites amongst the taverns here?"