faderift | MOD PLOT ↠ Endlessly Far Beneath My Feet

MOD PLOT ↠ Endlessly Far Beneath My Feet

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As water in a desert makes for ambrosia, as fresh fruit among rotting discard might well be as gold, the air smells sweeter here.

He is careful about it, of course. Rigorous in washing and polishing away the lingering scents of his own given quarters (in part so as not to offend, and in part because he himself cannot stand it), so there is no intrusion beyond his own armored stature into fine living spaces, passing one last glance about to take in the mercies of solitude—

And then he reaches up to draw away his helm, a dragging motion that pulls long blond hair loose— fitting it for a momentum-driven beat across high-angled cheeks and sharp-cut features, his skin unmarked by time or scarring, or any other intrusion relative to the matter of disfigurement. His eyes are shut beneath dark lashes, and they remain so for a long, lingering inhale.

An exhale, sweet as succor.

“Thank you, Captain Holden.”

He closes the door behind the two of them after Gabranth enters, crosses his arms loosely and leans against a wall. Gabranth's closed eyes means he misses the reaction to his face — mostly the surprise from before, but more obvious — and when Jim answers, it's not without a soft note of humor.

"You know, I'd started to think you were just hiding an ugly mug."

“That is not an uncommon assumption.”

Another deep breath, and he’s abandoned all candid cast: returning instead to dour form and fitting Holden with his own stare in turn.

“I find it works in my favor, compared to the truth. And for that sake I trust I need not stress the importance of keeping this knowledge you now hold to yourself.”

"I'll try to restrain myself."

From, you know, shouting to the world that Gabranth is handsome, actually. But maybe he knows enough of Holden by now to guess that his secret is safe.

"It's that bad over there?"

The Buttered Nug, he means. It's rare to see Gabranth less than fully self-possessed, helmet or none.

“It was not a suggestion.”

Do or do not, there is no try— or something like that.

Still, the hawkish glare that meets Holden’s face hardly lingers: he moves to set his helm aside, to free himself of the burden of both it and memory of tighter quarters. He’s been alone for so long otherwise, there’s more friction to contact like that than anything he knows how to gracefully swallow.

“If you wish to trade, know that I’ll not stop you.”

That is a joke, Jim. Sort of. Even though there’s no smile, no levity, he isn’t serious.

Edited (autocorrect doesn't like the word levity apparently) 2021-05-10 07:28 (UTC)

Don't worry, Holden's here to smile enough for the both of them.

"I'll pass. But you're welcome to stay for a while, if you need to."

He frees one hand long enough to gesture at the room. The bed's about the only place to sit, but there's room for Gabranth to. Especially if he's willing to push any of those papers to the side, which is a possibility that Holden's clearly okay with. There's a long leather scabbard too, at closer look, a hilt visible at one end. Very possibly, Gabranth's been listened to recently.

Edited (worDS) 2021-05-10 16:43 (UTC)

His acceptance is coarse, as rough around the edges as one might expect, but beneath it lingers genuine gratitude, and maybe it’s that alone that has him so thorny in the moment— moving closer to the bedside, and picking up the sword instead of marveling at anything surrounding it.

“Is this yours?”

"It is now," he says, uncrossing his arms and moving forward a few steps.

The scabbard is unadorned but of fine make, the hilt all sturdily worked metal and leather, and the blade within dark grayish-blue. There's no evidence of wear or tear, none of use at all; clearly freshly purchased from a dwarven smithy. It'd be a fair guess that this cost a not insignificant amount of the cash he'd brought with him to Orzammar, but...

well, it probably is about time.

"I've heard that I can be doing better than I am," he says, not without warmth. And, "I've done a lot of talking about the fact that I live here now. But that also means acting like it. I needed the reminder."

“It is fine craftsmanship. Likely better than a man of your talent merits.”

But that, like Holden’s own commentary, isn’t said with a harsher weight to it. In fact it borders on affability, if Gabranth ever minded baring such sentiment.

“You know how to properly care for it?”

"You know how to make a guy feel special."

Wow, rude!! Though, honestly, probably true.

"I have an idea. The guy who sold this to me had some advice, and there's a blacksmith in Kirkwall I know."

"I need not endeavor to, you yourself are that much without my own counsel."

Is that a compliment, or a slight? Does it matter, when Gabranth's strange-set view of the world so often shares footing with both in regards to everything: he appreciates Holden, and that favorable appreciation colors what might otherwise be an unforgivably coarse critique.

"Come here."

He takes a seat on the bed, papers crinkling as they're displaced by his heavy cloak where it floods just slightly at his back. The sword he lays flat across his lap, supported by one folded leg, and the opposite thigh respectively. A steady, braced L-shape.

He approaches, openly dubious.

"If you're planning on stabbing me, you'll want to take it out of the scabbard first."

Spoken with about as much seriousness -- or concern -- as the sentiment deserves.

“Do not start.” He warns mildly, though his expression doesn’t bear any anger or irritation beyond usual measure, pulling a small whetstone kept tucked away at his belt.

Then, at last, he sets the sheathe aside, leveling the blade’s duller angles in a straight line across his legs.

“Keep it angled like so, when it becomes damaged. You’ll need to keep vigilant watch for nicks or deeper cuts, then set the flat of your stone to it and bear down across in the same direction. Be patient, go slowly.”

“A blade is your life. Should it falter, should it shatter, your last breath may very well chase it in turn. Tend to it as though it shelters your own heart, and you will live longer for it.”

And he would care to see Holden live much, much longer.

He pays attention, really. Watches the way Gabranth angles the blade, handles the whetstone (did he really just have that in his pocket? Is this something Holden should be thinking about doing? Every time he thinks he's gotten used to ye olden life — ), nodding as the other man talks, and hears the lesson for what it is.

Well. It's sword maintenance advice, which wasn't entirely asked for. But it's also concern, in a way. It's a sort of kindness.

"I'll take care of it," he promises. Then, "But it'll probably be a while before it comes to that. I doubt I'll be fighting anyone with it anytime soon."

A finer blade that someone with his talents deserve, etc.

"Do not be foolish." Hardly unusual for the pair of them to meet in one singular point of contention, but this time there's a different quality to the sharp-cut tone of Gabranth's voice.

Weighty it rests in the air between them, stolid and stoneformed as the earth beneath their feet.

"You will keep this on you at all times, save for when propriety dictates elsewise in private meeting."

He cants his head, clocks the difference in tone. He might have fallen right back on sarcasm otherwise, but instead asks,

"Oh yeah? And why's that?"

“There is no telling when you might have need of sound defense. You, a captain, must no doubt understand this.”

Holden is no ghost of a man by Ivalice’s demanding standards— perhaps by Thedas’ as well, and though Gabranth fears the worst may find him if he is unguarded regardless, he’ll not speak it aloud.

Not so openly, at least.

He makes a thoughtful sound, and there's a brief, wry tilt to his brows.

"I wouldn't learned it, quick, even if I didn't. My first mission here was a routine rift closure. It went smoothly, but then our innkeeper tried to murder us."

"What?" His head turns at that, almost looking offended on Holden's own behalf.

"Why?"

Holden, on the other hand, is blasé enough about the topic to shrug.

"People like him don't need a reason. We weren't even the first people he'd done that to, just the last."

AKA: he is dead now, and good riddance.

"Repulsive." He's changed much since his time in Ivalice, that much remains true: Gabranth is less bloodthirsty, less searching to sate the fury that once crawled incessantly through his veins, leaving him to use his own grim duty as executioner as catharsis.

Still, even now, he thinks no mercy ought be spared for such creatures. Let them rot where they must surely lie.

"But I am relieved to hear you grasp the full weight of my counsel, if this is so. Your sword will be your shield, treat it not as you would a tool, but your arm."

He remembers something else, too, a dreamed reality where everything had gone wrong. Many of the memories have blurred around the edges — some faded completely — but tendrils of the horror and hopelessness snaked around his heart, his lungs, in ways impossible to root out. A better sword arm wouldn't have prevented his situation, truthfully. Nothing he's willing to change about himself would have. But it can't hurt.

"I'll do that," is said as he sits as well, less a promise to be as intense as Gabranth is as a statement of intent. He could move to take the sword back, but it doesn't matter, here or now, and Gabranth isn't likely to try walking off with it after that lecture. He's quiet instead, before, "Is it really that much worse at the Buttered Nug? It's not right that some people got to stay here, and others got dumped over there."

Space or no, like, c'mon.

"It is...taxing." Is the confession he finally allows himself, visibly at odds with the decision to speak even the slightest disagreement, for fear of its weight if overheard by anyone else.

Holden he trusts to say nothing, at least. And he hopes that faith is not misplaced, for small as this may seem, beneath the surface it is utterly glacial in depth.

He does not do this lightly.

"But I am capable of enduring. Always."

"You can stay here if you want."

It's not hard to imagine that Gabranth is understating how bad the other inn is; and while Jim's room isn't exactly big, the bed even less so, he's willing to offer.

It's not as if he's sleeping every night, especially down here.

“No. I—“

He realizes it is too sharp, too iron-clad for the kindness of Holden’s offer, and instead corrects himself through the quieting of his own voice. The forced softening of his features.

“Thank you, Captain. But I would not wish to be seen as either weak or disrespectful for choosing quarters aside from the ones I have been given.”

It would be shameful at best, and pitiful at its worst.

MOD PLOT ↠ Endlessly Far Beneath My Feet

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would've*, god

cheers to my ADD, I actually thought it said would've (͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖)👌

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