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

He remembers the Protomolecule program. He remembers Cortazar. His expression stays flat. His voice could almost be mistaken for curiosity.

"They take out empathy?"

(He doesn't refute the comparison. He just wants more clarification.)

And, "you outta get a case for those. Make 'em look boring."

Her mouth does something, and it's not clear whether it's in response to the idea of a case (not a bad idea, but she likes being able to just grab them from the chain when she needs them) or his question.

“They were mages,” she says. “The rite of Tranquility sunders their connection to the Fade, so they can't do magic any more. It also removes their ability to feel any emotions. They remember their lives before but they don't connect to the emotions they had then, or why they had them. But they're not—”

It's visible, the way she reins herself in. All the more striking for how rarely it happens. It is very likely that if this had come up any other way, and if he had asked her any other way, she wouldn't have moderated what was clearly going to have been a sharper defense.

“They're still people,” in the tone of someone who is used to having to argue that against people who don't agree. “They still have thoughts and opinions. They're still as intelligent as — they have information, they can make decisions. They're not not people any more.”

"And it can't be undone," Amos says, tone lacking evidence of regret or any other true feeling. It just is.

"There were these guys... a science program, to make 'em better workers, they zapped out the feeling parts of their brains." A shrug. "I never got it."

“No,” she says, and there's a verve to it, the way she reaches her hand out and then stops herself before she would have absolutely grabbed the front of his shirt like an insane person because this is something about which she remains deeply impassioned, “it can. It can be undone. We undid it.”

Something genuine lingers under the surface of Amos' face, his tone, his bearing. Curiosity or wonder or raw need.

And then it fades.

"You said it had to do with... with magic guys. Mages."

“Oh—”

There is a flurry of sort of oh, right, and wow, this is awkward gesturing as she — “No, of course, sorry.”

She has roughly as many emotions she is unable not to be acting on at all times as he doesn't, and the disparity could not be more expertly underlined than in this moment.

And then, wrinkling her nose, drawing back, “No,” again, but differently, “why couldn't we do something for you? If it's similar. Even if it isn't the same. You aren't the same as you used to be, we talked about that, didn't we?”

"It's not like that," he says, shaking his head. "It got turned off. I turned it off."

What did Cortazar say? You cauterized it. You want to be that little boy again. The world doesn't give back what you throw away.

"Were you going somewhere? I'll walk you. They won't fuck with you if I'm around." Apparently, he's already built a reputation, or maybe his massive bulk has done the work for him.

“I'm following up on some names to make sure I have them right before I give them to Provost Stark,” she says, a little distracted. She falls in step with him, but it's immediately clear that she hasn't let go of this idea she's got between her teeth, that his dismissal has not dismissed her thoughts.

“If you change something,” thinking out loud, a little like a dog with a bone (no give only throw), “you can change it again. Whatever it is. Especially when we are fucking surrounded by things changing literally all of the time for half the time almost no reason that makes sense.”

"Not like this," he says, calm as though they were discussing floral arrangements, and not the inner workings of a burnt mind. "It's not magic. It's not tech. You can't just say some words, or flip a switch. It's meat. It's my brain."

When they can get a cow to recite Shakespeare, he'll be convinced.

“So?”

So, what. So, it's complicated. That doesn't mean it's impossible, she thinks, that just means it's hard.

“We didn't just say some words and zap the Fade and Casimir was whole again, easy — Maker, it wasn't even,” she breaks off, her jaw working, remembering. (Imagine feeling, suddenly. It was a fucking mess. There's a reason he isn't here. She hopes, one day — but not then, and not now.) “I mean, on a completely practical level, what happened to Casimir if it is in any way equivalent was...not the sort of thing you would choose casually. And we all knew it wouldn't be, when we did it.”

But it had not been an easy decision for anyone involved, even if Casimir's choice was the most important one. To her; she is not always certain if everyone felt exactly that same way, and has long thought it best not to ask. In case they didn't. In case they did, and punched her in the teeth for asking.

“Just because something is difficult doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile.”

"'We all'?" Amos shakes his head, a reflex he doesn't think to turn off. "I'm feeling like you're talking about something way more complex than you're letting on."

He's also not sure why it's her business, but... unlike with Alex, her reactions don't make him want to stop talking about it. It's kind of like Cortazar. Somebody who sort of understands, even if it's not the same.

It'll never be the same.

“Excuse you,” she says, although more peaceably than her choice of words suggests she might, “I would never suggest undoing a magical rite thought for centuries to be impossible to undo and nearly bringing the entire Chantry down on our heads like a ton of bricks and getting Casimir killed for existing as an affront to their authority was anything but a corkscrew bitch of a thing.”

It's literally not her business at all, but he hasn't actually told her to fuck off because he doesn't want it, he's just said it can't be done.

She saw the look, however fleeting.

What if it could?

“There were a few of us, we did it on the quiet without sanction, we were in a not insignificant amount of trouble for violently dicking the status quo. But I told Amsel at the time I would put an arrow through the eyeball of anyone who wanted to start something and that is still true.” Even if she and Coupe had just torn strips off each other verbally, in the end.

She adds, “The received wisdom was that it couldn't be reversed. That it was impossible, and that was the point of doing it in the first place. Received wisdom was wrong, when we pushed it hard enough.”

"Well," Amos says placidly, "at least we're on the same page."

In that it will be difficult, if not impossible, troublesome, and of impossible to predict results.

"Whatever worked on your boy won't work on me. It's not a magic thing. But we can look into it. And-" he clears his throat, and this is on purpose- "if you go spreading this around, they won't find your body."

“It won't be the same,” she agrees, “in the details.”

When she looks up at him — Amos has probably seen plenty of people fail to grasp the weight of what he just said. He's probably seen it, when someone's bravado doesn't allow them to take him seriously, or the calm delivery makes it feel like a joke so they treat it like one. He's kidding, right? Ha, ha, ha, they totally feel safe. When they just don't want anyone to see them flinch.

This isn't that. She's nodding, agreeable, impatient, “It's not a magic thing, but since neither of us are either mages or healers or researchers, we will probably have to talk to some people other than each other to figure out what the options actually are.”

Gwenaëlle is much less of a gossip than she seems like she might be; is better at keeping a secret when it's one she doesn't have to lie about, and can just keep her mouth shut. She understands what he's saying, and now they have to move onto the pressing, practical things that will actually happen.

Hey, now. "I can research the shit out of this crap."

He doesn't look it, but he has a quality for learning, a deep desire to understand and fix problems. And this is now a problem to be fixed.

The way she accepts the threat-- more of a promise, really-- only bolsters the idea that they'll be a good team.

"We'll keep it to us right now," he says. It's not a suggestion. "I get that you're trying to honor a friend. That's pretty righteous. Don't let it go to your head."

“I'm also good at research,” she concedes. “I might even have something relevant already, I— long story.”

From her tone, not one they're getting into while wandering around Orzammar with god knows what ears around them, which is probably a good reason to not get further into this. (When it was just about the Tranquil — she's always been in favour of publicizing what happened. That it could happen again. That it should.)

After a few moments of consideration, she says,

“It's not not that.” Amos isn't stupid. She isn't going to pretend it doesn't matter; it doesn't take long, knowing Gwenaëlle, to realise that her empathy has limits and that it tends to begin and end where the things and people she cares about do. The Tranquil matter to her for reasons that are deeply and profoundly personal, and then there's Casimir, and. The thing is,

“Your face did something, when I said we could change it. Not like before.” She says it in the same placid way that he does, and it's not a purposeful emulation. It just feels right. It feels simple to her for a moment, beautifully, perfectly simple the way things so rarely are. “I like you. How you are. If you tell me you don't want anything else then I will leave it alone. But if you just think it can't be done — I think it can. You should let me prove it to you. You should have it, if you want it.”

She likes him; he should have the things he wants. She is prepared to stand behind that sentiment with a knife. It feels easy.

"My face does all kinds of shit," Amos intones, "it's fucked up."

A simple sentiment. He's seen the reactions he elicits, and he knows they're often wrong, and it often has to do with the arrangements of muscles around his brow and jaw. He's practiced in the mirror. He's asked working girls what they thought. It's never quite right.

"I'm sick of people being afraid of me when I don't mean 'em to," he says. "I wanna know how to make my own decisions."

True words, said without compromise. He knows what he means. He knows she can't do anything with it, without his say so. Knowledge isn't vulnerability. That's shame, and the colors of the past.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

MOD PLOT ↠ Endlessly Far Beneath My Feet

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