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

[nonvenomous]

“I would like to know why it was created.”

Not whether or not it should have been, when the answer to that is so obvious.

“These people know what we are risking to aid them, but keep a dossier of our qualifications as they would for criminals, or prisoners of war.” One last long, slow-drawn hit, and he looks down to stub his joint carefully out on the warm stone under his knee.

“By my recollection, the majority of defectors were native mages.”

[acreage]

He hadn't thought to ask Isaac as to why: how he started putting such a thing together, how he decided to list the qualifications he did. Or maybe he hadn't expected a straight answer. Or maybe he hadn't wanted to draw out an already awkward conversation any longer than it had to be.

And you're giving me a copy of your records out of the goodness of your heart?

Were I striving for that impression, I would have burned them.

— which isn't exactly a comforting thing to think about, with Silas's last reminder.

"In the dream," he says, closes his eyes briefly, "which doesn't mean that's what would really happen."

(He says, and hasn't sought out Isaac in person since then even once. Marcus was an accident.)

[nonvenomous]

Loose ash flicked light off the end, Silas leaves what’s left of his little roach on the stone to cool. Out of experience, he’s careful to angle it such that -- if it rolls -- it rolls inward, and not out over the edge into the boiling abyss.

He’s silent while he holds his smoke and for a time after he’s spent it out slow through his teeth. Jim Holden is sharp for a tool.

Too sharp to necessitate drilling down into the “just a dream” rhetoric, surely.

“How did you meet?”

He’s a little too appraising to be asking about the curator of the list.

[acreage]

The thing is, it's not hard for his thoughts to return to Naomi. They're never far; always in orbit, like so many worlds around a star. Something in him fundamentally changed after falling in love with Naomi Nagata. All of which is another way of saying, it takes him less time than it might to realize what Silas is asking.

He opens his eyes, says wryly, "I didn't know you were so interested in my love life."

But he doesn't dwell on that point, moving on to answer.

"At work. We were both in long-range shipping at the time, which is another way of saying you got to know the rest of your crew pretty quick, because you'd go months without seeing anyone else."

[nonvenomous]

“Hm.”

Silas considers this.

It makes sense that humans cooped up on a boat together alone for months would pair off naturally or kill each other. This is a less enlightening insight than he had perhaps hoped; his disappointment is palpable, in the sense that he is not poised with any additional follow-up questions, briefly distant. What he does have is a slim metal case, which he cracks open from a pocket to file his roach away into.

“You must miss her.”

[acreage]

There's a smile that unfurls across his face as he takes in that reaction. Well, this isn't a story he minds telling; or, at least, some parts of it.

Clarifies, "We didn't get together until we were some of the only survivors of two killed ships and a space station. Before that, I was just her pain in the ass Second Officer."

He doesn't bother with the question of missing her; that's obvious, isn't it?

[nonvenomous]

More promising, Silas signals with a brow while he folds the case away.

“I would like to hear about it.”

...is mild as it is matter-of-fact, osprey intensity muddled with the hour and the heat and the stink of elfroot that clings to him. He’d rather be sleeping. In lieu of that, prying into the narrative of Holden’s personal life is apparently a worthwhile enough use of his time to keep him seated here, away from the clamor of the market or the stifle of his shared quarters.

[acreage]

"Which part?"

We've got, like, the entirety of The Expanse, season 1 to elaborate on over here.

[nonvenomous]

Which part?

Confusion flickers behind the blue of his eyes. He's tired, and asking clarifying questions to avoid telling more than he has to is a tactic that’s rarely turned back on him.

“Which part do you believe was the most pivotal?”

[acreage]

He leans back, contemplates the pit. It's sort of like the brightness of a burning campfire, if he doesn't focus too hard on any part of it. Maybe closer to the burning of a star, or the burning ring of death deep underneath Ilus.

He wonders, not for the first time, what Elvi's discovered since studying it. If he ever will talk to her again.

Probably not.

"I'd say the part where things started happening that we couldn't ignore anymore."

I stopped playing, he told Lopez aboard the Donnager. Naomi hadn't said something too different to him, sometime later when opening up about her past. But that stopped being an option.

"When we got past the bullshit and saw what really mattered to each of us."

Then, lighter, "The almost dying probably didn't hurt."

Has she joked since about taking the chance before he got himself and/or all of them killed? Maybe.

[nonvenomous]

Whatever the lake beneath them resembles, the incandescent glow of it is scorching warm across Silas’ flank, ebbing at the tension wound tight behind his ears, through his shoulders. He could sleep here, if not for the danger of rolling over into the crust wrinkling black over the current.

“So it was inevitable.”

[acreage]

Is that how he'd made it sound? But maybe that isn't surprising; falling in love with Naomi has felt inevitable, irrevocable. It'd be incredibly arrogant, not to mention ridiculous, to assume the reverse, though.

He shrugs.

"We could've gone another five years without caring about one another if nothing had happened to the Canterbury. We were different people back then." With a sideways glance, self-deprecating, "I was even more of an ass."

Oh, to be 29 and not have experienced life-changing trauma.

[nonvenomous]

“Hard to believe,” Richard replies, mild under his breath. Not so far under his breath that he can’t be heard: it's hard to believe there could be a version of James Holden that was more of an ass than this one. But he didn’t drag himself out here and sit down for a roast session, and he is quiet while he stifles his own impatience, his attention fixed down on some distant point across the lava's surface.

“I’m not sure I follow the order of events but I understand that people often grow closer together through adversity.”

He’s happy for them.

Really.

[acreage]

If he smiles, looking back out to the magma, it's not because he thinks Richard is giving him a compliment.

Growing closer through adversity is, pretty much, entirely how the crew of the Roci came to be. Or put another way: the story of his fucking life, the last several years, up to and including his time now in Thedas. He hums agreement to that, lapses into quiet.

This was what you wanted to know, right.

[nonvenomous]

Sure, Jim.

Dick lapses into silence after him, unhappy, but when isn’t that true? It’s closed off behind his folded arms, mild in a pull at his mouth and a push at his brow. There must be timelines where he played his cards better.

In this one, his thoughts return to the state of his quarters against the possibility of sleep. Eventually, he’ll peel himself off the rock and pad wordlessly away.

Back to the Buttery Nug and all of its spiders.