faderift | Skyhold

Skyhold

WHO: Anyone & everyone
WHAT: Open post for business as usual around Skyhold
WHEN: The first couple weeks of Harvestmere, 9:41 (aka October)
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Please mark any necessary content warnings in thread subject lines. Also, make sure to check out the other log posts already made!

Far from the glamorous adventurous world-saving people signed up for, most of the hustle and bustle in Skyhold at present is cleaning. The Great Hall is a disaster, and crews are assigned to haul out the cracked and rotting planks fallen from the wide-open roof, and tear down the vines covering the walls. Ivy encrusts the main staircase outside and many of the fortress walls and is cleared in section while other groups assess or begin shoring up the stonework as it's revealed. There are scaffolding to build, materials to sort, crates to unload, tents to stitch together or set-up, and on and on and on, endless mundane chores vital to the survival of the organization.

When not hard at work, people cluster around fires across the courtyards. Many mingle freely, going about their business, running errands and messages, planning scouting missions, tallying up supplies, distributing or playing with the sending crystals that were found in a basement vault and which a group of mages have just today finished preparing for use. Once a good number have been passed around and the first Inquisition-wide transmission made messages start being broadcast; maybe you can help someone out.

The rebel mages and renegade templars mainly keep to themselves at opposite sides of the complex given the choice. Mages assist with healing and research and bicker amongst themselves about their options and their fate. Templars help train recruits in swordforms and basic combat techniques or spar with the more advanced and bicker amongst themselves about their options and their fate. Despite having all pledged themselves to the Inquisition, they still feel like separate factions and tension between them is palpable wherever they cross paths.

Like at meals, or the communal message board in the courtyard, or at the Herald's Rest. The mess hall/tavern is so new it still smells of sawdust, and its stock has been limited to one type of strong ale until today, when a shipment of West Hill brandy has finally arrived. The mood in the place is convivial in celebration of that, but there's still plenty of muttering, especially as the night drags on and the discontented get further into their cups.

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Ah, calling in favors. The writing of letters, of threats, blackmail? He knows this dance well, and the scowl of someone in the middle of enduring that particular torment. Or rather trying to extract said favors. He'd written his own letters earlier in the week, sent them off and awaited some manner of response, but he hadn't been quite so...cross with those he wrote to at the time. Silent and casual as anything Zevran leaned against the back of Varric's chair, peering down at the dwarf and the letter in his hands.

"You know...if you need any of these requests of yours to be answered quickly I could lean on them for you. I am told I can be quite compelling."

Varric didn't jump as a voice suddenly manifested over his shoulder, but it was a near thing. He was fairly perceptive but, honestly, he hadn't heard him approach, not over the general din of Skyhold. No, the reason he hadn't jumped was fairly simple: he'd been friends with Hawke for ten years. It took some real effort to startle him, and probably a reasonable amount of fire as well. Effort and fire, yeah, that sounded about right.

"Depends," Varric said as he finished reading the dull, stilted script of Dunner Mills. The man was as boring as his name and, all in all, only owed Varric a small favor. They'd exchanged the better part of ten letters now and he still hadn't convinced the fellow that selling two dozen long-tables and twice as many rounds would be worth the trek up the Frostbacks.

"Do you charge less than this guy's asking and just how many laws are we talking about breaking?" Varric finished and held the letter aloft.

He didn't usually share his correspondence but he was feeling especially cynical today. After a beat he glanced over his shoulder and, all at once, found an Antivan elf...thief? No, probably not, maybe a bard or smuggler. He was holding himself with casual certainty. Whatever he did, he was good at it.

Damn, if he was going to start hiring people to lean on his contacts directly, Dunner Mills was a waste of coin.

"Mmm." Zevran took the letter and gave it a quick once over- Dunner Mills? Now that name wasn't horribly familiar but if they had a pulse and a purse he could convince most that the value of one is a good deal higher than the other. Petty thuggery wasn't his usual sort but the Hold needed to become a hold, not a refugee camp. With how things were scattered and tempers were rising any little thing could set the whole lot off and they'd have a miniature mage-templar-civil war on their hands in the courtyard.

"As a favor to a friend of a friend? I would charge nothing- or perhaps hold a favor in reserve further down the line." Coin was well and good but with the upheaval in the world, favors and secrets were the most valued currency. "And if you have to ask about the law- well...probably better that you do not and give yourself a sound, comfortable slumber, yes?"

It wouldn't even take a proper dose of venom. Break in, flash a dagger, discuss the importance of the Inquisition- no one ever wanted to admit to being blackmailed or threatened by an elf. It was unthinkable or something like that.

"Friend of a friend?" Varric repeated and set the letter back down on the table. "Well, before I start paying in favors, I should probably find out which friend we're talking about."

He asked but, honestly, he could have guessed the answer to that one. Couldn't be someone who knew Fenris or Sebastian, they didn't have any friends that weren't Hawke, and probably not the kind of guy who knew Daisy. Might know Aveline, but probably not in a way that would be called friendly, so that basically narrowed it to one.

Well, two, but everyone was friends with Hawke.

He considered turning the elf's offer down. For one, the guy was clearly overkill for this particular problem, and two, Varric really hated paying people in favors, but he was beyond annoyed with the general lack of furniture in Skyhold. If he had to help out a friend of friend in some vague way in the future, well, he'd be doing it at a proper table at least.

"This guy makes tables for a living," Varric warned as he scribed out the shop's address. It was the closest guy he knew, just in the Dales, a little better than a day's trip assuming you didn't get caught in the snow or mauled by bears or something. He'd made an inordinately fancy wardrobe for Varric, once. "Move faster than a tree or talk too loudly and he'll probably faint."

"Mmm. Perhaps two friends, though I do not know how it is you and Isabella are feeling about one another as of late." It could be anything from 'warm' to 'owes me money and ought to die' and every shade in between. Such things he did not truly pay mind unless it was his neck on the line or something he might use to his advantage later. But this? Was more about keeping the peace than anything else.

Jonas would have a laugh at that. Zevran, keeping the peace.

Never the less, something needed to be done and he could see it through- take a little of the weight off this man's shoulders so he could focus on something else that needed tending. He had to give Varric credit- he got things done. Sometimes it took awhile, but it was done.

Zevran accepted the address as given, peering down at it. Should not take him terribly long. "And only tables? I should think the hold is in need of more than that."

It'll be a start.

"That guy's shop is too small to do everything," Varric explained casually, well, more casually than he had been. If this guy was friends with Isabella, especially of late, that meant he couldn't be entirely treacherous. Varric didn't recall his face, but he was frazzled and there had been more than a few outings Hawke hadn't taken him on.

"I've got two more in Val Royeaux and one in Jader making the rest. Jader is the chair guy, but he owes me an arm and a leg, so he's already carting them out here. They might not all match, but it beats sitting in the dirt."

"The lady Montliyet can worry about it matching after we have a roof over everyone's heads, yes?" Tables would be enough- if he could confiscate a cart it would be done all the sooner.

"Are the ones in Val Royeaux being as recalcitrant as your other friend?" Making a trip of it would be exciting. Helping sort out the arrangements was well and good but an Antivan such as he did not do well to pin themselves to one place for too long.

"You looking for a trip, Friendly?" Varric asked, his tone torn between surprise and jest but, otherwise, entirely amicable.

The carpenters in Val Royeaux were, naturally, giving him more grief than a greased nug in a china shop, but that was a given. They were Orlesian; he'd be worried if they didn't give him the runaround for less than a week. Sure, the idea of not having to deal with overwritten script and whatever glitter they packed in their letters for effect was pretty damned tempting...but if the elf was offering...

"If you're looking for something a little more interesting, I've got a couple of stubborn business associates who are probably more your speed."

"I am not accustomed to staying in one place for so long, let alone to be doing all but nothing at the same time." He no longer needed to heal but weeding, building? Not his style. He could and had for quite some time but he could be doing so much more. Now that he had his health and a decent set of armor? Going out and getting things done for the Inquisition held it's own appeal.

"Oh? I am, as we elves like to say, all ears."

Varric let out a huff of laughter at that, and thumbed through his stack of letters. He didn't usually mix correspondence like this but, seeing how he intended to throw all this Orlesian complaining into the fire as soon as he'd replied to them, he wasn't too worried about the few questionable pieces getting away from him.

"Now, it's not polite to go naming cartels in mixed company," Varric replied in a tone that was certainly not anything as suspicious as whispering but definitely not loud enough to easily overhear.

The letter he finally extracted from the pile was unmarked and banal in every way it was possible to be. He held it up and offered it to the elf over his shoulder. It was unsigned and short. Except for some unspecified complaining about delivery men and blatant attempts to extort truly exorbitant fees out of him, the only information was a note Varric had scrawled on it earlier. It wasn't particularly incriminating, not as far as intentionally vague notes on undoubtedly illegal documents went, just the name of city on the Orlesian side of the Frostbacks.

"But, if you're interested in something challenging...there's a middle man who's holding onto some goods I arranged delivery for. He's actually trying to charge me import tariffs! The nerve of some people."

Ah, a task. Better even than a contract- those had limitations and expectations and guidelines that tended to cramp his style. A favor and a task had vague expectations but no one truly cared so long as the deed was done. He could be as efficient or creative as he saw fit. Considering he'd been quite bored while healing up? Zevran intended to be quite creative.

He took the note and read it once, then read it again to see what wasn't being said. For all that he'd been questioning the legality of what Zevran intended earlier, he had no qualms about handling his own business.

Zevran had to respect that.

The note was folded and tucked away somewhere on his person, all but vanishing from his fingertips. "Well you know what they say- there are but two constants. Death and taxes. As he is so fond of the one, perhaps he should be reminded of the other."

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Skyhold

Great Hall

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