OPEN

[keenly]

FORM: Sending Crystal
SENDER: Colin
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: Think tanking about Darktown
WHEN: Present
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: CW: Descriptions of medical conditions associated with poverty, specifically trench foot and scurvy.

This is Colin the shopkeep. Now that two separate crises are under control, I have something I want to bring to your attention because I know how good-hearted and generous all of you are, as demonstrated all last month.

It's Darktown. I've been helping Anders in his clinic there, and...I thought I'd seen poverty before. I thought I'd lived it. I thought my family was poor when I was a kid because we didn't have much. We shared a wall with our neighbors and there were seven of us living in two tiny rooms. Sometimes we didn't eat well, but we never starved. Our roof leaked sometimes, but we could fix it and be dry after that. We had a roof and walls and clothes and food. After the, um, the war started a few years back, I went hungry for a while, but my teeth weren't falling out.

People in Darktown don't have walls or a roof. You'd think living under Hightown would mean they have at least a roof, but they don't. On the seaward side, people are exposed to everything--cold, rain, snow, everything. And the muck that leaks down from Hightown is some of the worst stuff you'll ever smell. Most people down there can't work, or can't find work, and they have to live down there with their families because they can't afford rent in Lowtown. They spend day in and day out wading through filth trying to find coins people dropped through grates. That means their feet are constantly wet and cold, and that's bad even in summer. I treated feet what were soaked and pale and cracking, skin sloughing off and frozen in some places. Some of them have to take a cot in the clinic till they get warm and dry, but it'll only happen again after they've left, and on and on till they lose their feet.

And they don't have food, not really. Sometimes they'll get lucky and catch rats or pigeons or seagulls, but otherwise it's whatever they can find what was thrown away or dropped. And yes, their teeth are falling out, some of them. They have scurvy, they have rickets, they can't breathe for the chokedamp. Sometimes you find people who suffocated to death without anyone there to help. By the time a healer gets there, it's too late. And magical healing can't do anything about the damp and the cold and the hunger. It can't cure scurvy or rickets, or fleas and lice, and it's not very useful against frostbite.

If they try to go up to Hightown they'll just be arrested, or worse, escorted back. Everyone thinks they're thieves and carry diseases. There's nowhere for them and nobody wants to help them. And you can see in their eyes that they know that. They have these...hollow, vacant looks. They've given up. They're broken.

I think that this is the kind of thing the Inquisition is meant for, and we need to address it. These people need food, clothing, and shelter. It needs to make a real difference and not just look good. And seeing as we all have different experiences and different expertises--is that the right word?--we all must have something to bring to the table. So I wanted to discuss all of this with all of you and maybe together we can come up with some ideas we can bring to our leaders. So what can we do about Darktown? What are some possible solutions to these problems?

[OOC: for the sake of organization, I'm putting in a few top-levels under which people can make comments about specific concerns. Anything that doesn't fall under these, or any suggestions to improve the overall state of poverty in Darktown, you can make your own top-level for. Threadjack, go crazy, y'all know the drill.]

Comments

Food

[keenly]

[faithlikeaseed]

Is there light enough that anything might grow down there? [A murmured aside,] Well, there's always mushrooms--

I wonder that Sina didn't have the right idea--give them gardens, if we can. Something to work on and take pride in. It won't be as useful in the winter months unless they've got secure places to lay food up, but it's a start.

[wheretheferngrows]

[helpfully,] There's vegetables that'll grow in winter. And for others, I could place those warming glyphs.

[Yeah Fern, go down to Darktown, you'll be just fine.]

[faithlikeaseed]

[There's a hint of a smile in his voice--because what a good.] That could work, but how often would you have to be down to renew them? We can't have you on garden duty down there all the time--and you'd need to be with someone whenever you visit.

[wheretheferngrows]

Why? [asked a touch indignantly, though she relents a second later,] well all right, but what if I teach someone else how to write the glyph?

[faithlikeaseed]

Even I don't go to Darktown alone. [Or at all, if it can be avoided. He was too easy a mark even if he'd...survive a trip.] She'd need to be another mage, but that might do. How long do they last once you've set them?

[wheretheferngrows]

...a few days? [she guesses?] I touch them up once they start to look a little... um. Dim.

It's... not very precise magic, [she adds, a little embarrassed for even bringing it up now.]

[faithlikeaseed]

[Oh, no. Don't be embarrassed!

Cheerfully,] Good, so it wouldn't be all the time someone has to be down there.

Precision doesn't matter so much as long as it gets the job done at the end of the day--and given the state of our gardens here, they certainly do. Besides, "precise" is for those of us with the ample free time to sit around noodling over this stuff in a Circle all day, [gentle, teasing.] Not anyone who's got better things to do.

[justice_is_blond]

I go down there nearly every day I'm in Kirkwall; I can escort you if you'd like. I've a lot of my own tasks to do, but the warming glyphs would be good.

[wheretheferngrows]

Or I could teach you how to draw the glyph.

[self-consciously,] I dunno that I'd really be of any use in Darktown anyway, if... something happened. [You know, something violent.]

[justice_is_blond]

I can't do this in your place, Fern. The escorting I'd be doing would be while I'm on my rounds of patients with regular ailments who can't make it to the Clinic - that's what I'd be using my energy on.

[His voice is gentle.]

There are more than a few non-mages down there who are grateful for the healing offered, so we won't be alone. It also helps that attacks down there are far more often gang-based and most gang members know someone who came to the Clinic for help. Darktown has risks, but you'll be kept safe.

[wheretheferngrows]

[She still sounds hesitant, though she trusts Anders' reassurances.] Still, I... it's nearly spring, and there's going to be so much work to do in the herb garden, I think I should look for someone else to do this.

I'll do it myself to begin with, though, [she adds, not wanting to sound as though she's backing out of her offer.]

[justice_is_blond]

It's worth trying out and seeing how you feel about it after you've started, to be sure. But if your slate winds up too full, that is how it goes.

[keenly]

Gardening is...gardens are good, but they're territory. Territory will be disputed and fought over. And stolen, and profited from like we saw with the Chantry forest.

[faithlikeaseed]

Is that a reason not to do it, or something we ought to take into account if we do? Anything else we offer might be stolen or sold off or otherwise be no use to the people who need it.

[He would so dearly like to believe otherwise, but that's not the way the world works.]

[keenly]

Oh. Um, just something to take into account.

[justice_is_blond]

If the gardens are several and scattered, if the people who live near them are enabled to help make and upkeep them, they might take ownership in a positive way. It would be less likely that any one group could monopolize them.

[degenere]

Let us then buy land. Then no one can dispute the right of the poor to farm and garden as they see fit. And should anyone attempt to steal the land, we can accuse them of the theft.

[keenly]

...Can anyone think of a reason that wouldn't work? It can't be expensive, as land goes.

[degenere]

Well, I suppose the largest reason would be, do we act as agents of the Inquisition, when we buy this land, or is there one among us who would make the purchase?

If we buy the land, we would be responsible for it. The Inquisition would become responsible. Are we permitted to act in this way? Would we expose the Inquisition to similar lobbies for aid, from others?

[you know how when you like arguing so much you could argue with yourself? Val, y'all.]

[ipseite]

You have the right of it, Mssr de Fonce. The Inquisition will not be setting such a precedent.

[degenere]

And who would expect it?

Still: those who would join the Inquisition are possessed of a generous spirit, or else they would not have joined. Already they are willing to make great sacrifice for a cause they believe in. Live in the Gallows.

I suppose that will muddy it, no matter what it is that they say when they distribute aid.

[ipseite]

Regrettable confusion, but it shall not merit a ban on the personal activities of our personnel. I am gladdened by their kindness of spirit, and regret we cannot support it practically.

[keenly]

Madame, messere, all I am doing is gathering ideas.

[ipseite]

And it is most admirable of you to give your time to such a cause.