therookery | crystal.

Entry tags:

crystal.

FORM: Crystal!
SENDER: Gwenaëlle Baudin.
RECIPIENT: Anyone with a crystal.
WHAT: Summary of content.
WHEN: Currentish.
WHERE: She's in Halamshiral; wherever you all are.
NOTES: Optional side quest. Also I know the difference between Kirkwall and Halamshiral and didn't edit her misspeaking a day later. You don't know.

This is Gwenaëlle Baudin. I need to make a brief trip from Halamshiral to an estate in the Dales, and given what happened the last time I took that road—

( understandably tersely, for those who do know what it was that happened, )

—I would prefer to do it with several able warriors. I've some other contacts I can reach out to closer to hand if no one is available, but I'm not in a great rush to do it, so if anyone is bored of the unrest in Kirkwall and would like to make a bit of coin on the side while touring some different, exciting unrest in what I assume will be remembered as the last days of Orlais before it was overrun by Corypheus, do be in touch.

Do not bother responding if you can't bring yourself to refrain from embarrassing the Inquisition in the High Quarter.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Thranduil is your division head - Provost of Research. You should,

( if it sounds like she's saying this through rage-clenched teeth, she is, and it has nothing to do with kitty, )

heed him. He's been here nearly so long as Araceli and he plays a very long game. ( and she may strangle him with his own stupid hair, but that's not relevant to anything they're discussing right now.

or: it is, but gwenaëlle doesn't want to get into it. )

Araceli Bonaventura is one of the most brilliant women I've ever met from any land—she's in the diplomacy division, but she leads one of the forces projects. She's the rifter that's been here since the beginning, since not long after Trevelyan's death. ( dryly: ) Thedas wasn't always so welcoming to you.

( alarming to think this is an improvement, probably. )

Aside from rifters—Commander Coupe is worth listening to. Not on everything, she's an interfering cunt who thinks she knows best, but more frequently than I would like we've all the misfortune of her being right. She's extremely competent and she respects work ethic, regardless of its origin. Alistair's of the Wardens, and the only one of them worth a damn.

[ Not entirely relevant just at the moment, but something she's been wondering - ]

Why do people hate the Wardens?

I imagine it's most often because they have the legal right to, at any time they deem fit, take everything of value you have and anyone who can hold a sword.

( that isn't her particular reason, but it's a compelling one. )

Wardens never come bearing good news.

Is the Blight real, then? Or is it an invention to give them more power?

Oh, no, it's real. It's real, and frankly, if these twats are all that stand between us and the Blight, we may be fucked. If we survive Corypheus.

( a natural optimist. )

They don't make it easy to be grateful to them for the work they do. And they're exactly as troublesome as everyone thinks they are, it's just that the work still is important.

Hm.

[ Filing that away. ]

And you said - Commander Coupe? What does she command?

The forces division, so nothing like an actual force.

( have you met these people, kitty. have you. gwenaëlle despairs of their future. )

'Designated herder of these fucking cats' takes longer to say, and doesn't fit so neatly with 'Provost', 'Ambassador' and 'Scoutmaster'.

So the forces are...undisciplined.

You've been listening to the crystals, I assume. Sound like a coordinated military team to you?

Admittedly, what I know about an army couldn't fill a thimble. But...no, not really.

Kirkwall is where the Inquisition offloads its problem-children. I'm not entirely sure that's the wisest course of action, but it's the one they chose. Coupe's not hiding an army, she's just the division head for everyone who chose 'forces' when they joined.

Oh. So if they're not the army, what do they do?

Kirkwall barely tolerates having this clusterfuck in their harbor; they'd never stand for a proper, standing army barracked here after the Qunari invasion.

The Gallows outpost is most of all about having a foothold toward the north, and anchor-shard research. The different divisions have particular projects they work on; they all answer to the division heads, and those to the advisors in Skyhold.

So - is there any advantage to being in Skyhold, instead? Like - is this the right place to be?

Everyone with an anchor-shard is based in Kirkwall, whether they like it or not, regardless of what the benefits would be anywhere else. Easily enforced, when the pain in the shard will get worse, the longer you spend away from everyone else. Missions are typically manageable, and when we all travel together, it's irrelevant, but you'd never be permitted to permanently transfer and eventually the agony would be unbearable.

Did they do that on purpose? Cause that pain? To keep us in line?

[ She has a paranoid little mind. ]

( it's a fair question, but— )

They've no control over them. The pain can be alleviated, a little, but it's part and parcel and it has been since Trevelyan bore the entire thing. It's nothing they did; it's because if we don't figure out how to stop it, they'll kill us, eventually. Most of us bear them in our hands, like Trevelyan did; there was an elf whose shard lay over her heart.

The deterioration was faster.

( was. )

Oh.

[ Well. ]

How long did it take for her?

A little more or less than two years.

I've had mine a little more than two and a half, and all it's done is turn magical, but it's not something to take lightly.

Er - turn...magical?

I can make a shield, or fire—something? From it? Weaponized fade magic, I suppose. We discovered that the hard way when Alistair was throwing things at me to shield and I blasted him into the parapet.

( it's funny in retrospect, since he was fine.

it was a little funny at the time to everyone but gwenaëlle how everyone who'd panicked when she came shrieking onto the crystals demanding a healer that they all relaxed slightly when she said it was for alistair and not for herself. )

Oh. Is he alright?

[ Laughing at misfortunes is for those who have a modicum of chill. ]

Edited 2018-07-08 02:15 (UTC)

He's fine. He was fine. It was his dignity wounded most of all, I think I only sort of—caught him at such an angle he tripped and hit his head.

All right. Good. Erm - do others have that ability, too?

A few, maybe. Not most of shard-bearers, by any stretch of the imagination, but I've heard it mentioned. Not in some time.

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