crystal || open

[degenere]

FORM: sending crystal
SENDER: the Baroness Freddie Durfort-Lacapalette & Val de Foncé
RECIPIENT: everyone with a sending crystal
WHAT: some Orlesians meet talking darkspawn in a Temple of Dumat
WHEN: backdated to a few days before the invasion of Minrathous
WHERE: the Silent Plains. underground. literally.
NOTES: we still love threadjacking should the opportunity arise and we’ll be threadjacking YOU. merci beaucoup. Val is this color and Freddie is this color


Inquisition. [Val: Orlesian accent, very serious. As always, this is of dire importance.] Darkspawn. They can talk.

Now, they say nothing of consequence. Indeed, they barely say at all. And yet, they speak. They wear clothing.

Nothing of consequence! Don't mislead them, Valentine, it--he?--the darkspawn, it was repeating a verse about Silence, and this must be a temple to Dumat! Darkspawn worshipping the Old Gods makes quite a bit of sense, one must admit, but reciting prayers! Extraordinary!

Well--yes. [A little annoyed at being corrected, but not very, as it is Freddie who did the correcting.] When it is put that way, of course it all becomes consequential. Perhaps that is the wrong word to use, to discuss such a-- do we call such a thing a feat?

I could hardly guess without more information. We can't eliminate the possibility that they have always been able to speak and have simply never bothered. Or perhaps this is something Corypheus has somehow done to them. It might also--oh look, Val! These scrolls look ancient!

Oh, shit. [But a wondering shit] Tevene, yes? Ancient Tevene, for ancient scrolls. We must take care, to preserve these, carry them back to Kirkwall, for-- Oh, but the research team. We were sent to join them, but alas: to a man, they are dead. Sacrificed, by our best guess, unless they chose to cut their own throats. I hope they were not beloved by anyone of the Inquisition, as they are quite past loving now. Yet in their death, they have led us--de Foncé and Durfort-Lacapalette--to such discovery. Ancient scrolls! A temple! Darkspawn that talk. The sacrifice of these lives has not been in vain. [Well.] Though veins were cut, in the sacrificing.

Sweet Maker, do not start punning. They were fellow seekers of knowledge even if they were Tevinters, we ought to show at least a pinch of respect. [ That to Val, this to their audience: ] Alas, they are quite gone, as Val has said, but this place is marvelous--in a dreadful macabre way, of course, but what a discovery! We may even find something here of interest in combating Corypheus. It's unlikely to be coincidence after all, all this darkspawn and Dumat just now.

Of course, without evidence, we cannot say for certain. Will there be evidence? Only careful excavation and exhaustive research of this ruin will tell.

[Oh, wait--]

And before anyone should be so pedantic as to make the claim that Corypheus is a talking darkspawn, I will disprove this easily and say on the record: that does not count. A corrupted magister may talk. A true darkspawn may not. Until now. Apparently.

Just so. A talking hurlock is an entirely different proposition.

Comments

[rathercommon]

[ Irritably: ]

One's who's dead has ceased to live.

[ But she doesn't really disagree. Mostly she's just angry from an instinct to defend her folk against someone with that way of speaking. ]

So, all of this, then, it's cause you're trying to find some reason for living?

[degenere]

[why what way of speaking is that 0:) ]

No. Correct words, most of them, but of those that are correct, the order is wrong. I am trying, always, to learn, because that is living.

Some seek to define life, and meaning. Some philosophize. A man might seek the meaning of life, in his research. I believe that I have found it. And there is nothing but to live it, for me. To live without it would be a death of the soul.

[rathercommon]

[ She shakes her head, and says - ]

But all of that - that's selfish. It means that you're only living for - the pleasure you get. That's it.

[degenere]

And the furthering of knowledge, which is of course to be shared. For example, it is not personal pleasure that drove Freddie and I to enter this temple.

[Mostly not.]

But the knowledge we have uncovered, this will be a great benefit. From discovery comes new understanding, and new discovery, and from there it goes.

[rathercommon]

And why's the furthering of knowledge matter to you?

[degenere]

Does it not matter to everyone?

[rathercommon]

Obviously not. Then there wouldn't be anyone who're just lumps of flesh.

[degenere]

My apologies. [Without really giving apology.] What is the trouble? I feel as if I have been led around in a circle.

You would prefer that I would not give a shit about the spread of new knowledge and innovations? That this would be bad?

[rathercommon]

I would prefer -

[ Not that. Obviously not that. Because knowing things is important. Because possessing and spreading knowledge is important. But at the same time, something about his attitude rubs her wrong. There's something that just puts her back up, and she can't really identify what it is, or why it is, or...

Oh, come now. You know exactly what it is. You don't like talking to someone who's probably cleverer than you are. But - no, that's not exactly it, either - that's unfair to herself...She puffs out a sigh, and runs a hand through her hair, and tries to rein in her temper. ]

It's a sort of greed, to want to know everything. No less than it's greed to want to possess everything. Knowledge ought to be - it ought to be used for something good. For the good of the people. It shouldn't be had just for the sake of having it.

[degenere]

[pardonnez wha

A little insulted, Val laughs.]

It is not. It is hunger, perhaps. Gluttony. Not greed. I have known men and women of greed. Indeed, they are my relations. Or they were, at least. I hold myself very apart from them. And did I not say, that I place value in this spreading of knowledge?

And, as you have said that you are no scholar, why would you then give firm opinion of the business that a scholar should be about?

[rathercommon]

[ A little grunt, but she challenges: ]

And what's the difference between gluttony and greed, then?

[degenere]

A glutton might drop food that could be eaten from the floor. A greedy man would eat the food from the floor before anyone could get to it.

[rathercommon]

Does your university just let anyone in, then? Who comes knocking at their doors?

[degenere]

The University is of course open to sons and daughters of nobility. Even those who have been put aside might attend, or be allowed to continue to attend, should their disinheritance occur during their education. And it is open to commoners who have proper sponsorship. One might secure such a sponsorship easily, with the correct display of aptitude or demonstration of ability.

I believe the Inquisition itself has sponsored Rifters. To give talks, at least. I cannot say if education at the University would be entirely appropriate.

[rathercommon]

[ Excuse. ]

Wouldn't be appropriate.

[ What's that supposed to mean, brah. ]

[degenere]

The base of knowledge would be all wrong. I imagine that would be at least part of the argument made. The "experience ubiquitous", as du Morel called it.

[rathercommon]

[ Whoever the hell that is. Still, as annoying as that sentiment is, it's not wrong, and it's less obnoxious than she was expecting from the word appropriate. Still. ]

Don't you think that's greed, though, then? If the nobility can move in and out, while the common people need someone to vouch for them - that's hoarding knowledge.

[degenere]

[The other part of the argument is that Rifters might actually still be demons, and Val would have cheerfully said as much, had the topic not changed back to greed. Maybe later!]

Of course they need vouching for. The vouchsafe of nobility is status and title. An assurance that comes with birth. Now, if a student is ushered in to the University and then does not stand up to that vouchsafe but proves himself to be an utter moron, he might be dismissed.


It is true, that I eventually attended without title myself. By then I had proved myself, and earned a scholar's status for myself. And I have confidence that, had I been born to poorer parents, I would have carried those same merits that brought me my status. I would have then sought a sponsor or patron, so as to not waste those merits. And I would have been happy for his sponsorship! For a commoner does not carry that advance proof. There must be a word spoken on the commoner's behalf.

Not to mention the cost.

[rathercommon]

[ There are a few things in there she wants to address, but - ]

What d'you mean, you attended without title?

[degenere]

My initial enrollment was as Brevet de Comte de Falaise sur la Mont. A courtesy title, of course, but a promising one, by societal measure. I was but a brief brevet, for then was disowned and disinherited by my father, the Comte de Falaise sur la Mont. Revokation of all titles, holdings, and funds is standard practice in such matters. Why, I even weathered a brief period of poverty during that period of time. It was quite exciting.

[rathercommon]

[ Sarcastically: ]

Yeah, what's more exciting than going hungry. Why?

[degenere]

Oh, I didn't go hungry.

[In case she was retroactively worried.]

The 'why' is, why was I disinherited? It was a long process. They did not support my studies. In fact, they opposed study--serious study, not idle study to fill hours. And then I was ordered to return and take up familial responsibilities, and give support to politics and to causes that I did not support, all of which I was entirely uninterested in. I refused.

[rathercommon]

[ Oh. ]

And you preferred - studying to having...an inheritance and all that?

[degenere]

The worth of education and knowledge is more valuable to me than all the holdings and power of de Foncé.

And I detest masks.

[rathercommon]

Why?