No more halos on evergreens

[meds4sale]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: The Medicine Seller
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: Peculiar questions about architecture to alleviate the boredom of quarantine time
WHEN: Recent
WHERE: Gallows
NOTES: None

During my time here before, I noticed a ... quirk of the older architecture in the city.

Grooves within the walls that did not seem ornamental. My companion had remarked that they reminded him of a sword's fuller, and given the history of this place, he may have been on to something.

The search for answers to this puzzle turned up many, many places where Kirkwall's underworld prefers to stash contraband and other less savory things. However, nothing in regard to this irregularity.

Perhaps someone may shed light on this? Or point me to whatever texts may likewise do so. The more obvious sources make no remark on it.

[There is a pause for a long period - that seemingly being the extent of his inquiry. And then he speaks again]

I am also curious about Thedosian purification rituals. Where I am from salt and water and, occasionally, ash are used to temporarily ward malevolent spirits. I am interested to see if such similarities persist here as well, or what the differences might be.

Comments

[chainlightning]

Kirkwall was designed by people from Tevinter. They put runes in the layout of the streets and everything.

[ Pause. ]

Some of them also practiced blood magic, using the blood of other people. So.

[meds4sale]

That aligns with what little we were able to find. There is an ...odd sensation when walking the parts of the city where these markings are.

More interesting, however, is that their arrangement does not seem random.

Their ultimate purpose, however, has been elusive. Though I further suspect they are part of what has had such an... impact on the city.

[chainlightning]

A lot of writings from Tevinter were probably destroyed by the Templars and the Chantry. But- if you haven't checked in Darktown, I would. There are a lot of secrets down there.

[meds4sale]

That was where such peculiar sensations led me. However, investigations were more complicated than they should have been.

[Old structures torn down long ago, patched up walls of plaster, the trail going cold again and again. Carta, coterie, miscellaneous thugs and the occasional swarm of ash wraiths and shades... it slowed any progress.]

[filthydipper]

Don't go pokin' about our stuff.

[No one needs the Carta getting shirty with rifters, parachuting in from on high atop the Gallows however the manage it. Yngvi wasn't privy to such mysteries when they descended to fight Hawke and co.

Anyway--]

Dodgy old blokes wearing dodgier drapes from Tevinter got too much blood and lyrium and made it so places here have your back teeth buzzing worse than sticking your head in a hornet's nest. Could take you on a tour of places, I did live hear near all my life.

[meds4sale]

Contraband holds little interest for me. I am not a guard.

......Though they should perhaps hide bodies elsewhere - they draw worse things than flies.

[And the sewers stink enough as is, thank you very much.]

You are sensitive to the shifts in the air here? ...That is interesting. I was told dwarves are cut off from such things.

[He doesn't respond to Yngvi's offer for a tour. He learned the streets well enough in the half a year he'd been here before and he didn't want another dwarf dead on account of his nosing around.]

[filthydipper]

You need to say if you're a guard but even if Kirkwall did go about hiring doglords and Orlesians back in the day, doubt they'd start hiring people rifts spat out.

And mages'll draw the spirits and demons before the corpses, how many of those d'you reckon we've got here riling themselves and each other up?

[He trusts mages about as far as he can throw them. Rifters too because that's all Fade stuff honestly.]

Who told you that? I'm from Kirkwall, didn't grow up in Orzammar, I know weird Kirkwall stuff ain't nothing to do with anything magic or whatever, I know what's right, what's not, what makes bits of you spook up like a horse. Only you know it's something to spook about.

[Strange trees where the Halamshiral alienage tree had been that he'd punched for no good reason but for it being there for the punching, all of it screaming wrong in bones that still know stone and lyrium a few generations out of Orzammar. Least he's not spooking over sticks mistaken for snakes like horses. He knows there's something worth flaring his nostrils at when he does it.]

[meds4sale]

Oh? My apologies - I misunderstood.

But you seem well informed. Would you tell me about the places that cause you to spook?

[shri]

From what I'm told, little can be done to keep you safe from spirits. Not even their Maker deigns to spare them, no matter how hard someone prays to him.

[ #Erg. That sums up her opinion of the matter. ]

[meds4sale]

If I had an interest in calling upon an absent god, my question would have been more specific.

[Someone is, likewise, not particularly enthused about the Chantry and all its trappings]

While the methods are few, they are not non-existent. ...And there is more to it than protecting the living from spirits, but also spirits from the living.

The physical plane twists them, just as they may twist those they possess. There should be some ways of breaking this cycle.

[shri]

[ that makes her chuckle. ]

I'm well aware how they can be varied. Before this place I was familiar with many of them.

But you arrived a little late, we just had a play of spirits playing on mortals from their own memories. It would have been a good time to test such things.

[meds4sale]

I heard about it.

[He's not sure if he's pleased or not to have missed it. On one hand it would have presented an opportunity. On the other, he'd rather not have his dirty laundry aired for the world to see.]

Was there some manner of catalyst?

[rowancrowned]

Have you made rubbings or sketches?

[ cue a curious lilt. ]

[meds4sale]

Sketches. The grooves are too deep for rubbings.

However, they are not hard to find in the city if you would rather see them for yourself.

[rowancrowned]

I think I would.

[ offhand, ] Congratulations on your return.

[meds4sale]

I did not know it was something that warranted congratulating, though it is nice to be back.

I am stuck in the Gallows a little longer. Though I can show you on a map where the easier ones to find are.

[seaboard]

Perhaps some use it to send letters to sweethearts, too.

[ !! Contraband. How unacceptable. ]

Could not good words draw a spirit away?

[meds4sale]

Few in Kirkwall are such romantics, but it is a pleasant thought.

Unfortunately the spirits that are swayed more gently are usually not the kind drawn out of their home within the Fade. Places of magic or where strong emotions linger tend to draw their interest - if one is able to purify such places, perhaps so many incidents of spirits coming to this plane and being warped by it will decrease.

[seaboard]

Their city does seem so sad. Perhaps they would want it more then.

[ But what he says - troubles her. It is so truly the opposite of her own home, her own knowledge, her own faith and love. ] Does that mean the place we arrived, was one of great sadness?

[meds4sale]

If what I understand of the Deep Roads is true


Then yes.

A place of terrible history.

[versicoloured]

If no other solution presented itself, I would think it safe to assume that they are exactly what they appear to be... as unpleasant as that sounds. Otherwise, I'd think your answers might have been lost over time.

[meds4sale]

Indeed.

The question is less what they are now, but to what end were they intended?

For blood to flow so freely across a whole city

...It must have been to invoke some great power.

[Form and truth, readily apparent, but the reason, the regret, ever elusive.]

[notched]

All kinds of little secrets in Kirkwall.

[meds4sale]

Many, many.

You never know what lies behind a bricked up wall or abandoned tunnel.

[notched]

I knew my former home well. It's been a long time since a city held secrets from me.