crystal; odd jobs and training efforts

[katabasis]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Flint
RECIPIENT: Everyone, but mostly Forces
NOTES: Also, a reminder that the JOBS BOARD exists now. I refuse to stop trying to make fetch happen.

Riftwatch, this is Commander Flint. With the end of winter approaching, Forces will be implementing an accelerated schedule for the repair of equipment and maintenance of gear to see that we're prepared for the coming months. Any member of Forces should expect an extra item on their rota. Any member of Riftwatch outside the division who finds they have time in the day they happily apply to manual labor is more than welcome to come to the division office and take up one of the miscellaneous tasks posted at the list on the door. If you cannot read the list, Matthias will do so for you.

[Hope you all love repairing armor and refinishing the hulls of small boats.]

Further, as the entirety of the organization has a well developed instinct for sticking its nose where it might be cut off, should anyone feel they are ill-equipped to defend themselves in an emergency and wish to remedy that, Forces will be organizing training sessions with which to familiarize yourself with some kind of weapon. There is to be a separate sheet posted on the notice board for both interested students and anyone willing to give instruction. I would prefer no one deface it.

[But if it keeps you all busy and out of his business, draw all the outrageous phalluses you can imagine. There is even a bit of graphite on a string attached to the pin and a suspiciously ample series of margins for that very purpose. You're welcome.]

If there are any questions, you're welcome to submit them either in writing or in person. If you have complaints, there is a box for that.

Comments

[katabasis]

I'm saying it would be difficult to accomplish without support. But that pursuing this with someone looking to bicker over every sixth step would be impossible.

[bouchonne]

And you think me prone to bickering?

[katabasis]

As I said - roughly every sixth step.

[bouchonne]

I'm famously agreeable.

[ Well. ]

And I don't disagree when there's nothing to disagree with.

[katabasis]

Present point notwithstanding.

[bouchonne]

[ Maker, Flint is obnoxious. ]

As charming as our banter is, Captain, I'm not exactly about to jeopardize a mission just so I can see your handsome little cheek muscles twitch. If I'm doing a job, I do the job.

[katabasis]

[Abruptly, as if the badgering has been for irritating Byerly to the point of commitment and little else:]

Then we'll first need to determine the exact shape of what we mean to say once inside the Imperium. I don't expect anyone in your division to be there personally, but Riftwatch's word will have to be made to carry and we will need a method to deliver it which doesn't rely on the longterm placement of of our people within the nation. The ideal circumstance would be to enable like minded people already there to do the hardest work for us, but locating them will depend on what we say and how.

Eshal had thought to print pamphlets, and while we might drop them by griffon I have my doubts as to how effective words on a piece of paper would be. Literacy being only the most obvious hurdle.

[bouchonne]

[ u g h.

Sweetly: ]

Well, in Eshal's defense, she was a Qunari. Northerners so often fail to understand the ways of the South.

[ Then, less passive-aggressively: ]

A song might do.

[katabasis]

[Skipping right past the first point—]

I believe Mr Silver has been toying with a similar concept.

[bouchonne]

Such a clever boy.

The challenge will be to ensure that it's good enough that it'd be transmitted by minstrels not in our employ.

[ it's gotta slap ]

[katabasis]

All right.

[He's not above this; he just gave Riftwatch conspicuously wide margins to draw dicks in. But consider him skeptical as to their musical talents.]

[bouchonne]

What, you don't believe we can write a good song?

[katabasis]

It's outside my area of expertise.

[But.]

I'm not dismissing it.

[bouchonne]

Oh, well, if it's outside your area of expertise, it must be impossible.

[katabasis]

[Yes, well.]

I hear your man from Val Royeaux writes. [Not that he knows first hand.] If you think it's worth pursuing, I don't see why we shouldn't try. Meanwhile, I'll see what can be done to establish a way in and out of Tevinter for anyone who might eventually want it.

[A sudden pause - the look of something occurring to him in this moment before being set purposefully aside in favor of:]

Between the two, we may find some traction.

[bouchonne]

Yseult's man.

[ That look gets a look in return. And since "we may find some traction" didn't spark that expression of sudden enlightenment - ]

What were you thinking just then, dear Captain?

[katabasis]

[There is no marked shift in how he is settled there, but some angle in his face closes - a window being snapped shut.]

I was thinking it will be difficult to find a new place for them. For any refugee fleeing Tevinter ahead of the Divine's force.

[bouchonne]

Really? Is that truly all?

[ It seems a small and obvious thought to have caused some turn in Flint's facial expression. The man typically deals in dead-eyed stares broken only by little jerks and swoops of his lips and eyelids. Getting a sense of his feelings is tough, when those feelings aren't "uncomplicated rage." ]

[katabasis]

Is it so hard to believe I might have some sympathy for the idea?

[Which is honest. But not even remotely the point.]

[bouchonne]

Not your most convincing attempt at misdirection.

[katabasis]

It was merely an observation. And that given present circumstances, I doubt the most obvious place to put them will be in the mood to be welcoming. Some end point will need to be bargained for.

[bouchonne]

What seems like the most obvious place to you?

[katabasis]

Were we pursuing this all prior to Satinalia, it would have been somewhere in Nevarra.

[bouchonne]

And why is that the most likely? Merely because it's closest?

[katabasis]

Do you have a better suggestion?