sending crystal;

[inagutterson]

FORM: Sending crystal
SENDER: Yngvi
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: Dwarf stuff
WHEN: Nowish
WHERE: Kirkwall; lurking about some dark corner
NOTES: possible tw for questionable child-rearing and discussions of violence

Right, gotta ask since it's been nigglin' me like a loose tooth for a bit now Inquisition, what d'you all know about dwarves? Rifters you don't get a free pass unless you fell out the skies yesterday, s'not like we're a rare sight but, y'know, 'specially since we've been here a while now and-- [there's a little edge to his voice, he coughs to clear that, can't sound like he gives a shit, just the damp and the smoke lingering yeah?] you've been with lots of dwarves. Lot of my family even!

Might get invited to Sunday dinner if you play your cards right but word to the wise, maybe don't? Politely decline. But not too polite yeah? [Don't know what you'll be served on a Darktown dinner table do you now?]

Comments

[fireandsmoke]

I'm a wizard, not an ignoramus, [he cuts back with slim patience. As if that were obvious. Psh.] I can tell the difference between a dream-trap and reality. This is the latter, no question about it.

[Dwarves are potentially magic resistant. Now that is interesting, and the Dragon mentally adds Dwarven culture and magic resistance to his list of material to seek out and study in the library. ]

Mannerless drunken dwarves, then. I still wouldn't gallop along to a supper party at the first sound of a bell, so rest easy.

[inagutterson]

You say wizard like it means something more than you fell on your head and bit your tongue and you're saying things wrong. Mage. Ma-a-a-a-ge. [Why is Yngvi teaching class today you'll fail so many tests sir.] You say that but boats being wedged in walls might just be another day here, not that I'd know since I don't go there but people fuckin' love to tell you all about their dreams. Sounds boring and stupid.

[Also terrifying but he has enough fears right now thanks!]

How come when something is different to what someone else knows it's less?

[fireandsmoke]

Mage, wizard, both have the same meaning, [he says dismissively. Who cares which is used? Though personally he prefers the grandeur behind the word 'wizard.'] I'll brace myself for extravagant oversharing of private dreams. I'll thank you for the warning later.

[A pause...]

When the devil did I imply that different is lesser?

[inagutterson]

Apostate, maleficar. [Templars care what one gets used mate, this is Yngvi's way of trying to offer a bit of 'friendly' advice because he's not entirely a shit.] Lot of demons do things too but I don't know about rifters? How you lot even work with that business?

[Well does he have potentially great questions for Wren she can't possibly answer...]

We've got manners. Believe me. Might not be your manners but don't mean we don't have 'em, like Orlesians thinking because we'd use the same knife and fork all the way through instead of different ones for the courses we're not fit to sit at the table. [Mate, friend, buddy, have you met Orlesian nobles they are generally The Worst.]

[fireandsmoke]

[If only Sarkan's nonplussed and baffled stare could make it through the sending crystal.]

Are you mentally deficient?? [Partially mystified by how this all seems very personal to Yngvi. Don't go to the dinner but you'll want to go to the dinner... Sarkan is offering Yngvi the verbal equivalent of throwing his hands in the air.] Drunk people are often mannerless, and you said so yourself! Your culture can have all the different manners you want, I don't give a whit about that. Whatever pleases you.

[A long-suffering sigh, in which he pinches and massages at the bridge of his nose.]

I don't know. I'm still reading about local magicks, but it is doubtless that I'll be plenty useful for the Inquisition's cause given enough time. [And even without time, he would be forced to manage. He is a quick study after all.]

wherein yngvi continues to be a shit for the sake of it i'm sorry

[inagutterson]

Doglords ate a lot of things, might've eaten that too and I don't remember and there was that time I got hurled off a mountain by an angry augur. [He got hurled into a goat pen but that makes him sound like he could survive anything.] Mannerless. Why do people go putting less on it could've said ill-mannered but no. Mannerless. Marked.

[Welcome to growing up Carta and coming back home when you realise how much it hurt you where you'll look for every vicious inch you think you can get.]

Don't go for the Vint stuff unless it's you're reading that so you know what you shouldn't be doing unless you want to be locked up? Or worse? Dunno the stance the Inquisition'd take on Tranquiling folk or if it'd take on weird rifter mages but Vint stuff is the reason everything was bad for everyone and why we have Blights and why Kirkwall got ruined by doglords so y'know give it a wide berth.

[fireandsmoke]

[--Oh whoa wait a minute there, this is hooking Sarkan's attention. Screw the part about manners, that's giving Sarkan far too much of a headache to continue that line, and besides, something way more interesting just came up. His tone transforms into a wholly serious, probing, commanding clip.]

Wait, what was that about 'Vint stuff' being at fault for Blights and ruination? I take it you're talking about the Tevinter, of course, not a fine vintage.

[Did Yngvi give Sarkan ideas? He certainly did.]

Forbidding that is limiting, short-sighted nonsense, [in a low, cast-off voice, thinking aloud. And no, he certainly will not keep this opinion to himself. If the Tevinter did something to knock out Thedas's stability, he feels he has a right to study how and why thoroughly in order to better seek a way to reverse it. It does occur to him that the native mages have probably done so long ago, but in the event that something was missed, or there is something a skilled foreigner like himself could catch in those elusive text accounts...]

There must be something allowable I can dig up!

[inagutterson]

They make wine too, everyone makes wine but I don't drink it unless someone else is paying and I never trust what a Nevarran gives me because one time my mate went drinking in Nevarra and he passed out for three days and woke up a Reaver. [This is a fact because sometimes in Nevarra you meet mysterious 'benefactors' who apparently drug your battlemaster and head of your company with dragon's blood to see what happens.]

History lesson, clench your buttocks here it's a rough ride: long time ago, person that's responsible for all the things happening right now - well not all the things but the whole sky bit so the worst bit, well not actually the-- right let me start back. There were these lads called magisters and Tevinter still has them because they like big obnoxious words where a normal word would do because that's how they've always done it, lot of lording it over each other and us. Lot of slavery, blood magic, the whole deal. Anyway, a group of these lads were really into their Old Gods, did a blood magic thing, went into the Fade physically and got punished because the Maker wasn't happy about them getting blood on the holy golden Fade tiles I'd reckon and he'd need to take notice of people.

Does a lot of shunning, the Maker does. So he cast them out as Darkspawn. Turned their Old Gods into Archdemons. Blights happen and they're terrible, just filth everywhere and that's just the last one with the doglords turning up in my home and ruining.

[Sarkan are you enjoying the Yngvi revisionist history version of Blights and how we got where we are?]

We're fighting one of them right now. And he's got a dragon. Not an Archdemon accordin' to Wardens but they all went nuts so I mean you can't trust Wardens at all, they're useless and weird and well in with the wrong people, don't ever trust people with as many secrets as Wardens, yeah? So that's why you don't do Vint things unless you want a big sun on your head. Plenty of books to read because people love writing all 'bout that time and Andraste with her big army of freed slaves - she was the Maker's bride, cared enough about her - until the Vints burned her. Pretty much everything'll ignore her elf general lad Shartan, because Chantry hates elves. That's a thing.

[Somewhere people are screaming and crying but is he lying? Is he? No he isn't so come fight him.]

[fireandsmoke]

You make those Tevinter sound like a wondrous bunch. They've got a thriving slave-trade, a culture of extravagant arrogance, and apparently they are full of complete fools, too, baiting and summoning forces that put them in over their heads. [Because arrogance with substance is one thing. Arrogance with foolhardiness just makes you an idiot.] And blood magic, you say?

[Well, embellished or, ahem, slightly revisionist, perhaps... but at least Yngvi made the gist of the story simple enough to understand. This is actually some very good information for Sarkan, and he drinks up every word intently.]

Oh, naturally any second-rate poet would write or sing about the times. That's the stuff bards are bred for, to spin wild tall tales out of a sliver of truth. But if the Inquisition has really scrubbed the books of every notion of blood magic...

[He allows the thought to trail off into a brief silence. Foolish. Restricted information for only the top mages, he could understand, but Forbidden Fruit is just too much. Thoughtful snort.]

What an odd, frenetic dwarf you are, but at least you made yourself useful to me. Now, I've got work to do.

[And with that he'll probably leave the sending crystal aside. Unless you manage to bait him with more carrots-on-sticks.]