005.

[dashing]

FORM: crystal
SENDER: Herian
RECIPIENT: all of the Inquisition
WHAT: organising guard stuff
WHEN: backdated to a little after the quarantine announcement
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: regarding Chantry Relations, a separate network post will happen for that post-sickness stuff, but in the meantime I have done an ooc post. And also, THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRIEND. This isn’t relevant, it’s just stuck in my head.

Good day, Inquisition.

This is Knight Enchanter Herian Amsel. I am working with Knight Enchanter Voss during this sickness to ensure proper guard rotation is fulfilled and that are quarantine can be enforced, if necessary. Due to any Templars and rifters making contribution to guard duty being currently incapacitated, volunteers would be gladly received.

We are all well aware of the Gallow’s history, and with that in mind we’d particularly like to encourage mages to contribute to guard duty, in the hopes this will set minds better at ease. I am also eager to ensure that, if there are the numbers for it, we try to make sure that the guard is dominated by no particular fraternity - again, in the hopes of offering some peace of mind to all the mages here present.

If you wish to volunteer for the guard roster, please respond with your name, combat skills and experience. If you are a mage, responding with your chosen fraternity if you have one would be greatly appreciated. Mages are by no means demanded to declare this information if you consider it a matter of privacy, but it may then be that we do not add you to the present roster.

Less immediately pressing, but any insight into combat skills and experience levels amongst mages granted to us will allow Knight Enchanter Voss and I to better prepare for commencing combat and defence training for mages, so whatever information you can offer us would be greatly appreciated.

I have also recently taken leadership of the Chantry Relations project, if there should be any with pressing need to discuss related matters, or if there is any further assistance I can offer. Project members, I will look to speaking with you all regarding matters once our present situation is better in hand.

Comments

[private]

[arlathvhen]

I trust that you'll select wise choices for these positions, but please send me a list after you're done for record-keeping purposes.

[ A pause, then tiredly: ]

Not Anders.

[ You don't need guards who are more likely to make a break for it than guard. ]

permaprivate.

[dashing]

Of course, Scoutmaster. I will see to it that full records are kept and supplied for yourself and Knight Lieutenant Coupe's reference.

( Herian just pauses, trying to think how to best respond. )

I believe our healers are greatly taxed already; I would not wish to distract them from their already considerable tasks.

[arlathvhen]

Thank you, Ser Coupe will appreciate having the records as well.

[ Ah, yes, tact. She knew tact, once upon a time. ]

Quite so. It would be best if our healers were left to their business.

I know that there is a particular purpose to choosing mages to help, and I think that it's a good way to ease worries. But if you still need ranks filled, I have scouts that I could recommend.

[faithlikeaseed]

[Quietly, but with a certain humor,] I think the only bit of that you don't know about me yet is I'd've gone to the Aequitarians, given the chance.

I've been guarding Messere Artaemeus when not otherwise occupied, [with research and...everything else,] but with the quarantine in effect it should be easier to keep him in one place.

[And then he switches things to private,] What's the combat training going to entail?

[dashing]

An Aequitarian? I am not sure we can continue our acquaintance.

( A rare, very rare, slice of humour. "Slice" being the appropriate word because she is more likely to stab someone with the sword than make a joke, generally speaking. )

No one would be set on guard duty alone. ( And she's not sure if she needs to or should point out Myr's limitations when it comes to guard duty, given his lack of sight. She imagines its rather unnecessary. )

( And she follows suit, private. )

That will depend on the students, their needs, their skills. Those who have desires to follow particular specialisations when they are ready may not find either of us appropriately qualified, but we can hopefully connect them with the right parties. I would very much like to focus on training mages so they are able to defend themselves in the instance that their magic is nullified.

private ∞

[faithlikeaseed]

[He's tired enough it takes him a long, painful moment to recognize it's a joke--and laugh, quietly.]

Oh, no. I'll forever mourn the loss of our friendship. In a moderate sort of way.

[Onward,]

That's--good. That's something I'd be glad to help with, if I'm able. I've particular experience in fighting without magic.

[A beat of a pause, then:] You'd take would-be knight-enchanters yourselves, though?

[foundmyselfagain]

Hey--So, this is Gareth. And I want to volunteer, but before I start rattling off all my impressive stats, I wanted to know--So the Gallows are my old Circle. And I...guess I'd understand why that would make me ineligible for this, so I wanted to check.

And--I mean, I'm not happy about this, but. I don't want to--

[ Maker's ass, words are hard. Why can't he just use charades. ]

I just want something to do.

[dashing]

It would be by no means a disqualification. That mages of the Inquisition must be in such close quarters with a place with so... traumatic a history is not a matter of be lightly dismissed, and it is all the worse for those who were residents of the Gallows.

( She's a Loyalist, not a monster. There's a moment where she's trying to figure out How To Words. ) We hoped that some agency in this would make this easier. I know it cannot... fix it.

[foundmyselfagain]

...Oh. Thank you.

[ Maybe it's just something about being stuck in here, that makes him assume that he'll have little choice in anything. That he'll have anything he could do to help, or that it would be wanted.

Anyway. He clears his throat.]

I'm Gareth--like I said. Most of my magic is dedicated to combat, primal magic in particular. I have...a lot of experience in fighting. I was in the war, and before that I had the remnants of the Gallows templars trying to run me down.

I...don't really have a fraternity? I was too young to really care about politics back then. I guess I like the core tenets of Isolationists? The whole 'just leave me alone and let me do my own thing' kind of deal.

[misdirection_hex]

[Not even Vandelin can keep the audible weariness from his tone by now, but damn it, he's still trying to.]

Any assistance I could offer with the guard roster would have to be as backup, [because the paperwork, always the paperwork, Maker please help him he's been sleeping on the couch outside Petra's office for a week and he's starting to wonder if she's still alive in there] but since my specialty is primarily non-lethal forms of incapacitation, it seems like my skills might suit.

I was a Libertarian, if it helps. [The past tense is just a little pointed, but he softens it with a turn to sincerity.] No hard feelings, though.

[dashing]

( When she speaks, it is calmly. She doubts Vandelin needs to hear this, but it's worth saying all the same. It's not quite— gentle how she speaks, but something neighbouring it. )

We all of us serve the Inquisition, now, and a vote was passed some time before either of us arrived hence. We can have many discussions on the Circles and our feelings for and against them, I gladly volunteer for it, but that is not my foremost concern in this correspondence, nor in serving hence. We work to protect Thedas, and all the people of it, no matter their personal beliefs. Our duty is our duty, not to be abandoned if we think we will not get our way once all is done.

Your specialisation would be most valuable, yes, but you've many duties to see to. Wearing your nerves to threads and running yourself to exhaustion will not benefit any of the tasks you set yourself to; I can make sure we call on you only if the need is dire.

[sulena]

Herian, mo charaid. It is good to hear your voice.

( this week has sucked, dude. yet Saoirse still tries to keep the brightness in her voice. )

I would wish to help with your efforts if possible. ( she's ran out of yawn and notably forgetting something but what if rather up in the air. ) The Gallows were once my home in much darker times and I can help then I certainly wish to do so even if it only peace of mind. I am not a talented fighter nor a healer but my talent with magics of the entropy school could be of some assistance if things were to... get out of hand and a form of incapacitation is called upon.

( ah, right, the question of the hour: ) I was never properly joined to a fraternity given the state of things here in Kirkwall. I suppose many could see me as a Loyalist, and I cannot say they would be wrong.

[dashing]

And yours, Saoirse. ( bruh, she feels it. ) Have you been looking after yourself?

( she is going to guess not.
she asks that before asking how Prompto is, because she's got some idea of how he might be from attempting to help Cosima, and finding herself thoroughly useless. also there's that problem where she's kind of... forgetting about them. a little. not totally, they're just absent from the forefront of her mind, but given how much of a focus they've been that's... real weird. )

Should any wish to break the quarantine, I would certainly prefer to incapacitate than do them harm. ( She exhales a little huff of breath. ) I wonder sometimes if you are determined to find the good in all things, to be a Loyalist even having survived the Gallows.

( But then she survived an annulment, so maybe there's pots and kettles afoot. )

[exequy]

[ He’s presumably busy helping Beleth, but what’s one more thing? ]

My name is Kostos Averesch, I fought under Knight Enchanter Voss during the war— [ and he could say more about his combat experience, but ideally that speaks for itself, without going into detail about precisely how he was killing Templars for three years ] —and I am a Loyalist.

[ So maybe he’d at least make everyone equally uneasy? One of his life goals, honestly.

And: ]

My brother can help as well. He isn’t a mage, and he does not have anything better to do.

[galvanising]

Can he?

[dashing]

We spoke in Nevarra, I think. I am sure Knight Enchanter Voss will be more than sufficiently familiar with the particulars of your expertise for anything further, but—

I would sooner your brother volunteered for himself. ( Not harshly, but it doesn't necessarily speak to his willingness to work, if his brother is having to volunteer him. )

[circleprodigy]

[There are reasons why she shouldn't respond, but Inessa does anyway. It's unlike her not to contribute and she won't stop doing so now.]

Warden Serra here. My magic is largely focused on rift magic, ice magic, and the entropy school. As for experience, most of that is darkspawn-centric, but I'm fairly certain I can adjust.

Fraternities haven't been relevant to me in some time, but I would be counted as an Aequitiarian.

[dashing]

Let us hope we've no need for expertise in darkspawn on this particular assignment.

( #yikes. )

Thank you, Warden. Given your skills in entropy, I assume you are more than capable at containing and temporarily incapacitating people without rendering them harmed?

[winterwinds]

I can help with any guard duty.

Oh-- um.

Audra Hawthorne, former Enchanter of Kinloch Hold and Ostwick Circle. My strengths are entropy and primal magic, as well as... you know, necromancy. I've been traveling on the road the past few years, so I'm used to fighting, and I'm quite good at glyphs. I never joined a fraternity, it seemed a bit... limiting.

[galvanising]

Thank you, Audra. I'm sure Herian will take down your details. Why do you say necromancy like that? Some of my best friends are necromancers.

[ when you only have three friends, one can count as 'some' ]

[dashing]

Enchanter Hawthorne, ( she says, very formally greeting someone who she knew when they were both small and had considerably less dignity; there is a little more warmth in her voice than might usually be found there, but it's subtle. ) I am glad to hear it.

We will happily take your skills into consideration. I'm curious as to why you think the fraternities are limiting. ( Genuinely curious, too, not being a sassy jerk and using 'curious' as a judgmental code. There are certainly different reasons it could be deemed so, but she wonders about the specifics. )

[bouclier]

I am Dame Geneviève De La Fontaine. I am a Chevalier of Orlais, I have fought on the battlefields of the Exalted Plains, and taken part in several Inquisition battles.

I have been sitting with Knight-Commander Norrington, but I would be willing to stand guard as well, for the sake of keeping people safe.

[galvanising]

I'm surprised you're not already on the guard duty roster, with experience like that. But then I don't recall your name from the Division roster, either. Are you newly arrived?

Delayed in the game, delayed in real life

[overharrowed]

It seems as if you have a strong response already, though if you still need to add numbers, I'll do my part. This is mainly to say congratulations on the new posting, even if it's not an especially celebratory time.

This is Enchanter Julius, since I don't believe we've yet had the pleasure of meeting in person.

going at a stately and dignified pace

[dashing]

Enchanter - no, I don't believe we have. Thank you for your kind words.

It never hurts to know of more ready to assist, should someone fall sick or be injured. May I ask as to the nature of your expertise?