I have been tasked with addressing recent complaints and, well. I'm not sure what to make of any of this, truly. Have things hit such dire straights?

[ There's a shuffle of papers as Sidony begins to read. ]

'The wine is very bad'. Yes, well, ser, you get what you pay for. Perhaps you ought to dig a little deeper and purchase wine that does not affront your tongue? Either that or make some arrangements to have it imported. I'm sure Orlais would adore the business, with things as they are. Where there's a will there's a way, wouldn't you say?

[ Clearly, Sidony is not going to be the most tender of people when it comes to Inquisitorial complaints.

Then there's a soft sound of frustration. ]

I'm not even sure I can read this one. I think that if someone wishes to submit a complaint they should make it legible first, don't you? I can at least try, since it seemed so dearly important - If you are to steel - steal, I think? - cloths... Steal from the rich next time. Is this really something worth the complaints box? Try the guards next time, that might get you somewhere. Or lock your doors.

[ Muffled: Ser Pizzicagnolo, I thought this box was for legitimate complaints? A scoff, until finally - ]

Whoever requested an assistant for the Seneschal, consider yourself in luck. I have taken the task of complaints from his hands today, so that he might focus his attention elsewhere. You're quite welcome. Of course, if you wish to leave other complaints you might find it in it's usual place.

Hello [ a woman's voice, low, with a mostly-Marcher accent. ] My name is Yseult and I will be assisting with leadership of the Hostile Powers project.

Many of you will be tasked with heading into hostile territory in the near future to carry out the Inquisition's work. To assist you in achieving your goals, the leadership and I thought it wise to offer all of you some additional training in skills that may prove useful in fieldwork. The first is construction of a cover identity that you can assume when operating covertly. We would like each of you to construct a cover identity and answer the following questions about it. We can then help you to refine it.

There will be missions that require very particular covers, but many will not, and it is helpful to have a default cover that works in many situations and which you are comfortable with and can fall back on if needed suddenly. Assume in this case that you will be sent on a simple mission to gather general intelligence from a city in Tevinter.

Here are the basic questions you must be prepared to answer if confronted by an enemy patrol or similar:
( Read more... )

[ Since Minrathous fell, Max has remained safe only because she has remained secret, holed away in a Tevene cellar with too much wine she can't drink and a sending crystal she dares not use, at least not when her rescuer is within earshot. Her gratitude extends only so far toward trust. She listens when she can, she'd spoken to John if only to tether herself to something solid again, but she hasn't let her voice across the crystal network -- until now. ]

Are all of the sending crystals accounted for?

[ She sounds a tad stressed. It's possible they won't know. Or can't know. She doesn't have time for either of those answers. ]

To the best of our knowledge -- have the crystals belonging to those who did not escape the city been destroyed?

I have news from the north. [ The important sort. The sort that will be made useless or worse, should the wrong ears overhear it. ] There is not much time.

( ... )

Good afternoon, Inquisition. Some of you I have already had the pleasure to meet, but for those I have not, my name is Max.

[ It's a not unpleasant voice, as these things go. A smooth, melodic Orlesian of the sort one can imagine trading one's cares away to in exchange for gentle but firm reassurance. Today, it is mostly business, but artfully tinged here and there with a withheld sorrow. (Most of which may even be real.) ]

I have recently arrived from the island of Nascere, in the Colean Sea, under circumstances I believe concern us all. One week ago, after operating for some time under the guise of reinstating legitimate Tevinter governance, persons we believe to be agents of Corypheus ravaged our home and have killed or captured many of its people.

The situation in Orlais is no better, as you must know, but even as the Inquisition fights on that front, I would ask one small thing of all of you. While some of us were fortunate enough to make berth in Kirkwall, our sisters and brothers of Nascere have been scattered to the four winds. Some may be dead, others we fear enslaved, but there are still more whose escape we may simply not be aware, who may become allies to you as myself and my colleagues Captains Flint and Vane now are.

[ ‘Colleagues.’ As if they are partners. Perhaps friends. :> ]

I ask then, in the course of your travels to fulfill your duties to the Inquisition, if you should hear word in taverns or crossroads of refugees from Nascere, that you bring this news back to us as soon as you are able. And if you should have business with a man or woman of the account, that you pause but a moment where sense and safety allow, and ask if they are of Nascere. You may find a friend in place of an enemy, and one who would join our cause.

[ Or one of their causes, at any rate. Of those who once called Nascere home, a fair number are more likely to want her dead than reinstated. But there are some whose good opinion Max does not expect, who she would risk more than this to see alive again.

She draws herself up, forcing a gentler warmth into her tone. ]

And, as I am certain rumors abound, [ False ones, surely, ] I would be happy to answer any questions or concerns any of you may have about our island or its former residents as we join your ranks.