Crime and Punishment
Skyhold's courtyard echoed with the clash and clang of warriors sparring with one another – Blackwall with Cassandra, Cullen with the Inquisitor, the Iron Bull with everybody.
"Come on!" roared the qunari as he sent yet another Inquisition footsoldier down with a kick, denting his breasplate. "It's like you're not even trying!"
"He certainly does like to fight, doesn't he?" Cullen observed as he parried with his sword then feinted at his opponent's head.
"It's why we hired him," the Inquisitor grunted as he swung his shield up to block Cullen's next strike, his own sword whipping around in a hard arc towards the former templar's flank.
Moving swiftly and surely, Cullen blocked the swing and chopped down at the Herald's legs, forcing him back a step. The templars trained their people well and the Inquisitor was forced to admit that, had they been duelling in earnest, Cullen would have the measure of him.
"Yes! That's better," the Iron Bull said approvingly as three of the Inquistion's best came at him at once. With frightening ease, the qunari slammed the pommel of his axe into the chest of the nearest one, forcing him back before delivering a strike with the flat of his weapon. The soldier's eyes rolled up in his head and he crumpled to the ground.
The other two nodded to each other and attempted to flank their opponent. Bull used his weapon's superior reach to keep them both at bay and herded them back towards the stone walls ringing the courtyard where he put down first one then the other with brutal efficiency.
The Iron Bull swung his battle-axe through the air, the blade making a keening whistle as it cut the air. "Anybody else?" he invited, looking around at the gathered troops. Those who weren't already sparring quickly looked away and found they needed to be elsewhere with some urgency. Like the other side of the keep, perhaps.
"Have you ever wondered what would happen if we found ourselves on opposite sides from the Iron Bull?" the Inquisitor posed the question as he blocked a powerful downward swing, feeling the impact all the way to his shoulders.
"I don't imagine it would be pleasant," was all Cullen had to say.
Later, the Iron Bull approached the Inquisitor as he was hammering out various dents in his armour from the day's practice session. "Hey, Boss."
"Bull," the Inquisitor nodded as he worked on a pauldron.
"Got some interesting news for you." He paused a moment before leaning his huge horned head in close. "It's a Ben Hassrath thing," he added, his voice causing the very air to vibrate.
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Those vints Harding was tracking the day she broke her leg?"
"Hmm?" the Inquisitor replied. It was often like this with the Iron Bull – no need for flowery speeches, just the occasional monosyllabic grunt that said "I hear you." It was a relief not to have to censor his thoughts lest he say something scandalous and offend Vivienne.
"My reports say the Venatori have found a source of that red lyrium shit and the Ben Hassrath are...concerned."
"I can imagine," the Inquisitor replied dryly.
"I was hoping we could get a party together and take care of it."
"That would be wise. I don't know what Corypheus wants with the red lyrium but denying him a source makes good strategic sense," the Inquisitor said as he filled the air with faint metallic binks.
"Right," the Iron Bull agreed. "That and I really want to kill some Venatori assholes."
Sera looked up from the parchment spread across her lap as the Inquisitor entered her room above the tavern floor. Random doodles covered much of the parchment, many of them offensive in nature. The rest of the parchment was home to a sketch of one of Leliana's ravens. The bird in the drawing seemed to possess a gleam of unnatural intellegence in its eye.
"Ser Lordybloomers," she said with a smirk, her main facial expression. The one she wore when she wasn't plotting some piece of mischief against Fereleden nobility at least.
Ser Lordybloomers had that look on his face, the one he got when he was about to start in on something all serious and not fun at all.
She opened her mouth to forestall whatever it was. "Whatever it is, I had nothing to do with it, yeah?"
The Inquisitor sat on the pillowed bench next to the window with the view of the courtyard. Down below, Cassandra was brutalising yet another practice dummy. In Sera's humble opinion, Seeker Pentaghast needed a right royal seeing to. She was fit though. The few times Sera had seen Cassandra out of her amour hinted at a physique she herself would have loved. Who had time for all that exercise though? Ugh.
The Inquisitor looked down at the floor between his booted feet, face all serious and pensive. Sera sighed and set the drawings aside. Whatever it was, it was going to be a right royal pisser. Just her luck.
After a moment, he looked up at her. And here it comes. "Sera. About that day you saw me downstairs-"
She cut him off with a grin. "The day you lost your breeches? Oh I remember!"
The Inquisitor squirmed uncomfortably. "I just wanted to reassure the members of the Inquisition that it won't happen again."
Sera's face fell. "Oh poo!"
"A person in my position can't be seen to be-"
"What? Not some head-stuck-up-his-arse noble halfwit?" Sera snorted, "You're overthinking this, yeah?" Before he could protest she continued. "The little people out there," she waved a hand outside where Cassandra was now conversing with Leliana, her face even grimmer than usual. "They want to see all you high and mighty folk brought down from time to time. It reminds them that you pull your breeches," she broke off with laughter before regaining her composure, "It reminds them that you pull your breeches on one leg at a time like us."
The Inquisitor raised an eyebrow. He couldn't figure Sera out. The Red Jenny things, the apparently pointless pranks aimed at nobles. How that was supposed to help the 'little people' he couldn't really see. Of course, that was part of the reason the common folk had such an axe to grind with nobles, he decided.
"So you're saying...what?"
Sera smiled. "It's all good, innit. You get drunk, lose your breeches..." Again she almost collapsed with laughter before recovering herself. "The cooks and servants and whoever else make this place work while you're out all, I am the Inquisitor, kneel before my power!"
He frowned at the elf. "I do not act like that!"
Sera's face lost its good humour. "And if you did, you'd have every Jenny in Ferelden pulling stunts that would make what I do seem like harmless fun." Sera sighed. "Look the thing is, yeah? You falling down drunk, you're just like every other poor bastard out there who can't handle their liquor. It makes you one of us."
"I doubt Vivienne would see it that way."
"Who? Lady I threw out my sense of humour with the chamber pot? Piss on her. If I wasn't so worried about her magic, I'd..." She grinned as an idea came to her. "Itching powder in her smallclothes." She tittered.
The Inquisitor fought to keep a smile off his face. And lost. "Sera..."
"Oh fine. Now piss off, yeah? I got things to do."
Mark my words – dealing in this red lyrium with the Tevinters will end badly for all of us
Excerpt from a letter to an Carta underboss in Orzammar.
When I want your opinion on red lyrium, the Tevinters or in fact anything, I'll give it to you.
Excerpt from a letter from a Carta underboss.
The dwarf known to his Carta associates as Gapteeth – due to the gaps in his teeth had serious misgivings about the whole 'sell red lyrium to the Tevinters' thing. Misgiving Number One – the red stuff was trouble, plain and simple. Regular lyrium, the stuff dwarves had been selling to templars for as long as there had been templars was one thing.
It could mess a person up pretty good – but only if they were stupid enough to ingest it. From what Gapteeth had seen of the red variety, it affected people in wholly unnatural ways if they spent too much time just standing in the same room with it.
Recently, he'd found one of his people standing in the middle of the main store room, head cocked to one side. When asked what the nug-humping idiot thought he was doing, he replied I can hear it sing to me. Gapteeth found that a touch odd. Though not as odd as the fact that the red lyrium appeared to be growing. They'd been mining the stuff for weeks now, and there was always more of it.
Then there were the rumours and tales from out of Kirkwall – how the Knight Commander had gone insane, acquired godlike powers from a sword forged from red lyrium and turned ultimately into a red lyrium statue of all things.
And the Tevinters wanted his people to mine the stuff? Which brought Gapteeth neatly to Misgiving Number Two – Tevinters or, more accurately, Tevinter magisters and those Venatori people going on about their Elder One.
"Elder One," Gapteeth muttered as he seated himself on a hard stone bench – down here it was hard stone everything – and unrolled a sheet of fresh parchment across the stone block he used as a writing table. Also dinner table. And bed. By the Stone his back ached like a bastard.
Gapteeth sighed as he took up a quill and dipped it into an inkwell. The inkwell greatly annoyed him – dwarves were renowned as master builders and engineers yet, a race of people that could create metal golems and fantastical crossbows couldn't think of a way to create a quill with its own ink reservoir?
Gapteeth had penned several missives outlining his concerns and dispatched them to his overseer in Orzammar and his concerns had warranted precisely zero remedial action. Yet at heart, Gapteeth was an optimist and decided to try again.
Blackrock he began. By this point, he had dispensed with salutations. If Blackrock was offended, let him come down here and see things for himself. Once again I must outline my concerns. Gapteeth frowned and scratched out concerns and replaced it with grave concerns regarding this arrangement with Tevinter and their 'Elder One'.
He began to dip his quill in the inkwell and paused as what sounded like rolling thunder rumbled through the network of tunnels. "By the Stone, not a cave in!" Having spent decades below ground, his first thought, naturally enough was of a cave in.
Following hard after the rolling thunder was a sound like lightning crackling intermingled with screams. Not a cave in, then. No, this was worse. Cursing, Gapteeth rose to his feet, joints clicking and popping as he moved and grabbed the loaded crossbow he kept by his side.
As he turned towards the door, one of his people sprinted by in the tunnel outside, hair and clothing on fire. Gapteeth steeled himself and stepped into the tunnel. Advancing towards him came a tall, black haired woman clad in plate mail with a staring eye insignia worked into the breastplate.
Flanking her, a male human with a funny moustace carrying a staff, likely the source of the thunder and lighting. On the woman's other side strutted a dwarf, one Gapteeth recognised. "Tehtras, you nug-humping son of a whore!"
Gapteeth shouldered his crossbow and squeezed the trigger. The man with the funny moustache raised his hand in a curious gesture that seemed to say bitch, please and the crossbow bolt went awry, skittering into the stone of the tunnel walls.
Even as he cranked at the crossbow, Gapteeth heard Varric say, "Bianca sends her regards."
A bolt of agony slammed into his shoulder, spinning him half way around, leaving him pinned to the wall behind him. The unloaded crossbow dropped from his hands.
As the woman warrior and her entourage swept past, a qunari, horns almost scraping the ceiling paused before him. "Don't go anywhere, now," he rumbled before moving on.
With events so utterly out of his hands, Gapteeth felt an unexpected wave of relief. Tethras and his people – whoever they were – were evidently here on account of the red lryium. The very same red lyrium that was giving him fits. Well, it wasn't his problem any longer. His only hope (besides not dying of course) was that Tethras' merry little band would also butcher the Tevinters.
After a while – could have been minutes or hours, long enough for his shoulder to go numb at least, Tethras swaggered back in.
"Gapteeth," he smiled, displaying his own flawless dentalwork. The bastard. "Long time."
"Tethras. I suppose all my people are dead?"
The woman answered, her accent Nevarran, if he placed it right. "Those who surrendered will be treated fairly and will not be harmed. Those who resisted..." she shrugged.
"Right. And since I'm not dead, I can only assume you want information?" Gapteeth grinned at them. "That means we can bargain."
"One would think so," the Nevarran woman answered. Evidently she was in charge. "Here is our offer, I think you will find it more than fair."
"Oh, this'll be good," the qunari muttered.
"Tell us what Corypheus intends with the red lyrium and live."
Gapteeth blinked at them, all confused now. "Corriffee what now?"
The mage spoke up. "My erstwhile Tevinter colleagues may have referred to him as 'the Elder One. Terrible isn't it? You just know that somebody with a name like that is the most insufferable twat."
"Oh, him." Gapteeth nodded, relieved. "I never met him. All I know is the Tevinters want as much of the stuff as they can get. I don't ask question as to why."
"So long as the gold keeps flowing in, huh?" Varric put in.
Gapteeth frowned. "Hey, I'm a businessman."
The woman gestured to the qunari. "Shackle him. His life is in the Inquisitor's hands, now."
Book 'im, Danno
Hawaii Five-O
The Inquisitor sat in the elaborately carved chair inside Skyhold's main hall and watched as the prisoner shuffled forward, hands manacled in front of him. A pair of Inquisition soldiers flanked him in case he tried to do something stupid like run.
More and more often as of late, the Inquisitor found himself wishing the prisoners would try to run. At the very least, it would make the whole 'sit in judgement' routine a little less...routine.
Oh, on an intellectual level, he knew he was charged with a grave responsibility in sentencing those brought before him, he just wished it wasn't so grave all the time. Just once he'd like to lay down a sentence of Walk through the courtyard naked but for a sign reading 'I sided with Corypheus because I'm an idiot' Or, more succinctly, Twat.
Even Josephine seemd a little underwhelmed as she read the charges laid against the prisoner. "Your Worship, before you stands...Gapteeth of the Carta. He is charged with possession and supply of red lyrium and has confessed to working with the Venatori."
"Right...possession, red lyrium, Venatori." The Inquisitor waved a tired hand. "Have you anything to say in your defense?"
Gapteeth gave a pained grimace. The Inquisition surgeon, an Orlesian who talked too much had cleaned and bound his wound but he wasn't what he'd call comfortable. For a start, he was worried the ageing hall in which they all stood was going to collapse on him. Gapteeth didn't trust architecture that wasn't dwarven.
He looked up at the human sat on the fancy chair. Inquisitor? He looked bored. Bored enough to issue a sentence of hot-oil wrestling the qunari just for the hell of it? Gapteeth gulped.
Despite his missing teeth, Gapteeth had a reputation as a smooth talker. "Your Worship," he began, echoing the woman in the fancy dress. The human's head rose a little. "I am a humble businessman so I offer you a proposition."
Fancy shot him a hard look. "I hardly think you are in a position to offer anything."
The Inquisitor sat a little straighter in his chair. "Let him talk, Josephine. I'm curious."
"Very well," and Fancy nodded to him. He smiled back at her and waggled his eyebrows.
"You let me live, and I tell you all about Carta activities across Ferelden. And I'll provide information on Venatori supply lines and red lyrium storage sites."
The Inquisitor appeared to mull this over and Gapteeth, ever the optimist allowed himself a moment of hope. Then the human opened his mouth again. "My spy master could also get me that information."
Gapteeth made one more effort. "Could get it implies he hasn't. I'm offering it to you on a platter, figuratively speaking. Why make all that extra work for yourself?"
The Inquisitor shrugged. "Works for me." He nodded to the guards. "Free him and escort him to Leliana." He turned his gaze onto Gapteeth. "If she isn't happy with your performance, I imagine she'll feed you to her ravens."
As the soldiers led the dwarf away, the Inquisitor began madly scrawling on a sheet of parchment.
New method of punishment? – fed to ravens and crapped out of ravens!