Hawke had asked around if there was anybody who had experience with canals, an expert on the subject, and if so, if they might be willing to come meet her in Kirkwall.
As it happened, there was one.
Rein of Hossberg was a leading name in the canal business with quite a reputation.
He had also been relatively close by when she began searching, being in Denerim, and had been utterly delighted to come to visit her.
"So this canal system I want… You can see it done?"
"Done? Ya, Your Highness, I shall see it done with utmost haste! To finally see one of the great Canals finally be built… It warms my heart it does!"
The man had the single most Orlesian accent she had ever heard… But the fact he actually spoke at a quick pace made it actually sound like someone talking, rather than posture like the Lions did.
He also used various words she had never heard any Orlesian do.
Tall, with a wavy mane of golden locks, and green eyes like shining emeralds, his clothing was also very different than Orlesian fashion, being gold and blue silk, with so many ruffles.
Not that she cared. Frankly, she was already starting to grow bored with simple silk robes. It was high time she introduced her own brand of fashion to Kirkwall's nobility… But that could wait until after to Coronation.
She would probably keep the cloak though. The enchanted pockets had proven most handy to have around.
"Great Canals? Why do tell me more, it sounds like you have been planning something like this for a while."
The man clapped with a huge grin, and motioned dramatically with his hands outreached to the sides as he began to speak.
"It all began back home in Hossberg… I had a great and spectacular idea to restore our home from the Blight! Only two things can cleanse blighted land you see your Highness… Fire that burns away the taint, and water that can wash it away. Alas, the great deserts the Darkspawn made of the Anderfels makes that very unlikely… No rain, no cleansing, no new plant life."
His shoulders slumped.
"But you had a way to fix it?"
He immediately perked up.
"Oh ya! I did indeed have a plan. It was most simple as well. All one would have to do was dam the great river through our kingdom at the mouth, as well as dig canals all throughout the steppes of our Kingdom! Let the water flow through them, and use it to irrigate the barren landscapes! In time, the land would heal, and the Anderfels would be green once more! And finally, make sure there are waterlocks in the west and east as we dig all the way to the Volca sea! We could explore the world westwards for trade and riches! It would have been the second great marvel of the North, along with the statue of our lady!"
"Sounds like an interesting idea. What happened?"
"Bah! The King and the Wardens had no vision, Your Highness… They complained about the price and time it would take… As if the 800 Sovereigns as well as the 13 years and 2 months, and 14 days it would take to get it all finished would not be worth the cost! No vision at all!"
Considering the fact that she, Viscount of the Richest of Thedas City states only had 165 golden Sovereigns to her name, with her personal fortune and what Dumar had left behind combined, she rather doubted that the poor and impoverished Anderfells would have been able to finance that, even if they had beggared the realm with loans to pay for it.
"Quite the sum."
"Oh-ho! If you think that is a lot, Your Highness, you should have my plans for connecting the Waking, and the Sundered Sea!"
"What, canals through the Mountains, and the frozen wastes?"
"Exactly so, Your Highness! Not only would it require massive amounts of magical Enchantments to pump the water up from the Oceans through pipes to each level, but the Canals in the mountains and on the south side would need to be enchanted so the water never freezes. I told Celene it would be very, very expensive… But she told me she would pay, and so sent me off with a team to map it… Oh, it took me four years to finish the plans, and measure everything so it was good to go… And then she rejected my plans just because it would cost her 3000 sovereigns! Then why hire me to do it in the first place? Giant waste of time!
"Honestly if you're that desperate for a south canal, you might as well hire dwarves to dig it underground."
"Ah, so you too are a visionary I see… Ya, that is one way to do it, ya… Of course, there are so few of the dwarves left though. Not enough to get it done."
"Do you have any other canals you've dreamed up?"
"Oh ya, Your Highness. The Archon the Tevinter Imperium hired me to make a canal to connect the Nocen Sea to the Minanter River running through the Free Marches… He gave me the Gold, the team, everything I would need to get started on an enormous canal through the Silent Plains… Then Nevarra pulls out of the Agreement two months into the job, making the project stillborn. Damned Corpse Lovers!"
"Isn't that blood magic? I'm pretty sure that's blood magic, judging by all the undead made by blood mages I've killed over the years."
"It is! Oh, it is so good to hear someone who says it out loud, rather than pretend it is not! Your Elf does not pretend otherwise, does she?"
Hawke actually winced.
The fact that Merril was a Blood Mage was one little detail she could have done without becoming common knowledge.
Unfortunately, that bit of information had been blown open during the assault on the Keep during the Qunari invasion.
Frankly speaking, Hawke had genuinely expected that she would have had to flee… Right up until she had been made champion.
That had been a Godsend, that had flipped around so much of her life… And eventually led her here.
It was… Astonishing how much power and freedom the Free Marches Champions actually possessed.
"She is… Also, what were you doing in Ferelden? Another great canal you've dreamed of making?"
Rein shook his head.
"No, no… I came to Ferelden after Rivain rejected my ideas for a canal that would allow one to bypass the eastern trip around. Would not be good for their capital they said… I was contacted by Queen Daemona, who wished some Canal work done… Not the grand and spectacular kind, but at least she actually let me finish and then paid me for my work ya? I was fond of her… But she does not have a vision regarding the future of naval travel… All she wanted was a series of water lock canals to allow travel up and down Drakon… She is an interesting woman… Your namesake is she not, ya?"
"She is. It was a… In style name in Highever for a while back in the day. We were both born there, though in quite different places."
"Ah, yes, I did wonder about that… It seemed strange to me that a Ferelden-born queen would have such a non-Ferelden name… But if it's a regional one, I understand it quite a bit better, ya?"
"It will probably be quite a bit more popular in the future I imagine. Both here and across the Waking sea."
"Oh ya, you can bet on that, I can tell you. The Hero of Ferelden is… I don't think the Fereldens have loved anyone of their own so much since Andraste. No doubt there will be many a Queen with that name in the ages to come."
"Viscounts too hopefully."
Though that depended on how far she could push with her plans of unifying the Free Marches.
Empress would certainly be the title she would have preferred… But somehow, she doubted she could get away with that one.
"Of course Your Highness! May the Hawke dynasty last for ten ages!"
I
After she was done meeting the eccentrism and brilliance that was Rein, the sight of the dour Dwarves from one of Kirkwall's stonemason companies, was both a relief and annoyance.
It was a relief for the fact that after an entire day laying plans for Canals that would begin construction the moment Stakwaven had been conquered and Sebastian was Prince, she was really, really tired of listening to the speedy, orlesian accent of Rein.
It was an annoyance because, for all his obsession with Canals, the man was both brilliant and had energy to him. True, that bizarre fixation was limited to Canals, but it was infectious in its own way.
Ducan was most certainly not, as he unfurled his map with the kind of energy that made her uncle Gamlen seem like a cat on the hunt.
"As you can see your highness, the lines of the new roads are nice and tidy, and leave little room for thieves. Each main road will be large enough for a cavalry charge, as you requested."
She looked down on the map.
Truth be told, even with almost the entire city being made up of a very straight grid system, the sheer scale of it all was really daunting.
She had once thought Denerim to be a magnificent city. A grand metropolis, fit for a King.
The Old Denerim was smaller than one side of Hightown.
"Hmmm… There will be a lot of buildings here. I thought it would be… Fewer of them after we tore down the old ones."
Ducan shrugged.
"There will be thousands of apartment complexes once we are done. Each building will have several levels on top of each other, each capable of housing a relatively large family. The exact size will depend on where it is along the gridlines."
She nodded.
"And Middletown won't be a problem?"
Middletown was the current name given to the planned section of the city besides the main gate. It was going to be a more financial part of the city, between Lowtown and Hightown.
It would have a wall too, and checkpoints where her men would control all those who passed through, effectively serving as a gatehouse.
There were also other reasons to keep a higher level of control over it. In particular, because she did have friends amongst the merchants of the city too, and she wanted a place they would be able to operate in relative safety… Not to mention she had arranged for a more discreet reconstruction effort for a certain Emporium she would rather make sure stuck around.
As powerful as her position as a Champion was, she did not think the Templars or the chantry would turn a blind eye to Xenon.
"No, it will not. The buildings there will be much larger and fancier as you requested, but given we are going to remake the sewers and Darktown anyway, I do not see it matter much. The extra weight should not be a problem when we are going to fix it all anyway. Oh, and since we are talking about said Sewers, I also have some information to relay."
"Oh? Another stash of Twvinter goodies? The last one was really nice, though the sacrificial daggers weren't really my thing."
"No, nothing such. No, what we actually found was chambers with massive groves through the sewers that judging by the bones we found, seem to have been used for blood sacrifices on an industrial scale with thousands and thousands of sacrificed sods."
The completely uninterested way he said it made it seem like he might as well have been talking about an unusual warehouse.
"I… I see… that's a new one… Even for me. So… Could you elaborate on that?"
"Oh, sure. The grooves all lead down to a massive chamber, where there seems to have been this ginormous Lake of blood at one point, though it's long since dried up of course. The red marking of blood magic is still there though."
Unconsciously, Hawke's hand went up to her face, where the line of red was streaked across her nose. A token from the first blood mage she had ever killed, back when she was a soldier for King Cailin.
"Also the boys all say they've been hearing whispers and someone talking to them from the shadows there. There was some sort of side room too… Didn't go in though. There was definitely something there, and my boys Told me they'd leave me behind if I went into the room. So I had to leave it behind."
Hawke considered that.
Demons were nothing new for her, or for Kirkwall, but… This sounded like something else.
"Do you have a map to lead the way?"
"Of course I do. The first step of this job is to map every passage so we know how to go about filling in and building over."
"Alright… You'll leave that here then. I'll go down and take a look, and deal with it."
"As you say, Your Highness. Now, back to the rest of the city, you'll notice that the warehouses are kept away from the harbor edge itself, in order to clamp down on smuggling, as now all goods from the harbor actually have to be carried, rather than ships being allowed to dock in their own designated ports if they have them…"