#sorry. all the time i saw mahanon on screen i thought that we need to free him. keeris would happily do the job instead

[mourn-and-watch]

inquisitor leading the south against the double blight is such an unserious concept if hof is alive. like yeah we have a person who united a country against the same problem 20 years ago and emerged victorious. and whose whole job is fighting the blight and who also has years of experience of leading their branch of organisation in amaranthine. we should not put them in charge. let's call a guy who willingly got rid of the inquisition 10 years ago instead. they fought a fake archdemon once or something. this shall suffice

[heartslogos]

the declassified texts of the inquisition’s elite [138]

(832):  Remember how I have such good luck that it's almost bullshit? (1-832):  I'm afraid to ask, but go on. - (206):  There were firefighters and a fire truck up the street. I asked what was wrong and their exact words were "Just a tiny explosion; it'll be all right" -

“Almost? What do you mean almost? It’s definitely bullshit,” Max says. “Cassandra, please tell me that you corrected Ellana and told her it’s definitely some kind of cosmic farce. If there was a boundary between almost bullshit and definite bullshit Ellana’s strange fortunes saw it, did a running jump over it, and broke some kind of record for high or long distance jumping.”

“I’ve learned to pick my battles,” Cassandra replies, “And Ellana’s delusions about the fact that she is a statistical anomaly are a battle that I’m not going to waste my time engaging in. Do you want to know what happened or are you going to nitpick on the word almost some more?”

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just — at this point in time she shouldn’t be thinking in such uncertain terms about herself. Evelyn’s embraced in.”

“Your cousin’s luck doesn’t trend towards the positive, Maxwell.”

“She’s still alive, isn’t she? And not in jail? I’d count those as positives.”

“You set a low bar.”

“A bar that most people would have hit by now,” Max smiles, “If it were me you had found at the blast site instead of my cousin I have no doubts that I’d be in solitary confinement with a death sentence and a rapidly approaching execution date.”

Two spots of red-pink quickly burn through on Cassandra’s cheeks. “I — you’re not exactly wrong. But I like to think that I would have attempted to get you a fair trial.”

“No need to be embarrassed. I’m well aware of how I can…shall we say taunt people into a blind rage with my general existence?” Max waves a hand. “Enough about me, for once, back to Ellana. What happened? I’m also wondering why she called you. I didn’t realize you two were that close.”

“We are not that close,” Cassandra admits, “But — well. It appears that Ellana discovered several missing Seeker artifacts that had gone missing ages ago during some sort of natural disaster. There was a period of time around the Dragon age when the Seekers were all but disbanded and several of their strongholds were either raided or abandoned.”

“Where in the world did Ellana find these artifacts? I imagine that the entire Seeker line has been keeping an eye out for them this entire time.”

“Well. That would be Ellana’s luck factor, I suppose. I do not think there has ever been anyone in this entire world with that sort of passive fortune. She was touring a property that Josephine was looking into acquiring for the Inquisition and renovating into some sort of guest house for when we have people in the area working long term. Apparently the former owner was some sort of…not hoarder. Reseller, I believe. I am not very clear of the specific details, other than that they had several unmarked boxes of items they would be leaving behind because they could not sell them. Ellana opened them to check and make sure they were not anything dangerous or otherwise suspect.”

“And she recognized them on the spot?”

“No, she was actually going to throw them away or send them to be recycled. But then she found a sword and you know how much Ellana likes swords.”

“You, Ellana, Mahanon, the Iron Bull — you could form a club. A dueling club.”

“You forgot to include yourself on that list, Maxwell.”

“I can be treasurer.”

“Ellana called me because she recognized some sort of decoration on the sheathe as being similar to the one on one of my swords and it gave her a feeling.”

“Ah, the infamous Lavellan feelings.”

“I had her send me some pictures and then video call me. It all looks legitimate, and if not, then incredibly good replicas by someone who must have seen them previously or have knowledge of the originals. Even if these items turn out to be fakes it will be an incredible find for the Seekers and our history.” Cassandra laughs, a sharp and quick burst of sound that startles Maxwell. “I almost did not answer her phone call.”

“Really?”

“Yes. She had been getting on my nerves a few days before, you see. We had gotten into an argument over the planned route for a deployment for Sutherland’s team to the Emprise. I thought she was going too easy on them and giving them a rather lax schedule, and she the opposite of me. I feel rather silly about it now. Though I suppose in a round about way the argument led to this because she went off to handle some of the suggested tasks in some of the locations I had wanted to assign to Sutherland and ended up picking up Josephine’s request to investigate the property along the way.”

- “Was that our emergency crew, or was that — well. A regular emergency dispatch from the county or city?” Evelyn asks as Edric reads out the text message received from Herah regarding her investigation.

“Unclear,” Edric says, running his thumb over his lower lip as he continues to message Herah. “Hopefully not ours, that’s a bad response to be giving to people asking questions. We’d end up on the news again for careless disregard for public safety. Again.”

“If it’s our people telling that to Herah then they know what they’re doing,” Evelyn points out, “Now, if it’s not our people then that’s where I’ll get worried. Either they’re hiding something, in over their heads, or completely unaware of what’s actually happening.”

“There’s the possibility that it’s locals who know exactly what they’re doing.”

“True. But unlikely. Just a tiny explosion? In the middle of downtown Serault? Even a tiny explosion in the famous city of glass can be deadly and a big problem for everyone involved. And with the timing of it? Just as Herah’s going there to talk to some key witnesses and check on the security and integrity of key evidence for one of our upcoming trials? I don’t think so.” Evelyn glances to the side of her computer screen to watch the ongoing news report about the explosion on the muted television mounted to the wall. “We’ll leave that to Herah and her team for now. Any updates on Sutherland?”

“They’re quick learners,” Edric says. “I think they’re ready to start working on higher ranked missions without one of the senior Inquisition members watching them on site. Maybe as an overseeing resource they can consult for help if they get stuck, but it should be fine remotely.”

“Do you have anything in mind for them?”

“Investigating the smuggling activity along the Storm Coast. It’s close enough to some of our bigger Inquisition bases that they’ll have back up ready if they get in trouble or stumble on something big. And the Storm Coast is the perfect area to get in trouble. Not much around in the way of collateral damage if some kind of fire fight breaks out.”

“Talk it over with Cullen and see what he can pass over to them. I’m keeping them under Cullen’s command for now.”