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10 mos ago
The last post below me is a lie
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10 mos ago
THE SACRIFICE IS COMPLETE. THE BOILERMEN HAVE FRESH SOULS. THEY CAN DO SHIFT CHANGES.
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Was that supposed to be an anime reference
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I live in America, but the m, e, r , i, c are silent
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Harry Potter is not a world view, read another book or I will piss on the moon with my super laser piss.
Most Recent Posts
The comment above me is too comment and needs a comment
I'm sorry you need to hear this but I thought you needed to know that I keep reading the title of this RP as sounding like, "Conflicts of Ya-Yeet".
The number of trophies made him feel empty. No matter the story or the meaning to each it did not fill some unknowable hole in his heart. He could only feel the gesture of its pit. He had tried to fill it with many things but battle, wine, women, hunting. But nothing resolved it, nothing entirely saved him from the nagging feeling there was yet something to accomplish in the world. And he had the impression that it was nothing entirely defined by these objects.
The prince Artoia Amallo lay on the floor with his hands clasped over his chest and his legs crossed. He starred up at the mantel over the fire place where hung a notable many trophies and stories that hung there. He recounted how he got them, and what they had done. But no matter what, nothing had centered his thoughts on what it was he was doubtful about and he puzzled over that as much as he recollected the bygones of his life.
Center above the fire, reflecting the bright sunlight that came through silver-white curtain sheets thing as spider's web was the misshapen helmet of some Murissian noble, some minor character from long ago. The first to be killed when he went to battle as his father's squire – or, one of several of them – and the first man he had killed. On some hot and steaming field under the threat of rain and after the passage of an earlier storm they had waded in mud half way to their knees to reach a hill to overlook the main battle to come. Duke Adolfiano Clairmont Artoya Amallo resplendent in his polished plate steel with a cape of elk's hide slung over a shoulder and clasped with a silver buckle over his heart, his plumed helmet dancing high with a dozen long feathers over him. He was a sight to behold, with his war hammer fresh and gleaming in the stormy light clasped in his two hands. Despite all the weight that wore on the armored duke his persistance and determination to climb that damned muddy hill invigorated the youths selected as his retinue of squires; many of them were low born.
They had topped that hill to have only a second of piece before a retinue of light horseman charged on them from their flank. Artoia saw his first man die when a lance pierced through the right shoulder of the lightly armored young man ahead of him and dashed him across the mud as the point ran through to the underside of his arm and breaking the spear from the rider's hands. The next moment Artoia was dodging horses as his father the duke took a swing with his hammer, unbroken as a spear broke off his heavy armor and cracked a horse's legs out from under it with a meaty snap of its bones, spilling it and the rider head over end into the sodden earth.
By the end of the engagement several of their companions were dead, and Adolfiano was unphased. Artoia stood beside his father as more men raced to meet them and as the fellow knights down below the hill raced to relieve their foolish lord. Moments before they would arrive Artoia fought the charge's commander in solo combat, and rested his sword in the left eye of the gray clad commander's face.
It was his first finest moment. And bringing the man's head to camp he was celebrated by the knights and they shared with him his first drink of mead as the stripped away the helmet and carried away the skull. Last he had heard it was prepared to make some man's wine cup, perhaps his someday; but he never saw it and he since privately wondered if the head somehow found its way back. That was nearly a generation ago, he had grown thirty since, married a baron's daughter, and had children.
Looking at the misshapen and rusting helmet he began to wonder at just how tiny it seemed compared to all things. Especially in the light of his other trophies. He had taken many things – in fact, many parts of people even – as trophies in various battles and skirmishes over the years that the act of battle itself began to seem a mundane thing, and he started to ponder if that was part of the problem. But if it was mundane: then in what way had it become mundane? What was so trivial about it? Could all encounters be trivial, such as they become?
Maybe? His eyes wandered to another trophy. A set of inconspicuous looking objects, hinges; but not just any hinges. These hinges came from a gate house. Fastened to the wall by heavy iron stakes alongside his family coat of arms that hung high over the fire place two enormous wrought-iron hinges the length of a forearm hung collecting dust. These came from some mountain fortress he lead an assault on one night with the war against the Union to break the line for the coalition assault into the heartland of the Union's foothold in Styria. It was not the first time he commanded, but felt at the time his grandest achievement in his young career. For several days they had laid the valley fort to frequent slow battering by trebuchet before under cover of night creeping to the walls as they set the field ablaze with wet pine to create a heavy smoke that darkened the already dark night. He had gone in first, as all good sons of the city do and forced open the gates and set fire to much of the fort as a blind and confused force of Union soldiers scattered and barricaded themselves in the keep. Once inside, they locked them in and simply let them starve for months; opening once the stench became too strong and then burning the place.
But, there seemed to be something wrong about that. A sense of an abuse of cruelty. But was this not war? Was that not how he came to understand the act of war itself? An armed tactical execution of cruelty? And besides: what was cruel? Could something be defined as cruel of the act itself was good, to win against the enemy and in finding resolute victory perhaps lessen the over all human cost of war by ending it swiftly? But then, that would make history seem silly, or the history of his land and his family and that puzzled him deeply. It left behind the odd intangible gulf deep in his soul.
It all seemed... small. But, why?
Outside the sounds of seabirds echoed in the air. The sea smelled sweet with the smell of salt and meat. Leaving the question now would only hold off on finding the answer that nagged at him. It would be a reprieve from the terror of meditation and stay the fear. But so long as he was still, he would only return to it. Even as he lay on the floor with his head resting on the carpet and his blonde hair fanning out from under his head he could see a distant future possibility where no part of his day was without the nagging question and it froze him. He: as the duke's prince and eldest heir to the throne, with more wealth than most of the land could even dream of having, and having so much: why did he feel he yet had so little? Where was his failing, how was he not like his father, brave to an insane fault, even reckless.
There was a rap on his door and the prince turned his head. “Come in.” he said in a soft rasping voice.
It opened, standing there in his livery was a castle servant. His face was as dour and formal as it could be. His mustache and beard waxed to an impressive gleam and holding strong like iron. “The mid-day meal is ready. Would you like to eat in your chambers or in the hall.”
“I'll eat in the hall. I'll go soon.”
The servant nodded, and bowed as he walked from the door, leaving it open. Artoia's stomach growled. Another day perhaps.
The prince Artoia Amallo lay on the floor with his hands clasped over his chest and his legs crossed. He starred up at the mantel over the fire place where hung a notable many trophies and stories that hung there. He recounted how he got them, and what they had done. But no matter what, nothing had centered his thoughts on what it was he was doubtful about and he puzzled over that as much as he recollected the bygones of his life.
Center above the fire, reflecting the bright sunlight that came through silver-white curtain sheets thing as spider's web was the misshapen helmet of some Murissian noble, some minor character from long ago. The first to be killed when he went to battle as his father's squire – or, one of several of them – and the first man he had killed. On some hot and steaming field under the threat of rain and after the passage of an earlier storm they had waded in mud half way to their knees to reach a hill to overlook the main battle to come. Duke Adolfiano Clairmont Artoya Amallo resplendent in his polished plate steel with a cape of elk's hide slung over a shoulder and clasped with a silver buckle over his heart, his plumed helmet dancing high with a dozen long feathers over him. He was a sight to behold, with his war hammer fresh and gleaming in the stormy light clasped in his two hands. Despite all the weight that wore on the armored duke his persistance and determination to climb that damned muddy hill invigorated the youths selected as his retinue of squires; many of them were low born.
They had topped that hill to have only a second of piece before a retinue of light horseman charged on them from their flank. Artoia saw his first man die when a lance pierced through the right shoulder of the lightly armored young man ahead of him and dashed him across the mud as the point ran through to the underside of his arm and breaking the spear from the rider's hands. The next moment Artoia was dodging horses as his father the duke took a swing with his hammer, unbroken as a spear broke off his heavy armor and cracked a horse's legs out from under it with a meaty snap of its bones, spilling it and the rider head over end into the sodden earth.
By the end of the engagement several of their companions were dead, and Adolfiano was unphased. Artoia stood beside his father as more men raced to meet them and as the fellow knights down below the hill raced to relieve their foolish lord. Moments before they would arrive Artoia fought the charge's commander in solo combat, and rested his sword in the left eye of the gray clad commander's face.
It was his first finest moment. And bringing the man's head to camp he was celebrated by the knights and they shared with him his first drink of mead as the stripped away the helmet and carried away the skull. Last he had heard it was prepared to make some man's wine cup, perhaps his someday; but he never saw it and he since privately wondered if the head somehow found its way back. That was nearly a generation ago, he had grown thirty since, married a baron's daughter, and had children.
Looking at the misshapen and rusting helmet he began to wonder at just how tiny it seemed compared to all things. Especially in the light of his other trophies. He had taken many things – in fact, many parts of people even – as trophies in various battles and skirmishes over the years that the act of battle itself began to seem a mundane thing, and he started to ponder if that was part of the problem. But if it was mundane: then in what way had it become mundane? What was so trivial about it? Could all encounters be trivial, such as they become?
Maybe? His eyes wandered to another trophy. A set of inconspicuous looking objects, hinges; but not just any hinges. These hinges came from a gate house. Fastened to the wall by heavy iron stakes alongside his family coat of arms that hung high over the fire place two enormous wrought-iron hinges the length of a forearm hung collecting dust. These came from some mountain fortress he lead an assault on one night with the war against the Union to break the line for the coalition assault into the heartland of the Union's foothold in Styria. It was not the first time he commanded, but felt at the time his grandest achievement in his young career. For several days they had laid the valley fort to frequent slow battering by trebuchet before under cover of night creeping to the walls as they set the field ablaze with wet pine to create a heavy smoke that darkened the already dark night. He had gone in first, as all good sons of the city do and forced open the gates and set fire to much of the fort as a blind and confused force of Union soldiers scattered and barricaded themselves in the keep. Once inside, they locked them in and simply let them starve for months; opening once the stench became too strong and then burning the place.
But, there seemed to be something wrong about that. A sense of an abuse of cruelty. But was this not war? Was that not how he came to understand the act of war itself? An armed tactical execution of cruelty? And besides: what was cruel? Could something be defined as cruel of the act itself was good, to win against the enemy and in finding resolute victory perhaps lessen the over all human cost of war by ending it swiftly? But then, that would make history seem silly, or the history of his land and his family and that puzzled him deeply. It left behind the odd intangible gulf deep in his soul.
It all seemed... small. But, why?
Outside the sounds of seabirds echoed in the air. The sea smelled sweet with the smell of salt and meat. Leaving the question now would only hold off on finding the answer that nagged at him. It would be a reprieve from the terror of meditation and stay the fear. But so long as he was still, he would only return to it. Even as he lay on the floor with his head resting on the carpet and his blonde hair fanning out from under his head he could see a distant future possibility where no part of his day was without the nagging question and it froze him. He: as the duke's prince and eldest heir to the throne, with more wealth than most of the land could even dream of having, and having so much: why did he feel he yet had so little? Where was his failing, how was he not like his father, brave to an insane fault, even reckless.
There was a rap on his door and the prince turned his head. “Come in.” he said in a soft rasping voice.
It opened, standing there in his livery was a castle servant. His face was as dour and formal as it could be. His mustache and beard waxed to an impressive gleam and holding strong like iron. “The mid-day meal is ready. Would you like to eat in your chambers or in the hall.”
“I'll eat in the hall. I'll go soon.”
The servant nodded, and bowed as he walked from the door, leaving it open. Artoia's stomach growled. Another day perhaps.
City-State: Sipani
Re-pasta'ing this because it's done.
City-State: Sipani
Ruler: Duke Adolfiano Clairmont Artoya Amallo
Flag:
Capital Description: Sipani is a moderately sized coastal city, long home to many long lived minor noble houses. The rising colorful facades of the centuries old buildings rise up a gentle sloping hill on the coast line, bordered on one side by the gently rolling black waters of the Olba river. Its white walls skirt the hill, while just outside at its base the assembled and scattered hovels of the urban poor are often scattered in hodgepodge hamlets just in the shadow of the towers and bastions. Atop the city mount, the ancient Ducal Palace stands soaring high over the city, from whence the ancient blood-soaked nobility has lived within the comfortable confines of their city.
While outside the walls, vineyards and orchards rolls over the picturesque green hills among wheats and the sentinels of the mills. Castles to the minor nobles lay scattered throughout the land brooding over their own serfs and principalities within the city-state. Their flags form a rainbow that hides the sky when all assembled.
History: The city-state of Sipani has long been ruled by its dukes. Through intrigues or marriage successive families have gone in and out of the ducal palace located at the center of the city, atop its central mount. Priding itself on its fertile soils the families and people of the city accrued a modest wealth to themselves, made all the more better by the river. While the city never ascended to the power and dignity of many of the other cities of the continent, they still came to cherish a certain life-style.
The aristocracy of the state though have always held a long tradition of "chivalric virtue" and romance to war. In ancient times when Styria had a king they would be foremost among his knights, first to charge to battle. Meanwhile at home, for reasons forgotten, they've long held a rivalry with the nearby city-state of Muris that has been the central locust of conflict for the sons of Sipani. Repeatedly over the generations clashes have broken up between them and their neighbor for any number of reasons. Sometimes minor, oft-times major rolling regional conflicts. Though, one side has not gained the upper hand for long and the tides of this seemingly permanent feud are locked in a constant ebb and flow.
Lately, with the forceful demise of the Union in Styria and their ouster from the city of Westport the conflict with Muris was put on hold as a broad coalition of Azure Sea principalities pooled together their resources and battled the Union from their coasts. Sipani was among them, lending their sons and levees into the new enemy of the moment alongside mercenaries from Vesserine and Puranti as well as their rivals of Muris.
With Westporn fallen to its new mercenary king, the knights of Sipani return home ennobled by another grand war and with bounty looted. But as the wine flows, old troubles have not been doused and a war again for the river may return.
City-State: Sipani
Ruler: Duke Adolfiano Clairmont Artoya Amallo
Flag:
Capital Description: Sipani is a moderately sized coastal city, long home to many long lived minor noble houses. The rising colorful facades of the centuries old buildings rise up a gentle sloping hill on the coast line, bordered on one side by the gently rolling black waters of the Olba river. Its white walls skirt the hill, while just outside at its base the assembled and scattered hovels of the urban poor are often scattered in hodgepodge hamlets just in the shadow of the towers and bastions. Atop the city mount, the ancient Ducal Palace stands soaring high over the city, from whence the ancient blood-soaked nobility has lived within the comfortable confines of their city.
While outside the walls, vineyards and orchards rolls over the picturesque green hills among wheats and the sentinels of the mills. Castles to the minor nobles lay scattered throughout the land brooding over their own serfs and principalities within the city-state. Their flags form a rainbow that hides the sky when all assembled.
History: The city-state of Sipani has long been ruled by its dukes. Through intrigues or marriage successive families have gone in and out of the ducal palace located at the center of the city, atop its central mount. Priding itself on its fertile soils the families and people of the city accrued a modest wealth to themselves, made all the more better by the river. While the city never ascended to the power and dignity of many of the other cities of the continent, they still came to cherish a certain life-style.
The aristocracy of the state though have always held a long tradition of "chivalric virtue" and romance to war. In ancient times when Styria had a king they would be foremost among his knights, first to charge to battle. Meanwhile at home, for reasons forgotten, they've long held a rivalry with the nearby city-state of Muris that has been the central locust of conflict for the sons of Sipani. Repeatedly over the generations clashes have broken up between them and their neighbor for any number of reasons. Sometimes minor, oft-times major rolling regional conflicts. Though, one side has not gained the upper hand for long and the tides of this seemingly permanent feud are locked in a constant ebb and flow.
Lately, with the forceful demise of the Union in Styria and their ouster from the city of Westport the conflict with Muris was put on hold as a broad coalition of Azure Sea principalities pooled together their resources and battled the Union from their coasts. Sipani was among them, lending their sons and levees into the new enemy of the moment alongside mercenaries from Vesserine and Puranti as well as their rivals of Muris.
With Westporn fallen to its new mercenary king, the knights of Sipani return home ennobled by another grand war and with bounty looted. But as the wine flows, old troubles have not been doused and a war again for the river may return.
Stepping into the corridor Peidro Callibiano remarked on the top his father took him to see the Monks of Vaquizialle decades ago, before the war started and when he was but a boy. The trip was to, in his father's words: to make him a man. The walk through the red valley had filled him with a daunting dread as the uneven and misshapen rocks loomed overhead. The sunlight that streamed in from the narrow crevasse of a roof of the valley filtered a blood red. He had gone there to be plunged into darkness and into water, to be isolated from humanity and so all he could confront was himself. For three days and four nights he was left adrift in a shallow pool in a closed tomb feeling the madness of hunger creep in on him and until he could confront himself with the sword of his mind.
And now bathed in the citrine glow of the painted halls of the Caramellion Company he was again off to confront a challenge of the mind. Though he no longer was to fight himself, and that which he came to confront was by no means an enemy. It was just simply what was to be laid out for him that was to be his new challenge in life. His hand went to the hem of his cloak as he approached a door, and he bowed to the guard there. The door was opened to him.
When Peidro had gone to the Monks of Vaquizialle, his last meal was of bread and simple water, as all the monks ate, and he was soon ushered after into his darkened tomb as the abbot stood above him reciting his prayer, “For life is as a flower, to die in one season and bloom again. Our seeds on the wind is our mind and our sword” and the lid was shut. For a time that felt like an eternity he felt he had urinated in the dark water, and for a century after it began to no longer matter. His first experience was that of reaching and groping around the tomb to find an exit, or a hole, or some sort of escape. But alas, it was sealed against his escape and from light. Even sound was muted to him and all he could hear was his sloshing about, the ripples of the water magnified by a force of a thousand in sound sensitive ears that held him away for millennia. The creeping dementia of madness later coming to him as his partner and offering up his phantoms and his futures with soft whispered words.
Beyond the door the citric light of the stained glass was broken as the room opened up ahead of him onto a wide rich balcony with flowing vines wrapped around the columns and railings in marital veils of scarlet and pink. Beyond which in its frame was the city of Compa Deál Sal and its ancient planned promenades and its brick apartments and colorful merchant and guild halls. Above which was the towering caps of the Temple of the Lady Merciful.
“Don DeMolle.” a rustic voice said from the far corner of the room. Seated in a reclining coach lay the figure of the Sub-Admiral of the Company, Sesta Cómplainoma Ille Monte. A richly deviled man with a lion's mane of a beard whose eyes shone sharp even in the subdued light, “Thank you for coming.”
“Don Monte.” Peidro answered him with a bow. He approached the couch nearest him and took a seat.
“Please, make yourself comfortable.” the admiral beckoned with a gentle wave of his hand, “I don't want my guests uncomfortable.” as Peidro right himself Sesta continued, “You have made it this far, so I imagine you have the request in consideration?”
“I have your honor. But it's a matter of question right now. You see; I don't entirely understand what is going on?”
“It's easy to understand, so I felt- but it's unusual for our history. But the kingdom needs its jails emptied. And our honored king – his name, may it be blessed for all time for surely he is good and we shall not speak ill – wishes for us to expedite the problem. He at the court as we have too at the company heard, there is some strange new land far out to sea never before known by any sailor since. There have been movements towards claiming pieces of it and we would rather not be left or, or rather I should say this brings us a great advantage. As our king is merciful - his name, may it be blessed for all time for surely he is good and we shall not speak ill – and instead of simply executing the lot wants them to start over again and prove their piety and virtue. Such and such as I wrote down when I sent my dispatch. Surely you understand this?”
Peidro nodded.
“Well excellent. In any case we have outfitted enough ships to take across the sea and establish territory where you land, organize, house, and maintain your charges for the duration of their services. Administer punishments and parole for their behavior and all together see to it that their virtue and loyalty is proved. After which, they can return at the earlier convenience and have what bit of their land or titles are owed to be returned to them, or they can stay in the new world and reforge those same legacies as they have had here in their home countries in a new land and be entirely new men.
“The prisoners are not your only charge. Taking on this command you shall be offered the obligatory companies of marines to help keep order or to defend the expedition; however you may wish to use them. As well, a number of already free peasants and free men have volunteered themselves to be fed to this new world. These last people, they are fortunate. You have mostly nobles and their men at arms at your disposal and various other criminals. I don't think their skills would be all that great to you, if they have any. Many are fighting men, not farmers or craftsmen. And besides the sailors you'll need all the trained hands and men at your disposal as you see fit. And it'll be good to dispose of the excess population, frees up space for the rest of us. Less beggars on the street. Filthy animals. They'll be domesticated well in the new world.”
“I know that.” Peidro said. “But what I really would like to know is how I'm supposed to do this?”
The admiral raised his head and nodded. He sat up, “Care for a walk?” he invited, holding out a hand. Peidro took it and the two strolled to the balcony.
“This contract is a peculiar request and will be an adventure of the highest order.” Sesta went on, “We need creative geniuses and you have been everything beyond a creative genius, from the handling of the company merchant marine and our various other demands. Your life, both in up bringing and in profession is admirable and respected. Further: you have the attention of the king – may his name and so forth and so forth – you have a war record, and when we submitted our proposal to he and the court you were chief in our highest rated candidates on our front. The faith invested in you comes not from me or the Admiral-Magistrate of the company but from the Crown itself. A crown which is willing to place upon you the full title to the territory should you see it through its development. It's a charge of land that will be passed down from you to your children as titled house of not just your filial land but of a whole brave new world. Dynasty: and nothing less. The embarkment to be at the forefront of an empire that shall not know a day without the sun. For-
“Humanity is a flower and its seed is the word and the sword. I know.” Peidro finished for Sesta.
“I was going to say for all life. But the gist is all there. I wish I had some wine, this would make the occasion much better. But I don't.”
“I feel as though the idea would be intoxicating enough.”
“A grand and glorious dream!”
“I still do not understand, is there anything to be expected from this?”
“That is up to you. For now, it is for us to deal with prisoners and rebels in a way that benefits the Court and nothing less. We are being given their coin to see this carried out with honor and trust. And the Admiral-Magistrate is expecting results, however they might best come about.”
A ship is only a coffin with sails. As worms pry between the boards so too does the water leak through. A slimy mold and tar covers the walls to seal it, but only so well as the waves splash against it. And level on level the galleys of the ship are laid atop one another like a tomb. The air is musky and full of piss and shit, a yellow melange is not see but is felt in the air and the breath of the living cargo who spends their time sitting over buckets or wandering the decks in a choleric haze. Every so often one of the bodies dies, and passes into a second death. The death is too repulsive for the ship. The soldiers and ship hands move to drag it out of the holds and giving it simple rights toss it into the swirling green sea. A line of sharks follows the lumbering and towering four-masted carracks. Their hulls are as black as a hearse wagons, covered so thick in the pummeling of the sargassum of the sea and for their thick pine and coal tar sealant packed tight into the heavy oak boards.
Impregnated by the winds, the red and orange sails of the prison fleet are full on the mast. Every sheet is down. The canvas is full and lively. Everywhere in the rigging is a sailor, either resting as he plays watch, or at work with the ship's maintenance. Every so often on the breeze shouting is heard between the ships as conversations are made at the height of roaring shouts or the learned whistles of the mountain people, their conversations go further and cut deeper through the sound of the crashing waves.
Days out, perhaps a week from leaving harbor with their hulls full up of excommunicated and dishonored nobles and their retinues a storm struck the fleet and nearly crippled a ship as a wave broke over the decks and flooded into the holds, endangering the stocks of powder and food underneath. Ropes were snapped and the taught lines nearly cut the sails as they were sprung loose. When the day cleared the fleet moved on slow as the dingheys moved between the boats carrying the officers as they went to council to decide on what to do with the injured ship. In the end, solidarity was decided and the fleet moved slower through the deep dark sea and its abysmal black waters as the crews toiled to set the ship right and salvage its stores.
And the people died on the voyage. Disease was rampant. Rats had brought fleas. An entire ship needed to be quarantined for fear of an epidemic and the transfer of supplies was done so with such choreographed caution it seemed to pass that nothing could ever be moved out of fear of the ship's plague. The bodies aboard this ship rained out from over the rails. They began to no longer wrap the bodies and simply plunged them into the sea, their skin a vibrant yellow-green. The sharks became so excited that the bodies would hit the water and explode in blood and viscera. But as its body count climbed, so did the number of deaths and eventually the great flaring diseases subsided and its inferno passed.
But even as the passengers died, and death followed the fleet close behind, so did the mid-wife of life. In the putrid and claustrophobia of the ships the secrets of love were still managed and women gave birth or showed sign of pregnancy. On one, ten newborns entered the world and midwives from one ship had to be ushered onto the one, both because the ladies refused to see the surgeon, or he could not see to all of them. And among these peasants, the seed of life was passed.
“Arcadio, it grows.” says a middle-aged woman, as she reveals a lump of clay she had hidden in the pocket sewn onto her blouse. In her hand a dark clump of earth and clay sat shaped in gentle careful hands. Growing from it, a hardy sapling grew, its few twisted purple leaves as misshapen and crushed as they were bearing the sign of life.
Arcadio, a younger man with a rough face looked down at it. The emptiness of his expression filled as he saw the tree in the woman's hands. “It does. How have you managed it?” he asked.
The aging woman smiled a croaked smile. She was a peasant's wife, who never once given birth. For it she had been expelled from her family and her village when her husband took a much younger girl as a wife and had eight children by her in the span of fourteen years. But she: she had not sired one human child. She had however brought many a tree to life.
“Madre Arquistra, her energy and stubbornness knows no bound or limit.” she said in a soothed voice. She held the sapling in its clod of dirt with the gentleness often afforded only to infants, “I have watered it from the mildew that seeps through the boards. Through the blood from my own fingers. I keep it close to my heart, so it can feel the warmth of my breast.” she said, holding a hand to a spot over a secret pocket in her shirt that only she knew about, “The ship is horrible, but not so much to kill it. As long as it lives most of us shall live, and as long as it lives, so to shall the children here live.”
“Does it know how long we have until we land?” asked Arcadio.
The woman smiled, “It doesn't speak to me. But I see in its life that it knows we will make it. Perhaps soon, it is alive after all. It has the secret hope that Arquistra provides. It refuses to succumb, as weaker men have. We need only persist.”
Don Acorianado had been a knight once. At the height of his prominence he had lead into battle five hundred men and commanded an estate with two hundred servants and peasants tied to him. But when he rode into battle against the king he had been struck from his horse with a mace to the face. His helmet saved his life even as it caved into him and sent him tumbling to the ground. The high ostrich feathers that crowned his opulent armor were stolen by a passing by men at arms as he lay bleeding and unconscious in the mud of the battle field and ever hand that passed him took from his person a trophy: his sword, his feathers, his sash, pieces of his armor. He had been found later by the priests who dragged his naked body to the pyre to be burned, believing he had been dead. But the spark of heat that lit the fire awakened the spark of life in his chest and he burst from the fire like a desert flower after the rain and darted to and fro in a confused daze before being captured. Interrogated, he gave his name in confusion as he thought he was with friends and dully arrested and imprisoned. Fighting infection in prison and the delirium of losing his honor he fell into a dark rhapsody of melancholic mourning wishing only for his own annihilation. But when the Virtuous Mother failed to give to him death he finally surrendered to circumstance, not even the gallows or the ax came to save him and he boarded the ship a husk of a man.
Once handsome he had commanded a head of the finest golden blonde hair which fell out with lice and illness and he was bald all over his body. His nose was once finely chiseled and remarked upon as being the finest sigh of classical beauty, but the mace that had broken his face had shattered that and now it was broken and flattened awkwardly against his face. His cheek bones were uneven, and one eye had been swollen and lost to infection. He was a one-eyed creature of disillusionment and an ogre to behold. Aboard the ship when a part of his humanity returned he fully realized the hideousness of his face and covered it with a shroud and became like one of the desert folk of the far south but pale and ivory like a ghost. He refused contact with many of his shipments, especially those he considered too beautiful for himself which were many. He secluded himself in the hold, rarely emerging to eat and acquired the associated identity of a rat eater, to the relief of those youths already so low; because they could come into the light.
By the time the ships found shore, the sunlight blinded his one good eye and he shrank back in the row boat against the shoulders of his fellow prisoners.
“Stay calm, brother.” advised a former knight such himself, taking pity on him, “It is only the light of the merciful sun.
“By the damned gods it is too bright!” moaned Don Acorianado as his hand twisted infront of his face, “Damn it, put a shade on it!”
The boat laughed as it pushed off from the galleon and drifted out towards the shore. With time his eyes adjusted and Acordianado could look out at the world around him. The boat was adrift on sapphire blue waters towards an island so packed with trees the forest at the shoreline formed what looked to be an impenetrable wall as daunting as any castle wall he had stood before with canon and sword. He was amazed by it, by the mountains beyond and a sky filled with only nature and the birds. They seemed to be the only ships on the waters, the only life on a vast continent. What was a man like him supposed to do with a wilderness so untamed? Where were the finely nurtured orchards, of forests so well tamed a man could walk unblocked from one end to another like he was on the road? He first thought it was a land too wonderful for a ghoul such as him, but then as they came closer and he could see the darkness of the forest that it was exactly the catacombs for a ghoul like him and he was just deeper in his prison; all of the sunlight and open air could not hide this fact.
He looked abroad and saw in one boat the gilded flags and glistening armor and spears and muskets of the fleet's admiral. Of Peidro Callibiano deMolle and he recognized him at once as the bastard noble that had stolen away his estate and absorbed his last charge in that fateful battle with the mace and he grew angry, for what little he could feeling the overburdening despair at this new land. What bastard like him with his full armor, his crimson cloak, and fully crested helmet had any right to be here: with him. Why couldn't there be a lesser noble, some exceptional peasant even who rose through the ranks of the company? The ex-knight felt immediately cursed, insulted at by the gods as he looked upon Peidro with his strong round chin, eloquently small nose, bright green eyes, and sagely autumnal beard. His host on his boat enhancing an imperial image and prestige as it made landfall and they stepped out for immediate inspection. There was a map, a chart. A plan perhaps and as they came up just behind the ordained task was realized immediately: they were work crew.
Peidro did not speak to anyone, but turned to look at them with a passing glance over all their heads and with a nod surrendered it over to an underling. A captain with a large black beard and whose face was obscured by the shade cast by the brim of his helmet, “Pull the boats on shore, make way for the rest. Pull out the axes and hatchets and clear out the brush! Prepare to lay out for the tents!”
Actions, I guess:
And now bathed in the citrine glow of the painted halls of the Caramellion Company he was again off to confront a challenge of the mind. Though he no longer was to fight himself, and that which he came to confront was by no means an enemy. It was just simply what was to be laid out for him that was to be his new challenge in life. His hand went to the hem of his cloak as he approached a door, and he bowed to the guard there. The door was opened to him.
When Peidro had gone to the Monks of Vaquizialle, his last meal was of bread and simple water, as all the monks ate, and he was soon ushered after into his darkened tomb as the abbot stood above him reciting his prayer, “For life is as a flower, to die in one season and bloom again. Our seeds on the wind is our mind and our sword” and the lid was shut. For a time that felt like an eternity he felt he had urinated in the dark water, and for a century after it began to no longer matter. His first experience was that of reaching and groping around the tomb to find an exit, or a hole, or some sort of escape. But alas, it was sealed against his escape and from light. Even sound was muted to him and all he could hear was his sloshing about, the ripples of the water magnified by a force of a thousand in sound sensitive ears that held him away for millennia. The creeping dementia of madness later coming to him as his partner and offering up his phantoms and his futures with soft whispered words.
Beyond the door the citric light of the stained glass was broken as the room opened up ahead of him onto a wide rich balcony with flowing vines wrapped around the columns and railings in marital veils of scarlet and pink. Beyond which in its frame was the city of Compa Deál Sal and its ancient planned promenades and its brick apartments and colorful merchant and guild halls. Above which was the towering caps of the Temple of the Lady Merciful.
“Don DeMolle.” a rustic voice said from the far corner of the room. Seated in a reclining coach lay the figure of the Sub-Admiral of the Company, Sesta Cómplainoma Ille Monte. A richly deviled man with a lion's mane of a beard whose eyes shone sharp even in the subdued light, “Thank you for coming.”
“Don Monte.” Peidro answered him with a bow. He approached the couch nearest him and took a seat.
“Please, make yourself comfortable.” the admiral beckoned with a gentle wave of his hand, “I don't want my guests uncomfortable.” as Peidro right himself Sesta continued, “You have made it this far, so I imagine you have the request in consideration?”
“I have your honor. But it's a matter of question right now. You see; I don't entirely understand what is going on?”
“It's easy to understand, so I felt- but it's unusual for our history. But the kingdom needs its jails emptied. And our honored king – his name, may it be blessed for all time for surely he is good and we shall not speak ill – wishes for us to expedite the problem. He at the court as we have too at the company heard, there is some strange new land far out to sea never before known by any sailor since. There have been movements towards claiming pieces of it and we would rather not be left or, or rather I should say this brings us a great advantage. As our king is merciful - his name, may it be blessed for all time for surely he is good and we shall not speak ill – and instead of simply executing the lot wants them to start over again and prove their piety and virtue. Such and such as I wrote down when I sent my dispatch. Surely you understand this?”
Peidro nodded.
“Well excellent. In any case we have outfitted enough ships to take across the sea and establish territory where you land, organize, house, and maintain your charges for the duration of their services. Administer punishments and parole for their behavior and all together see to it that their virtue and loyalty is proved. After which, they can return at the earlier convenience and have what bit of their land or titles are owed to be returned to them, or they can stay in the new world and reforge those same legacies as they have had here in their home countries in a new land and be entirely new men.
“The prisoners are not your only charge. Taking on this command you shall be offered the obligatory companies of marines to help keep order or to defend the expedition; however you may wish to use them. As well, a number of already free peasants and free men have volunteered themselves to be fed to this new world. These last people, they are fortunate. You have mostly nobles and their men at arms at your disposal and various other criminals. I don't think their skills would be all that great to you, if they have any. Many are fighting men, not farmers or craftsmen. And besides the sailors you'll need all the trained hands and men at your disposal as you see fit. And it'll be good to dispose of the excess population, frees up space for the rest of us. Less beggars on the street. Filthy animals. They'll be domesticated well in the new world.”
“I know that.” Peidro said. “But what I really would like to know is how I'm supposed to do this?”
The admiral raised his head and nodded. He sat up, “Care for a walk?” he invited, holding out a hand. Peidro took it and the two strolled to the balcony.
“This contract is a peculiar request and will be an adventure of the highest order.” Sesta went on, “We need creative geniuses and you have been everything beyond a creative genius, from the handling of the company merchant marine and our various other demands. Your life, both in up bringing and in profession is admirable and respected. Further: you have the attention of the king – may his name and so forth and so forth – you have a war record, and when we submitted our proposal to he and the court you were chief in our highest rated candidates on our front. The faith invested in you comes not from me or the Admiral-Magistrate of the company but from the Crown itself. A crown which is willing to place upon you the full title to the territory should you see it through its development. It's a charge of land that will be passed down from you to your children as titled house of not just your filial land but of a whole brave new world. Dynasty: and nothing less. The embarkment to be at the forefront of an empire that shall not know a day without the sun. For-
“Humanity is a flower and its seed is the word and the sword. I know.” Peidro finished for Sesta.
“I was going to say for all life. But the gist is all there. I wish I had some wine, this would make the occasion much better. But I don't.”
“I feel as though the idea would be intoxicating enough.”
“A grand and glorious dream!”
“I still do not understand, is there anything to be expected from this?”
“That is up to you. For now, it is for us to deal with prisoners and rebels in a way that benefits the Court and nothing less. We are being given their coin to see this carried out with honor and trust. And the Admiral-Magistrate is expecting results, however they might best come about.”
A ship is only a coffin with sails. As worms pry between the boards so too does the water leak through. A slimy mold and tar covers the walls to seal it, but only so well as the waves splash against it. And level on level the galleys of the ship are laid atop one another like a tomb. The air is musky and full of piss and shit, a yellow melange is not see but is felt in the air and the breath of the living cargo who spends their time sitting over buckets or wandering the decks in a choleric haze. Every so often one of the bodies dies, and passes into a second death. The death is too repulsive for the ship. The soldiers and ship hands move to drag it out of the holds and giving it simple rights toss it into the swirling green sea. A line of sharks follows the lumbering and towering four-masted carracks. Their hulls are as black as a hearse wagons, covered so thick in the pummeling of the sargassum of the sea and for their thick pine and coal tar sealant packed tight into the heavy oak boards.
Impregnated by the winds, the red and orange sails of the prison fleet are full on the mast. Every sheet is down. The canvas is full and lively. Everywhere in the rigging is a sailor, either resting as he plays watch, or at work with the ship's maintenance. Every so often on the breeze shouting is heard between the ships as conversations are made at the height of roaring shouts or the learned whistles of the mountain people, their conversations go further and cut deeper through the sound of the crashing waves.
Days out, perhaps a week from leaving harbor with their hulls full up of excommunicated and dishonored nobles and their retinues a storm struck the fleet and nearly crippled a ship as a wave broke over the decks and flooded into the holds, endangering the stocks of powder and food underneath. Ropes were snapped and the taught lines nearly cut the sails as they were sprung loose. When the day cleared the fleet moved on slow as the dingheys moved between the boats carrying the officers as they went to council to decide on what to do with the injured ship. In the end, solidarity was decided and the fleet moved slower through the deep dark sea and its abysmal black waters as the crews toiled to set the ship right and salvage its stores.
And the people died on the voyage. Disease was rampant. Rats had brought fleas. An entire ship needed to be quarantined for fear of an epidemic and the transfer of supplies was done so with such choreographed caution it seemed to pass that nothing could ever be moved out of fear of the ship's plague. The bodies aboard this ship rained out from over the rails. They began to no longer wrap the bodies and simply plunged them into the sea, their skin a vibrant yellow-green. The sharks became so excited that the bodies would hit the water and explode in blood and viscera. But as its body count climbed, so did the number of deaths and eventually the great flaring diseases subsided and its inferno passed.
But even as the passengers died, and death followed the fleet close behind, so did the mid-wife of life. In the putrid and claustrophobia of the ships the secrets of love were still managed and women gave birth or showed sign of pregnancy. On one, ten newborns entered the world and midwives from one ship had to be ushered onto the one, both because the ladies refused to see the surgeon, or he could not see to all of them. And among these peasants, the seed of life was passed.
“Arcadio, it grows.” says a middle-aged woman, as she reveals a lump of clay she had hidden in the pocket sewn onto her blouse. In her hand a dark clump of earth and clay sat shaped in gentle careful hands. Growing from it, a hardy sapling grew, its few twisted purple leaves as misshapen and crushed as they were bearing the sign of life.
Arcadio, a younger man with a rough face looked down at it. The emptiness of his expression filled as he saw the tree in the woman's hands. “It does. How have you managed it?” he asked.
The aging woman smiled a croaked smile. She was a peasant's wife, who never once given birth. For it she had been expelled from her family and her village when her husband took a much younger girl as a wife and had eight children by her in the span of fourteen years. But she: she had not sired one human child. She had however brought many a tree to life.
“Madre Arquistra, her energy and stubbornness knows no bound or limit.” she said in a soothed voice. She held the sapling in its clod of dirt with the gentleness often afforded only to infants, “I have watered it from the mildew that seeps through the boards. Through the blood from my own fingers. I keep it close to my heart, so it can feel the warmth of my breast.” she said, holding a hand to a spot over a secret pocket in her shirt that only she knew about, “The ship is horrible, but not so much to kill it. As long as it lives most of us shall live, and as long as it lives, so to shall the children here live.”
“Does it know how long we have until we land?” asked Arcadio.
The woman smiled, “It doesn't speak to me. But I see in its life that it knows we will make it. Perhaps soon, it is alive after all. It has the secret hope that Arquistra provides. It refuses to succumb, as weaker men have. We need only persist.”
Don Acorianado had been a knight once. At the height of his prominence he had lead into battle five hundred men and commanded an estate with two hundred servants and peasants tied to him. But when he rode into battle against the king he had been struck from his horse with a mace to the face. His helmet saved his life even as it caved into him and sent him tumbling to the ground. The high ostrich feathers that crowned his opulent armor were stolen by a passing by men at arms as he lay bleeding and unconscious in the mud of the battle field and ever hand that passed him took from his person a trophy: his sword, his feathers, his sash, pieces of his armor. He had been found later by the priests who dragged his naked body to the pyre to be burned, believing he had been dead. But the spark of heat that lit the fire awakened the spark of life in his chest and he burst from the fire like a desert flower after the rain and darted to and fro in a confused daze before being captured. Interrogated, he gave his name in confusion as he thought he was with friends and dully arrested and imprisoned. Fighting infection in prison and the delirium of losing his honor he fell into a dark rhapsody of melancholic mourning wishing only for his own annihilation. But when the Virtuous Mother failed to give to him death he finally surrendered to circumstance, not even the gallows or the ax came to save him and he boarded the ship a husk of a man.
Once handsome he had commanded a head of the finest golden blonde hair which fell out with lice and illness and he was bald all over his body. His nose was once finely chiseled and remarked upon as being the finest sigh of classical beauty, but the mace that had broken his face had shattered that and now it was broken and flattened awkwardly against his face. His cheek bones were uneven, and one eye had been swollen and lost to infection. He was a one-eyed creature of disillusionment and an ogre to behold. Aboard the ship when a part of his humanity returned he fully realized the hideousness of his face and covered it with a shroud and became like one of the desert folk of the far south but pale and ivory like a ghost. He refused contact with many of his shipments, especially those he considered too beautiful for himself which were many. He secluded himself in the hold, rarely emerging to eat and acquired the associated identity of a rat eater, to the relief of those youths already so low; because they could come into the light.
By the time the ships found shore, the sunlight blinded his one good eye and he shrank back in the row boat against the shoulders of his fellow prisoners.
“Stay calm, brother.” advised a former knight such himself, taking pity on him, “It is only the light of the merciful sun.
“By the damned gods it is too bright!” moaned Don Acorianado as his hand twisted infront of his face, “Damn it, put a shade on it!”
The boat laughed as it pushed off from the galleon and drifted out towards the shore. With time his eyes adjusted and Acordianado could look out at the world around him. The boat was adrift on sapphire blue waters towards an island so packed with trees the forest at the shoreline formed what looked to be an impenetrable wall as daunting as any castle wall he had stood before with canon and sword. He was amazed by it, by the mountains beyond and a sky filled with only nature and the birds. They seemed to be the only ships on the waters, the only life on a vast continent. What was a man like him supposed to do with a wilderness so untamed? Where were the finely nurtured orchards, of forests so well tamed a man could walk unblocked from one end to another like he was on the road? He first thought it was a land too wonderful for a ghoul such as him, but then as they came closer and he could see the darkness of the forest that it was exactly the catacombs for a ghoul like him and he was just deeper in his prison; all of the sunlight and open air could not hide this fact.
He looked abroad and saw in one boat the gilded flags and glistening armor and spears and muskets of the fleet's admiral. Of Peidro Callibiano deMolle and he recognized him at once as the bastard noble that had stolen away his estate and absorbed his last charge in that fateful battle with the mace and he grew angry, for what little he could feeling the overburdening despair at this new land. What bastard like him with his full armor, his crimson cloak, and fully crested helmet had any right to be here: with him. Why couldn't there be a lesser noble, some exceptional peasant even who rose through the ranks of the company? The ex-knight felt immediately cursed, insulted at by the gods as he looked upon Peidro with his strong round chin, eloquently small nose, bright green eyes, and sagely autumnal beard. His host on his boat enhancing an imperial image and prestige as it made landfall and they stepped out for immediate inspection. There was a map, a chart. A plan perhaps and as they came up just behind the ordained task was realized immediately: they were work crew.
Peidro did not speak to anyone, but turned to look at them with a passing glance over all their heads and with a nod surrendered it over to an underling. A captain with a large black beard and whose face was obscured by the shade cast by the brim of his helmet, “Pull the boats on shore, make way for the rest. Pull out the axes and hatchets and clear out the brush! Prepare to lay out for the tents!”
Actions, I guess:
Soon.jpeg
City-State: Sipani
Ruler: Duke Adolfiano Clairmont Artoya Amallo
Flag:
Capital Description: Sipani is a moderately sized coastal city, long home to many long lived minor noble houses. The rising colorful facades of the centuries old buildings rise up a gentle sloping hill on the coast line, bordered on one side by the gently rolling black waters of the Olba river. Its white walls skirt the hill, while just outside at its base the assembled and scattered hovels of the urban poor are often scattered in hodgepodge hamlets just in the shadow of the towers and bastions. Atop the city mount, the ancient Ducal Palace stands soaring high over the city, from whence the ancient blood-soaked nobility has lived within the comfortable confines of their city.
While outside the walls, vineyards and orchards rolls over the picturesque green hills among wheats and the sentinels of the mills. Castles to the minor nobles lay scattered throughout the land brooding over their own serfs and principalities within the city-state. Their flags form a rainbow that hides the sky when all assembled.
History: The city-state of Sipani has long been ruled by its dukes. Through intrigues or marriage successive families have gone in and out of the ducal palace located at the center of the city, atop its central mount. Priding itself on its fertile soils the families and people of the city accrued a modest wealth to themselves, made all the more better by the river. While the city never ascended to the power and dignity of many of the other cities of the continent, they still came to cherish a certain life-style.
The aristocracy of the state though have always held a long tradition of "chivalric virtue" and romance to war. In ancient times when Styria had a king they would be foremost among his knights, first to charge to battle. Meanwhile at home, for reasons forgotten, they've long held a rivalry with the nearby city-state of Muris that has been the central locust of conflict for the sons of Sipani. Repeatedly over the generations clashes have broken up between them and their neighbor for any number of reasons. Sometimes minor, oft-times major rolling regional conflicts. Though, one side has not gained the upper hand for long and the tides of this seemingly permanent feud are locked in a constant ebb and flow.
Lately, with the forceful demise of the Union in Styria and their ouster from the city of Westport the conflict with Muris was put on hold as a broad coalition of Azure Sea principalities pooled together their resources and battled the Union from their coasts. Sipani was among them, lending their sons and levees into the new enemy of the moment alongside mercenaries from Vesserine and Puranti as well as their rivals of Muris.
With Westporn fallen to its new mercenary king, the knights of Sipani return home ennobled by another grand war and with bounty looted. But as the wine flows, old troubles have not been doused and a war again for the river may return.
City-State: Sipani
Ruler: Duke Adolfiano Clairmont Artoya Amallo
Flag:
Capital Description: Sipani is a moderately sized coastal city, long home to many long lived minor noble houses. The rising colorful facades of the centuries old buildings rise up a gentle sloping hill on the coast line, bordered on one side by the gently rolling black waters of the Olba river. Its white walls skirt the hill, while just outside at its base the assembled and scattered hovels of the urban poor are often scattered in hodgepodge hamlets just in the shadow of the towers and bastions. Atop the city mount, the ancient Ducal Palace stands soaring high over the city, from whence the ancient blood-soaked nobility has lived within the comfortable confines of their city.
While outside the walls, vineyards and orchards rolls over the picturesque green hills among wheats and the sentinels of the mills. Castles to the minor nobles lay scattered throughout the land brooding over their own serfs and principalities within the city-state. Their flags form a rainbow that hides the sky when all assembled.
History: The city-state of Sipani has long been ruled by its dukes. Through intrigues or marriage successive families have gone in and out of the ducal palace located at the center of the city, atop its central mount. Priding itself on its fertile soils the families and people of the city accrued a modest wealth to themselves, made all the more better by the river. While the city never ascended to the power and dignity of many of the other cities of the continent, they still came to cherish a certain life-style.
The aristocracy of the state though have always held a long tradition of "chivalric virtue" and romance to war. In ancient times when Styria had a king they would be foremost among his knights, first to charge to battle. Meanwhile at home, for reasons forgotten, they've long held a rivalry with the nearby city-state of Muris that has been the central locust of conflict for the sons of Sipani. Repeatedly over the generations clashes have broken up between them and their neighbor for any number of reasons. Sometimes minor, oft-times major rolling regional conflicts. Though, one side has not gained the upper hand for long and the tides of this seemingly permanent feud are locked in a constant ebb and flow.
Lately, with the forceful demise of the Union in Styria and their ouster from the city of Westport the conflict with Muris was put on hold as a broad coalition of Azure Sea principalities pooled together their resources and battled the Union from their coasts. Sipani was among them, lending their sons and levees into the new enemy of the moment alongside mercenaries from Vesserine and Puranti as well as their rivals of Muris.
With Westporn fallen to its new mercenary king, the knights of Sipani return home ennobled by another grand war and with bounty looted. But as the wine flows, old troubles have not been doused and a war again for the river may return.
There's nothing else going on for me, so I'll see how this goes and pitch in. I'd like to hash out some ideas with this thing.
So get set up, dammit.
So get set up, dammit.
I've been sleeping in a tent for the past two months. It's part of a job. Paid camping!
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