Fall 158After a summer spent in violent operations, be them offensive action on Ngomzolak village, battles against city-destroying machines or desperate attempts to deescalate community conflicts with the vagrants, the city was hoping to spend the shortening days of the year consolidating their gains and recovering from the effort. This fall and the following winter then, there will be no major force projection, and instead a focus on domestic improvement.
Fanu is evictedThe case of Fanu Pumekaslu, the pearlite vagrant turned market bully, who during the past year alone, trampled an oatfield, killed a prized warbeast and assaulted commander Totten. Now pearlites are an understanding bunch, but even their patience was running thin.
The issue had been presented to Lady Desli multiple times this year, but after the aggression of Totten, she had no choice but to act.
She decided to condemn the brute to exile to the city of Edetledir. That solution, she thought, was tempered and would satisfy everyone : the villagers would be ridden of a violent pest who attacked both men and animals, Fanu would be punished only lightly considering the increasing gravity of his crimes, and Edetledir would benefit from an extra pair of arms for its reconstruction. At this point, Fanu was a pest, but he wasn’t a murderer. People wanted to get rid of him, not especially to enact retributive justice.
Gal, a newly appointed swornman, gave the vagrant his expulsion order the morning of the 8th of September. With the order, his recommendation letter to be given to governor Toki of Edetledir, so he could easily find employment in exile – another effort by Lady Desli to do right by the people she felt in charge of.
« You have quite a trip to do alone, I suggest you leave soon not to be caught by the night. »
Fanu batted the papers with his hand – they fell on the mud.
« Regardless, you have until tonight to leave the town » Gal continued, « If we find you in Kimaeslo Ori tomorrow morning, we’re throwing you out. »
The problem was solved – Gal went back to the barracks to attend a sword fighting lesson.
Uquur comes to townIt was still the wee hours in the morning when a shadowy figure arrived in Kiseabo’s tavern, the
Candies of Jade. It was an aging woman, carrying a large axe.
« I’d like to put a reservation for a room » she said. « I’d be staying a couple of weeks ».
At first, Kiseabo was surprised – nobody ever asked for a room in his tavern since he became a bartender – but an instant later, he realized that he knew that stranger : it was Uquur « Pale ghost by the candles »* Dirlugisep.
To say that Uquur was a famous person would be quite the understatement. She has been a persona in the world of martial arts since, as a young student of Stipoth Rozmowom of Tetzobsha, first axemaster of the kingdom, undertook the task of training the early militia of Thomocemir.
Uquur joined Thomocemir in 131Her renown grew even more as she fought on the frontline against Osme, as part of Pathril’s most sturdy fighters – to the point that the trader’s guild decided to name her as their mistress in 141 – after ten years of war.
Uquur was a fighter and have a limited trade experience, but her heroic status was enough to stop their decision. She then moved to the Queen’s residence, the manor near the village of Asuciro. At this point, her husband had become a captain in the army of Thomocemir, two of her kids died, and the last one had become a knight.
Uquur remained the most influencial figure in the royal court, here in 143 and 149, respectivelyFrom the court of Asuciro, she continued to organize the kingdom, establishing trade routes and keeping the settlements supplied.
Kiseabo, having been born and grown in the border fort in the swamp, knew Uquur personally since he was a child – he was very happy to see her again.
« Of course ! » he exclaimed. « Should I inform the Queen and the Lady of your presence in town ?
- No, just a meal and a room, that will be all. » she answered. « I’ll rest a bit, and go see them myself. »
A fight on the bridgeLater on the afternoon, there was a commotion on the bridge, near the eastern head. Fanu, who evidently did not comply to his eviction, was beating up a reindeer doe so badly that the poor animal was puking the content of her guts on the bridge, making vain and pitiful attempts to avoid the blows.
The population of the bridge would just stand around, witnessing the appalling spectacle, grinding their teeth, hoping Fanu would eventually leave without causing anymore damage.
Luckily, Fanu stopped beating the helpless animal before it was killed and the vagabond left the scene. The story however, was far from over : Fanu’s semi coherent wanderings taking him closer and closer to the barracks where Gal was training – furious and agitated even further by the violence he enacted earlier on the cattle.
For the general misfortune, he happened to see Gal going out of the barracks after the conclusion of his swordfighting lesson. Fanu’s blood, who was already quite hot at this point, reached boiling point.
« You ! » he exclaimed, picking his silver knife in hand. « I’m going to beat you so bad you’ll wish you were on the front » and immediately proceeded to jump on the poor swornman.
Had Gal be a swordmaster like most of the other swornmen, he could have batted the bully off pretty easily, similarly how Totten dealt with him in summer. But as it turned out, Gal was a newly addition to the squad and was still learning. The large bandit took him on the ground and proceeded to beat him severely also, breaking multiple bones.
As the beatings were happening in front of the barracks, something had to happen now. Fanu’s crimes have been increasing in gravity for half a year, and now a swornman had been injured and was needing rescue.
Elder Aru, a neswly minted light infantry captain, happened to have also been training that day. Very old man, Aru felt that any punishment the law could inflict on him would be comparatively light – as he did not had many years left to be deprived of anyway – and thought it would be best if he was the one to intervene.
Sword in hand, Aru kicked the barracks door open, surprizing the bandit and allowing Gal to run away.
« Ino be my witness ! » he shouted to Fanu as he proceeded to skewer him with his large bronze sword. « You deserve everything that’s coming your way ! »
The violence of the scene was one step above anything that happened so far. The man was dragged on the ground, beaten with the edge of a sword, then beheaded. Witnesses and actors were all horrified – the bridge was all red once Aru was finished with the vagrant.
« This is something I decided to do alone » Aru declared. « I’m taking responsability for Fanu’s death ».
Though his actions caused the death of a pearlite, the old man received but a stern talking-to. Even if something would have to be done so the situation does not happen again, Fanu did indeed deserve what came to him.
Gal could walk on his own to the apothecary and his wounds were tended to by Ralin. At the time of this redaction, it is unclear if he will completely recover.
The fall festival was rather unremarkableThe 17th of October, the dwarven merchants of the kingdom of Nish Tiz arrived in town. The open commerce with Nish Tiz is probably one of the most remarkable advances of the two last decades, as it brought dwarven iron to the kingdom of pearls. Not only that, but also because they are not shy about clear cutting their own forests, they turned out to be better fuel merchants than the elves themselves. Besides, the dwarves merchants are among the nicest we dealt with – they are appreciative of our crafts, come with goods we actually need, and their diplomatic demands are extremely light – all of that make Nish Tiz merchants very welcome in our walls.
This year, we were a bit disapointed that they would not bring dwarven iron in their wares – although we do not depend on it for our survival, dwarven iron has a tendancy to make difficult situations much easier and to generally limit the price in life of war operations, compared to traditional metals.
They did however bring a bit of tin and multiple tons worth of fuel for our forges ; we will manage to do without our yearly supply of miracle metal.
The army of pearls reaches Stustonako’s outskirtsAlmost at the same time merchants arrived in Kimaeslo Ori – just one day after in fact, the second half of Ngomzolak village surrendered to Osmite forces. That means that, from this point on, the road to the fortress of Stustonako is completely cleared.
The good news is, Stustonako is the main defensive point of Osme Stobűb. If the fortress falls, the Empire falls with it. All its fighting forces are concentrated inside the black fortress.
The bad news is, even reaching the fort itself will be a slog. It is surrounded by no less than ten suburbs, themselves dug into swamp mud, that we will have to take before the siege of Stustonako can even begin. And after that, it is only the start of the difficulties : one thousand cavalrymen, one thousand war trolls and two thousand regular infantry wait for us in the fortress.
Hard times are still ahead, but we’re marching forward.
Uquur formally joins the fortressAfter a couple weeks spent in the
Candies of Jade, Uquur decided to make her way to the water palace and officially meet with Lady Desli. She expressed her deepest apologies for the behavior of some of the men under her responsability – a group Fanu was a part of – and requested citizenship of the bridgetown.
Now Uquur was famous kingdomwide, and her place, as the mistress of the trade guild, was near the Queen to organize trade and logistics. Her plea was accepted, of course
Having Uquur on hand would allow the capitale city to make trades with the settlements way, way more effective, and request from the villages goods that they are actually in need of ; metals and fuel as of now.
Uquur also gave
Stama Ago, her artefact iron great axe with whhich she slew a hundred osmite, to the town’s army.
New laws on vagrancyWith the return of Uquur and what happend with Fanu, it became crystal clear that the town needed to act to solve the homelessness problem – especially considering most pearlite vagrants were members of the traders guild before Kimaeslo Ori first destruction in 149.
Henceforth, after a few days of deliberation, here is the laws on homelessness that the town will abide by from now on :
• Starting this winter, an integration program is to be started. Vagrants will be let in the tavern and processed one by one. We won’t proces more vagrants than we have room in the inn.
• Vagrants will no longer be ignored by the justice system. If a vagrant commits a crime, he will be exiled if the crime does not result in the loss of life of a pearlite, and killed if it does.
• Vagrants are barred from partaking in any miliatry operation for two years starting for their date of processing – this is to prevent their own abuse.
• Forest dwellers will be processed before mine-dwellers, ethnic pearlites will be processed before elves
• Work, clothes and habitation will be made available to them at the town’s expense
This may take time, and this may be ammended according to emergin needs, but those are the guidelines we’ll try to follow.
The mines are extended in search of new microline veinsNow we might just add a note about the mine extention project going on in the caves. Lately, our reserves of microline has ran a bit dry, which makes the town construction project a bit longer than it should. Microline is a decorative stone that we use to make roof and floor tiles, usually to contrast with the light gray dolomite blocks. Microline is pretty and cheap, but the extracted reserves is now exhausted. New mining projects has therefore been planned to find new veins and to supply stone cutters ith some raw material. Further extention projects are to be expected.
There are still a lot of untapped microline veins left in the caves
* The proposed translation is « Taupe Haunt of Wax ». If you have a better interpretative translation, by all means.
