Around Erwt in 1200 days

WIP Story
Party members:
 Core
    - Exif Rey:
        - Origin: City of Exira, Ympire Kingdom, Exympor Landscape
        - Occupation: philosopher (Mystic, philosopher, alchemist. Author, lecturer, engineer)
        - Sex: male
    - Aleem Bhazir:
        - Origin: City of Kairah, Bad-biliad Kingdom, Arif Landscape
        - Occupation: merchant, speculator, collector
        - Sex: male
    - Sonar Uynang:
        - Origin: Village along Ardus river, Ardel Kingdom, Indonardel
        - Occupation: adventurer, guide, mercenary
        - Sex: female
    - Sheera Veneym:
        - Origin: City of Spring, Zhuma Kingdowm, Arif Landscape
        - Occupation: cartographer, explorer
        - Sex: female
    - Bad Ing:
        - Origin: Totem City at Reason, Der Totem, Exympor Landscape
        - Occupation: laborer
        - Sex: male
 Temporary
    - Shelalat:
        - Origin: Totem City at Reason, Der Totem, Exympor Landscape
        - Occupation: guide in Der Totem
        - Sex: male
---
Aleem Bhazir dismounted from his donkey, stiff from the long journey. He unwrapped his ashen shawl and shook it out.
"At last, we arrive," Aleem said to his rented guide. The two were standing on the side of a busy road at the edge of the bustling town, observing its sprawl over the gentle slopes towards an enormous black peak in the distance.
"Not really, Sir Bhazir," the lanky man replied. "This is Totem City at Vision. Your business is in the City at Reason."
"But clearly *this* is the capital of Der Totem. I admit it has been a decade since I was last in Exympor, but I am certain of it!"
"Please, Sir, allow me," but the guide was interrupted by a low rumbling sound. The ground shook softly, dust rising a meter into the air. Aleem donned his shawl but nobody else seemed at all concerned.
Continuing, the guide said, "the Totem volcano at Reason is awakening. When it does, the ash will flow and suffocate all life on its verdant slopes. The capital city at Reason is being moved here, to the slopes of Vision. This volcano will not awaken for 80 years hence. When this comes to pass, we move to Voice. After that, back to Reason. And so forth. Thus it has been for twelve times twelve cycles, and so it shall remain until the Redeemer returns. We must first inquire whether it is safe to approach Reason; if not, then your business shall be found here."
Aleem Bhazir sighed heavily. "I see, thank you Shelalat. It seems darkness is falling and we should hurry to find an inn or shelter for the night."
The guide bowed. "Sir, respectfully, it is still early afternoon. The twilight is merely the ash cloud from Reason. We can make our inquiries and decide a course of action hence."
That being settled, the two men walked up the gentle slopes into the town proper. Aleem, the greater of the two in every dimension, wore black robes over a white linen tunic and trousers, all now an even gray color from the pervasive volcanic dust. Golden jewellery, modest but elegant, glistened around neck and wrists, signifying his wealth and status. Shelalat wore the light-gray canvas robes common to the Der Totem peasant class, his face covered by a simple mask held in place by a leather cap.
The Office of the King had a planning commission to carry out the logistical figuring required to move a royal court and everything that can be transported in an entire city. Totem City, capital of Der Totem in the landscape of Exympor, was only the size of a middling town in Aleem's home country of Bad-biliad in Arif, to the west, but it was a considerable effort nonetheless. The King's chief advisor, a Wizard named Rhyodan, was a practical and ambitious man and had set up the Office to execute the King's will with unprecedented efficiency and structure.
Shelalat led the way to the main square. It was slow going, the two donkeys were packed wide and the streets were narrow and well-trafficked. In the square, the guide inquired to the mayor's residence, where the planning commission and other royal ministrations took place. A short while later, the men tied up their donkeys outside a large hewn building with glass pane windows, handed the guard outside a coin to watch the donkeys and packs, and went inside.
TODO: Aleem and Shelalat meet with Bad Ing. Shelalat says farewell, and Aleem and Bad Ing go to a nobleman who Bad Ing has identified having the Golden Sapphire. They exchange the sapphire for a sack of gold, a writ of ownership of some farmland in northern Bal-Biliad, and one of the donkeys.
---
The Crescent Leatherback creaked and groaned in the swell. The old jong was well-suited to the heaving sea, its tanja sails full. Sheerah Veneym peered at the coast on starboard side, squinting.
"I think we're past Kairah and the Biliad river delta."
Her traveling companion, Sonar Uynang, looked at the distant shoreline ahead. "Exympor, at last."
She glanced over to Sheerah. "I've never been so far as Exympor. Here, you will be guiding *me* for a change."
"Not much to it, Sonar. As long as you stay in Ympire, it's pretty civilized. Not like the kingdom of Arif, perhaps, but people are decent and the rule of laws are... predictable."
"Not so in Ix?" Sonar took the short staircase to the hold below, where they had set up a cot.
Sheerah pondered as she followed Sonar to the cot, then said, "honestly, I don't know the people of Ix, but the little I do know leads me to believe they are unhelpful and possibly cruel. I've only charted the region from the sea. Sailed up the Ix-Yrtex river for a week, before the river turned green and the boat started melting."
"What happened to you?"
"We managed to break down the boat into a raft, which we kept rebuilding to stay afloat as it dissolved beneath us, while we drifted back to sea in the hope the waters would neutralize. Everything on the boat was lost, of course, and three sailors died - two from the fumes, one of them simply slipped and fell in. We fished him out, but his skin slid right off his convulsing body and there was nothing left to do but toss him back and end it."
"Moshiach Almighty, Sheerah. And you come to me for travel guidance? It appears to me that surviving the Ix-Yrtex for a week is a significant feat!"
"Is it, though? All along the river, from the Yrtex delta to where the river turns west around Black Mountain, and you can see the foothills of Reach to the east, I saw little groups of people. And their huts, and the weird little creatures they keep for their milk. People live out there in Ix, and they survive for generation after generation."
Sonar nodded and said with a laugh, "yes, indigenous people always know how to survive. It would not surprise me if there's a village of savages somewhere in the middle of the Aether Waste, just drinking the air and farming purple light. The people living in a particular place are only the people who tried living there and did not perish. So they will always know exactly what is needed to live there, else they simply would not! Because they would have perished. The challenge is to survive even in the unknown. To face change and overcome it. To step outside of home, and learn from it, is to make your home ever larger."
Sheerah shook her head. "I feel that I did not learn much from the river Ix-Yrtex. My maps dissolved with the boat, all I have are sketches I produced from memory upon returning to some nameless pirate village in Ympire."
"You learned not to sail the river. That is more than you knew before," Sonar Uynang said significantly.
"This is true, Sonar. Perhaps I should look for learning in other ways than geography."
A hollow *THUNK* interrupted the conversation.
The crew of the mid-sized jong, previously silent, now shouted in a thick Tartiah dialect. Sheerah was the first of the two to understand what was being shouted. "PIRATES," she exclaimed.
The two women ran to the deck and saw a second harpoon strike the hull. The pirate vessel - a smaller junk - was only a hundred meters away, well within range of a harpoon launched by spear thrower.
"How did it get so close?" Sheerah asked Troy Meetah, captain of the Crescent Leatherback.
"They right posed as a Zhuman fishing boat with nets and anchor out, and no sails, right. The swells we passed a little while back could mean a right reef or a shoal, so we came a little closer than we would usually. And we're not really in Ympire waters yet, so I wasn't thinking 'bout pirates right yet. An' right as you please, nets and anchor are just a short o' rope, and sails were right up in two second, and that little junk's a good toss faster'n us. Nothing we can do about it now, ma'am." The captain looked uncertain, as if trying to decide if it was worse to let his ship and crew be taken by pirates, or to be taken by pirates himself.
"Right you are, captain. Don't worry, I'll do the talking. Don't cut the ropes, let the pirates come to us, don't fight them, we cannot win that way." She turned to Sonar. "Stay with me, I may need help with... persuasion."
Captain Meetah instructed his crew to stand down and stow any weapons and sharp implements in the hold.
The two vessels closed rapidly, as the pirates pulled in the light but strong ropes. *I should get a nice coil of that rope before I leave Exympor,* Sonar thought to herself as she watched the smaller junk approach. She retied her hair, tightened the straps of her pants around her ankles, as well as her waist band and the bands at wrists and elbows, in case of need for swimming. Her breezy linen suddenly felt cold, even in the Zhuman summer wind. She considered taking her satchel, pack, and case from below deck, but decided against it. Sheerah stood relaxed, implacable, her silken dress billowing in the wind, copper tiara glistening gold in the evening sun.
TODO: Sheerah convinces the pirates that they are on a mission to provide blight-resistant barley and millet cultivars to the Ympire farmers. The pirates check the hold, finding sacks of grains. The presence of nobility and an exotic guard, lends credence to the story. To avoid making life difficult for the farmers expecting this delivery and upsetting Admiral Kutcherfeys, the pirates leave the Crescent Leatherback with their blessings.
---
A blue liquid dropped from the small ceramic vial into a clear gel. With a thin glass rod, Exif Rey mixed the gel, peering through it as it turned milky white. When the candle placed behind the beaker turned a deep red, he withdrew the rod and rinsed it in a basin. Exif stretched his back, noting the familiar cracks and pops were joined by a creak in his right shoulder. After placing the beaker on a copper frame over a lit candle, he stalked over the grand wooden floor to his desk, coat billowing. When seated, he turned an hour glass, gently unrolled a new piece of vellum, clipped it fast to the desk, uncapped an ink well, dipped a pen, and began his notes.
At the fourth turn of the hour glass, he got up from his notes and peered at his surroundings. Within the cavernous basement hall was suspended a fine mist. The oil lamps cast a dim glow, now reddish through the fog. Pleased, Exif Rey took some additional notes, peered at the hour glass, and lifted a small balsawood box, lined with brass, out of a chest. Unlatched and opened, the box revealed filings of a shiny gray metal. Exif distributed a thimbleful of the filings in a series of small shallow dishes, each with a wax plug in the center. The dishes went on a cast iron frame, one above the other, which was placed at the far end of the hall.
Noting the hour glass again, he lit a thin cord at the top of the frame, then rushed across the hall, feet striking loudly on the wooden floor. A step-ladder was placed near the passage to the foyer stairs. Up the ladder he went, turning just in time to observe the first of the magnesium flares. Exif cut a mark on a dowel at the height of the flare. Several seconds passed, and the magnesium in the following dish ignited, causing Exif to cut a second mark, a bit below. When all the magnesium had burned, top to bottom, Exif returned with his dowel to his desk, took out his measuring calipers, and noted the results on the vellum.
Exif Rey spent the rest of the morning in calculations, forgetting to break his fast. Finally, some time after noon, he said the day's first words. "That's the final piece of the puzzle," he muttered. Then, with a raucous chuckle, "the world is, contrary to all appearances, incontrovertibly flat!"
That evening, he took his supper at the pub near the docks in Exirah. Speaking to the fellows sharing his table, none of whom had seen him before, Exif made his case. He had even brought the globe model of Erwt which he had ordered at great cost from the University at Spring, far away in Zhuma.
"Look, the fact the Sun rises and sets and the Moon is always the same size, doesn't mean the world is a globe. It just means that light works differently at different scales! See here," he said, drawing with char a great curve and a straight line intersecting it. "If the light from the Sun bends upwards, it would look like," demonstrating with a dotted line at a tangent to the intersection, "it would look as though the Sun was higher in the sky than it really was."
A table-mate piped up, "and when the Sun moves away it would look lower down."
"Exactly, my perceptive friend!" Exif was exuberant. "And when it's sufficiently far away, it vanishes bottom-up behind the horizon."
"So who cares? The fishes don't care. The weather don't care. The sea *certainly* don't care. World's too big to see all at once anyway anyhow, so I don't care neither, right?"
Exif's exuberance deflated. Realizing the rest of the table of fishermen and sailors cared even less than this relatively inquisitive young fellow, he delicately packed up his globe Erwt and walked towards the Church, which was placed a little ways inland in Exirah, on the only significant height on this stretch of coast. The learned monks serving the Redeemer would have more patience for his theory, and more understanding of its significance.
TODO: Monks point out he's got no evidence supporting this fringe belief except a parlor trick with an alchemical mixture bending the light. He decides he needs to set out to get real evidence, and that is a measurement from the peaks of Gutreal.
---
Aleem Bhazir meets Bad Ing travel south to Ympire.
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Sonar Uynang and Sheera Veneym arrive in Exirah.
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Aleem Bhazir and Bad Ing cross the shield wall volcanoes to Ympire.
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Sonar Uynang and Sheera Veneym meet with Exif Rey
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Aleem Bhazir and Bad Ing meet Sonar Uynang and Sheera Veneym and Exif Rey
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Party goes to Kairah in Zhuma
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Party takes a ship to Port Tartiah in Zhuma
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Party meets Sheerah Veneym
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Party heads to Epsut in Zhuma
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Party reaches the Dark Mesas in Zhuma
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Party reaches Est in Alquarest
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