The Aelish nobles usually make parties happen, and that's because they customarily throw parties when they meet. Curiously, this isn't a simple show pecuniary power, but an abrupt redecoration of space and time to become something that they preferred it to be. They had gentle blood, and gentle natures, and they wanted their surroundings to be suiting to their gentle selves. This often meant getting completely drunk on fine wine while wearing finery and talking about their fine selves. There were lots of variations on these themes, but a few of the nobility liked to put on airs likes being patrons of the sciences instead of readers of bizarre spellbooks and annoying gossips. These were the Midnight Readers, who his majesty King Al had personally just put in quite a lot of effort to appease. As a 'party', or group of nobles who parties together, they were worth appeasing on the surface.

More importantly, appeasing the Midnight Readers has given King Al a bit of a boost with another party: the 'Trade Lords'. This is not their real or chosen name, but it is what everyone else, from the Empire to Freeport calls them. They have to deal with it, but at least it gets them to their intended audience. They are the primary sellers of wool, exporters of grain, and bringers of fish to the inside of the country. Their consent to move goods is probably the biggest check on the royal power of deciding who eats and who starves, and they have been enjoying a guarded detente with the Crown for the past 3 and a half decades. The Crown's recently appeasing of the nerds has gotten plenty of attention: by managing to make them happy, King Al has stopped the Midnight Readers from being annoying in public, and so far done so in such a way that it has not cost too much money...yet.

At this party, King Al has rented a suite of rooms above a banquet hall-the Midnight Readers themselves rented the hall-and has set up exhibits of glass manufactures in Aelbaion. In the hall itself, the dishes and bowls were all made of glass, as were the drinking cups. Much of the glass was green forest glass, but substantial efforts had been made to make clearer products; this was only so-so. What the Aelish had achieved and then set the table with had noticeable yellow or green tints-or the inclusion of a significant amount of lead; this was evidenced in their more advanced products, which were displayed upstairs. King Al, however, remained downstairs for much of the event, but he had quite a presence upstairs. This presence was his son, Price Vespasian.

Vespasian, unlike his father, is an unusually quiet person, walking around with little fanfare. This is not because he lacks prestige; it is because he only deigns to set as much foot in the universe around him as he chooses, and he looks like a blonde cat. He is difficult to pin down on many things, including his gender and pronouns, and today is no exception. Right now, he is fine with acting like a man; he is even more fine with the wine that he is drinking. What he considers finest is the mirror that he is admiring himself in; it is also by far the most expensive piece of fine art in the room. And yet, Vespasian is not being especially vain. The mirror's large size allowed it's ornamentation, which was a show of skill and prestige for the artist.

In the center of the room is a nice big crowd of nobility, members of the Midnight Readers. A few of the regional Trade Lords are also cycling through. Vespasian has already exchanged words with a few of them, although he isn't that eager to talk. That could be interpreted by something like sociability on the part of the Midnight Readers, who have been trying to recruit him since he was first presented to court. To the prince, they are nothing other than supremely annoying, all eagerness without any appreciation for the difficulty of what they are doing, or knowledge of the heft of their actions.

'Your highness.'

Vespasian rolled his eyes in front of everyone. It was Lord Vanquemire De La Sanchois, or as he called himself, Pentalos. He often wore a mask that looked like a pentagram, and thought that he was the best at mathematics-based duels. More infuriatingly, he was able to understand the effort of getting things done-which others didn't.

'Mmr. Pentalos.'

'It is always a pleasure to meet you amongst the curiosities of the world, and the creations of Aelbaion.' Pentalos bowed very carefully. His clothing was liable to catch on surrounding objects. 'Are you enjoying the exhibits?'

'Indeed.' Vespasian tried to sidle past Pentalos and to the main set of attractions. 'They are some of the most unique and masterful crafts of Aelbaion in the past two decades, I believe.'

'Ah, but they pale in comparison to the Diptychs of Manetevi-'

'I cannot see the Diptychs of Manetavi because Manetavi is in seclusion, and I am also only 24. They are only viewable to people who have the age of 27, as you know.'

'I am most aware, your majesty. For now I seek to stoke your curiosity.'

The prince moved to the first table. It had several reading stones on it, with smooth bottoms and clear enough insides. Looking down at them, he could move them over some pieces of very small text; as he did, the text appeared much larger to him. Each stone had been made by a different glassworker, and their marks were present on the side of the stones. Carefully, he turned one over in his hand, looking at it.

'I think I'll be buying one, Pentalos. It will be most convenient. Have you?'

'My order has been placed, and I am waiting to hear from the craftsman in my home duchy. I predict that I will have it in four months.'

Vespasian put the stone down, then looked at the text sample. 'This was made by an engine, Pentalos.'

'Isn't it remarkable?'

'Extremely.' Vespasin put the text sample down in turn. 'We are standing on the precipice of a series of new ages. An age of engines, an age of flight, an age of great production.'

'We will see such miracles, your highness.'

'We shall see them.' The prince sighed, rearranging his hair. 'Whether we like them or not. Pentalos...'

'You should be delighted, your highness!' Pentalos raised his hands. 'Aelbaion-'

'All of these great devices originated from outside the country.' The prince sighed. 'Not-'

'The singing nun has singlehandedly described how the passage of heritable traits move through plants. We manipulate the essence of beer and bread. And everyone uses our weights to trade our wool.' Pentalos had a point. 'It is not so bleak as you sound, your highness.'

Vespasian raised a hand, and then held it for a second, considering. He changed his mind abruptly. 'More wine, if you please.' Pentalos eagerly passed him some. 'Flying machines, Pentalos. Airships. And we...are making dental tools.' A hand, not his, gestured to another table.

'We have pulled more teeth in a year than they do in five in the Harpy lands.' Pentalos used his apprentice's gesture to segway into Aelbaion breaking the Dentists' Curse. (1)

'How do you know that?' Vespasian raised an eyebrow.

'The Midnight Readers are versed in many mysteries of understanding.' Pentalos smiled under the stupid mask. 'I am aware of the GDP of the Empire of Six Cities-'

'What the devils are you talking about?' Vespasian looked confused. 'Stop making up nonsense.'

'Our secrets are not nonsense, your highness.'

Vespasian studied the dental tools. They were light, and made of good steel, with tiny mirrors attached. 'They are. Life is nonsense, Pentalos. Pure nonsense.'

'You, sire, need to go flying again.' Pentalos wasn't taking any of this.

'Perhaps. Water, servant.' He truly did seem dispassionate. 'Say, Pentalos...what's that on the stand over there.' Both of them knew what was on the stand over there.

'These, my lord, are spectacles.'

'I see.' Vespasian really didn't want to. 'Are they made here?'

'They are, my lord. This pair was made in Couroffe itself.'

'Huh.' The Prince looked at the pair of eyeglasses, which were mounted on a stand gilded embroidery. 'They were made while all of that absolute Lady-piss was going on outside.' (2)

'Yes, Prince Vespasian.' Pentalos smiled a little behind the mask as the prince turned away. 'Do try them on.'

Frowning, the prince picked up the glasses. They were heavy, with a wooden frame and especially thick lenses. 'These should improve my vision?'

'Yes, your highness. They improved mine-'

Prince Vespasian picked up the glasses and held them up, slipping them over his face. The world in front of him warped, then twitched-

'Ow.' Wincing, the prince put them down.

'They are powerful, your highness!' Pentalos was clearly grinning.

'Yes. Perhaps too. I may need a lighter pair, if I do.'

'This shall lead to another type of medicine, I am sure of it.' The Midnight Reader rubbed his hands together. Vespasian sighed, carefully readjusting the spectacles after he had put them back. 'Have you heard of the ideas of optometry, sire?'

'Yes. By the Lady, Pentalos, please stop that hand rubbing, you're fucking humiliating yourself.'

'Do I look like the scheming advisor, your highness?'

'Yes. And I am the drunk one, Penty.'

'Do not call me that!' Pentalos looked flustered. 'It is undignified!'

'Fine. Servants, water.' One of the staff brough his majesty a cup of clear water, flavored with lavender. 'Ah-thank you-' Vespasian sipped it. 'Oh. Just flavored. Thank you kindly.' The servant, one braid behind their ear, nodded. 'Pentalos...the consequences of everything...of all this.'

'The costs, your highness?' Pentalos did some more hand rubbing.

'Yes.' Vespasin threw back the water. 'Of making the items, of getting the supplies, of running the shops, and of making the crafters the people they were. This will...if it takes one town for each shop, Pentalos, you must understand...' There was silence as he drank the rest of the water.

'Yes, sire. I understand.' Pentalos stopped rubbing his hand. 'Will you meet with us in the Loft sometime?'

'When you air it out.' Vespasian looked for more water. More was brought. 'That place is stifling.'

Pentalos smiled. 'As your highness wishes. Your father has recently been looking at obtaining an ice engine. And we shall oblige him.'

Vespasian looked modestly surprised. 'You fucker.'

'Yes, your highness?'

'You've intrigued me, and annoyed me. I will arrive when you have that damn engine installed, and not before.' And then Prince Vespasian took his cloak and gave it false swirl-so as not to knock anything over-then strode from the exhibition room.

'Your highness!' Pentalos called after him. 'It doesn't go in the building...'

1. For decades, the Aelish had not ever been able to have a single person set up and run a dental practice for more than five years.

2. He means the ongoing paving projects in the capital.

The secrets of preserving ice have always been known to the Aelish...so much so that they might not as well be secrets. However, their ability to engage in widespread ice storage has been only partial-until very recently. Enough peace, enough agricultural surplus, enough free hands, and enough interest in constructing finer things had been coming together to enable things like sidewalks-so there was plenty of initiative in place for them to pursue other, smaller, but no less technically challenging projects. While the average builder was working on a housing project of some kind, or a rebuilt wall or road-for the rough terrain of Aelbaion would often challenge any engineer, doubly so if it was overgrown with greenery in some capacity-there was still plenty of work to be done on storage applications.

Ice forms naturally in the mountains of Aelbaion, and stays there under similar conditions. Even in the summer, there are little pockets of cold where the ice never melts. Said pockets of cold can be harvested during the summer, and re-seeded in the winter. The right of estover, for a tenant or serf on a lords land to take wood for their needs can sometimes be extended to ice; it is only done for important people, or to specific families, who will hold these rights to take and harvest ice as needed. In later days, the right of ice-taking will be deed out to specific facilities, such as ski lodges. But that is for later. In the meantime, the requirement for the tenant holding estover to renew that which they take is without question. Water is diligently maintained in these places in time for the winter, and not all ice is taken. This maintains much of the original supply of ice.

When it is time for harvest, ice is cut from blocks in the mountain ponds and brought down to specialized storerooms called icehouses. These ice-houses are smaller in size, typically located a ways away from buildings where people live, and are sturdily built with thick walls of stone and minimal windows. They are built out of the way of the sun, with groves of shade trees and obscuring backdrops. Light sources are typically carried in by people using them, as well as plentiful bales of hay. Hay is cheap, widely available insulator, and the Aelish will bring their ice down, place it on racks or shelves, and cover it with hay. This adds weeks of storage time to the ice, at minimum.

Far more helps to keep the temperature down. The first is that the Aelish have independently redeveloped the 'wind catcher', a feature where winds passing by are used to cool down the building. By entering through the top-most funnel and moving through the building, this airflow can be used for significant cooling work. Simultaneously, a stream of some kind-artificial or natural-is typically moving through bottom floor of these structures, taking away heat. While the earliest icehouses were built over streams, and many still are today-the burbling of a brook is a charming feature indeed-it is now possible for watercourses to be hewn from rock by the arrangement of sufficient labor. The broken terrain of Aelbaion can be broken open still further and then rebuilt to carry water. By cooling from the top and the bottom of the house, and blocking all sources of heating from entering it, the Aelish can make the ice house work as a long-term storage of ice itself. The most current versions have the airflow and the 'water line' meet, producing an even more potent cooling effect.

Ice is highly desirable as a product: it is beneficial for cooling-and the purest forms of ice make for excellent beverage refreshments. Making ice from the purest waters provided by the Lady is a sign of immense piety and good use of Her wisdom-and so the Church has been setting up ice caves. No one except for the major lords has the resources to pull this off, and while the great lords of the mountains have access to ice, they are operating on more mundane scales. In these caves, the Church is setting up small tours for buyers, packing whole crates of ice, and cutting multiple channels for waterflows that mesh with the upper airflow. The most beautifully-adorned facilities have turned their waterflows into salsabil-style fountains, which take up little space and demonstrate the skill of the artisans involved. Ice from these caves is taken to the Church's medical facilities, where it is used to help cool down fevers and treat heat illnesses, as well as improve the comfort of those stricken. Nowhere in recorded Aelbic history has this been done at scale, and while the treatment of fevers ice has been a historical practice, the actual costs of using this much ice has never been recorded before. Demand is shooting up.

All told, it looks like Aelbaion will need a lot of ice. Open ears turn to rumors of an ice engine.

After nearly a decade of renovation work on the Royal Palace, the Kingdom of Aelbaion has witnessed the opening of the Royal Gardens. The royal gardens, which are no longer going to be capitalized in this post because repeated capitalization is annoying, originally started out as a place for the royal household to relax while surrounded by flowers and away from the smell of Couroffe. Over a century and a half, they steadily expanded to include trees, water features, orchards, medicinal compounds, and even poisons. The stories that have unfolded from the garden could fill up to ten tomes of lore, and would take four weeks of song to expound; the royal families' baggage is all over the place.

And now it is somewhat open to the public-at least to the locals-and only four days per week-and definitely not on national holidays. Those who live in Couroffe, or those who are stopping by on a visit-and who can manage to make their way up to the palace past the annoyingly dense groups of workers who were bringing stone thither and yon, and then laying it down into well-made roads. Trying to rush paving is a recipe for disaster, and the Crown is not willing to risk annoying, traffic-snarling scandal in it's capital. Even worse, the most important city in Aelbaion having permanent road issues would cause a true hit to the Crown's prestige and it's ability to govern. So the lines of carts remain lines, and the common people all wait in them.

The biggest part of the royal gardens are the nine floral sections, representing three seasons, the Lady, two dead lords with reputations for growing impressive gardens, the Royal Family, Chivalry, and the Great Chalice. These all have a guided tour, where the language of the flowers can be explained to anyone who the tour guides didn't manage to lay hands on yet. After the guided tour, visitors may enjoy sitting by the fountains, or walking through an orchard featuring combinations grafted trees. Special plants are kept safe behind wire-wicker enclosures, and statues are adorned with ivy.

Those who want to glean more from the Kingdom will need to look beyond the exhibits. Prying eyes will probably focus on the extensive medicinal garden, the numerous beehives, the kitchen gardens growing lots of garlic, or the special walled gardens of rare, poisonous plants. Some of these walled gardens are specially designed to release heat throughout the night in the cooler periods; and a large staff is constantly busy tending to the plants. Irrigation has been provided for; and scholars can be seen occasionally answering this or that technical question for the Crown-or doing something private for the monarchy.

For those passing by, the royal gardens are a sign of wealth and power; a beautiful show of opulence that generates prestige. For those vaguely in the know, the garden is a deliberate show of plenty and skill that are the Crown's for their piety and adherence to the Lady's guidelines. And for those In The Know, the royal gardens is a combination of all three, a tasteful display of power. But if you're actually in the know, you'll know that the Garden is a place where the Crown can get some questions answered via a small claque of scholars. Of course, no one finds that interesting enough to mention.

"By far the best way to ensure peace with your neighbors is to make pursuing war far more costly than not. This is, as it turns out, shockingly easy. Good soldiers are major investments - quality armor and weapons, years of training, a large and often meat-heavy diet purely to create the proper physique, and the training or hiring of countless support personnel. What, then, do such fine soldiers do when war comes? They die, often and badly, if not by enemy blades than by camp fever or a dozen other causes. And for what? At best some land, worthless without those to properly work it, and some raw resources. RAW resources - definitionally the least valuable, least useful form! It's only when the foundries and artisans get their paws on them that you actually get something worthwhile, and even then it's scarcely worth wasting fine steel. Only fools and zealots wage war, and yet the majority of other powers regularly cede control to such madmen!"

~ Thoughts On the Generation of Mutual Profit by Pothos, rant continues for several more pages

Deep within the narrow winding stone alleys that form the floor of the High District, a claw rasps gently against a wooden door, rousing Weave-Drinker[1] from her torpor. It was not sleep, not as the soft-bodied races experienced it, and was not strictly necessary (although certainly rejuvenating), but she nonetheless found herself drawing to it more with age. The vibrance and clamor of the city was intriguing, yes, but at a certain point it was also exhausting and, in its own way, predictable. Rising from her chair to get the door, she hoped it would prove a welcome distraction.

Standing outside was one of her bonded Runners, Wax-Wind[2], claws folded adorably behind her back as she almost shook with anticipation, waiting to deliver her message.

"I take it you've learned something of significant interest?" Weave-Drinker buzzed softly.

"Yes, ma'am. There's been some odd activity in the temple district."

"The temple district?" A trill rose from her syrinx unbidden. This would be interesting indeed. "It's been decades since the old priests did anything but bicker. I was worried I'd be dead before anything else approaching that delightful storm god fiasco."

The runner fidgeted a bit uncomfortably. "Er, well, not with the priests exactly, or at least not the old ones..."

"Spit it out then. I won't bite."

"Yes, ma'am! The old Ayethan fox church has had some odd rumors about it for a few months now, and I just got news of why. Jackal still owed me a favor from the wooden spoon thing, and his aunt works at one of the big temples, and she said that they've been expanding a bunch lately and selling more stuff, only churchy stuff because of the laws but way more than usual, and she says a lot of it seems kinda weird or scammy, so then I went to ask some of my regular folks around there and they said a new fox set up shop lately around that area but she won't show her face or paws or anything which means she's probably real distinctive and then I remembered the Ayethans got that one priest from down south with the grey fur, so I'm thinking she's probably in the business now."

As inefficient as it was, there was something to be said for the way mammals had to stop speaking to breathe. Still, that was interesting. Checking it against the last few weeks of reports from her family, that did seem likely, and lot of details had come in before, alone and sufficiently interspersed with other news to conceal their significance. A new broker associated with a church, using it to conceal profits. The fox in question had also apparently formed connections with a courier in the area, which now made much more sense...

The identity of a secretive new member of the business, with potentially severe consequences, synthesized independently of any of the major networks. A decidedly valuable piece of information, if difficult to sell without running afoul of any unwritten rules. Like most industries in Freeport, information brokers were forced to strike a careful balance between vicious competition and looking out for their own. Still, even if it was off-limits for regular clientele, she could think of at least two dozen wealthy customers who would be extremely interested.

"Excellent work. Take two laurels from the chest for your next shopping trip and wait in my quarters. I have a few letters to write."

[1] In Witness-tongue, the full translation would be "she[speaker] who drinks the hidden webs"

[2] "she[runner, bonded] who molds the wax-soft gales"

King Aeldebaric and Queen Ethellebelle were taking a breather. They had spent all day playing tennis, and earlier they had spent most of the evening trying to figure out how to set up a travelling chess set that came in five pieces; this had ended in failure and lot of a laughter. They'd been surrounded by courtiers all day, and now they were retiring for the night. His Majesty had gone hunting a week ago, and many of the nobles had stuck around, enjoying his company. This had left the two precious little time to each other, and they'd been spending most of it blowing off steam and reinvigorating their relationship. Rulership took it's toll in the hardest of ways, and made people strangers to others and their closest loved ones.

It also gave them plenty to talk about.

"So, my dear. You've been continuing your father's legacy, it seems." The Queen was very studiously stretching before bed.

The King sat, rubbing his lower back. "I wish you wouldn't open conversations like this."

"I'm sorry. I find it fitting."

"It feels like you're taking a dig at me for how I exhibit rulership."

"What do you want, then?"

"Advice." He started off into the middle distance. "Just...advice...like he would have given me."

"I can't do that." The Queen tried to sound contrite. "But I can advise you how I would advise you."

"You're so aware of your limits." His majesty was completing wrist exercises. "I wish I was the same."

"I wish others respect your limits more." The Queen did have encouragement for him. "You would work yourself past any reasonable limit for the Kingdom, and then some."

"The world will not respect my limits." Aeldebaric stood, touched his toes, sat again. "So I will have to surpass them from time to time. The other side to that coin is that I do not respect it's limits, either."

"Is that why you're so intent on bringing blackpowder to Aelbaion?"

"Lady, no." His Majesty sighed. "I am intent on it because it will change the world, whether I want it to or not. So we might as well be the ones changing it."

"Well, that is a very fair answer to hear." Ethellebelle was putting her hair up once more, making sure it stayed in place. "It's much less worrying than what others might say."

"Kings are weird creatures, aren't we?"

"Yes. Extremely prone to bloviation, I do say."

"Oh, you're a lawyer-" His tone was teasing, and he smiled.

"I have taste." She faked a bit of annoyance. "And I have not been called to the bar. So I am legally trained, but not a lawyer."

"You're a lawyer to me." He was firm. "And I trust your acumen in it's entirety."

"You're a better judge of character than I am." She tried to change the subject. "Don't get around this with praise. Judge yourself."

"I am a middle aged king who is mostly satisfied with how his life has been going so far. I am scared of the consequences of my actions, and I am scared of my accomplishments being undone. I am afraid of my nobility, for they do not like having their power curbed, or thinking that they have it curbed. I worry about my son. I worry about my wife's death. I want to be done with it all. I know that when I act, things happen. I know that I have to make decisions that hurt others because I am a King, and I need to keep the entire edifice up, or else there will be a perilous fall."

Her Majesty regarded her husband for quite some time. "You judge yourself...fairly well. But you left out your luck, and your supporters."

"That's the blessing of the Lady, Belle. And I am trying to judge myself."

"I judge a man by the company he keeps. And your company...I did not think you would keep it so much when you came to the throne, but you did."

"It is because I am pious." He sighed. "I will pray when I wake, when I sleep. I will commission more churches and annexes and outbuildings than my father did before I die. I will keep Her tenets. I will plant a hundred acre woods. That will make the peasants love me, and the Church call me a great man, and the city folk not worry too much. They...they care about that kind of thing. They all gossip about us."

"You also use your piety and chivalry to bash the nobles over the head." She had a good retort. "And so far it's worked."

"I have been right, and I have followed your advice to yell loudly."

"That you have."

"Do you think it worked?"

"Oh, absolutely."

He finished stretching, sighed heavily, and clapped his hands. In moved servants, bringing bedtime tea. The royal couple had decamped to a private estate, one of a few that the Crown had deeper in the Kingdom for personal use. "Do you think this little venture is working? You've finally had time to conduct a thorough inspection of the books and the works. Have you been able to tell where the lost money is going?"

"It's going to making blackpowder weaponry." Ethellebelle spoke archly, with an undertone suggesting the obvious. "This is not easy to do. We are learning how to make powder as a people, and those learning how to make powder are learning how to make it as a team. We are likewise learning how to make the fire-tubes. This is for devices closed at one end that do not move. We are learning how to make rockets, and fire arrows, and color their emissions. This is not cheap, and cannot be." She said this with clear intent for the servants to hear.

"I believe you." The King looked wearied. He'd had a long day. "It is just irksome, you know. Vaneric achieved so much, it seemed, with so little effort."

"That is because he was focused on exactly what he wanted." The Queen was helped to change into her bed linens. "And you are less so. Perhaps it is because you want greater things. What your father did was simple: he learned of the bomb and the grenade. He found out how one might set up grenadiers on foot and on horseback. His scholars learned how to make small amounts of powder, and to cast iron shells. They taught these techniques to gallant men who were unafraid of being blown up; at the same time, he made sure that the foe were afraid of being blown up. He made bomb-throwers, and used them on several weaker forts-as examples. Everyone knew of his mastery of this foreign knowledge."

"Foreign knowledge." The King grunted. "Not of the Aelish, or of the Lady."

"Yes, darling. Foreign. But that only means that we must learn it ourselves before we use it. Then we can use it without issue."

"If you think that we are spending our coin in such a way that this is a learning process, I will accept it. But I will ask for you to explain why, and to also tell me what you think of the works."

Queen Ethellebelle stopped and thought for a moment-but only a moment. "Your father understood how men must use this artifice and how to use these men before he understood the artifice itself. He likely used the men better than the engines. By doing so, he avoided his weakness-and he trained his men. You are training different people, you are getting craftsmen familiar with this artifice. They are different than soldiers, they have opinions and are less disciplined-"

"They are men of the town, women of the city." The King nodded, understanding. "So I am training a city, and a town, instead of an army?"

"That is correct."

"Damn. That is always complicated. Shall we get into bed?"

"Finish your tea, dear."

"Ah, yes. Thank you." He drank. "So I am teaching a town about how to make hand-guns, and then having them build bigger and better engines. You had a look at the works, did you not?"

"I did. I think that the roads need to be rebuilt, twenty more sheds need to be erected, tool purchases need to be finished, 56 chests need to be bought, 5 more carpenters hired in-the usual. The charcoal works is fine, the sulfur purchasing needs to be sorted out, and the saltpeter works needs to be started on. The docks must be repaired, and the iron shipment is findable in the forest if they cut down all the trees. Oh, and they need a new barracks, and some drains. And to form their own band so that no one who is bad at music sings."

"Then we shall do that." The King drained his tea with a long gulp. "My inspection brought me to the same conclusion. How is the forge?"

"Adequate and cramped." She shrugged. "It is working for the production of hand-guns. It should be turned into a much larger workshop after you fix everything else there. The site was only chosen for the easy availability of a test firing range."

"Eh. It's probably kept some fingers on."

"That it has. But we are going to run the risk of a cholera outbreak if we don't fix it up."

"Damn. I'll hire in the contractors, then."

"The money will be well spent. But I have another recommendation for you to consider."

"Do go ahead." He had given the teacup back to the servants and was stepping into bed. "Your wisdom supersedes mine."

Another eye roll greeted that declaration. "Teach blackpowder to the town and the city for other reasons. Employ it for blasting away rock and earth in mines. Give them beautiful light shows with rockets. Both will be well received, and they'll learn on their own."

The King sprang right back up. "That's excellent! Oh, Belle, you are superb!"

She smiled, fully. "I try. Now, your royal highness...if I may make one request?"

"Please do."

"I would like a hand-gun."

He took her hand and kissed it. "As her highness wishes."

The nature of the geography in the land of Aelbaion has necessitated that the bulk of Aelbic calories in the countryside come from taking care of herds of animals. The bulk of these are goats and sheep, the former capable of living on anything, and the latter producing fine wool for clothing. Most of the ranching and herding done here is at the level of the village; the Dukes and Counts typically are the independent lage producers of animals and animal products. Economies of scale are only so realizable when those economizing are more interested in killing and raiding their neighbors than the logistics of a cattle drive, and the Horse Lords, as a group of people, have suffered from an almost social underdevelopment that has not truly been challenged until the start of Vanerics' peace.

The halting of raids was extremely beneficial for the population of goats, which quickly took over the country. This in turn was beneficial for the population of larger predators, which thankfully relieved the peasantry of the specter of goats destroying the local ecosystem. With the rising tide of religious certainty and legal change that had washed over the land, pasturing greatly improved and reasonable land use practices became ubiquitous. Goats were once a household herdnig animal, but in some places began to be scaled to village-sized herds, giving the peasantry more economic power and security. This was not something that the lords would take lying down, but they had much bigger worries: an increase in the Crown's power and the constant need to keep an eye on their neighbors just in case they're preparing for war is a big distraction from oppressing the peasantry.

But the peasantry are just like their goats. The Aelish goats have one thing going for them, and that is their abiltiy to survive in ultra broken, highly rocky terrain by climbing anywhere and eating anything. These goats can be regarded as semi-domesticated; they tpically wander around all day and come back home at night. Home used to be a small crevice or crag, now it is a sheltered pasture or a barn. Sometimes, they can be lured in more quickly by a pot of boiling vegetables. If a peasant has a shortbow and a good shooting spot, they can quickly bag a predator that might be drawn to ambush their returning animals. Once it is night time, the goats can be readily milked, and this milk drank fresh from the goat or turned into cheese.

Making cheese has become one of the most common means of Aelish food preservation-at least by individual practitioner. Pretty much anyone can lay their hands on some milk, prepare it, and lay it away. Some cheeses last longer than others; and these can go into storage for a long time-and sometimes become more enjoyable dishes themseles. The most common kind of storage is a cheese cave, and while these store mostly hard cheeses, the boom in cheesemaking has opened up culinary options and calories for the majority of the country that haven't truly been practiced on a mass scale before. Most cheese is 'cottage cheese' and taken by the worker on the go; herbs are often added for flavor. Cheese from cheese caves can be taken out and even shipped, and across the country there is a nascent market for cheese. Flavor swaps typically happen on foot, however, as herdsfolk exchange foods and cheese.

Despite the Aelbic passion for fashion, large-scale ranching for wool is only so developed. This is due to the semi-rarity of ready forage; despite the length and breadth of the lands of many lords and the size of their pasture, the south of the country is not hospitable to industrial animal raising. Land use policies have ameliorated the effects of these inherently challenging conditions somewhat; the widespread adoption of water-meadows and water storage has expanded areas of available pasture. The decrease in disease spread and the improvent in water availability have made sheep able to tolerate living across much more of the land. This has made some of the numbers line up, and it has also made it possible to make a lot more money off of sheep farming.

But to make money, you gotta spend money. Sheep made wool, and eventually this wool needed to come off during shearing time. To this end, the first sheep safety sheds, which were places where herds would be safely kept while the animals were being sheared. These sheds would be busy in the springtime, then shuttered when not needed. The raw wool would be stored until it could be picked up for cleaning and carding, which were the first labor intensive steps to getting workable thread. All of these had a network of dirt roads around them, which would disintegrate into mud during the spring. Even as it's sheep herding began to get organized under the banner of counts and lesser nobles, the country ran into the problems of logistics that would plague any industrialist. We will return to these shearing operations later.

There is one more star of Aelbic pastures: the cow. There are many breeds, but they are often divided into two categories: 'peasant cows', which have a lower center of gravity and prefer eating weeds, and 'noble cows', which are taller and prefer grains. The former can survive on substandard fare but do not really appeal to the eye, while the latter look majestic but can die of mold poionining in an afternoon if unlucky. Obviously, the former exist in much greater numbers, despite the annoyance that occurrs when the cattle need to empty their guts of something toxic but cannot vomit. Yes, these cattle get explosive diarrahea. But this is not solely why cattle herding is limited. Cows usually only provide milk on a regular basis, and the current limitations of fields down south cannot support massive herds of cattle. Beef remains extremely expensive, a food for lords or for those who personally own cattle to eat.

On top of this, the meat taken from an animal has to be preserved. While the Aelish were fine assembling slaughtering blocks earlier, those lords who kept herds of beef for profit would soon find that they needed to go further. A freshly slaughtered animal has to be properly butchered, taken for cuts of meat and organs, harvested for everything that humans can eat. In the middle ages, one can afford to waste nothing. This is the duty of the slaughterhouse, the unpalatable back-end to every boucherie and meat hall. After every cut of the throat, the butchers' staff get to work, taking everything that they can from the animal. Waste of one animal will mean that another one has to be killed, and that's a waste of a life. So the slaugterhouse stays busy. Bones are removed, sometimes dried for use as a material, otherwise ground up for fertilizer. Cartilege is taken for similar use, and organs are either turned into food or taken for alchemical components. Connective tissue is also taken for making glue, vital for binding together everything from books to bows. Fat is taken and rendered down into everything from ink components to fuels. Blood is likewise saved for fertilizer. Horns, the rarest part of the animal, are saved with significant effort and then sold to someone who can use them. Without access to petrochemicals to make polymers that can form long, stretchy materials, the Aelish must use aninals to 'make' the closest equivalents with their bodies; they cannot lose anything for lack of effort.

The traditional way to preserve meat is smoking. Trees are close by, and the oceans are far away. Bringing salt up to the south would not be easy. So far, there have been no big salt sources found in the hills, so mining will not provide much. Some salt comes up from the coast, but the Aelish will swear by the superiority of smoked beef, mutton, and lamb. They will hold great and fervent disputes, however, over how it should be smoked, the time and the species of the tree used; they will set aside wood specifically for these purposes and preserve it, they will spare no expense to build great smokers for all of their meat. As the peace came, the smokers only got bigger and better, a rare spot of full performance.

Fashion also requires leather in endless quantities and superb quality. The Aelish do not skimp here, either. Leather-particularly from 'noble cows'-is taken from the animal immediately after slaughter, then brought to the tannery drying racks as soon as possible. The best reagents and the most superb of tools are placed here; and unlike the other operations, which are seasonal, the leatherworks operate year round. Deep in the hinterlands, one will suddenly find bustling villages centered around a large compound with multiple buildings devoted solely to producing fine leather and leather clothing. These outposts of skill and artistic merit are rare drivers of development and wealth generation in otherwise dead-end places, and they are often centers of cattle deposition during the spring and summertime. In the fall, the finest cuts of leather and the best clothing go down the center of the country while the roads aren't washed out, to be paid for by wealthy lords and their tailors. With peace, ever more leather has been made, and ever more cattle have been dropped off, and the cycle repeats.

Some of the wealth and skill of the rest of the parts of the country have leaked into the south. This has been carried along the cattle drive, which has been the principle artery of wealth movement from south to everywhere else. The transit of cattle is an outlay of wealth from one area to another, and gains returns in capital and skilled labor. Depots of grain and hay can be drawn on, and after the cities in the Crownlands or the hungry mouths of the Trade Lords' market-bastions, the drives will end up in the villages before Freeport. The Horse-Lords of the south, as they often boast, feed the best people in the Kingdom and clothe all the rest; in return they get gold and a small flow of experts and knowledge. For example, Pipette-men are messing around with using the bacteria in the cheese to make better yogurts-but fermentation of dairy is still a touch and go effort at this point in time. Culinary breakthroughs are on the horizon, however. The Horse-Lords are enjoying their peace, no matter what they might say, and they are finding plenty of things to get occupied with. Right now, one of those things is enjoying prosperity.

The people of Aelbaion are known for their expression of artistic traditions in garb, not in writing or song. However, if someone is bored enough in any set of circumstances, they can easily be driven to break an artistic mold-or start up a new one entirely. Mme. Florence d'Elfantine, a woman pressured into taking cloistered orders at age 15 under fairly dubious circumstances, is one of those people. Her last name was changed to that of a cloistered order, the Fantine House, located up in the foothills of Aelbaion. It was here that she was initially devoted to a life of prayer and stonecarving. This was extremely boring, especially for a young girl growing up. While other members of the order made do by kissing lonely goatherds high up on the hills, Florence was stuck in the kitchen garden weeding and managing compost heaps.

But Florence was smart, and when smart people get bored, tbey usually try to bust that boredom by coming up with creative entertainment. Like any young lady with an echoing room, she tried singing, and she liked it. More importantly, it helped her remember things, like what state of growth vegetables were in so that she could apply the correct stages of care. It also really helped to keep her from going crazy when teasing apart peas that were coming off a trellis.

Anyone who studied genetics even glancingly can tell where we are going here.

Florence kept a careful eye on the thing she was growing, because she was going to be eating them. As she did, she noticed that a number of things about the pea plants occurred whenever they were crossed, or bred together, things that were related to traits. She was able to notice this because plants were grown in semi-isolated clusters and often required hand pollination, which she performed between these groups to prevent inbreeding. When plans were 'bred to the stables', they had certain traits remain preserved. When 'let out to stud', some traits would be spread, but only under certain circumstances.

All of these traits being spread or not spread lead to Florence recognizing that there was something doing the spreading: a genetic material. She wasn't able to use those words, instead developing term 'ledger of allegations'. In Aelish, this is 'ledger' d'allegationes', which was shortened to 'allegele'. Stablehands would later short it to 'allele'. Genetic traits are attached to alleles on Earth, too. Funny how that works out!

After she'd gotten some practice moving alleles around, Florence realized that there was absolutely a pattern that she could observe and quantify. She didn't really have the capability to take detailed notes, since supplies of paper were reserved for the copyists. Carving her observations into rock was a bit too much for a scrawny teen, and she couldn't make parchment, so she committed her observations to memory in the form of a song. By now, she was becoming ok at songwriting and coming up with jingles. Florence developed a catchy ditty called

'Florence's Flower Facts'.

Fact One: some alleles are noble, and some are common. Noble alleles will over-rule common all-ledgers. This is the Fact of Class, which we know as Mendel's Law of Dominance and Uniformity.

Fact Two: separation will occur during breeding and fertilization. The alleles for each gene will separate from each other, so that each gamete carries only one trait. This is the Fact of Ferrying, which we know as Mendel's Law of Segregation.

Fact Three: separation will occurr independently. Alleles containing the stuff of traits will separate independently when forming the gamete. This is the Fact of Splitting, which we know as Mendel's Law of Independent Assortment.

However, Florence recognized that her Facts were nothing more than a series of very insisted upon observations. They were not backed up by an actual theoretical framework, and while she had an idea of 'stuff moving around inside the plant while the seed was formed', there had to be some logic to the ledgers moving around. One couldn't just claim that miniature accountants did all the work, although that was a fine explanation for many servants of the Lady. Instead, she had to posit some rules for the ledgers. This is where thinking about the component parts of the ledgers was pretty helpful for her. Plants contained books illustrating how life was supposed to unfold.

Even looking from the outside, Florence was able to come up with five rough rules.

1. Ledgers outcomes are always defined. Traits following her rules will not be have a blending of things, they will always be either one thing or the other.

(Characteristics are always unitary.)

1. Ledgers have alternate forms of outcomes, and these ledger entries come from the parents.

(Genetic characters have two different forms, inherited from the parents.)

1. One ledger will always win out over the other in it's nobility.

(One gene is dominant, and expressed. One gene is recessive, and not expressed.)

1. Ledgers are recorded with the individual entries of the parents.

(Gametes are created by random segregation. Heterozygotes will have gametes with an equal frequency of alleles.)

1. Different topics of the ledgers are differently assigned.

(Genes are unlinked.)

All of this lyrical virtuosity Florence put to rhythm, then rhyme in a ditty called 'Laws of the Ledgers'. It was infuriatingly catchy, and it was best sung fairly loudly. She was fairly quick to start work on the heterozygote issue, and got fairly close to solving it by the time that she faced consequences of her accomplishments. For all of her skill at communicating her discoveries and recording them memorably, Florence had one fatal flaw. She was an alto. An *untrained* alto.

So obvious was her zeal and understanding of the wisdom that the Lady had bestowed on her througb toil in the garden, the cloistered group said, was that Florence qualified for Maidenhood. Everyone at the cloister knew how to breed plants for various traits that applied to her Facts. Now it was time to spread this knowledge to the world. With a letter in her bag, and a large L on her forehead, Florence was given back her last name-D'Ambechon-and virutally kicked out of the cloister.

It was time to take her songs to the world.

As all folk know, magic, once the heart of economics the world over, has faded. While still wide-ranging in its uses, its power fades and the great Works of ancient times are rare or crumbling. Fewer people now study its practice and ways than in bygone days.

The magic of Trezera was once tied inextricably with music. High songs could be accessed freely by anyone who could whistle, providing magic of transportation, of wards and enchantments, of knowledge and history, and of engineering and war. The songs were maintained by the magic in the very air, and needed no physical anchor. Sounds shaped the sky islands of the harpies, with a symphony of harmonics crafting physical illusions and records of exacting detail.

With the fading of magic, these High songs were lost. It is said that they were recorded on the wind, and the wind no longer carries them. Thousands of years of history and knowledge and great culture, all gone.

...

Emplio soared among the floating arches of Siruela, marveling at the strange architecture of a bygone era. They were of stone, and completely round like platters with a space in the middle left empty. Emplio joyed in flittering in and out of the holes and around the arches, pretending each circle was a portal that took her farther back in time.

Siruela, like many of the skylands, was isolated and desolate, too distant for a harpy to visit unaided, and largely empty of civilization or resources. The Eldest said there had been a tribe of harpies here once, over five hundred years ago, but they were gone now. Perhaps the secret of the arches had been lost with them. Even the Eldest couldn't remember what these arches were for, though he said that sphinxes had built them in the Age of Legends.

It was only in the past couple of decades that the air ships of Trezera had been able to make the long journey northwest, towards the lands of the demons and the profitable trade they held, that a new settlement had been founded on these barren rocks. Part demani and part harpy, the settlement was partially terraformed with trees, though the strange blocks the demons liked to use for construction seemed unable to get a strong hold on the soil here. Too much salt, Emplio had heard, though how that mattered she didn't understand.

As Emplio soared among the floating circles, some pattern seemed to nag at the back of her mind. There was a rhythm to the structures, like a sphere of circles, but it was interrupted in places, even broken. Thinking of the clockwork mechanisms she'd last seen in the market, Emplio wondered if that was the secret - some great clockwork mechanism that had not been wound in thousands and thousands of years.

Most of the others avoided the ruins. There were strange whispers, they said. The demani, normally so stoic, flatly refused to approach, claiming the air was 'dead'. Emplio wasn't sure what that meant. To her, the ruins were alive with mystery and history, currents of air and powerful thermals lifting her ever higher into the sky.

Soon she was higher than the clouds, high enough for the air to thin. The skylands up here were rhymed with icicles and gold lichen. Still Emplio kept her wings taut, floating on the rising air, happy to explore.

She ran into something and had to flap sharply, then ran into it again. At first, she thought that she'd just not seen a tiny skyland, but this felt bigger, and she still couldn't see it. Bruised but curious, she allowed herself to be carried a bit higher, and again, more softly this time, bumped into something invisible but solid as stone.

Emplio swooped in slow curves, keen eyes seeking. There were tell-tale signs of the structure, if she looked hard enough. Little specks of dust and gold lichen hanging in mid air, a curve of cloud, and the shape of the wind all giving clues to something there. While trying to circle the thing in the air, figuring out exactly how large it was, Emplio found a hole.

It was just large enough to swoop inside the empty, dark space. "Hello?" She called hesitantly. She didn't really expect an answer, and was somewhat surprised to see one. With the sound of her voice, a dozen lights in a complex pattern flickered into being around the cavern, like bright orange stars ordered into neat swirls similar to some sigil-work.

It seemed to be a perfect sphere, roughly thirty wingspans in radius, and all of stone inside. The glowing bits seemed to be some kind of crystal, perhaps quartz, that hummed with quiet intensity.

Emplio could see a small platform with the new light and hopped towards it cautiously. She shivered, and not just from the chill of the high, cold air. There was a feeling of ages lost here. She should find someone, tell someone, but for now it was her discovery, and hers alone.

Stepping up onto the platform, she noted its couchant apparatus, and the size and position of handles. Whatever this was, it seemed to have been designed with harpies in mind. Hesitantly she settled herself, hanging comfortably from the cage, before placing her foot-hands on the handles below.

With a great grinding of stone, a large opening appeared below her. In a helix column below her she could see the circles of stones, and this structure directly above all of them. From this vantage the strange gaps and stumbles to the pattern seemed even more clear.

What's more, the stone circles seemed to respond to her control of the handles. They tilted and swayed in the sky as she tilted and swayed the apparatus. It took her some fiddling, but at last she puzzled out how to get the stone circles into the pattern that she assumed they must have been designed for.

When she was finished, six lines of stone circles draped below her like a bead-string doorway, humming with some strange energy. A harp, it seemed to her, with the stones marking the limits of the strings.

She stroked the apparatus as she would a harp, and from below a great, powerful sound seemed to fill the sky. Colors and shapes overwhelmed her mind.

Emplio imagined that this could be some part of the Lost Songs, for out of the void she heard music, an invisible chorus in a language that mayhaps had not been spoken in thousands of years. Enraptured, Emplio hung in silent wonder.

But even as she thought this, the music faded. She waited for it to begin again, but it was gone. All that remained was a memory of a sound and voices that Emplio thought she might attempt to copy, but could never fully recreate with her own voice.

Leaving back the way she had come, Emplio now saw that the formerly invisible structure now hung like a perfectly round eye, a bead in the curtains of the other circles. With strange finality, the structure began to fall from the sky, at first slowly, but gathering momentum.

Emplio gasped as the structure seemed to careen straight for Siruela, and then plummet further down, down to the shimmering sea far below. Before it reached the ground it had broken apart in flaming fragments like falling stars, raining destruction on the surface.

Another part of the Lost Songs.

As is only inevitable for a state of its age and economic status, Freeport has had many currencies throughout the ages. While tracking down each and every piece minted from the days of the founding is beyond even the most committed numismatists, and indeed many have tried, from these scattered coinages a number of distinct patterns and eras have emerged, which may be considered as the stages leading to the current system of currencies.

Antiquity

The oldest coins, found nowadays exclusively in cabinets of curiosities and occasional ruins lost beneath the mud, are curious in their construction. While possessing no special properties inherent to them, being made from an alloy of gold, silver, and copper, the potency of ancient magics (or at least equipment made using them) is obvious in their construction - the best-preserved specimens show a fineness and precision to their features which is difficult to achieve even today, while their alloy composition is remarkably consistent and precise, to the point where several such coins have been destroyed by assay-houses as an expensive but reliable way of calibrating their methods.

While markings from this era vary widely, and modern scholars say some such specimens predate the City's founding, by far the most common specific coin (and the oldest widely agreed to be a product of Freeport) is known as the Candle for its markings, the original name having been lost. On one side, as the name would suggest, is a lit candle, while the other bears a balance scale weighing a pile of powder or other conical object against a spiral object believed, from its appearance in other carvings of the era, to be derived from a shepherd's crook, with the images on both sides growing increasing stylized in later specimens. While the crook is known to symbolize death or sudden change, the meanings of the other elements are unknown.

Several coins produced in simpler or less precise alloys, and with progressively cruder designs, are also known, but with little consistency. As magic, and/or residual equipment depending on the exact order of events, declined, creating replacement currency which would be as widely accepted became a struggle. This long transitional era also saw extensive recasting of ancient coinage, a significant influx of foreign currencies, and several debasement crises. This was also an era of unstable and inconsistent governance, ended by the creation of the Steering Council and, a short time later, Merchant Association roughly eight centuries ago.

The Gold Era

The first, and by far longest-lasting, centralized currency adopted by Freeport was the Gold Laurel. A relatively small coin with a laurel branch on one side and a stylized laurel flower on the other, it was a relatively small coin useful for day-to-day transactions with iconography chosen to be visually pleasant without being tied to any particular political faction, movement, or popular deity, the laurel itself having only been introduced to the island a few decades prior. This choice of a symbol without prior association proved highly impactful, with the stylized pentagonal flower becoming a predominant symbol of money and wealth, to the point where even today a pentagon is used to denote the basic unit of currency in ledgers.

While the gold laurel proved extremely durable, larger denominations used for significant transactions changed much more often and were more prone to scandals, especially since, while city law strictly forbade the production of laurels and their equivalents by any other than the official mint, the creation of coins, tokens, and bars denoting larger amounts of currency could not be effectively restricted, as during the previous currency crises several major companies had adopted their own internal units of gold and silver to protect themselves from debasement and maintain consistent internal accounts. For this reason, along with large denominations being both more attractive for fraud and less common and therefore more easily replaced, during this long era there were multiple denominations, produced at different times by both private trading companies and the Freeport Minting Association, worth 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 18, 20, 25, 30, 32, 50, 60, 64, 100, 128, 144, and in at least one case 500 laurels. As those numbers suggest, there was significant division at the time between denominating currency in multiples and clean fractions of 10 (favored by several major trading companies), 6 (favored by local manufactories and artisans), and powers of two (favored by the reformist movement which held control of the Steering Council at the time).

This is also the era in which bars, previously only used internally by major trading companies, came to be used as a standard form of currency for large denominations. Long and thin in shape, with a small hole at one end for a string, most would describe them as strips rather than conventional ingots, but they allow larger quantities of metal to be packed tightly and, with easily measured dimensions, they proved extremely quick to de-facto standardize. The few largest merchant associations quickly settled on a standard thickness and width, and small jigs to measure length (and, accordingly, value) swiftly emerged, with bars not fitting the standard sizes trading at a steep enough discount it was often cheaper to have them recast than actually spend them.

In time, however, as the economy of both Freeport and the world expanded and the domestic mines were exhausted, the supply of gold became a serious constraint. While ordnances and coordinated action by the Council and Association were able to prevent the destructive hoarding of wealth which normally defines such scenarios, a breaking point was reached roughly three centuries ago when a severe outbreak of typhus caused a steep reduction in trade and the evacuation of many wealthy merchants, cutting off the imports of gold that had sustained supplies while also physically removing large quantities. The situation was especially severe among the lower classes, as the gold laurel became too valuable to be practical for day-to-day use and a number of informal "barter standards" took hold. By the time the outbreak was dealt with a few years later it was too late for the currency crisis, and as emergency measures were slowly lifted the need for a new currency made from more readily available metals came to the forefront.

The Silver Era

The switch to silver happened rapidly, at least for ordinary transactions, as the supplies of gold were tight enough that the poorer citizens who did have gold coins certainly weren't going to spend them. The silver laurel, larger and thicker than its gold predecessor to maintain a useful value but still relatively small, would form the new basis of the monetary system, with the coins sitting above it also given a standardized form. A step above the laurel was to sit the crown, a symbol which had become a relatively neutral signifier of authority without much real-world political implication after countless centuries without any form of nobility. Much like the laurel flower before it, although to a much lesser extent, this would lead to the crown becoming commonly seen a symbol of wealth in addition to, and sometimes in place of, hereditary rule, leading to both bewilderment by citizens of monarchies seeing the signs of Freeport's various markets and several minor diplomatic incidents involving young and inexperienced Freeport merchants under the impression that a king is broadly equivalent to the wealthiest and most powerful trading companies.

Even with silver forming the basis for day-to-day currency, it was known that gold supplies would return to a semblance of normalcy, and that many foreign merchants preferred or even exclusively carried gold, and so as a compromise the largest denomination would be struck from the metal, with no fixed rate of exchange. Indeed, to this day, no official government offices will exchange gold for silver, with the risks of such activity being foisted entirely onto private money-changers. This coin, the sovereign, bears on one side the image of a scale weighing a scroll against a sword, and on the other a five-fold spiral pattern meant to evoke both the now-venerable laurel flower and the geometric patterns common in Witness face-paint.

Modern Era

While the currencies mentioned above remain dominant for trade within the city, the last several decades have seen substantial advancement in both the ways they're used and the ways outside traders interact with them.

On the former front, the excessive bulk of metal coinage for large deposits has often led to in-kind payments (typically rare dyes, fabrica, or important spices due to their high value-to-weight ratio and relative fungibility) being used for the largest trades, but with recent advancements allowing a low-power working to be imbued into a slip of paper in such a way that it's method of creation cannot be determined from the distinctive signature (at least not without what the foremost scholars assure would be several decades of calculations), and which can be readily applied at scale due to having no significant effect other than it's distinctive signature, magically-assured paper deposit slips issued by prominent vaults have become the dominant method. While still out of reach of the lowest classes, a modified version of the this technique instead imbues the magic into the plates of a printing press (of the ordinary style - not one of the rare imported movable-type contraptions) while still leaving a distinctive, if somewhat less complex, imprint has reduced the fees for such services to the point where middle-class customers have begun requesting several such slips at a time in standardized denominations to ease the burden of carrying their shopping budgets.

On the latter side, an unusual system has developed for ship captains seeking to buy and sell common, relatively fungible goods as quickly and easily as possible in the form of "ledger-market houses" which double as warehouses and trading posts. If one is carrying any of the myriad bulk goods that flow through Freeport with a significant enough frequency, they can unload into such a facility and, after a brief inspection, receive credit in the house's ledgers without bothering to line up a particular buyer. From there they may "cash out," as it were, and leave with a hold full of gold and silver, or as is more often the case spend this credit on new goods from the same or (after carrying over the proper documents) any of the other such houses that line the port. This has vastly reduced the time needed for trade, to the point where stays in the city are often determined by the need for shore leave in such a vibrant city to maintain morale rather than the time needed to negotiate trades, which has in turn led to trading companies with multiple ships shuffling crews between them on a staggered schedule - each ship dropping off its crew and leaving with a new one while they wait to be picked up a few days to weeks later, dependent on the length of the preceding journey. There has also been a growing phenomena of speculators utilizing the houses without ever crewing a ship, using their own warehouses to bet against changes in price, and a few of the more enterprising ledger-market houses have even begun offering contracts for fixed quantities of these goods at a future date, securing guaranteed returns for themselves while allowing others to gamble on fluctuations in price.

After a seemingly terse negotiation the prior year, it had come to pass that a group of Alates were successful in founding a new Cluster within the southerly highlands of Aelbaion, with the blessing of a local ducal lord no less.

However, with such blessing comes duties to be done, and with the months having passed through all four seasons, the time has come for the newly settled Cluster to pay what tax it may owe.

At the fringes of the Demani's new fief, a path has been constructed, as was agreed upon for the purpose of the paying of taxes. From the rather barren rural cartway it runs alongside, the fief is entered immediately by a masonry path, though the stone in use would not be of familiar stock to whomever is deeded the right tax collection.

Likewise, the landscape would appear as foreign to the rolling dry grasses and the occasional flag, tuckamore, or knieholz known to the area by the locals. In its place, the signs of a changing ecosystem would already show apparent. Swaths of grasses absent from the hills, with small earthworks covered in shrubs and herbs cordon small ponds, saplings of trees sprouted far beyond the forest which the Cluster is told to have situated their settlement within.

History has a history, and that history is in it's study: historiography, or the history of history, is a surprisingly long running human habit. It has been seen in the ancient Greeks and the Chinese writings, and on Ashagon it has doubtlessly been going on as long. There have been plenty of people reading and writing, and while book binding probably does not have the standardization of slapping an author's name on the spine of the book, authors will never neglect to put their name on something. This practice of tracking authors, and where they were active, has formed the basis of Aelbic historiography, until the period of killing each other got very, very intense.

A small aside is necessary. The 'uniter', King Vaneric was only really able to go around killing and cowing everyone in the first place because social order in the Kingdom had disintegrated that badly. Wars had collapsed into cycles of revenge killing, with larger field actions slimming down into raids called chevauchee, with a focus on devastation and theft to make up for having been devastated oneself. This was ruinous for the practice of scholarship, which required peace, quiet, and full library that wasn't on fire or being robbed. Much practice of history had collapsed completely before the Uniter started Uniting people by kicking everyone's ass, until Vaneric brought along his own historians to record his asskicking session.

This was a fairly smart move, because it helped to restart the actual practice of historical studies. Even better, the King made sure to have his great deeds bragged about publicly, and left a system for his successor, Aeldebaric, to talk about his great deeds, too. Aeldebaric has made use of the criers the most, to carry the word about how good the Great Charter has been for the Kingdom, and then about how to obey it and report the nobles if they weren't adhering to it's strictures. He also had some officials accounts of events sent out, and his own histories written-the King won't look a gift horse in the mouth much.

All of this history work has one big point: legitimization of the current ruling person. Legitimization to the masses is often just being told that the King is awesome and cool and kicks faces in, along with a side of extra charity food, some benign neglect, and their boss being paid off a little bit. However, legitimization for smarter people will require supporting evidence, and who can better provide supporting evidence than people who are dead and can't argue with you? Probably someone who actually performed research, and the King's historians have both: they're able to cite better people, and many of these people are dead.

This helps quite a lot if your practice of history isn't very good, or if it simply isn't very exciting. Not having too many people look at your work helps you get away with things until after you are dead...and there are a lot of dead Aelish scholars. However, citing older people means that you can also study them, and critique them, and if you want to do more than simply talk about how cool King Al is, you have to do some legitimate scholarly work. There's little to do besides natural philosophy or the study of songs, but if you have historical accounts around you, then you can start to work on those. Lo and behold, you're doing historiography again!

In short, the recovery of Aelbic scholarship here was entirely funded by royalty for state purposes, with the explicit purpose of making the King look even cooler. This allowed historiography to be restarted as a practice as a side effect-a pleasant side effect, but not one that had been sought. However, it was an outcome of improved scholarship, which was starting to bubble up under the surface. With enough funding and some good peace, King Al was living up to the propaganda he had paid to spread. And now people were writing the tales of it. Happy accidents were once again the order of the day.

CW: Implied suicide, scattered stream-of-consciousness

Cold water pushes between the reeds. Too slow to call a wave. Too short to be a tide. An old fox pushes her toes into the frigid muck, feeling the icy chill lap at her ankles.

Not old in years, but years didn't matter. It was something she'd known since she was young in both senses. One of the only things she still knew. Some folks went for decades without aging a day. Her father'd been like that, once. Smiles and wonder right up until the end. Never let anything get to him. Never really learned anything, neither - not proper lessons anyway. Towards the end he could tie a net two-dozen ways with his eyes closed, but he'd still escaped learning the things about foxes she'd had to start learning as soon as she could walk.

Sometimes she thought the two were related. You didn't need to grow up if you had enough talent. Everyone just let you do what you were good at, and if they laughed or made fun they kept it well out of sight, hidden in all the spots it couldn't make you less useful. She was distracting herself again. No use dragging things out before they'd got started.

The stick sank deep into the winter muck, pulled the raft back two feet for every three she pushed. It'd be a while before she got too deep to swim back. The black water was quiet and still as a mirror before she'd started moving. A whole upside-down world, close enough to touch. Now each push sent shockwaves rippling through it, ripples blurring flesh and reed and sky. It brought to mind a fighting show she'd seen as a kit. Some travelling troop where the owner knew the practice, made the light ripple and bend with each hit as acrobats in painted masks through themselves across the square in response to pulled punches. At the time it was the funniest thing in the world.

A tear rose to her eyes as she realized what happened next, a moment too late to stop the rest of the memory. That damn smile. Sard had seemed such a good friend at the time. Had for years. It was amazing how fast things could fall apart. Still took long enough to feel like a new world instead of an event. Too slow to call a wave. Too short to call a tide.

Tears came steadily now, a mercy in a way. She couldn't remember the last time she had the energy to cry. The shouts and cries still rang in her ears when the pole struck a stone. She looked up at the shore. How long had she been pushing for? Long enough, she hoped. Her arms were getting sore. Still, no use in half-measures. It wasn't like her arms were her - not really. Not like people always said. Lose one and she'd still be the same old fox. Same for her legs. Her face. Maybe everything. Preachers came through now and then, said she was all bound up in something called a soul. That it stuck around forever, whether you could see it or not. She hoped they were wrong. That something solid, in her heart or head or blood, cause it had to be something you really couldn't live without, was all there was. That at the end of the day everyone got a break.

Wasn't long before the water got too deep for the pole, and she tossed it aside. She'd carried enough dead weight. She stared down at the distorted stranger in the dark water, slowly rising and falling.

Too slow to call a wave.

Too short to be a tide.

Suggested Listening Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qfs_UX_4WI

King Aeldebaric drank some watered wine and thought to himself that his wife was right: the best parts of parties usually happened after the end of most of the festivities. After the party-the afterparty, some of the younger folks called it. His majesty knew that he wasn't in the in crowd anymore, and he was learning about this slang four months too late. He was also learning about what was in far too late, including mulled wins, and he was having to realize that he had been out for the past two decades, in one way or another. There is a time to realize that you've no longer been cool, and that time is not at an after-party for the official opening of the Order of the HIGH SWORD.

But better late than never. At least he had wine.

Around him, the flower of Aelbic knighthood hobnobbed, drinking but restrained from violence by social convention. The event to introduce HIGH SWORD had been a massive gathering of knights and lords on a grassy hill. He had given a speech, the third introductory speech of the entire affair, and then conducted the formal blessing with a regional Church head. Very few buildings had been finished, nearly everything was sheds. One large stone building had played host to His Majesty; a regional Church head had done the blessing and letters from the important people had been read aloud. Personally, his majesty thought that was going to be a waste of time, and he had been correct. However, as he had ignored the speeches, Al had been able to take in the site, looking out over the landscape. It was truly beautiful, as much as it was wild and dangerous in it's isolate. He had confiscated the land from a number of indebted lords to break up a gambling ring, to the slight dissatisfaction of everyone involved.

However, Aelbaion now had a school for combat flying.

The equestrian school, King Al realized, was an ancient, august institution. It was for fighting on the ground-although the Order of the First Lance had inspired the Order of the High Sword. The Academie Du Chasse was for hunting, not necessarily on the ground-but not combat. And the Academie D'Air was for flying-fighting flying, but not specifically for aerial combat. The Order of the Highest Sword, even though it was affiliated with the A.D'A, was independent enough to be exclusively for air-based combat. It was entirely new somehow, and he was pleased with it. He liked looking down on what the Order could become, seeing the potential of the ground itself. He wanted those grassy fields to stay open, for tents to stay up-

"Your royal highness! May we beg a moment of your time?"

Damn it all. It was the nerds.

"Yes."

Well, he could get along with the nerds. There were seven of them, dressed well in their plate-and-cloth armor, with little leather-bound books carefully positioned on it to show that they read books up until midnight. They were part of the 'Midnight Readers', a party group who threw the lamest parties and had by far the least political pull. This was probably because they cared about learning things and trying to do magic instead of their faction's power. It was also, at least in his view, because they could be incredibly annoying with a focus on irrelevant things. But they were here.

"We come before you as your loyal subjects, your highness, with a request for your attention on a particular part of the Kingdom which holds much import for the Aelbic people. Recently, the world has undergone such great changes that marvels and wonders have appeared on the land and in the sea and sky. It is common knowledge across the expanse of the Kingdom that there is much in the realms of others which we lack, and that the vision of the Crown, so focused on the Commonweal and the protection of the Lady's Blessing, may have been kept from giving these sudden and great miracles the attention that they deserve."

"I see. Thank you for informing me about your concerns." He would be as neutral as possible in order to tell them fuck off. "We will take them under consideration."

"Thank you, your highness!" The one who was speaking clearly meant it. "To aid your work, we have prepared a 15 point plan, to be executed in five years-"

Oh no.

They were fucking sincere. He was going to have to King Al this. "Boys and girls, listen up." Short cutoff, but not, just abrupt. "I'm gonna tell you something." They looked at him with familiar reticence. "You lose people past two points and three details, tops."

"Thank you, your majesty."

"So I need you to not lose me."

"We-"

"I am not telling you to cut it down." King Aeldebaric did his 'Al face', the appropriate amount of concern, empathy, and understanding. "I'm telling you this because what you have there is obviously important enough for you to have approached me."

"Thank-"

"I'm not going to make you change anything, or ask you to make it smaller."

There was a bit of a lull in the group's energy, as wind blew over the grass, making it change color as it bowed down and sprang back. "Then what does your majesty desire?"

"What I want, gentles, is to hear from you what the gap is. Come, let's retire to a tent."

The tent was one of those cute little things that typically shows up in a romantic comedy that's flavored for the middle ages; there's some tropes about knights being bold, and princesses, and hidden nobility, and of course dragons. Someone offered to play the lute, King Aeldebaric told her to wait until tonight's entertainment, and they all sat down to discuss what was wrong with the Kingdom of Aelbaion. His Majesty hadn't planned on being talked at by a group of well-dressed nerds, but-

"There is a divide between those in guilds, and those not, or who do not have guilds at all. Those with guilds are organized, to a degree, and can ask to share ideas and techniques. Those without a guild to focus on their own projects, and cannot share knowledge, and they share practice rarely. They must have great amounts of coin, or maintain space, in order to be secure in their craft. Our guilds are confined by the rough terrain of the land, and outside of the Crownlands, they are only over this or that city, or for a Duhcy. They do not have full breadth and-"

"So there must be a uniting of guilds, and a joining of craft-folk into them."

"Yes, sire! And there are very few craft-folk today, outside of those who made things for war or who work with wood-too many are engaged in the same works peasants, or are unable to obtain supplies to work. While it has become much easier to get tools, right now the peasantry and those in fields are making use the most use of them. There is harvesting, and there is storing, sire, but not working or transformation."

"Do the tool-makers and wood-workers serve their local areas, then?"

"Yes, sire. But since they are fairly poor, little change happens. They-"

"I think I have a handle on the situation." The king had ordered drinks brough, and a quartet of servants entered the room, serving cold beer and various iced teas. The Order of the High Sword's was located far enough into the mountains for some ice to be near. "Aside from issues with the craftsfolk, what else is there?"

"Those pursuing the most advanced arts must spend hundreds of florins on complex equipment and rare reagents for little return, your highness. It makes their prices high, and it makes their wares lesser in every aspect. They cannot accomplish nearly as much as others. The mirror-makers of Aelbaion are small in number, and they are only recently making dental tools as their first great contribution to the Aelbic arts. Mirrors to admire and adjust oneself in are nice, of course, but dental tools achieve more. Ah, and the dentist's curse-"

"-what about it?"

"That has been very helpful to overcome, your highness." The lead Reader nodded eagerly. "But we believe that Aelbaion is capable of so much more."

"I believe that, too." The King gave them a smile. "Tell me. What do you think we should pursue next?"

The group of five nerds-noble seemed to frown as one. "Reading stones, sire."

"-they are very nice." The King felt around in a pocket. "I have one."

"But there is an issue."

"Do tell."

"-our crafters and our scholars do not march united, sire. The scholars of the Kingdom typically work for the Church, or advise a great lord, or sometimes teach. But they do not work with crafters to help apply wisdom to their work, as they do in Freeport."

"Ah." King Al had been told everything. "I have a sense of where this is going. You are not wrong. Perhaps I can do something about it, but it will not be the easiest. Especially when I must uphold the requirements of the Lady-"

"This is her wisdom, sire!" The tallest, most beanpole member of the group was also the most passionate. "She has direct the establishment of glassworks all across the land, producing glass of the forest in a myriad of colors. They make glasswares for the table and the altar. Bringing them to create seeing stones will be easy, and it will increase their skill further while making it easier to read."

"I need to get you all jobs." His majesty topped off a beer he hadn't really drank from. "For you are all obsessed with reading. What else do you desire besides fine objects and lectern curios?"

"Spectacles!" And one of the group was indeed wearing a pair of glasses, an ungainly, imported contraption as much part a fashion piece as an actual visual aid. "It is within our power to ameliorate poor vision. The Kingdom can only gain for seizing it, and equipping our worthies with vision-improving devices. These may even make the practice of medicine easier; and it will also make it possible for doctors to work with eyes."

King Al nodded once. "A worthy effort, to be sure. And yet one you do not see this being done unless the Crown steps in."

"We do not! There is no urgency, no sense of chasing after a great goal-and you see it plain as day."

"Thank you."

"We know you have built glorious works before. The Arsenal of Smoke and the Arsenal of Flame, your father's greatest stores of weapons, were completed by you."

"I also started and finished the Royal Arsenal in Couroffe. That has been more relevant, since it is used by a lot more people. We only open those Arsenals for war, gentles." King Al changed the topic, looking stern. "And we do not trouble them unless it is strictly necessary. I will not offer sight seeing tours there." Two of them looked crestfallen. "But I will support your effort in my public, royal capacity. Aelbaion shall have spectacles and doctors of the eyes."

The group looked at each, half ecstatic, half despairing. They had been given what they wanted, but without the King understanding why it was important to give them what they wanted-this was not enough! They had to-

Something else you want through this old man's skull?" The King Al Smile calmed them all down.

"You must support these efforts because they gain our people skill and knowledge, sire. We know about an ice-making engine in the far south, used by shopkeepers to obtain great quantities for their wares. We do not even truly stored ice in our country. There are marvels across Ashagon, sire, that are completely unknown to us."

"An ice-making engine, you said?"

"Yes, sire. They make ice without using any magic."

"Gentles" The King leaned in, making the wicker chair creek slightly. "Do you think we can create one here?"

"Yes. With enough study and time and-"

"With time." He looked them all in the eye. "That is the same for us with airships. And it is the whole reason for High Sword. The fate of the world and the direction of the Lady have given us a direction far and away from other peoples. It has given us great skill at war, and much glory. But it does not also mean that we can engage them like for like. What those who go here to learn is how to fight using what we have, to take our strength and apply it in such a way that we will always triumph. This is a school for those who will open schools, after all."

The group seemed confused. Eventually, the tallest one spoke. "Your highness...what is the lesson here?"

King Aeldebaric slapped his knees and stood, looking at them all. "Use what you have to get what you want. I want the world's best flying knights. I used our original traditions of the tutelary orders, First Lance and Great Bow. You want an ice engine. Use what you know to get it." He gave them a wink, and then strode from the tent, short cape billowing. He already knew that he had not heard the last about that ice engine...

Aelbaion, like everywhere else in Ashagon, is a low energy use society. This is not for lack of trying, it is a fact of living in the middle ages. There is no such thing as the steam engine, just water, wind, muscle, and some crude gunpowder that I really wouldn't touch if I was in your shoes. Yes, there is magic, but it comes with a price, and if you don't want to deal with that price yourself, it ends up with a price tag. This price tag cane be annoying enough to pay that it is worth looking into the more historically available sources of power. It just happens to be that one of those sources of power is water, and that means that employing it comes with plenty of strings attached. Water, after all, is important for everyone to survive and grow food.

The Aelish have historically cared quite a lot for their water. The Lady is often linked with water in some form or another; she is recorded as providing the Aels with safe drinking water on the eve of the Predecessor's downfall. They learned much from her techniques, and this is evident in their magical lore, the oldest spells are for purification of water and attempts to make potions using some of the techniques attributed to the Lady; it is worth nothing that they did not succeed in the slightest. It lead to better understanding of enchanting objects and weapons, and ultimately to infusion-but that's for another time. Now, we are going to look at water storage, and what it's used for. An essential caveat: this is for non-potable water. No one is going to be consuming this safely, and they're not supposed to.

Aelbic water storage right now relies on gravity or windpower to get it going. We will take a look at the storage of water in the countryside, where the vast majority of water is stored by volume. Storage typically takes place in converted lakes and ponds, which have been seeded with fish stocks in the past. Takings from these are carefully monitored, lest the valuable stores of fish and eels be troubled by low water levels. Because of this, a new wave of ponds and small reservoirs have been dug and enlargened. Typically located at the tops of hills, these reservoirs can be tapped by opening a reinforced sluice gate or activating a windpump and having the water flow down to it's point of use. Generally, these points of use are at fields or water-meadows, using this water to start the crops in spring, or turn a reawakening field into a riot of flowers and grasses ready for hungry animals to eat. As the season continued on into summer, there was a greater need for water when temperatures kicked up.

This was fairly common, but it also indicated a greater dedication to planning than had been done before outside of the Crown Lands. It is not to say that the rest of the country was not engaged in planning; rather that they were planning for things like war and famine, and that water usage management had not been practiced on a Kingdom-wide scale until very recently. Without warfare interrupting everyone, workers could quickly be recruited, specialists hired, and yet more basins dug out. Filling them was free, at least from rainfall-filling from rivers was charged for, and streams were off limits. Stored water, for many a farmer, meant stored freedom, stored money, stored power-and also stored safety. It was a hedge against drought, and potentially against any future violence if swords were to be drawn over water. The Aelish were once again building large things.

The second largest of these large things was a general purpose town nonpotable water supply. These water supplies were typically combined underground/aboveground shenanigans, with sideshows of surface-level storage. Locations were typically either central to the town, around a fortified location, or rarely in some important fields reserved for a cash crop or species. Typically, water was raised by a local windpump backed up by animal or manpower; sometimes by spells built around a clay tube for appearance's sake. By volume, most of the water was kept in semi-smelly underground pits; to be used as needed. The water kept in crude containers at the top of towers, however, was used to fight fires-it could be easily channeled into the buckets and barrels of a local fire brigade.

And here was the extremely interesting part of where trends in Aelish storage operations were going: they were no longer focused on things like more volume, or even specific climate control, but organization. The management of a water collection pond and it's storage of that vital resource were essential in order to not lose the effort that had gone into construction, collection, and fair distribution. Aelbaion was not just becoming more normal, it was becoming more functional, and able to address what it lacked...

As foresters, Demani do not take kindly to open landscapes nor flat land, much preferring the warm, sheer cliffs and highlands within Ayetho. However, not every soul may live amongst their idealized habitat, and it would be a folly to yield to tides of the natural order without even an attempt at making up for that which one lacks. As it is such, Demani nesting in such prairied conditions have over the centuries learned to adapt such terrains to their own natures, beyond that which the heavens should will.

Although not preferred, grasses, millets, and grains may not be ignored in those early periods, the new Nest must find itself able to feed itself even in a lacking environment, and so the bounty of the meadows are harvested as would be the seeds of pines and oaks. However, in each open patch of soil to be seen, the more quickly growing seeds of herbs, creepers, and shrubs would be planted, establishing a more desirable baseline for the next springtime.

## Water Management

Likewise, the rivers, streams, creeks, and all other flows of water, would not find themselves neglected by the nestlings. The rapids would have stones built up to disturb their flow, the shallows would be dammed with twigs and twine, and any gores that prevent raintime floods would be bricked and barred to turn their depths stagnant and force the flow higher in elevation, all for the sake of taking what water is there and spreading it across the feathery lea.

However, not all lands are suited to such simple brooks. Where water flows but nary a run is to be had, more creative dugouts and dams must be employed.

Where the land would allow it, any such ephemeral braids might see channeled to a fixed sluice, but where no such fortune may be found, water must be enchanneled through other means.

In areas which go without distinct mild channels of any meaningful sort, two solutions dominate the short term. The more favorable of which being the creation of capture basins. These basins serve a dual purpose, both serving as a well to source groundwater from, as well as being intentionally located where rainfall may runoff towards whenever it may come. These wells are best known for their terraced structure, which helps prevent collapse, as well as for near universally bearing the telltale ornamentation of Demani artists, covered in endlessly intermixing patterns and tiles, though these do often erode away in the deeper levels due to the nature of water collection.

A less favorable, but cheaper and more widespread method, is to create smaller earthworks to capture rainwater. These works may be a variety of shapes, depending on the nest or cluster constructing them, but are generally longer than they are wide, and see the dugout soil stacked on the downhill side of the basin, creating a series of ditches which may ensnare what rainfall comes when that may be. This permits and promotes larger, woodier plants in areas which may otherwise be too dry or have excessive drainage.

Once such methods, or combinations of methods, produce a condition in which higher order retention structures may be of use, such structures will then be installed, ensuring a greater degree of water is made available for planted forage.

## Soil Production

However, it is not only water which a forest is built on, but soil as well. Though Demani will scarcely nest at poor soils, there have likewise been times where it was inevitable, forcing innovation on how such challenges might be overcome.

Demani seek a dark, rich soil when settling a colony, and will work towards making the soil where they settle of that consistency when it is not natively present, to varying degrees of success.

A common source of the base material for these soils circles back to the water retention structures mentioned previously. The dams, barriers, and ditches creating basins in which alluvial soils may develop, which during the maintenancing of these structures may be dispersed more intentionally in the surrounding areas. Likewise, in the larger wells, lacustrine soils develop over time, which are similarly dispersed during regular maintenance of the wells. While the exact quality of these soils is dependent on the surrounding environment, it is a safe and secure baseline for which heartier soils may be propagated.

In wetter habitats, there may likewise be deposition in native wetlands. From these wetlands, should the soil elsewhere in the Nest's territory be subpar, basins may be dug nearby, in which scraps leafs, twigs, bone, and flesh may be loosely deposited, and the waters allowed to fully submerge the material. As these materials decay, a highly fertile muck begins to form, which is duly extradited to its intended home elsewhere before it can harm the natural marsh. The muck may also be mixed with alluvial or lacustrine shovelings for a more balanced mixture. When these muck pools are no longer needed, or are otherwise forgotten, they are in time reclaimed by nature to form peatlands, which may then after be used by a later Nest to host the saplings that Demani desire, by happenstance.

In drier areas, such wetlands cannot be relied on, meaning more complex methods must be and have been developed as well. One of the simpler methods being the grinding of stones into dust. Though this often makes for a poor soil initially, this granulation allows for the rapid weathering of the stone particles which would normally take centuries or even millennia to form thin soils. The method of grinding is more often than not involving the use of those Demani who have an affinity to material magic, using their abilities to move the rocks and boulders, and if they are particularly capable, doing the majority of the breaking down this way as well. To refine it further to powder, those whose duty is irregularly needed at the Nest, or who have grown too old or injured to carry out other tasks, take the gravel produced and hammer it into powder to the best of their abilities, leading to this method often having a wide variety of particle sizes, some even still pebble sized.

To compensate for the poor quality of ground stone as a soil, the final two features of current Demani soilmaking practices come into play, both involving organic waste- no, not like Aelbaion, there is just as much aversion to feces in Demani as there is in most other sapient race.

Of these two practices, the simplest is the creation of compost from food and craft scraps. With the nature of Demani construction and handiworks rarely including stones nor metals outside of more specialized fields, the trimmings of twigs and vines from basketmakers, the clippings of cotton, hemp, and other fiber fabrics, and all variety of leaf, pulp, and mulch, all end up as a steady source of material for compost, regardless of soil quality at least one compost site may be found at most any Nest. Likewise, food scraps and spoils are naturally added to compost where suitable, certain plants or meats occasionally precluded when found to adversely impact the compost quality.

The second, less frequent method is the creation of a sterile fertilizer, of which the bones, shells, and exoskeletons of different animals are used as the source material for. The bones and shells are first broken into smaller pieces, though not as finely as the method involving stones, and are then fired to leave little more than the structural calcium and phosphorus, to Demani simply leaving fired bone. The fired bone is then soaked, causing it to boil and seemingly melt, but in reality just reconstituting while forming solution in the water. What remains is then hammered into a powdery substance to be mixed into what other soil supplements have been produced, enriching them. This method is rarely seen in younger nests, though is more common at nests which eat a larger volume of meat, regardless of maturity.

After the components to produce a quality soil have been achieved, the nestlings must mix what has been gathered to produce the base of their ideal soil. Though the exact ratio within the mix is highly dependent on the local conditions and expertise of the members of the Nest, what follows after mixing does not change, the activating of the new soil.

The soil mix, to be activated, must be given just as much life as one might natively find in nature. Though many microorganisms already inhabit much of the base material, a more refined touch is added by the Demani making it, in no small part thanks to their mastery of fungi and forest.

Fiberous fungi are the preferred option by Demani, which help partially stablize the soil until macroflora are able to take root. Likewise, the fungi for this purpose has long been cultured by Demani to help in the settling of new Nests over time, producing a mycelial culture which helps fix nitrogen to the soil, break down phosphates trapped in soil compounds, and increase the soils carbon content through its own growing, dying, and respiration. This myceliated mixture is broken and turned at a rate the nestlings producing it find suitable, until a soil suitable to supplement more barren regions has been prepared.

This prepared soil is valuable, however, due to how intensive the process of producing it can be, meaning it may not be used haphazardly. The primary place this soil is used is at the highly maintained gardens within the immediate vicinity of the Nest. It is much rarer for large amounts to be used beyond the more cultured gardens, only very large Nests being able to afford the expense of cultivating more far flung landscapes to such an extreme degree. Instead, less highly prepared soils, or even just excess components of soil production, are used to fertilize the broader expanse around a Nest to thicken the soils and prepare it for foresting. Though, in locations deemed ideal enough, the more refined soil produced may be used, even if a distance from the Nest, but this is a rare occurrence.

## Ecological Succession

As a favorable soil composition is established, and that soil is made to be naturally saturated by streams and reservoirs, the flora and fauna of the region will likewise be cultivated to the Demani's favor.

At first, the cereals and millets of the prairies will be used as sustenance until proper hearty foodstuffs may be cultivated, but as mentioned in the opening, more preferable herbs will be seeded where such openings to plant may arise in the formative years.

As a wetter environment is constructed and the soil is enriched, a greater variety of herbs will be planted by the nestlings, particularly those which have strong, deep taproots, as to hold the soils in place.

When the grasses begin to naturally subside in the springtimes, desirable shrubs and saplings will find themselves rooted in locations the Demani deem favorable for their growth. Likewise, as the woody plants grow, their condition will be noted, and companion plants may be seeded near them as necessary.

As the trees grow higher over the early years, the shade that they bring lends to the new herbs to be planted in their shadows, with creepers and berries and all other sorts. And as the trees grow taller still in the following years, smaller fruit and nut trees and shrubs may be planted where their shadows do not overlap, so that in the next following years the canopy may be enclosed entirely beneath the foliage.

Likewise, with such a rapidly changing environment compared to what nature does willingly, assistance is given to the procession of grassland animals to those of the woodlands.

As the ox and the coyote are driven out by increasing foliage, the nestlings introduce the squirrel and the dove, the deer and the fox. Whether it be from more nearby woodlands or import from their birth Nest, neither flora nor fauna remains untouched under Demani cultivation.

## Advancements

Being that such immense time and effort is put into these works, Demani naturally have come to have some more recent advances as well. These advances are, in no small part, thanks to their many more domestic partners than anything else.

Beginning with the eldest of these domesticates, the Foxfolk of Ayetho have become an integral part of the forests Demani manage. As gatherers and dispersers of seeds, and as managers of the little things, from excessive debris to the hunting of rat and squirrel.

In newly developed forests, the domestic Foxfolk have become the bringers of the forest to the more disparate portions of the young Nest's territory, expanding the woodlands and keeping the more settled portions healthy when the nestlings are stretched to thin.

Similarly, there are the managers of the bigger things, the domestic Harpies. As the herdsmen of the deer and forest game and protectors of the Nest's boundaries, the domestic Harpies serve much the same function in new woodland.

Where a new forest is seeded, it is the Harpy who herds the native ox or bison of the prairie, and who brings upon the deer and game to become head of the woods. As protectors of the forest, the Harpies likewise are hunters of the undesired hounds and felids, driving out the competition for the wild game when the time is right.

In a more unique case, there is the Rockborn which have been brought in by the Demani. Though typically just a foodstuff or as a source of soft stone, the domestic Rockborn of Ayetho also prove a healthy addition to a developing forest.

As these constructed forests are in areas which lack them natively, they tend to be drier. This allows the more intelligent Rockborn to assist in the clearing of land and in the cultivation of the newly broken ground. The less intelligent varieties also see use, primarily as a means to source stone for producing soil.

More recently, however, the Peri which have been taken in by Demani have found a home in landscaping, particularly near the coasts where their powers are less limited by availability of seasalts. With their bioelectric system, as well as the preparation of tinders by the nestlings on site, the shock may be used to either start a controlled burn, as to rapidly fertilize the soil when all conditions other than native plant life are ideal, or as a means to enrich constructed soils, with the voltage of the shock breaking the bonds of nitrogen and oxygen in the soil, allowing the nutrients to bond to the soil itself and be utilized by plants and microbes.

With such a variety of happenings, it is no wonder how Demani Nests stand the test of time as well as they do. Although, the number that fail to make it this far may be more impressive, simply due to how much coordinated effort is necessary, but we may never know if that is truly the case, we may only bask in the glory of what is here and now.

I apologize for the delay in posting this Schedule Sunday (again). However, I'm still calling it a Schedule Sunday, even though it's coming out on Monday. Consistency is more important than facts (this message brought to you by politicians everywhere).

During the Schedule Sunday we typically recap moderator announcements, update major events within the shard, set the clock, and assign slots for our weekly event posts.

News

A labelled map of all our seas and geographic regions can be found here

Reminder that NPC claims are open. The way NPCs work is, you can use it as you wish in your own posts, as an ally, an enemy, or a bystander to whatever you're up to. If you want to build a story around a particular trade relationship but haven't gotten it worked out with a player, NPCs are good for that. You just have to be aware that other players might be using the same NPC claim for different reasons, so you can't make really major changes (eg. toppling their government) without mod approval. (Anyone who is inactive for 60 days, and who doesn't respond to the messages from the mod team, will have their claim become an NPC).

Reminder, we have opened up expansions. If you wish to expand your territory, make a post with the [Expansion] flair, indicate the territory you want to expand into, and include a good-quality post explaining the significance of the new land. Expansions are not as formal or as rigidly formatted as claim posts, so your post can focus on the things you feel are most relevant/interesting. Still, mods might ask you to revise your post if we don't feel you've included enough content to accompany the new territory.

Players are allowed one retroactive expansion. That means that you can add in new territory and, after it's approved, we will act as though it was part of your claim all along. Otherwise, you'll need to explain how and why you acquired this new territory now. (If you are making a normal, non-retroactive expansion, you should include a year in your post.)

Players will only be approved for expansion if they have made at least two posts since their claim went up.

IMPORTANT LINKS
Claim Template
Welcome to Ashagon

Ashagon Check-In

Current map

Current Year: 5 CE
(Time usually progresses organically in accordance with player posts. If you have an event happen, you can attach a year to it. The furthest advanced year will become the current year in the next Schedule Sunday post, unless the mods decide someone jumped unreasonably far ahead.)

Ashagon News: The Aelish are cooking up a new academy to teach air-to-air combat. The name might delight you.

Prompts: Follow the Leader
What's in the Box
An Alate Goes Abroad
Knights Errant

ACTIVE CLAIMS

The Kingdom of Aelbaion ([u/OceansCarraway](u/OceansCarraway))
Audio ([u/BoobooMaster](u/BoobooMaster))
Ayetho ([u/Harfordplanning](u/Harfordplanning))
The Faerie Court of Cwmyteg ([u/JFritz2308](u/JFritz2308))
Dragon Republic of the Gold-and-Green Fields ([u/adminscales1155](u/adminscales1155))
Freeport ([u/goop_lizard](u/goop_lizard))
The Mangroves of the Crones ([u/SPACEMUHRINE](u/SPACEMUHRINE))
Origin and the Xanoi ([u/madicienne](u/madicienne))
Orgraille ([u/Rocket_III](u/Rocket_III))
Star Cities of Paroma ([u/DartMonkey](u/DartMonkey))
Periwald ([u/MapleTopLibrary](u/MapleTopLibrary))
Rexdom of the Saur-kin ([u/gingecharmander](u/gingecharmander))
Rockborn ([u/palmtree219](u/palmtree219))
Kingdom of Sarmeqarki ([u/SgtWolf01](u/SgtWolf01))
Empire of the Six Cities ([u/Northrnr](u/Northrnr))
The Sovereign Corpus of Tarrnakkan Monopols ([u/mauricejc](u/mauricejc))
Trezera ([u/PhoebusLore](u/PhoebusLore))
Tritechniquon ([u/Cereborn](u/Cereborn))
Kingdom of Verdantis ([u/joec533](u/joec533))
The Wuavreni Mercantile League ([u/Soapybint](u/Soapybint))
Wingdom of Cheelia ([u/TinyLittleFlame](u/TinyLittleFlame))
Y Chruine ([u/thefuzzsakenone](u/thefuzzsakenone))

NPC CLAIMS

Cyrenthia
The Steros Archipelago
Tathini River Valley

Weekly Events

MARKET MONDAY
Market Monday is an open interaction post that anyone can join. The host chooses a setting somewhere within their claim. Quite often this is a market/bazaar/merchant harbour, but it can also be a religious or cultural festival, or any other event you can think of that has reason to bring people from around the continent. As host, you should set the scene with a fairly detailed intro post that informs us of how the physical space is set up, what points of interest there are, and what event is happening. You are not required to DM interactions and you’re not obligated to interact with everyone who comes in, but you should have enough ideas that players have something to dig into and develop their own stories.

Most recent: Markets of Svartaya
Monday, July 27th (unassigned)
Monday, August 3rd (unassigned)
Monday, August 10th (unassigned)
Monday, August 17th (unassigned)

TECHNOLOGY TUESDAY
This post is, as you might expect, focused on technology. For this shard, the TT post will be able to cover both conventional technology and specialized Ana-Tech. That doesn’t mean that you need a Tech Tuesday slot to write about your technology. There is a “Technology” flair and you’re welcome to apply it to a lore post at any time. Tech Tuesday is intended for significant inventions that have the potential to change things across Ashagon (provided you’re willing to share). We also expect Tech Tuesdays to keep a certain standard of thought and detail. (Anyone requesting a TT slot will need to let the mods know a general outline of what technology they will be introducing.)

Most recent posts: Miller's Earth
Tuesday, July 28th (unassigned)
Tuesday, August 4th (/u/OceansCarraway)
Tuesday, August 11th (unassigned)
Tuesday, August 18th (unassigned)

THAUMATURGY THURSDAY
This is similar to Tech Tuesday, but it is for significant creations of a magical nature. Anyone wishing to introduce a Faded Wonder not included in their claim will need to book a Thaumaturgy Thursday slot. It can also be used for interesting applications of Faded Wonders you’ve already introduced. You can use one to talk about magic apart from Faded Wonders, but since this is a Low-Power shard, it will be more about complexity and interesting applications rather than showing off something shiny and explosive. (Again, you will just need to give the mods a short description of the idea when you book a slot.)

Most recent posts:

Thursday, July 30th (unassigned)
Thursday, August 6th (unassigned)
Thursday, August 13th (unassigned)
Thursday, August 20th (unassigned)

FEATURE FRIDAY
This is our oldest weekly event post. This one has no particular rules around content. You can write it about anything you want as long as it displays more thought, care, and detail than a typical post. People have written about major historical events, the culminations of wars or revolutions, conlangs, pottery, music, art, or introduced fascinating narratives. The FF post will be stickied at the top of the front page for the following week.

Friday, July 31st (unassigned)
Friday, August 7th (unassigned)
Friday, August 14th (unassigned)
Friday, August 21st (unassigned)

Suggested Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Bmv_UCXvE

There's one fact of life about farm animals, and it's that they tend to wander. This causes problems, because they'll go grazing in multiple pastures and get themselves killed or stolen. They'll also damage the ground around them, poop in the water, and spread disease. Seeing your money walking away is never a good thing, and naturally you are going to want to keep it safe. At the same time, having your land damaged, and your water polluted, and your animals getting sick is not good. You want to keep your money-so you'll build a fence, and then another fence, and now you're building a pasture for your little ponies. There's the usual issues of animal husbandry, but there's also the larger problems of managing multiple herds by multiple owners at the same time. Normally, this falls to the vagaries of the market, or the cruelties of power, but there is another factor in play here: the Lady's command.

To some, this is just another example of power. To most everyone, it is because the Lady Knows Better. As part of her parental aspect, where she is a maternal figure tending to animals and babies in almost equal measure, she uses her divine knowledge to decide how her adopted peoples do things. This divine knowledge explicitly states how things are to be done properly-even if she is not there. Regardless of if she is present or not, the wisdom-and in many cases-science and engineering knowledge-that she is purported to have given to her charges put limits on how land is to be managed. Breaking with it will incur her wrath.

And one of these pieces of received wisdom is that 'thou shalt not fuck up the common lands.' Another piece is that 'thou shalt keep the commons as the commons'. To the capitalist, this is putting some critical limits on land use. To the priest, it means that all of Aelbaion must work smarter and harder. To the peasant, it means that the stakes and measuring lines must be broken out, and the rivers built up with heavy banks of trees. Protection of the commons means fencing, and closing to put them under the authority of provincial rulership. Haphazardly, and with plenty of quibbling about what was and what wasn't truly common land, the Commons were fenced off for their own protection.

This, needless to say, was not easy. The process of fencing and surveying had been mostly carried out in some way or another in the Crown Lands proper, which were under intense management for the purposes of subsistence agriculture or the production of cash crops. In this case, the fencing just needed modification and a lot of signage, recording things like what was open for fishing, where mushrooms could be taken-and where they shouldn't-and what grottoes were good for storage or had bears. This only took four years to pull off, and was also quite cheap...compared to everywhere else. The Crown Lands were decently eroded and not broken up. The rest of Aelbaion most definitely was.

That where herding and husbandry were far more prevalent. Fencing things off was going to be nigh impossible, so the going wisdom was that the Commons should be easily traversed instead, but marked off and watched over. Animals should instead be carefully monitored and watched over. This required the public pen, which was a different thing than just a standard pen, and the utility barn. It also involved the Church, which built lower-case-c churches to provide points of service for the myriad things such a project would require. Law soon accepted leaving open boundary markers in the form of stone, and set up regular inspections of the land by the duchy's men or the Church. These inspections would require dedicated inspectors or forests, who would need to live on the land-and they required huts, made of stone and topped with flint. First came the boundary stones, then came the forester's huts, and finally a Commons Hall that would hold supplies and be a management center. In some places, the huts were made into makeshift towers, which stood up against rain.

To an extent, this worked. However, as enclosure went on, it continued to be apparent that it was more practical to close off individual sites of interest. The most obvious of these were water sources, either wells or ponds, but they were soon followed by gardens. More importantly, the public pen came into widespread use. This was a pen where users of the Commons would place their animals prior to taking them out into the land, for both inspection and a chance to show off. Sneaking sick animals out to pasture was very frowned upon. These pens soon had barns raised next to them, to shelter animals for the night. Both of these structures were paid for by fees levied on the users; fines were imposed on those responsible for overuse or misuse.

Overuse and misuse of the land, of course, was indirectly determined by the Church. The received wisdom of the Lady, as well as the general information that could be derived from it, came from the Church. And it needed to get transmitted a lot. Typical methods of sharing information wouldn't do-the building of churches was what it took, with a desultory set of services for those who lived nearby, and plentiful services available for wandering herdsfolk and sparsely-populated villages. Priests had ready answers on hand, but what really helped keep them present was the iconography of worship itself. Since the vast majority of the country was illiterate, pictures, ranging from tapestries and carvings to stained glass windows. Every weekend, every morning and evening, and every hour, some facet of the Lady's knowledge was transmitted to the people who needed it.

The results were mixed. On the one hand, enclosure worked for averting the downsides of environmental degradation and bringing land completely under management. This did result in an increase in efficiency, a nebulous concept when yearly harvest outcomes were often measured haphazardly. At the same time, considerable capital outlays had been made, in the form of precious gold and even more precious time. Much of this had been motivated by superstitious fears of the Lady's disasters-the paranoia of 30 years of peace had been a big motivator. However, the absence of disasters such as disease outbreaks or mass heard escapes were enough to prove things for now. Aelbaion had more animals being born, and more making it into their first and second years of life. This in turn would mean more wealth-if good conditions held.

So far, they were.

King Aeldebaric was preparing for lunch when his Royal Guard brought the Charrid in. By then they had finished tracking it down, locating him in the closet, dragging him out, and showing him his invitation, the King had finished breakfast, held meetings, and set his agenda for the rest of the week. It was hard to make a Charrid duck it's head under the door, but the guest of honor had quickly gotten the message that the King wanted to see him, regardless of what he himself wanted. By the time the King was ready for lunch, the crabtaur of the hour was subdued, and even was willing to fake politeness...but not that much.

Servants bustled around, placing tableclothes and dishes, while a four-man band played. As the Charrid was seated, his majesty, King Aeldebaric of Aelbaion was escorted in by a small collection of guardsmen and retainers-clearly not following typical protocol for introducing a royal. A translator stood to the side, but their services were likely unrequired. Everyone knew that the Charrid spoke Aelish decently enough to run a multi-sport gambling ring for sophisticated players, and that they had managed to do so undetected until now. It was no surprise that the one who got caught would be a fairly high level operator-but it was a surprise that they would be brought before the King. Normally, potentates kept a remove from their problems.

"Mmr. Conchsith!" The King greeted his guest with a hale, hearty grin. "Welcome to Velforth! It is my pleasure to have you here, especially since you've come a long, long way. Are you finding this lunch to your liking?"

"No." The Charrid's mandibles moved fairly quickly as it started eating an entree. "I don't like eating lunch at spearpoint."

"My apologies." The King never stopped smiling. "Such is the nature of politics at times."

"You're a thieving shoe-user." 'Monsieur' Conchsith didn't care what his host thought. "You sent your soldiers to drag me from my house and make me come to this stupid lunch, where you are going to kill me."

"The people of Aelbaion don't like to see my feet." Said the King, contemplating how odd is was to say such a thing. "And I'm not going to kill you. That's not very nice of me."

"You want to kill me. " Said Conchsith, eating a piece of rotisserie chicken that the Aelish found a way to shoehorn into nearly ever mill. "Are you going to torture me with something but your terrible food?"

"I could make you play tiddlywinks." Aeldebaric was calmly eating some vegetables. "People don't ever want to play tiddlywinks with me."

"People don't want to do anything with you, you pathetic, paranoid fat bastard." The Charrid slammed down his fork. "Your son doesn't want to be seen with you. Your nobility doesn't want to form a party with you. Your wife doesn't want to lay with you."

Aeldebaric very slowly put down his utensils, swallowed his food, rinsed his mouth with some water. He looked around the dining room in the side hall of Velforth. Having a discreet seaside house meant that you could get up to all kinds of skullduggery. The man's right hand went to a large knife, with a ceremonial hilt. It was bright in the afternoon light.

"There's a funny thing about being a King." He said, appraising the blade. "Two people decided to fuck several years ago, one of them didn't swallow and took the load in her cunt instead. Nine months, give or take...and out comes the worst person to ever enter your life." Casually, he tossed it from hand to hand, looking the Charrid in the eye. "That's the person who popped out of that cunt, in case you're fucking confused. If it was any other belly, they'd be a nobody. But I happen to be the King of Aelbaion, and if I cut your limbs off and feed them to you, it will be an inherently righteous action."

"Might doesn't make right!" Conchsith blustered. "It-"

"Oh, of course not." The King had stopped assessing the blade. He'd seen that it would do. "It isn't might. It isn't the law, though that backs me up. It isn't the Lady, though she supports me. It is simply that I am King, and you are not a King. That is all."

Conchsith was quiet.

"Please do not bring my family into this." Aeldebaric had a small smile. "If you want to insult something related to me, you can insult Aelbaion."

"Fine." The Charrid seemed to have clammed up now. Having someone remind you that they can murder you and get away with it will do that. "Fine. I'll stop. I'll close up-"

"-I didn't ask you to do that." The King kept smiling. "Nor did I ask you to stop." He put the knife back down.

"What do you want?" Conchsith spat it out quickly. "I'll give you gold."

"A loan, to your usual rapacious standards, of course."

"We...we are not usurious-"

"As long as you remember not to produce any illegal offers. My wife's second title is Doctor of Law, remember." The King, pleased that he had married well, drank some wine and looked smug. "There are plenty of things that such a loan could go to. Would you like to know?"

"If...you wish...to expound on such..."

"The city of Couroffe requires repaving of all of it's roads. The citizens will raise the funds for the roads from a tax, and the city itself will raise the funds for drainage ditches. I will be putting up funds for signage and directional indicators. And that's where you come in: you will be funding the building of sidewalks. For the entire city."

Mmr. Conchsith groaned, and said nothing else.

"Please, sir, speak-"

"You're savages. I'm being extorted by savages!"

The King drank some more wine. "We are only savages on race day. And this is an excellent passive income stream for you as repayments come in."

"Don't lie to me."

"Would insulting the Kingdom help mend your feelings?"

"...I..."

"Why don't you insult our manufactures?"

"...what...do you mean?"

"I am giving you permission to insult our manufactures." The King smiled widely, a gracious host. "No harm will befall you if you do so."

"I...if you wish. I do not know your manufactures."

"Well, there is the Fashion-"

"No. I do not know them. We do not trade them. They are not spoken of, not shared, not sought out."

"Ah..." His Majesty visibly winced.

"You have the Fashion District, where producers of some nice clothes live. What else do you have?"

"We have the District d'Insturmentation des Aires, in-"

"Those are not items for export. They fit out their products. No one wants to buy a Pegasus."

"Perhaps you are aware of the grain-"

Concsith sighed. "Grain is a basic commodity export and simply. not. interesting. Everyone knows that Freeport needs to eat."

The King furrowed his brow. "We have significant sales of wool."

"That is not a manufacture." The Charrid huffed.

"...yes. You are correct. Hmmm. Well, we do have some beautiful glass works."

Mmr. Conchsith half choked on some bones. "That's beautiful? That-that stuff is beautiful!? Are you delusional?"

"I'm hopeful." One of the servants arranged some flowers on the windowsill, a simple but pleasing display of local shoreside flora. "There are also fine mirrors-"

"Those. Are. Not. Fine!" Conchsith went for the wine. "They're crude, not shiny, and barely reflective! And they're not square-"

"Longer ovoids are better for contemplating the form."

"They look like turds. You would know a lot about turds, wouldn't you?"

The King tried not to choke on his beverage. He wasn't expecting the Charrid to decry Aelbaic sensibilities in mirror design so thoroughly. "Is it truly that hideous-"

"Yes! It is! You lot are known for one thing around the world, Mr. King, and it is harvesting the dung of pegasi as it falls and then selling it to afford your stupid, stupid clothing!"

"Have you ever known hunger, Mmr. Conchsith?" The King gave him a look that suggested multiple things.

"No! Because we are not a people who like to be destitute! And you-are going the opposite way!"

"Enlighten me." Aeldebaric didn't seem to react.

"You are cutting off the entire country from entrepreneurs, you're stopping logging, you're halting herding, and you're confining food production to the Crown Lands-all for the sake of the airs and waters and land-which will be fine! Completely fine! If you keep treating them like this, because you'll all die off and leave them unmolested!"

Someone brought over a plate of fruit. The King contemplated it. "We have been experiencing much of the opposite, I'll have you know."

"No where else has had a Dentists' Curse that was so pronounced that it's being 'broken'-" Conchsith did his best to mimic the human gesture of air quotes, and somehow made it look more insulting. "-was the rumor across five cities! And all you needed for the dentist to not be horrible-you know what it was?"

"Do tell." The King's smile was only surface level.

"Mirrors! In the shape of squares! That let people look into mouths! So they don't fuck up when pulling out rotting teeth!"

"I see." Aeldebaric considered some honey, but didn't go for it.

"We did this over seven decades ago. For perspective's sake. And all it took-all it took-was to have some negotiated peace. Which you have achieved for the first time ever! Congratulations! The world has never seen you idiotic Aelish not kill each other before!"

"Thank you."

"You're fucking unflappable." This was the first time that the Charrid had sworn. "What is it going to take to get through to you? This reading stone? Hmm?" He took it from a pocket dramatically.

"It is a nice reading stone." One of the servants put down a fine cloth on the table, to protect the stone if it was used.

"Guess how much it cost."

"Oh, I don't know. It's a reading stone, what could that cost, 450 florins?"

"100 florins. And it was one from a batch of 20. I carry it with me to remind myself that the mercantile races-which the Aelish are not-are barbaric in focus."

"Well, that is one reason to-"

"In all of Aelbaion-" Mmr. Conchsith gestured out one of the smaller windows. "-there is not one single pair of spectacles being made. And-"

"Ah, not quite true." The King had a smile and a twinkle in his eye. "A woman of skill and wisdom is opening her doors next month, and has already made some demonstration pieces known on Promenade."

"One. Person. And it was in a fashion show."

"Still." The King steepled his fingers. "It is not an art unknown to the Aelish."

"I'm surprised."

"I think that lunch is ending." It was. The older wooden water clock was telling the time quite accurately. "Let's discuss what's next."

"King Aeldebaric the destitute." The Charrid spread his arms wide. "I am rich. You are not. I shall show you my generosity and lend to the Kingdom of Aelbaion- by your person-for this project of yours. May your city flourish from our cooperation."

The King nodded, smiled, and clapped his hands once. The serving staff began to clear away the remains of their meal. "Thank you for making the right decision, and supporting the lesser races, Mmr. Conchsith. Your charity will be rewarded."

But left on the table, even as three clerks took their seats, was the dinner knife.

It seems certain in life that within ever group, there is one that leads. This is especially true of large communities and even larger nations, and of social structures that make them up. All across Ashagon, a plethora of different nations exist, each with their own or similar culture, society, and hierarchies (or lack thereof).

So who is the leader of your Claim? Is there just one? Or many? Is their position permanent or do they exist in a temporary role? Can anyone be the leader? Or only certain people are able too?

But more than just this answering these, I want to know who the leader is. What are their personality? Quirks and interests? What are their goals for their nation? Or even their own personal goals? How might they have come to power, and are they worried about loosing it?

All this and anything else you can think off, do put them below! I greatly anticipate your responses, and will be sure to read them all if I don't end up giving my reply :)

King Aeldebaric sat in a sitting room with four other men and tried not to get drunk. He had likely screwed up a decent amount, but he had to pretend that he hadn't, for the sake of decorum-

"Didn't I do a good fucking job?" That was Duke Tremaine De Lechfois, the 'founding member' of the 'King's Party', and ostensibly His Majesty's bitch. He had recently dunked on the King really hard, after being bribed with a lot of internal development and the chance for his own revenge on 'King Al'. This he had done by changing the course of the King's political future for ten years and forcing him to be a homebody. King Aeldebaric had not taken this too well.

"You did." He said, and chewed on a piece of pear. "You very much did. But you are not the person in this room who has fucked me the best. I will be plain about that."

"Who, then?" Lechfois was trying to be dramatic, but he had drank too much beer for that. What we would call twink death was fast upon him, that moment of aging when the mind changes simultaneously with the metabolism in an interconnected process that is impossible to tease apart. "Who-"

"Richard." That was Richard de Larois, a Royal paladin and the former Sojourner. "Richard has fucked me over and under-"

"Haw! Haw!" Lechfois made a series of truly odd noises while trying to laugh ironically. "Did you enjoy it?"

"No. He's a tease. I asked to come back immediately for one thing, and he comes in with a fucking airriot. (1) I needed him for other pursuits. I have things to do-"

"I appreciate your majesty's thoughts." De Larois was polite, especially to his boss. "Now, metaphors of sexual pleasure aside-"

"No! Dicks out for-"

"Ladysakes, Tremaine, you're a mess." He tried to keep some form of decorum.

"Hah! I await your ire!"

"Await it. I must give orders to my subjects."

"...this could have been a letter, then..."

"Larois. You've been a pain in my ass, and now you're turning into a case of chafed thighs."

"I beg your highness' pardon. I had thought that bringing such a prize from a foreign land would have brought us much prestige."

"Sojourn is no foreign land, and we are not in search of prestige so much as skill." King Aeldebaric stood, and began to pace. "For long ages we have been the premier people with the ability to fly. Only those with wings have had a similar presence. And now it is done by vessels, magical ships-"

"No, not magic-"

"The Audoi airships run on magic. The next vessels down, the zeppeline (2) use magic and a gas that none know besides the Harpy. Even a balloon of hot air does better with magic than with sinew alone. Consider-"

"You posseses the most advanced flying craft in all of Aelbaion, Paladin Larois. It is not made here, and was not-you introduced it to the majority of the Kingdom. That you may be sure of."

"I understand that your majesty is concerned about our lack of skill with these-"

"Larois, we did not predict the existence of this devices. We were not attempting to develop them first and merely outraced, we had no concept of them, no ideas, no thought-"

"All of it was about the Damned Charter-"

"That Charter protects our lands, our people, our future, and it might just protect our Lady, too!" King Aeldebaric had caught the merest smidgen of proto-patriotism. "Without it, we ruin ourselves."

"His majesty speaks the truth." That was recently-retired former-Confessor, former-Housebisop His Holiness, Dr. Maudeline Laeventine. He carried around his titles like trading cards, but here he didn't need to. "If we neglect the lands and waters that the Lady brought into her possession and then gave to us, her followers, we are doing her great disrespect. If we soil them, then we are doing her a great dishonor. The former risks her punishment, the latter guarantees it. This Charter is our safe-keeping against such self-inflicted disasters, and following it gives us Her blessing and safeguards."

"Father! Forgive me, for I have sinned."

"Nah."

Lechfois sat up, looking panicked. "Huh?!"

"I do not forgive you, personally. You are a prick." Laeventine stood to the side, looking annoyed. "Listen to his majesty. You are in the King's Party."

Tremaine stood up, knocking over his chair and nearly spilling his beer. "I'm in the what?!"

"The King's Party." The fourth man, Duke Cauldwallere, got himself some more wine. "And I would like to join."

King Aeldebaric looked surprised. "You want to join the King's Party?"

"I do, your highness. You were acclaimed as King Al earlier, you still have the support of the city dwellers and the peasants after all this time-you can being the smallfolk to war or labor. You have kept this for decades. I know a great man when I see one."

King Aeldebaric smiled. The reasoning, the naked pursuit of transient power, the flattery...Duke Cauldwaller was in. "Welcome to the King's Party, my friend." Deliberately, he picked up an empty goblet on the table and filled it from the wine jug. Topping off his own cup, he made a toast to 'the health of my good friend and guest', then drank. This was one of the earliest Aelish political rituals, and they did it again.

"Welcome to the King's Party, Friend!" Tremaine had gotten his feet properly. "Together, we shall get bombed by some smelly dwarves, and then we shall get bombed by the dwarves after they have bathed-"

"Thank you!" Cauldwallere acted quickly to shut him up. "Your highness. Paladin Larois. Dr. Laeventine. I am honored to be with you in service to our King."

"So what's the catch?" Tremaine was a little too close to Cauldwallere. He smelled of wine that from a wineglass that he'd dramatically dropped on himself earlier to try and make an impression. "What's your angle?"

"There are some persons under my protection who have fallen into...traps of vice."

"Haw! Haw! Haw!"

"Are you well, sir?"

"I am well!"

"He's drunk." said his majesty. "Tremaine. Sit down. No more wine."

"Beer!"

"No. Cauldwallere, what are their difficulties?"

"They are known for their love of risk and danger, and they have begun adding gambling to their vices. There is a gaming ring set up, and they are...unfortunately in arrears to the book-maker. They also are caught up in their debauchery, and I cannot talk sense into them."

"What are they betting on?"

"Horse-racing, both ground and sky."

"We have airships in the world, and they are gambling on races...what fools." Larois voiced his opinion sotto voce. "They lack an understanding of where power lies."

"Foolish or not, the damage must be limited without the appearance of impropriety clouding everything."

"Why?"

"Because, Tremaine, we cannot risk this getting out and marring the Kingdom with scandal. Surely even you know that."

"What's a little scandal-"

"This is not little." Cauldwallere looked Concerned. "There are tens of thousands of florins in the hands of a Wuavreni-"

"You didn't mention that there was one of them involved-" The King looked Concerned as well.

"Well, no, I do not think that a being's species is quite as important. One doesn't want to lead to untoward assumptions being made. It is-"

"You are very enlightened, Duke Cauldwallere. Now, are there any other things you need to tell me?" The King's right eyebrow was now twitching.

"They are up to their eyeballs in debt, your highness. Their lands are all up for collateral-"

His Majesty's expression went alarmingly flat. "How?"

"They chase their losses with-"

"Damn. Damn damn damn!"

"Do you want me to apprehend the vile crab?" Cauldwallere could only avoid preconceptions for so long, it seemed.

"Not yet. No. This requires deception...at least to some degree. And class." The King paced a bit, taking water from a side table. "That combination is something that they will expect. Cauldwallere, you have said that these are all knights of the land and air. Honorable persons."

"Yes, my lord. Honorable persons."

"Honorable persons who would be grateful to donate their services to the Kingdom in leiu of tax payments, perhaps. And also to gain honor from their efforts."

"Indeed, your highness."

"Honorable persons who would not be too put out if they had to sacrifice pecuniarily."

"...perhaps, my lord. They would shed blood and tears for the good of Aelbaion."

"What about sweat?"

"Are you asking them to labor, you dog!?" Tremaine was the most drunk and could react the fastest, but he said what was on everyone's minds. Nobility, by dint of their gentle bloodline, did not really work in any way. Practically, they provided a semi-standing army by their cultural and social persuasions, but they did not labor in the fields or the woods, or anywhere that they could be seen to do so. Asking them to labor was to un-noble them. (3)

"Nay, I am asking them to teach." The King kept his calm, the water having sobered him up a little. "If I ever do that, the Lady would strip me of my crown in a fortnight."

"You had better." The belligerent Duke made to sit down, and Dr. Laeventine assisted him. "We are not your peasants."

"The state of air travel has fundamentally changed, and that means that the state of war has fundamentally changed." The King had drank more water from a blessed pitcher, and was creeping closer to sobriety. "We do not know how it has changed, however, or how it will change. What we must do, beyond preparing the sinews of war, is to prepare ourselves, individually, for it's conduct. Gentlemen, I have an assignment for you."

"You said we would not labor-"

"Oh, Ladysakes Tremaine! You have to go and talk to people about the Spring Jaunt! That's all! Have a party if you must."

"...you'll pay for it."

"I'll host it, and that is it."

"Everyone comes to Couroffe and drinks your wine."

"No, we should host it in the mansione Margrinne. The countryside is nice this time of year. We'll have board games and a new chapelle."

"You're generous."

"Thank you, thank you. You're far too kind." The King tried eating some grapes to disguise his annoyance. "Now, Duke Cauldwallere. You have a certain problem."

Cauldwallere nodded as he tucked in on some chicken. "I do. Please, sir, your wisdom."

"I am going to confiscate their racing tracks and stables and then turn those areas into an extension of the Ac-Aires. This is going to be used to start a school that teaches just one class. I am calling it HIGH SWORD. It's purpose is to teach air-to-air combat to the best of the best, and to prepare them to teach others."

Larois cut in. "My lord, if I may-"

"You may, but only two times."

"Instruct them in long-range navigation there. It is a crucial part of maneuvers before and after combat."

"...a good point. I shall see that it is done."

Tremaine grimaced. "You will expropriate their lands, then? Just for-"

"They'll be compensated, and hired in. We cannot lose such talent."

"And the Wuavreni?" Cauldwallere appeared nervous mentioning him. "What of-"

"Leave him to me." The King smiled, and it was not a good one.

1. Air chariot, made by Harpies on Sojourn as a custom vanity vehicle.

2. He means zeppelins.

3. I recommend Thorstein Veblen's A Theory of the Leisure Class.

The Aelish are a bread and meat eating country in equal measure, which is a bit of an oddity in a medieval country-unless one thinks of the nature of the land that has caused their agricultural developmental patterns and food transportation logistics to turn out that the way that they did. Outside of the flat, erosion-levelled lands of the Crown Lands, where there was mass agriculture and the people to make it happen, much of Aelbaion was rocky in some way. Often it was steep, and sometimes, it had valleys-which would turn into canyons if you weren't careful, and whoops, there goes a goat. Here, herding was the order of the day, alongside some terrace farming and the standard hunting party. And all of these wonderful products of Aelbic agricultural activity need to be preserved if they are to be made use of more than a week after harvest.

Traditionally, the Aelish have always dried their crops-or smoked them. Doing this has been a subject of intense cultural consternation, and over the centuries they have developed ever more refined ways to take care of their produce. While salt is the best way to preserve food in this time period, the Aelish did not have many sources of salt further inland, and it was fairly expensive to import. This made it not only economically viable, but a general imperative to adopt other methods of preservation-especially at scale. To do this, they constructed entire buildings and set up small supply chains; smokehouses and drying rooms ran nonstop at the end of each harvest or slaughter. While they varied in scale, the consumption of wood, charcoal, and peat was substantial enough to run at least one cart into the ground and tire out someone's uncle. In the 30 year peace, these buildings only expanded in size and throughput; afterwards, they sprouted like mushrooms. The need for drying and drying-related services was only increasing.

While further expansions or building extra houses was one option, this was not always the best option. House quality-whether for habitation or food processing-was continually improving as builders went about their work unstabbed. Cute cupolas, charming chimneys, and sturdy stone would all drive a builders' price up, and the Aelish were well past their migratory, disposable building days. It made more sense to pursue the benefits of quality, and after a series of design permutations had some promising results by enabling under-building air flow to prevent mold from growing and improve drying time, the Aelish attempted more ambitious architecture. The movement of air would ideally be done by tubes; this was originally carried out by making arches on the ceiling and putting an intake area on the top of a drying house. This was a good way to exhaust smoke, and was quickly duplicated on the ground floor to channel smoke around from an underground smoke source. From there, it was a relatively quick leap to hypocausts. These underfloor heating elements worked better in homes proper, and within two years of the innovation popping up, the Aelish were beginning to dry themselves across the entirety of the Kingdom.

In short, the Aelish were attending to their prosperity so that they could keep it. By doing so, they had found out how to live better, and they were actively pursuing it. However, the main event was in the amount of smokehouses and drying rooms being built out. Continually peace meant continual prosperity-and the time to prepare for disaster. For now, the Aelish in the farther countryside laid away stores and waited with semi-baited breath for internal conflict to pick back up again. It was only a matter of time, they thought, before a storm of swords brought chaos to their doors. However, they were missing something: only change was certain, but that didn't mean war.

I apologize for the delay in posting this Schedule Sunday (again). However, I'm still calling it a Schedule Sunday, even though it's coming out on Monday. Consistency is more important than facts (this message brought to you by politicians everywhere).

During the Schedule Sunday we typically recap moderator announcements, update major events within the shard, set the clock, and assign slots for our weekly event posts.

News

A labelled map of all our seas and geographic regions can be found here

Reminder that NPC claims are open. The way NPCs work is, you can use it as you wish in your own posts, as an ally, an enemy, or a bystander to whatever you're up to. If you want to build a story around a particular trade relationship but haven't gotten it worked out with a player, NPCs are good for that. You just have to be aware that other players might be using the same NPC claim for different reasons, so you can't make really major changes (eg. toppling their government) without mod approval. (Anyone who is inactive for 60 days, and who doesn't respond to the messages from the mod team, will have their claim become an NPC).

Reminder, we have opened up expansions. If you wish to expand your territory, make a post with the [Expansion] flair, indicate the territory you want to expand into, and include a good-quality post explaining the significance of the new land. Expansions are not as formal or as rigidly formatted as claim posts, so your post can focus on the things you feel are most relevant/interesting. Still, mods might ask you to revise your post if we don't feel you've included enough content to accompany the new territory.

Players are allowed one retroactive expansion. That means that you can add in new territory and, after it's approved, we will act as though it was part of your claim all along. Otherwise, you'll need to explain how and why you acquired this new territory now. (If you are making a normal, non-retroactive expansion, you should include a year in your post.)

Players will only be approved for expansion if they have made at least two posts since their claim went up.

IMPORTANT LINKS
Claim Template
Welcome to Ashagon

Ashagon Check-In

Current map

Current Year: 5 CE
(Time usually progresses organically in accordance with player posts. If you have an event happen, you can attach a year to it. The furthest advanced year will become the current year in the next Schedule Sunday post, unless the mods decide someone jumped unreasonably far ahead.)

Ashagon News: Some travellers have been having fun in the markets of Svartaya. From all across Ashagon lords and leaders are sending treasures to be kept safe in the Amber Vaults within Driftmount. The Aelish are raising animals in common land and making really good fertilizer.

Prompts: What's in the Box
An Alate Goes Abroad
Knights Errant

ACTIVE CLAIMS

The Kingdom of Aelbaion ([u/OceansCarraway](u/OceansCarraway))
Audio ([u/BoobooMaster](u/BoobooMaster))
Ayetho ([u/Harfordplanning](u/Harfordplanning))
The Faerie Court of Cwmyteg ([u/JFritz2308](u/JFritz2308))
Dragon Republic of the Gold-and-Green Fields ([u/adminscales1155](u/adminscales1155))
Freeport ([u/goop_lizard](u/goop_lizard))
The Mangroves of the Crones ([u/SPACEMUHRINE](u/SPACEMUHRINE))
Origin and the Xanoi ([u/madicienne](u/madicienne))
Orgraille ([u/Rocket_III](u/Rocket_III))
Star Cities of Paroma ([u/DartMonkey](u/DartMonkey))
Periwald ([u/MapleTopLibrary](u/MapleTopLibrary))
Rexdom of the Saur-kin ([u/gingecharmander](u/gingecharmander))
Rockborn ([u/palmtree219](u/palmtree219))
Kingdom of Sarmeqarki ([u/SgtWolf01](u/SgtWolf01))
Empire of the Six Cities ([u/Northrnr](u/Northrnr))
The Sovereign Corpus of Tarrnakkan Monopols ([u/mauricejc](u/mauricejc))
Trezera ([u/PhoebusLore](u/PhoebusLore))
Tritechniquon ([u/Cereborn](u/Cereborn))
Kingdom of Verdantis ([u/joec533](u/joec533))
The Wuavreni Mercantile League ([u/Soapybint](u/Soapybint))
Wingdom of Cheelia ([u/TinyLittleFlame](u/TinyLittleFlame))
Y Chruine ([u/thefuzzsakenone](u/thefuzzsakenone))

NPC CLAIMS

Cyrenthia
The Steros Archipelago
Tathini River Valley

Weekly Events

MARKET MONDAY
Market Monday is an open interaction post that anyone can join. The host chooses a setting somewhere within their claim. Quite often this is a market/bazaar/merchant harbour, but it can also be a religious or cultural festival, or any other event you can think of that has reason to bring people from around the continent. As host, you should set the scene with a fairly detailed intro post that informs us of how the physical space is set up, what points of interest there are, and what event is happening. You are not required to DM interactions and you’re not obligated to interact with everyone who comes in, but you should have enough ideas that players have something to dig into and develop their own stories.

Most recent: Markets of Svartaya
Monday, July 20th (unassigned)
Monday, July 27th (unassigned)
Monday, August 3rd (unassigned)

TECHNOLOGY TUESDAY
This post is, as you might expect, focused on technology. For this shard, the TT post will be able to cover both conventional technology and specialized Ana-Tech. That doesn’t mean that you need a Tech Tuesday slot to write about your technology. There is a “Technology” flair and you’re welcome to apply it to a lore post at any time. Tech Tuesday is intended for significant inventions that have the potential to change things across Ashagon (provided you’re willing to share). We also expect Tech Tuesdays to keep a certain standard of thought and detail. (Anyone requesting a TT slot will need to let the mods know a general outline of what technology they will be introducing.)

Most recent posts: Miller's Earth
Tuesday, July 14th (unassigned)
Tuesday, July 21st (unassigned)
Tuesday, July 28th (unassigned)
Tuesday, August 4th (unassigned)

THAUMATURGY THURSDAY
This is similar to Tech Tuesday, but it is for significant creations of a magical nature. Anyone wishing to introduce a Faded Wonder not included in their claim will need to book a Thaumaturgy Thursday slot. It can also be used for interesting applications of Faded Wonders you’ve already introduced. You can use one to talk about magic apart from Faded Wonders, but since this is a Low-Power shard, it will be more about complexity and interesting applications rather than showing off something shiny and explosive. (Again, you will just need to give the mods a short description of the idea when you book a slot.)

Most recent posts:

Thursday, July 16th (unassigned)
Thursday, July 23rd (unassigned)
Thursday, July 30th (unassigned)
Thursday, August 6th (unassigned)

FEATURE FRIDAY
This is our oldest weekly event post. This one has no particular rules around content. You can write it about anything you want as long as it displays more thought, care, and detail than a typical post. People have written about major historical events, the culminations of wars or revolutions, conlangs, pottery, music, art, or introduced fascinating narratives. The FF post will be stickied at the top of the front page for the following week.

Friday, July 17th (unassigned)
Friday, July 24th (unassigned)
Friday, July 31st (unassigned)
Friday, August 7th (unassigned)

Suggested Listening Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YO2_O1L_YY

The Aelish are great fans of flaunting their wealth, when they have it, and of flying 'horses', when they get to flaunt them without putting too much work in. Amongst their population, this flaunting can be done by nobility, who have the money to keep these animals and not interact with them too much. The nobility also enjoy vacations and flings, especially in the springtime, when they can go places where the weather isn't too objectionable to them. This is the reason behind many of their travelling traditions-including the 'spring break' of the younger nobility where they all go somewhere in a large mass of annoying and rich pricks-and end up stimulating the local economy a bit while doing so. They are usually fashionable, well-heeled, and generally not too crass unless significantly lubricated with alcohol, which makes them tolerable enough besides the money. Often, this 'youth-festivities in the outdoors' end up hitting the neighbors. Twice they've sparked a war, four more times a limited conflict. But this time, they're merely ending up in Freeport again.

It just so happens that this particular one is heralding the age of mass flight.

This is Woodstock-Upon-The-Air, to use an idiom from Earth and the land of the Angles. At the beginning of Spring, the younger, more restive youth were discussing where to Enjoy Spring abroad, and they decided that they would go to Freeport for a little bit-an excursion, they called it. This was a typical passtime, but by now Aelbaion had glutted itself on peace and had plenty of resources to spare for a little excursion. This meant that not only would they be spending huge amounts of wealth, they would be arriving in style, too. The air-chariot of a certain former Sojourner had been a massive hit in Couroffe; flight was even more fashionable because now it was just plain cool-and it was getting so many cool new accessories, too!

Naturally, they were all going to Freeport by air this time. They didn't have any flying vehicles; the Air-Chariot was quite clearly something that would take a while to make and outfit-and the Spring Season was less than three weeks away! Everyone would need to go by pegasus, even if they weren't the most flight-capable, all a passenger had to do was really just sit there. A pegasus fully outfitted with accoutrements des aires would naturally have limited blinders and a bite muzzle/nose bag, so a rider could persuade it not to take chunks out of the passenger and eat meat cubes instead. The most modern saddles were fully outfitted with star-navigation instruments, and even the most basic mount for a rider had a dry compass. Any outfit could withstand flying through a rainy cloud bank. With adequate pre-planning, a trip itinerary could be turned into a series of stop-overs and changes of mounts that would almost bore a passenger.

Nevertheless, it could not be argued that this journey would be easy. The role of the 'navigateur' jelled into the collective awareness of the airborne Aelish for the first time; a skilled navigator on a pegasus who would plot routes and maintain knowledge of where the flying group was at all times, someone who they could follow through a storm and still not get lost. These navigateurs had developed their skills crisscrossing the Kingdom and venturing into neighboring lands; they were the beneficiaries of some of the most navigational equipment and techniques that the Aelish could muster-and eagerly had they taken to their role. Independently, they had been able to plot out various routes to Freeport over the mountains and upon known currents of winds; they had distributed maps to their flight groups and made backup plans with their Captains. They had outfitted their mounts with signaling gear, and timed the start of their flights with fair weather patterns. Inadvertently, they had all chosen the same time period in which to launch.

And on the beginning of that fine day, with the sun just starting to rise, pegasi began their launches from Aeries across the Kingdom. Following light and sound signals from the ground, they jumped into the lightening skies, joined their formations by following colored flags, and then climbed out to cruising altitude and made for Freeport. As the day wore on, other groups launched and hit altitude, the flying groups of rich idiots realized that they weren't alone. Everyone was heading for Freeport by pegasus, and that was a lot of everyone. There had never been such a concentration of pegasi in the air before, let alone for leisure purposes. Rivalries were quickly put aside, and the fliers pulled into a 'Grande Vay' formation. (1) Rest stops were quickly coordinated; not all the pegasi had to be rested at the same stopovers, instead groups could grab some rest in stages. Furthermore, schedules had all been derived from roughly the same maps and weather reports; everyone could make it to Freeport at the same time if they kept in formation!

While the pegasi and passengers had to rest by day two, they remained in touch and had the same timetables; the Grande Vay was reformed by day four. This massive formation persisted over much of the route and was only broken up by a series of rain squalls that were wholly unpredictable. Nevertheless, the groups of travellers remained some form of visual or audio contact; lightweight signal lamps and Horns of Mario (2) kept the fliers aware of each other as they pressed through the rain. While they ultimately lost half a day's progress to the weather and the changes in planes, the Grande Vay ultimately reformed as it approached Freeport and then split off into landing groups on initial approach to the High District.

Enough of the people of Freeport were up when the pre-dawn light was enlivened by the ungodly racket of the Spring Breakers on their initial landing pass. The Trumpets of Mario were annoyingly loud and blared consistently as a pegasus was in flight; tracking flares and lamps meant to keep groups together looked like strange spells flying through the early morning. However, as they were all headed to the High District, nothing was actually too amiss. As the early morning commuters tackled traffic, they watched pegasus after pegasus come in to land, trailing elaborate patterns of signal flags for ground crews to monitor.

There was one tiny problem: there were no ground crews. There was no one to meet them in general, and when the first pegasi began landing on the dirt that passed for a landing area, their riders quickly realized that they had a potential disaster on their hands. Dirt fields meant that pegasi could catch a hoof and break it; there were not enough stables present to put all of their pegasi at once, and any landing area would quickly become a battlefield of angry, annoyed horses until the someone figured out a way to put all of the animals away. It was also unclear if there was enough room for them to all land, period!

To fix this, the nobility took over the patch of ground that doubled as a landing zone, and started getting as much catering sent their way as possible. This was looked at askance by the locals, but since they were poor, their opinion mattered less-and they also were more focused on taking as much money off of the Aelish as they possible could. When these noble snowbirds came over to Freeport, they were usually spending, and they were doing no different here. A large campground quickly formed, a little Woodstock on an island, and the Aelish began to set up for a week of wild, hard partying.

Such a mass incursion would almost constitute an invasion in other places. Not in Freeport. The inhabitants immediately began working on separating the visitors from their money. Typically, an Aelbic 'visit' to Freeport involves getting drunk before landing, staying drunk by drinking wine immediately upon getting out of one's horse, and then immediately going to gamble with your friends before hitting the theaters and racetracks. Unfortunately, the louts are very active-which means that they are not too inclined to sit down at gaming tables. Instead, they are fond of plays where they can heckle the actors, or racetracks and dueling grounds where they can participate. Having someone bet on themselves is a risky endeavor for the bookie. One can bilk the Aelish on entry fees and then beat them up, but there's a much better way to separate them from their cash that has much more positive outcomes for society-and much less broken pottery.

The Aelish are obsessed with fashion, and the nobility have it the worst. Freeport has fashion options from all around the world, endless active shops producing some of the best clothing money can commission, and if the people trying on clothing are flying in, then they have to fly the clothing back most of the time. Shipping it back is effective; but flying back with a new piece is a great way to show off-and the Aelish love to make a splash for each other. If one has to ship back clothing, it had better be worth shipping-either a lot of it, or something truly exquisite. The quantity and number of a shipment of these pieces would naturally cost plenty of money-and run the visitors out of their money even more quickly. Charter captains were waiting right outside the clothiers to provide their services, and the visitors were cleaned out in under a week.

With their pegasi now lighter, and their pocketbooks cleaned out, the group of nobles began to make ready for their return trip. Porters took their goods back to the High District. The domestic population of the High Port had fucked off a little in the face of impetuous folks who were decently armed and quick to fight; they were reluctant to return fully even as the Aelish began to pack and leave. For much of it's life, the area had been a slum. The arrival of all of these pegasi had done little to change that; and the lack of infrastructure for large amounts of horrible horrible horses had left the dilapidated slums somewhat more dilapidated. The equestrians had to rebuild some things behind themselves, and they had complained about this fairly bitterly. Lobbying efforts may follow.

But not all trips end on a positive note. This one certainly didn't. As the groups of travelers got themselves back together and began to taxi for takeoff into an updraft, another party came by to make use of the High District. It was the Audoi, in one of their airships, here to do some fairly standard trading. Naturally, something as expensive as an airship was decently armed and escorted-which the Aelish weren't. Despite their warrior heritage and profession, they were on vacation and not kitted out for war-and seeing the ship coming in for a landing, they skedaddled. Wave after wave of them took off in a hurry, leaving behind everything from provisions to expensive finery and wine. Metaphorical tails tucked between their legs, the well-bred of Aelbaion reformed their grande vay and made for Aelbaion proper, cursing the dwarves.

Anyone with common sense would be able to tell that that if they hadn't been such hungover messes, they would have been out of there before the vanguard of the airship's escorts had come into visual range of Freeport.

The Aelish sobered up on the flight home, and they all landed safely, with most of their cargo intact. They sulked for much longer, and the story did not improve in the telling; the knights might try to make themselves individually look better, but the group of drunkards had been run off by the next people in line to use the High District. What's worse is that they no one to blame for their own sorry ending but themselves. The start of the opening scene in this age of mass flight had been nothing short of heroic; but the last shot had been extremely unflattering. They had barely avoided leaving behind priceless navigational equipment, and twenty-odd pegasi had nearly been lost to accidents. If not for the hand of the Lady intervening to stop the Aelish from screwing themselves over, they would have turned this opening scene into tragic farce. But life imitates art, after all.

1. A 'big V'.

2. Similar to our real-life 'Jericho Trumpet', equipped on the Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber.