Urbs Magna: Prologus Report

Tertadi, the 7th of Cirearius, 114 post Refugium

The Ho-Pack was called to the Merulian Keep. This cannot be good. The town is on high alert over the death of Doge Marinus Alator. Dinner was good but was seasoned with a pending unreasonable request. Tito asked Theo and Decimus what the church felt about the political turmoil and they hoped for peace. They asked me what I thought and I told them I had heard from the gutter that House Bascio was consolidating their power. Tito told us he hoped we would accompany his broey but competent son, Flavio, to Eknopolis, one of the last standing cities on the old continent because of the heavy sacrifices of the Ouranic Church. He hoped we’d provide the muscle while Flavio renewed trade relationships with the Eknoi House of Prothemopolous. Theo pledged himself to support Tito’s goals immediately for the sake of maintaining order. I’m happy to go along, why not see the world on a wealthy family’s dime?

A boatride later we were in a city more grand than anything we had ever seen in Aerisca. I can’t speak for Zhuge who was raised in the exotic Xian, or Kegho who has passed through lands more wild and more fabled than I can dream of.

Flavio took us to a party and we all dressed to the nines to fit in. The formalwear felt tight in the wrong places but I looked very sharp. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pad silently through a room. We arrived at the party and introduced ourselves around. The host, Valenites took an immediate fancy to Kegho while his consort, Imara stood by his side, statuesque and ebony, clearly hailing from far south. Elissa knew stories of the matriarchal societies of the M'Gwandi of the south and was drawn like a magnet to her. I don’t blame her.

As I slipped into the crowd I heard the host running down the provenance of our charge from Fort Merula. I was pleased to see someone of good breeding be treated like a guttersnipe for once, but also took an immediate disliking to the haughtiness of Eknopolis and the shitting on my homeland as flawed as it is. I bee-lined for a prim redhead and a woman who looked too disastrous not to be the lady of the house.

I sidled up to the slovenly woman and the redheaded woman who radiated lady-of-the-cloth from every pore. She had a hint of fanaticism, but then the faithful of the Mătăhălos always seem too intense in their fervor. It can be charming in the case of our ever-striving Theophilus but Father Dekimus and this woman unnerved me slightly. I hovered on the edge of the conversation making titillating comments that ever-so-slightly flustered--though her composure was exemplary--the cleric I came to know as Virina Staurakia and delighted the bored-housewife of a host, Flavia. Virina excused herself, but before she did I asked who she was devoted to and on finding that she was of the The Order of the Great Mother of Mercy, I asked that she counsel Brother Theo. I heard later that she had urged him toward a less decadent and more turgid, Aeriscan, interpretation of the Ouranic order. I still wonder whether there was a deeper meaning in her comment to Theo about “the church being more than stone and mortar but being about faith and prayer.”

With Virina gone, I confided stories of Kegho’s failed sexual exploits and Theo’s flailing attempts at abstinence to delight and draw in Flavia’s lurid attention. I then begged her to tell me about the party of fakes, pretenders and usurpers around us and when she lit up, I knew I had hit the mark flawlessly.[/p

Her husband, Valenites’s eye had wandered so far and wide she only stayed for propriety sake. The current object of his affection was the M'Gwandi that had fascinated Elissa so, Imara. Raya, the half-Alvi across the room draped across Florus had been his flavor of the week before that. She had ensorcelled her and Valnathus’s son and was probably, definitely some kind of foul sorceress. I encouraged her sense of being wronged and fanned the flames of her love of scandal. She spits that Raya trades in manflesh and I wonder that a lady pimp might be in such high company.

Across the room I saw Kegho talking to a man who seemed to be making a sales-pitch. I thought to go over but figured he could always crush his head like a grape if things got off track. Little did I know how much I would regret not introducing the man, Gallienus, to Taint-stabber. Flavia catches my attention and points to him “he also trades in manflesh, but of a different sort.” she says, “I’ve never liked the games.”

Flavia insisted I have a drink. It was clearly narcotic but didn’t seem worse than anything I’d had before. I politely excused myself before she grew weary of my presence and padded over to Raya the half-Alvi, and a very vacant Florus who was talking to a lithe young Eknoi man with a taut ass. Though clearly educated, he seemed more out of his depth at this party than we were. I arrived to see him distracted by the exotic woman and on the edge of stupor with drink saying something about making himself disappear. Raya became intensely interested in this and pressed him whether he meant invisibility or making himself scarce; he seemed unsure of himself. I stepped in and looked meaningfully at Raya and said “no one would openly admit to manipulation of the Ar in polite society, would they?” She rebutted that she thought the prohibition on magic was draconian and I think we caught each other’s meaning. The room was suddenly distracted as Kegho grunted loudly and tipped back an entire amphora of this besotting wine. Fuck.

The world began to spin. I’m a lightweight by the virtue of my size, but had barely let any wine pass my lips as delicious as it was. I had avoided getting drunk, but not getting drugged. Fuck.

I awake, head throbbing and eyes bleary. I go to rub the sleep out of my eyes but my arms are pinned and I hear the disheartening clanking of chains. I mumble thanks to Bennos that I am not by his side bring to my mind’s eye the sigil of Elene inverted while cursing the name of Prothemopolous, hospitality breakers. I settle my mind for the painful process of dislocating my left thumb to slip out of the manacle. The Mătăhălos never think of the smaller races, even when designing manacles, but these are tighter than expected and I am unable to break free. I hear a creak and then great rending of metal and as I look I see Kegho free himself effortlessly from his chains. He attempts to free me, but fails. I suggest he try the young Eknoi who I assumed was magic and seemed to have recently fallen off of the rear of a very tall turnip truck, but he is still groggy from the narcotic wine and we’re interrupted by the gnarled husk of a gladiator who tells us we can go up to reach our cells or down into a dangerous unknown. He unlocks us and leaves us with equipment that seems less than practical. We gathered up what we thought we could use and began exploring the cave system. We enter a room teeming with mushrooms. Kegho reaches for one before anyone can stop him and his hunger is sated and he seems to suffer no ill effects. We begin packing away as much as is possible while the turnip-truck boy, Teleptyon, runs back to grab some sacks. Asdona continues to provide for us even in this blasted pit. And the mushrooms are still perfectly salted by the grace of Vargus the Chaotic.