Eusiormapu

DO NOT LAND In Eusiormapu.
You are not required to accept any job involving a landing in Eusiormapu per member safety exemption regulations; report all prospective clients who request disembarkation in Eusiormapu to the Castle of Aurorae via cypher or other encrypted communications methods. The Board of Trustees will never send you to Eusiormapu. If at risk of a crash - especially during airship maneuvers - aim to crash outside of the city or within the Commissure. If forced down, make your way out of the city by the most expedient route and by any means necessary, including violence; you are exempt from all Guild regulations regarding geopolitical neutrality for this purpose only.
If you voluntarily decide to land in Eusiormapu, you are required by Guild Directive 27, subsection D, to bring at least three NavGuard in unmarked Auto-Armor as escort to all locations in and around the municipality. Guild services are unavailable on site, the local Guild hall having been destroyed to prevent the records found there from falling into the hands of the Avarix. Unescorted Guild personnel, as sources of important military intelligence, are priority targets for kidnapping by both the Avarix and combatants on both sides of the ongoing War of Reunification. There is no strong local authority to witness or report such anti-Guild activities.
Remember, a live Navigator is a profitable Navigator. Do not throw your life away.

— A Navigator's Guild travel bulletin, 9,998 AR.

Eusiormapu (literally "Endurance" as a place name in Iuxat) is a city fraught with existential danger. Located along a now-disused trade route between the Rostran Archipelago Confederacy and The Human Arc, Eusiormapu is a lawless, destitute place torn constantly between the rapacity of roving Avarix Corps pirate crews, roving Grand Army of Voxelia and Coalition Defense Force air assets, and desperate citizens of the Red Velvet Association with little hope of escaping on their own.

Demographics

Like most member settlements of the Red Velvet Association, most citizens of Eusiormapu are High Rostrans or Civil Ovinex, with a large minority of Low Rostrans padding out the remaining population. There are no permanent verdial (as these would require ad extremis rations to survive) or human residents. Most Endurants are Ixa Ad-Korvidiu in faith, though a cynical strain of atheism is growing in the city as strife drags on without apparent signs of respite from the spirits.

Hermitage Island Fellowship Flag by BCGR_Wurth

Government

Nominally run by a small, democratically-elected city council, Eusiormapu currently exists in a de facto state of anarchy. The city council is unable to enforce most edicts, as the actual strength of the government comes only from limited RVA support.

Infrastructure

Municipal pluming and sewer systems remain operational due to their location below ground - away from the risk of collateral damage from the constant combat in the inflection layer overhead - but there is no municipal power generation. Most roads are broken, unpaved, or otherwise difficult to traverse with wheeled vehicles, and most locals move through town on foot in groups of three or more for safety.

Guilds and Factions

Eusiormapu once featured a Navigator's Guild hall, a Burning Hearts pub, and a diplomatic mission from the Free Faces League.
When the War of Reunification began, the city found itself in the position of harboring the diplomats of one side of that conflict in apparent defiance of the other. The embassy was camouflaged, but the locals became increasingly worried as the conflict progressed into its second decade that Voxelia would turn its attention to city in an effort to cut off the League from trade routes. In keeping with the Rostran Archipelago Confederacy's desire to remain mostly neutral in the conflict - as overtly chosing a side would exacerbate tensions with the other and might prompt a declaration of war against themselves - the city council of Eusiormapu voted to close the League embassy in 9925 AR.

Avarix Corps Deathshead Symbol by BCGR_Wurth

In response, the Free Faces League removed their own forces from nearby encampments, leaving the city in an economically and militarily weakened state (being not a priority for RACMF concentrations at that time). As a knock-on effect, this was when the Avarix Corps began to step up their commerce raiding activities in the region, further weakening the once-prosperous city through economic attrition. To this day, Avarix agents surreptitiously move in and out of the city to facilitate fencing and smuggling efforts, using bribes and threats on local officials to prevent their activities from being readily exposed.

As the War raged on, the city became too weak to protect Navigators between jobs and became too isolated by its bad reputation to be a profitable trade hub anymore. The Guild evacuated their local Guild hall. The Burning Hearts Social Club soon followed suit; while the Burnhearts are adventurers par excellence, they are (usually) not mercenaries equipped to deal with the safety concerns of what was becoming, in essence, a failed state.
A limited number of RVA and RACMF peacekeepers then moved in to reestablish order in the region, but were hamstrung by the standing desire to avoid direct confrontation with the humans as they battled eachother within the inflection layer above. To this day, the RVA, RACMF, and the Avarix remain the city's most powerful factions, dwarfing the influence of any local institutions.

History

As surreptitious trade ties deepened between the Rostran Archipelago Confederacy and the Free Faces League in the 9950's - despite earlier fears of Voxelian reprisal - it became clear to Archipelago Parliament members that a more secure trade route between the two powers was necessary. Medial B was far too dangerous and exposed as a section of an inter-tesseract trade route, as this was the 'hot' front of the War of Reunification.

RAC Travel Standard by BCGR_Wurth

The Red Velvet Desert was chosen as a way to bypass Medial B by dipping into the more peaceful Eastern Tesseract, with this trade route terminating directly in the inflection layer above the Coalition powers in Medial C.
As a side-effect of this change in trade routes, Esiormapu suddenly found itself a relative backwater beneath the Rostral A/Eastern B inflection layer. This exacerbated economic and security issues already caused by the influx of Avarix and collateral damage caused by incautious human aviators. Those thousands of individuals too poor to book transit to a nearby Rostran settlement became trapped in the city as it descended into violence and lawlessness. Crimes of both the wartime and civilian varieties became commonplace, as the local government lacked the power or will to intervene; for example, Eusiormapu became a popular place for the rare Rostran Bard-Recursant to sequester and 'question' Coalition pilots who had the misfortune of being downed on the Rostral side of the inflection layer. As of the year 10,000 AR, the security situation in Eusiormapu is improving with a renewed RACMF push against the Avarix air pirates, but the region remains the most violent place in all the Manifold Sky setting.

Tourism

Individuals who enjoy living are routinely advised to stay away from Eusiormapu at all costs. Nevertheless, a few adventuresome souls do come within sight of the once beautiful desert town every year, approaching in vehicle caravans from other Rostran settlements and observing the city from a safe distance. Settlements on the opposite face of the cube (i.e. Ereteusutaio) are quite safe by comparison, being across a single commissure from the home territories of the Rostran Archipelago Confederacy and their Marine Forces.

Architecture

Eusiormapu was once a growing city of baked brick arcades and clay roof tiles, once called the 'baby sister of Silkenvault' by explorers from Voxelia during the early days of airship exploration. Also like Silkenvault, Endurants would often decorate their homes with hanging bolts of richly-colored fabric - though, as Endurants are Rostrans, these were more often grand sheep wool rather than silk. Now, many of the old structures are gone, having been destroyed by bombs or pieces of debris from human military operations overhead. An increasing number of structures in the region are merely surface-level foyers or storefronts covering more resilient basement-level residences hewn from the Rostral rock.

Geography

Located under the hot, bright sun in Rostral A, near the commissure leading out of the Red Velvet Desert in Rostral A, the Eusiormapu environs are rocky, dry, and feature limited tree cover. Several nearby rivers flow down towards the commissure from the opposite cube's corner mountains, but these dry to mere trickles by the time they reach the fissure. The city center is less than a mile away from the fissure, concealed from view from the commissure at ground level by a series of low rock formations.
In better times, supplies would be exchanged between the town and the skystation in the commissure via one of three roads leading to manual commissure transit stations at the microgravity region. As of the year 10,000 AR, however, these are seldom used, as most travellers avoid stopping in Eusiormapu at all costs.

Natural Resources

Though hot and somewhat rocky, the region across the commissure does have ample grazing land and is geologically rich in calcium-bearing minerals. Samples from local hot springs indicate that there may be gold deposits as well, though the locals avoid exploring for these due to the risk of attracting yet more unwanted attention from the Avarix.

Alternative Name(s)

Endurance

Type

City

Population

Approx. 50,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Eusiormapuov; Endurants

Location under

Red Velvet Desert

Owning Organization

Red Velvet Association