One Month

It has been a month since I have moved from Boonieland to the burbs of Big Smoke.  It has been different.  

Moving is always a hassle, no wonder why I am loathe to move ever.  That moving companies do there best to make the experience worse confounds me.  If they made the experience more pleasant, people might look forward to moving.  I can think of a number of things that would help like offering bonuses and things like that.  If I were to have a moving company, I would a week after people have moved in send them a bouquet of flowers to let them know that they were appreciated and maybe some flyers of businesses in the area.  Canada Post sent me a flyer with a list of things that I should do after I have moved, that was nice.  

So now that I have been in the burbs of Big Smoke I have noticed a few things.  The roads are generally better in the poorer city that I am beside than the richer city that I live.  Funny eh?  The pretentious froo froo city with wealthy people spends less on roads than the lower class city beside it.  That said there are more bike lanes around and the streets are wider and the cars are more conscious of bicycle traffic than Smallville in Boonieland.  There appears to be bicycle lanes, running lanes and sidewalks in some areas.  But I have noticed that there is a danger in using the running lanes with Road bikes, the cars would prefer I used them but the surface is not level with the roadways at the curb and it has already caused one flat.  The bike lanes are a courtesy provided by citizens that have never used them; there are road service points dotting their surfaces and the storm sewer drains are suspiciously anti road bike.  What's more the asphalt beside the curb is broken badly in places.  Still a slight improvement on Smallville.  One other difference is the wind.  It is always present and is usually blowing hard.  

One similarity is my Fat Bike is also a new thing, mind you at a local bicycle shop, they told me that it is a hot seller and they can't keep them in stock.  Still it is a new thing and people see it and inquire, readily.  I mean people in Smallville talked to me about it, but they were more standoffish and asked after a while.  Whereas people in the burbs ask right away.  They are more interested.  That could be said about people in the burbs in general: they are more interested.  People will ask more questions if they think you are open to it.  They will ask you stuff even if you are alone.  In Smallville there is a bubble that people seem to not want to pierce but in the burbs it is not so much.

Just last week as I was pounding out an entry on my iPad, a man sitting near me stooped over and told me that he had never seen someone type as persistently on an iPad before.  He never thought that it could be used as a method of production.  I told him that I was blogging and he told me that he used his laptop as his writing tool as an author.  We talked for half an hour about how the publishing industry has changed so much in the past ten years.  He told me that years ago he submitted a novel and it was returned with a note very nice, but we only publish a half a dozen novels every year and you have not been selected as part of them.  He then went on to tell me that he has published three books, in e-book format and self published too.  He said that the entire process was tough and expensive but something he was committed to.

www.michaeltadman.com

I met him where I am now at Tim Hortons.  There are a lot of them everywhere in Canada.  The people are friendly, but a little absent minded.  The population of the employees is different than in Smallville.  There are some elderly employees, but mostly it is staffed by younger people.  Younger people are a little more distracted.  But a few of the staff have noticed that I have been coming here frequently and have commented on my bike.  They are more likely to make comments about the bike around winter storms.  Not that there is much winter weather here as there was in Smallville.  We have in total about 15cm of snow on the ground.  Smallville has almost ten times that.  Here in the burbs people pay attention to the windchill temperature more than the actual temperature, but then I have to admit, the wind is a real hazard around here.

The biggest adaptation I have had to make is that I am living with a family now.  It is something I always wanted and something I had given up on really.  I like kids a lot, and my friend's children mean the world to me, and I am told me to them.  They are the single biggest reasons why I changed locations.  There have been a few bits of adjustment though.  The space is fine, if a little dark and there is not much privacy.  My privacy wall is a book shelf, and not one with a back, a two sided tic tac toe style bookshelf.  The kids though are good they make lots of noise going down that stairs and they talk about coming to get me before they go down the stairs so I have lots of warning.  My friend does not.  There is some furniture that they have in my section that I care not for, mostly because I use it to hold my computer and the smooth glass surface is the worst surface for a wireless optical mouse.  Another problem is that the wireless Internet has difficulty penetrating to the basement and frequently my access drops below two bars out of five.  Often it just fails entirely.  And then there is cellphone reception: it sucks.  In the house in the first place it is bad.  One to two bars out of five.  The house appears to have shielding that prevents cellphone microwaves from penetrating and sometimes it is necessary to leave the house entirely to make a call.  In the basement it often tells me there is no service available.  That said, the kids are great.  Even when they jump on me, their feet unerringly homing in on my crotch.

There are other difficulties.  I have been sick twice in one month.  One was a flu that lasted about ten days and most recently an ear infection and fever with a cough.  The cough lingered from the other illness, so who knows.  The family has a dog and following one of the rules that I was given when I moved in: when ever possible, but at least once a day do something that allows the family to move more smoothly, I take him for a walk.  During the week, during the winter, with the kids and the other stuff that crops up, the dog would normally get three brief walks called: morning squirt, evening crap and night squirt.  All these are rushed affairs which is just what a dog hates.  But if I have time, and I usually do, I take him for a long walk in the afternoon that removes the need for evening crap.  Usually he works in two or three craps and a dozen squirts into that walk and when he gets home he races around the house until he settles down, about a minute or so.  This earns my major goodwill and makes the evening go better.  Anything else helps a bit too.  But from what I learned years ago with my friend, someone has to witness any cleaning act or it is assumed not done … really!  Mostly because everything is so clean that they can't tell the difference between clean and dirty, so they will assume it needs cleaning if they don't know it was done.

There are only about two other things I want to say.  The first project I embarked on was project girlfriend.  I am actively looking on three sites for a girlfriend, the three sites I was on in Smallville, but had no luck on because there was no one who would appeal to me within 75km.  It is different here there is a lot of appeal but then there is another problem, I don't know what they are looking for, the women.  I met one woman on PoF, she contacted me and we hit it off.  She does not meet people and she is not ready for a relationship because she has a young child and she just left an abusive relationship.  I get that but we chat anyways. She enlightened me that my approach to advertise myself as looking for a stable life partner, was not what women on the site were looking for.  She told me that men bragged to her, because she told them she would never meet them, that most women on the site used it for casual sex. Something I am okay with, but can't really do because I am poor at communication.  It is frustrating.  OkCupid I have had less luck with.  The theoretical algorithms for matching daters seem to be on track, but either the women I contact are judgmental or my attempts to initiate conversation fall flat.  I can't really tell.  The last site Ashley Madison is a paid site and I only have one last token to make contact, but the women appear to be judgmental and disinclined.  Not sure if it is my physique or if it is the Disney Syndrome.  Disney syndrome is the fact that Disney princesses are of all sorts, black, brown or white, hair colours blue through red, yellow, brown and black, but all Princes have Brown, Black or Blonde hair, with a heavy weight on the darker colours — tall, dark and handsome.  As a ginger, I find that discouraging.  I have found that women in the past are only interested in Gingers if the already had a ginger in their life, and we are not exactly common.   I can't change that, so I will work on the rest.  Perhaps I will lose weight in this new location.  And of course when I get that special mix of horny and depressed I am that much closer to professional help, which might be a bad thing.  Okay IS a bad thing.

I got a job.  I start on Monday.  It is at a furniture store as a sales associate.  For those that know me and are interested: www.structube.com .  I had an interview last Sunday and I knew I had the job after about five minutes.  The Manager of the store asked me where I lived and then asked how long I was living there.  I told him I just moved.  He asked where from.  Smallville.  He gave me the strangest look.  He asked me if I grew up there.  I did.  He said that he lived there for five years.  The next ten minutes were peppered about his times there. He lived there in the early nineties and said he like the natural beauty of the place but disliked the people.  Well he did not say that, but he said that the place was not a good fit.  I knew he was gay before he mentioned his partner and I knew the conflict that he had in Smallville.  I did not name it Smallville simply for its size but for its small mindedness.  I will see what that is like.  It means a new start and a foothold in my new place.

My friend suggested that I would be more likely to meet someone when I was employed, but with only four employees, I might have to get a part job to meet someone.

Exalted Reprocussions: Against the Slave States IV

Reprocussions from last Adventure:

In a mini adventure, The Nameless broke into and Dragon blooded home and stole a good quality Jade Diaklave.  It turned out to be of Eceptional quality.  Upon trying to sell the item in question to a guild representative in Wallport, he encountered difficulties.  The Guild antiquities dealer determined that it was probably a test of concept blade often produced by First Age Crafts people before attempting a truly spectacular artifact construction.  There was no real style to it and there no signature to the piece, if it had been the concious effort of a craftsman it would have been detailed in some way.  The estimated value of the piece was between 50 and 100 talents of silver if it were put on the open market, but since it was likely the property of House Ledaal itself and not actually owned by the Dragon Blooded it was stolen from any attempt would likely bring great grief upon the seller.  As such it was determined that the greatest profit would be reached by contacting House Ledaal and ransoming the blade back to them.  The Nameless was able to secure an advantageous deal where he would receive five talents of silver up front and fifty percent of the ransom to be paid upon completion of the deal.  

The Nameless then headed to Whitewall, the largest city in the north and the city on the other end of the Raod from Wallport.

 

Reprocussions:

Two incidents in the Slave States.  1) Theft of an Exceptional Diaklave; the First Age property of House Ledaal.  Censure of the offending Dragon Blood and an increase in security within the Dehenna Slave State.  Thaumaturgical alarms and sorcery including binding of Elementals and Demons to protect the assets of the House.  Protocols that they must be worn when ever possible.  Balconies warded for intruders, nothing drastic only movement— the suspicion is that of a Outcaste Dragon Blood or a Spirit blooded.  There is as of yet no connection with the Bloody Hand, but there will be reprisals towards the Guild in Dehenna in particular and later if other things happen like this, in the rest of the Slave states.

2) However, there is concern about the Bloody Hand in Inahjal.  The clean killings that occurred there in the recent slave "uprising" have been noted and while initial concerns by naïve non professional investigators made it seem like a simple escape of slaves there were a number of red herrings that professional investigators noted immediately:

1) only a few slaves escaped, 7 men and 21 females with 239 slaves left in their barracks, about a hundred were wandering in the outside roadways and the rest were gorging on the drugs in lock up.  They were all unbloodied and unharmed.

2) guards were found in the field beside the dogs dead at their posts with one wound in the eye, the throat, or some other exposed location in the head.  The arrows were retrieved.  Soldiers were killed to a number with no apparent struggle.  

3) while two administrators were butchered messily outside with multiple. chopping swords, the one found in the administrative center was not.  His head was twisted 180° around, a feat of great strength or precision or both and then beat senselessly until the head was unrecognizable and bloody hand prints were placed all over the room.  Placed as a calling card.

4) the missing 28 slaves went through the hedgerow, no mean feat, and disappeared.  Several Jackals and an Immaculate were necessary to find the trail.  The slaves picked the best places to walk that would leave the least trail and they went directly to the coast where the trail disappeared.  Suspected that they were picked up by boat.  

Because of these aberrations, the very rare measure is taken to talk to the local Latifundia spirit.  The spirit was able to inform the immaculate that the offending person did what was done and that the person was Exalted and wielded a Orichalcum Powerbow.  The Immaculate refocus on these facts and it is determined that while the evidence is circumstantial, all major incidents of the past few seasons will be put under additional scrutiny.  The spirits of e latifundia and the cities of the slave states as well as the slave states themselves are all strong supporters of the Bronze faction and are thus predisposed to the Immaculate faith and against Solar rule.

After a full season of investigation the following is revealed.  1) the incident in the north of Dehenna a year ago was an exaltation of a Night Caste Solar.  And that he returned a few seasons later.  There has been no other conclusive sighting.  The spirit of the Latifundia in the North of Serrat was murdered along with the entire population.  This is nominally being blamed on the suspected Night Caste Anathema, until more information is brought forward, and he is thought to be working with the dead.  The Shadowland that was formed there took some time to be closed.  

The net effect is that Inahjal is in a state of alert.  For the next few seasons, well until something bigger enters the news service.  The fate of that Latifundia is in question.  The very drastic measure is brought to bear, the entire latifundia will be purged.  Each surviving member will be sent to one other latifundia and once there will be impaled and left to die.  Unruly slaves in all the latifundia will be sentenced to a similar fate for a period of one season and the original latifundia will be reseeded from within the slave state.  Not quite a decimation, but close.

Spirits of Latifundia, a subset of a City God: Owing there existence to the continuation of the Realm and slavery, the spirits of latifundia are thoroughly in bed with the Bronze faction.  They came about when these latifundia were created and they have known nothing else, but this is a two edged sword as the Immaculate Order keeps these spirits in order.  There is no corruption and there is no chance to gain extra power.  Because the latifundia is filled with slaves that live in a drug stupor for most of the time, the spirits are asleep most of the time.   When violence occurs, death in particular, they may rouse themselves in interest, but even then it is not a sure thing.  If they rouse, they may not not fully appreciate the details they see.  Latifundia spirits of latifundia under a two thousand population are essence 2 spirits, but essence 3 otherwise.  If there is a special resource in the latifundia's reach, they are essence 3 as well.  They speak Old Realm and Realm Common plus the language used in the latifundia.  To reflect their strung out nature, the spirits have the minimum of mental and social attributes, 1 each with the exception of a Manipulation of 5.  Physically they are normal, except that the constant drugging of the population has reduced its Stamina to 3. Abilities of the spirit are reduced as well, Awareness to 3, and social abilities are reduced by 2 and mental abilities are reduced to 1.

Spirits recognize all Exalted of every type.  The essence of the person walking by them is like a glowing beacon, but it is difficult to discern the different flavours of essence.  Perception +Awareness difficulty 3, modified by circumstances add 2 difficulty if they have never seen that type of exalt, and subtract 2 difficulty if they have.  All exalted are recognized as Princes of the Earth, a title that simply means Exalted and nothing else, a special person raised to the level of spirits.  Spirits can recognize the magical materials at a glance

Best laid plans: Exalted against the Slave States IV

Part of Role Playing Games is to know your audience and I know that I don't do a good job at that.  In the past when I first started out stories were prepared by the industry and the stories were scripted for the most part and that was a good thing because ten to thirteen year olds don't typically know how to put a story together very well.  Really, unless they were exposed to real storytellers, eighteen year old's are crappy storytellers.  But let's face it, there is a lot of rules and background knowledge to do in addition to telling the story, so it makes sense.  In the day Advanced Dungeons &Dragons, as it was called back then, showed young players how it should be done.  My first really successful story telling outing was when I was older in my twenties after my exposure to real story telling, when I adapted an old style AD&D adventure, Temple of Elemental Evil to the setting and added dimensions.  The game took about three years to fully unfold and ended with the characters recognized by the world's leaders— something that never really happens in AD&D.  

Skip to Exalted, a story setting that is purely setting and rarely attempts to create ready made stories.  So the story has no hard script and you have to judge the players and predict where they want to go.  Predict.  Sometimes players are hostile to the work that the storyteller wishes to tell and when that happens it is important to have an idea of what else there is nearby and be ready to let the players.  Sometimes the player is not hostile, but has decided that they they don't want to participate in the story you have planned.  Sometimes it is because you misinterpret what they want to do.  

Sometimes, storytellers make the worst players.  They can't divorce themselves from their knowledge.  I once played a game where I knew the story fairly well and I ruined the game for everyone, not because I gave away the ending, but because the story was a nearly impossible to win and I knew it.  I ruined the game for the other players, the game master and myself.  So when I see how that game went, I don't understand how my friend as smart as he is do that to the games he is in.  He does it every time.  It is like he refuses to use anything less than all the knowledge he has personally and not what his character knows.  What's more, if you do the same in his games, he punishes you for it, which makes it difficult to enjoy the game with him, but what can you do?  What I do, realize that this is something you can't change, so don't.  And let it go.  If you can't change something don't stress it.  

So I spent time fleshing out my story, the one I published the other day, but that was the story that happened, not the one that I planned for.  His character was born into a society of slaves that were quickly introduced to drugs and then they spent the rest of their lives addicted to them, with two states of mind, with drugs and happy ignoring life and working to meet production for the day so that they can get more drugs, suffering through withdrawal all that time.  When they had drugs they were in their barracks and were not paying attention to anything and when they were in withdrawal they were too motivated to get their drugs to pay attention to anyone else.  He got his Second Breath and Exalted during a torture session as an illiterate slave.  

But strangely he will not dumb his character down from all he knows.  So my choices are to stop or deal with it.  And, I know that that is a silly idea, there is no choice, I have to deal with it.  When you drop character and start using knowledge your player does not have it is called Meta-Gaming.  When your character ignores something that the player knows is dangerous but the character has no reason to believe is dangerous, that is Meta-Gaming.  

The good thing about doing work that does not get used is that you can use it later and the work is still in play.  The events that were put in motion are still in motion.  The effects of not acting will affect the game, now and in the future, but the rewards may not be present later.  

Prep:

Exalted: The Black Sun

Conviction 5, Temperance 4, Valour 4, Compassion 4

The Black Sun, Solar of the First Age.  When the Usurpation occurred, he was in Meru.  No one was sure who the Black Sun was, in truth, it was said that he or she was an enigma to all even his Circlemates.  Laughingly, his circle was called the Circle of Four, because of his total absence, though it was clear that he was not dead, as his essence had never been reborn.  There was a rumour that many years after the bloody day of Calibration, he had survived by donning the skin of the Exalt that lead hunt for him.  The Sidereal following his progress on the Loom of Fate always noted that the hunters were on his tail, but never actually found him.  He was finally caught it was said after he murdered the kin of his hunters before wiping his hunters out to a man.  The kill team that descended on to the spot where he was eventually cut down always had an uneasy feeling that the fight had been too easy that he had given up and his death was less preordained and more planned by himself for some unknown reason.

And those people would have been correct.

The sacrifice that was made to the Never-born was that of everything that he knew.  All associates, all fetters that tied him to the land of the living, but all his skill and his name were left entirely his own.  It was said among the dead with power, the mightiest specters of the Labyrinth, that he had been seen in its depths mere days before his end and that the terms that were offered to him in death, were the terms that he had dictated to them, such was his power.  

What is known, of those of that have knowledge of the Underworld, is that one Manse of the Thirteen Deathlords has remained empty and unoccupied and that even the Great and powerful Last and Forsaken Lion fears the day the owner makes itself known…

Marama's Fell, knows no Citadel.  It knows no leader, and nor will the dead in its confines will suffer any such leader, but that does not mean that one does not exist.  For it is in this lawless Shadowland that the reach of the Black Sun extends.  

The Black Sun is a Deathlord without form, it was indeed that power that lead him to be such a fright during the years of the Solar Deliberative and it was something that he improved upon in the years after.  The years afterwards he used his finesse to rise in power in his guise as the powerful Terrestrial Exalt, Marama.  He built his future home with the tormented souls of the creatures created by his demented fellow Solars from the First Age.  As the land slipped nightly into the Underworld, he performed great ritual magic that bent the land to his will and his will alone.  As the Shadowland extended itself over the years his control extended as well.  

When first the Contagion entered the World, he saw that had an extra-worldly origin, as it struck the Exalted as often as the mortals, and began to dig deeper, while exploiting the disease to maximize the confines of his domain.  The Wyld invasion was a blessing that he could not pass up and used it to shed his disguise of the famed Marama.  He sank down into his Domain full time and began investigating its confines and borders.  Using his skill as a First Age Solar of the First Generation, veteran of the overthrow of the Primordials, assassin who struck the first fatal blow in that war, he organized and neighbouring Shadow Towns as an early warning system which caught a fleeing Princess Magnificent with Lips of Coral and Robes of Black Feathers.

Her torture removed the rest of her fragile mental state and relieved her of her remaining memories and of, most importantly, her deal with her Neverborn masters.  Armed with this information he began to plan for his ultimate revenge.  As the Princess Magnificent had no form to steal he instead decided upon a more daring plan.  First he released his quarry after extracting more of her memories and teasing her with a greater portion of her memories that The Black Sun had of her living self and tied them into a Dreamstone bound directly to her soul.  Access to the Dreamstone reinforced her devotion to him and enforced her silence, a ticking time bomb ready to exploit at a time of his choosing.  He then sealed his manse, with complete records of his person and plans keyed only to his soul and began to travel the Underworld dropping bread crumbs that would if things went against his plans would lead him back to his home.

He then went into the Labyrinth to deal directly with the NeverBorn.  They double crossed him and wiped his memories and it took years to stumble upon his clues that he laid so carefully, but stumble across them he did do and it led him to his Domain, Marama's Fell.  

Agenda

Control.  Destruction.  The Shadow Towns all fell eventually within the Shadowland, but the ritual that he cast did not extend his control to them and the dead within.  The core of the Fell, however, remains his.  Its Factory Cathedrals, powerful Manses and most of all its loyal and devoted denizens, were his to command.  For all this power, he has only just gained control and is only just regained his motivations and knowledges that he stored away.  The detailed information that he had pooled before he had left, he updated.  The five hundred years that he had existed as a Deathlord was at the heels of the Neverborn and the other Deathlords.  The Neverborn, because it was he who had killed them and it was he that he thought to usurp them a second time.  The Deathlords, more petty, recognized that he had lasted far longer than they and rumours had spread that he had submitted himself directly to them in person and because of this he possessed his mortal body as well (Deathlords do not need bodies, but the body is something that none of them have, they were all interred after they were cremated, they have no tie to their old life and for this they are jealous.  It is not a great advantage and it is more of an hinderance, as it is something that he has to keep safe).

At their heel he was used as a mere messenger, shuttled between the hostile Deathlords, like a token of their dark master, passing on information that could not be trusted to sorcery, where reactions to the information were more important than the actual news.  The Black Sun learned more about his fellow Deathlords than they learned of him, confident of his low status.

Control.  He is subtly shifting the goals of the Deathlords and the mortal rulers of Creation.  Mask of Winters has gathered an army and is seeking a target for the right time.  Mask of Winters initially placed his sights on Larjyn, but that city did not suit the Black Suns plans and he seeks to move his target to another city, one closer to the core of Creation, one that will help destabilize the Realm, the Black Sun's true target.  Last and Forsaken Lion, he has stymied into inaction, but keeping him on hair trigger with the Princess Magnificent, he plans when the time is right to push him into An Teng.  

For the Realm he intends to goad their armies forth and to do battle with these unknown adversaries and then to offer up his solution to their plight.

Charm

Total and Absolute Disguise Prana

Cost: 20 motes, 2wp

Mins: larceny 8, Essence 8

Type: Simple

Keywords: ComboOK, Obvious

Duration: Until Released

Prerequisite Charms: Supreme Perfection of Larceny, Perfect Mirror

This charm requires one living being who is killed when the charm is used.  This Charm allows the Exalt to don the skin of the subject and subsume their place perfectly.  This disguise is completely undetectable under normal conditions.  The charm allows the Champion of the Sun to know what the subject knows and allows them to act flawlessly.  Those that are sensitive to Essence will see no difference and all true sight Perception abilities are fooled perfectly, because while the Lawgiver is in this form, he is them.  

There is no restriction on who the Exalt can subsume, save in size as the Exalt cannot assume the shape of a creature under a quarter of his size.  There is not restriction for larger sizes, however.  When the Lawgiver uses any charm all the visual affects are quite visible to those around the him and this may cause him to break disguise.  Caste Mark functions perfectly.  When the Lawgiver chooses to end the charm, the Lawgiver erupts from the skin of the disguise and that skin is left discarded in a pile.

CURRENTLY

The Slave States are to the immediate south of Marama's Fell, two of them anyways.  The first problem is that the Holy Road that cuts a path through the Underworld and stops movement across it, has the same affect on undead in Creation; they cannot traverse it.  And it affects Deathlords as well, since they are ghosts.  

The Nameless has set up his first community on the other side of the Holy Road, so it is effectively cut off from Marama's Fell and the Black Sun.  Rumours of the Bloody Hand have, however, begun to circulate on that side of the Slave States and he has begun to piece together what is happening.  Soon he will investigate his old secret Manse and discover that it has a new owner.  He will also then quickly track down who it is and where they live now.  When he does, he will discover his old Exalted Essence and recognize it as such.  The Nameless will feel a familiarity with him.

In the World at Large: the Empress of the Realm still sits on her throne, but not for long.  

The city of Thorns has suffered humiliating defeats and they need to be shorn up to prevent rebellion 

Kiraghast is about to rebel against the Realm

Chiaroscuro is suffering from raiders from the deep south that has cut off trade with Gem once again.

The Lap is calm but there is Realm Intrigue about the succession of who gets the tribute.

Lintha Pirates have started bold raids on the ships of An Teng

House Vneef is still solidifying it's right to control the Merchant Fleet and House Phelps is still attempting to undermine them.

The Nameless's other memories of the time before from his Exalted Soul.  Dualities.  An easter egg hunt where each location leads to the next and each contains a piece of a puzzle with the conclusion being unknown.  

- Chiaroscuro from two different times, the First Age from when the glass towers were tall and whole and from when they were broken.  Always from the perspective of looking down from one of the towers, one tower in particular tower.  But he needs to go to Chiaroscuro to know which one.

-Chaya from a small fortress and from a ruin of a fortress.  The only clue to the location is a Firetree in Resplendent Fire

-Dendasor the university city filled with the bustle of people, Exalted, and walking statues and university buildings unrecognizable choked with ivy and weeds, statues everywhere the entire location shrouded with mist.

- White Wall, a city that could be any city made of white marble in single blocks the buildings capped in gold.  A city ruin single blocks of marble pulverized and in near total ruin beside intact buildings.

- A snowy pastoral scene in a deep wide valley with a distant white wall stretching for hundreds of miles in two directions.  A near black surrounding deep under water.

- A deep coral shrouded underwater manse with plenty of underwater folk swimming around.  The coral is more overgrown, but is dead, the water is too deep and nothing survives.

-Hot jungle farm land with tall towers beside a city with a ziggurat dominating the center. Tall spindles nearby with many Skyships docked, many large reptilian birds in the sky.  And deep jungle, the remains of the city poking above  the canopy.

- the view of creation from high up a mountain looking East toward the pole of Wood, the land below is very far down the slope beneath the clouds that you are above, there you are deep in shade as there is a very large platform above you shading out the Sun.  The view is the same, less clouds, more Sun, the platform is gone and the city upon it is strewn all over the mountainside below.

Action is a way of life for him, but so is patience; together they result in plans that are nearly flawless with a great scope.  Once the plan has been hatched, he will see it through to the end, as seen by his purposeful creation of Creation's worst and scariest Shadowland: a place where Deathlords fear to walk.

…

Thrice-Dread Achiba one of the Black Sun's forms— a Created lifeform from the First Age.  In cannon the leader of the dead of the Shadowland.

Return to what character wants and integrate.

Last left The nameless was creating a town in the middle of the wastes outside the Slave State Dehenna 

Lorlnem bouncer realm common, river Dehenna

 

Leifaperi bookkeeper air, river, realm common Dehenna 

Yemudral leader air, river, water, realm common.  Dehenna 

Egoj slave Realm common 

Eiri Draq  Airspeak, Riverspeak Realm Common caravan master. +10 labourers

Eighteen new slaves

Pǎo An Teng native, speaks Firespeak and Realm Common was Dinyacout's chef and bed slave, Male normal character

Nukkua Woodspeak blacksmith male physical addicted

Jäger Riverspeak ex soldier who tried to run. Male soldier

Bhāgō Firespeak woodworker female physical addicted

Coenhelm Realm Common paper maker male weak addicted

Takara Riverspeak bureaucrat male weak addicted

Yoshimochi Woodspeak runner female physical addicted

Venandi Riverspeak bureaucrat male weak addicted knowledge of lore and additional languages Realm Common, Firespeak and Waterspeak.

Dhu'āmeh Firespeak  runner female physical addicted

Chīfàn Firespeak chemist female weak addicted

Aethelfrith Realm Common bureaucrat male weak addicted

Machi Waterspeak smelter male physical addicted

Leofstan Woodspeak chemist male  weak addicted

Shuìjiào An Teng native, not a typical slave more like a bed slave and for dressing and bathing speaks Firespeak, Realm common and Riverspeak.  Very smart and also good at appearing otherwise. Female.  heroic mortal? Infertile

Guotin Realm common bureaucrat male weak addicted

Apik Waterspeak chemist female weak addicted

Intuthu Waterspeak bureaucrat female weak addicted additional languages Realm Common, Woodspeak and Riverspeak.

Xueyou  assisted Dinyacout with dressing armour and acted as a servant Grandson of Eiji, a friend from his youth, loyal to the Realm and will betray the Nameless

Nowhere population 31.  19 former slaves, 11 guild labourers  and 1 Exalted

7 women, 24 men

One great Hall 

One lodge current sleeping area

- one thin wall surrounding this to keep animals away

Two saw pits

One storage shed, filled with snow and saw dust

One Headman's lodge

Barracks. Lodging for single men

Barracks lodging for single women

Drying lodge

Fields clearing of trees.  Fields of stumps and brush litter the grounds.  Plans for skeins for rivers and damming streams.  Common language of Realm Common.  

Spring plan is for a spring fire to clear leaf litter and begin planting

ARTIFACTS fine+1, exceptional +3, perfect +4

HEAT little, heavy(assassins or army), impossible (Wyld hunt)

SELLING possible, difficult, impossible

Rumour and stories are spreading of brutal attack in the slave state of Serrat where an entire latifundiae was destroyed.  All the guards slaughtered, pulverized and the host of slaves removed.

Every Million slaves are owned by a Dragon Blooded Administrator. They set direction for the million slaves and report to the Governor.

Every one hundred thousand slaves is owned by a Patrician Administrator. The follow the directions of their superiors and collate the reports and send them back to the leaders. Each Patrician is more or less permanent and has his family installed in the country in a household. Every ten thousand slaves are administered by a mortal graduate of the Spiral Academy. Twenty Dragon Blooded administrators, direct from the Spiral Academy, fill out the ranks of the administration of slaves in Deshan Slave states. Administrators do not own slaves, they just direct them and tabulate the information for their region and pass it along to their betters, the Patricians. The Dragon Blooded are not recognised until they are granted a position within the ruling administration and so follow all the same rules as administrators of their level.

Administrators of the lowest levels live on the Latifundia or city blocks as required, but close to the ones they are guiding. They do not own anyone, but then are also not owned either. Typically, one serves for ten years in this fashion before moving on to higher level postings. There is very little that they can do to earn extra money in their position legally, but many leave their position greatly enriched.

Patrician Administrators are in a difficult position, not being in the Realm means that this job is considered a hardship. Add that the conditions are harsher than many places in Creation, but few positions anywhere in the panoply of the Realm include, 100,000 slaves in partial ownership. There are few ways to gain additional funds, but the impetus is low, because typically the position is an inherited role. One way to gain prestige and wealth is to increase the efficiency of the slaves they own, 10% cost savings or increased production is theirs outright.

Dragon Blooded Administrators are appointed by the Governor. They own up to a million slaves in part and all the Patrician Administrators of those slaves report to them. Twenty percent of any surplus is added to their take away from the efficiencies of their slaves. Typically this is a short term assignment, but longer duration stays are allowed.

The Governor is appointed for ten years and is usually a Dragon Blood, as are his two aides. Since this is a political appointment, having skill with administration is not a prerequisite and if not, usually one of the aides will fill this roll. Governors often see living here as a burden and may take all surplus funds as their own even if the rules might call for 20%.

Dragon Blooded Spiral Academy Graduates: 

Lamellar armour 8L/9B H5, M-1

Daiklave S4, A+3, Dm+7, Df+2, R3,

Dragon Blooded Patrician Administrators: 

Fine Reinforced Breastplate 10L/9B, H8, M0 Fine Daiklave S3, A+3, Dm+7, Df+2, R3

Dragon Blooded Spiral Academy Graduates Appointed:

Fine Articulated Plate 12L/14B, H8, M-1

Exceptional Articulated Plate 13L/15B, H9, M-1

Fine Grand Daiklave S3, A+2, Dm+13/4, Df +0, R2 Exceptional Grand Daiklave S3, A+3, Dm+13/4, Df+1, R2

Governor

Perfect Superheavy Plate 16L/16B, H11, M0

Perfect Grand Daiklave S2, A+3, Dm +13/4, Df +1, R2

Immaculate Monks Dragon Blooded are Masters of their Martial Art Exceptional or Perfect Armour mobility penalty to zero

Exceptional Weapon

28th Legion:

General:

Perfect Superheavy Plate 16L/16B, H11, M0

Perfect Grand Daiklave S2, A+3, Dm +13/4, Df +1, R2

10 Dragon Lords, 2 General Aides:

Fine Articulated Plate 12L/14B, H8, M-1

Exceptional Articulated Plate 13L/15B, H9, M-1

Fine Grand Daiklave S3, A+2, Dm+13/4, Df +0, R2 Exceptional Grand Daiklave S3, A+3, Dm+13/4, Df+1, R2

20 Wing Lords, 10 Dragon Lord Aides:

Fine Reinforced Breastplate 10L/9B, H8, M0 Fine Daiklave S3, A+3, Dm+7, Df+2, R3

40 Talon Lords, 10 DB

Lamellar armour 8L/9B H5, M-1 Daiklave S4, A+3, Dm+7, Df+2, R3,

Dehenna

The region that he was enslaved was formerly called the Fire Opal Principality, now called Dehenna. Built in the mountains it is the least populous with only about 660,000 slaves and two cities, Dehenna 60,000, the capital and smelting operation for the produce and Jade Depot 10,000, the transfer site to the Realm of all goods produced. The latifundia here mostly have 300 people set in five mountain valleys along the coast. Each valley runs north south and each valley has several mountain spurs. This all means that rebellion rarely spreads here. Mining here is a combination of open pit, shaft and placer mines; it is all dangerous and with a drugged out workforce, little safety is enforced. All the agricultural output is consumed by the populous and all the minerals are exported with some food and drugs imported.  The satrap of Dehenna always comes from the Pechenga household of the Great House of Ledaal. That lineage owns Dehenna.  Evergreen forests. Rocky foothills. Two kinds of latifundia, mining and farming. Farming is mostly drugs and hardy pulses.

Pop. 500k

Cities 70k (60k&10k) Military 50k

Farmers 190k

Miners 190k

Trades 63k

4 DB

5 Pat families

50 Admins. 1 DB

1 Dragon of troops 5DB 50 monks 4 DB

Total Dragon Blooded: 14

Inahjal

still rugged, but the mountains are far to the west, this is an agricultural tributary. The land is flat and thus the latifundia are more evenly placed, but still lightly populated at close to 300. The total population of the satrap is over 1.5 million, Inahjal in the center 70,000, and two coastal ports with 15,000 apiece. Inahjal has a collective satrapy, a triumvirate representing the Ambrim, Jesk and Therusa families descended from the three ministers. No triumvir serves for more than 10 years, though, so no family has a chance to dominate through the longevity of a Dragon- Blooded representative

Forested and rocky ground, the forest is mixed softwoods, evergreen and poplar/birch. Latifundia are mostly self sufficient in food and drugs, the rest is exported to Dehenna to supply their shortfall. Together they are self sufficient.

Pop. 1.5M

Cities 90k (70k & 20k) Military 150k

Farmers 1.26M

Trades 81k

5 DB

15 Pat fam 1 DB

150 admins 1 DB

1 Dragon of troops 5 DB 150 monks 6 DB

Total Dragon Blooded: 18

Wallport

Serrat

Serrat less rugged but still poor landscape manages to average out to 600 per latifundia and about three million slaves, more in the south and less in the north towards the shadowland. Serrat located on the coast has 90,000 slaves and two small cities to the east and west on the coast of about 10,000, with third centrally located administrative city in the center at 30,000 slaves.  The Empress gave the Thousand Scales the privilege of appointing its own satrap to Serrat... except the political infighting among the various bureau chiefs meant they always needed her to break their deadlocks when choosing one.  A long and tall state, the north is covered with coniferous forests and the south with mixed hardwoods, beech and birch, the cover is very much a lighter forest. In the north is graduates  to birch and fir and the land gets softer and swampier the closer to the Fell, with smaller mountains.

Pop 3M

Cities 130k (90k&2x20k) Military 300k

Farmers 2.57M

Trades 117k

6 DB

30 Pat Fam 3DB

300 Admins 3 DB

2 Dragons of troops 8 DB 300 monks 9 DB

Total Dragon Blooded: 29

Amber River

Amber River is lush by comparison; the hinterlands forested and the river plain fertile. The average latifundia has about a thousand slaves, more in the river valley and more toward the coast. Four cities line the river valley, three averaging 25,000 and the capital, Amber River 100,000 on the coast bring the population to in excess of fifteen million slaves.  House Peleps owns Amber River, and while it does not get to choose the satraps, the Empress would appoint a satrap only from that House.

The forests are dense hardwoods to the East and lighter in the West. Even in the North it is tall pine that have use in timber. In addition to the fertile lands there is a trade in wood and nuts. By far, more wealth comes from this state except for the mineral wealth of Dehenna. Better quality Drugs are grown here to for export to the Realm as well as the other states.

Pop. 15M

Cities 190k (100k&3x30k)

Military 1.5m

Farmers 13.31m

Trades 171k

18 DB

150 Pat fam 15DB

1500 Admins 15 DB

6 Dragons of troops 20 DB +3DB 1500 monks 36 DB

Total Dragon Blooded: 137 

Grand Total Dragon Blooded: 198

72 Dragon Blooded part of the regular administration

8th legion Commander and two Aides = Governor DB, DB Admins

10 Dragon Lords and 10 Aides = DB admins, Pat DB 20 Wing Lords = Pat DB 

40 talon Lords. 10 DB = admin DB

53 Dragon Blood as part of the Army

2000 monks 40 Dragon Blooded (1 in 50)

5 immaculate Martial Arts experts with 10 aides 

55 Dragon Blooded Monks

The Empress still reigns -- this has not yet changed. Therefore the Dragon 

Blooded are still towing the line and not independently pursuing their own courses of action. The little gods are still cowed within creation in this area and not acting up. None of Creation’s enemies want to test the Sword of Creation, so all activity is at a minimum. The Nameless is not politically aware so he knows nothing of this at all. But the orderly beehive has been kicked and knocked over and there is an investigation afoot in the slave state of Serrat. Late last year, unbeknownst to everyone, but a small number of slaves now in the Nameless’s care, A low level Dynastic Administrator went missing in the North of that state. An investigation ensued led by none other than the head of the Immaculate Temple in Serrat, his aides and the local Dragonlord and his aide, along with 100 Imperial soldiers. The investigation went smoothly until it lead to the last known location of the Dynast Dinyacout, a latifundia in the extreme North of Serrat. A day after the investigators arrived at the latifundia a messenger courier arrived to discover that the entire population of the latifundia (1500) had been smeared all over the grounds. The investigators with them, but that was not immediately apparent as the presence of the Dynastic investigators was not known.

When the news arrived in Serrat a few days later it took some time for these two pieces of information to be linked. Word had already been sent to the Realm when this was discovered. Things take time to come together even with the Empress in the Seat and full in her power. Most of the Wyld Hunt is already out tending to concerns in Creation. There are concerns with the Realm Satrapies of Thorns and Harborhead and a concern in Greyfalls. When the call goes out, only the second stringers are available: a Sworn Brotherhood of five Exalts, ally about a century old; they are equipped with the second best that vaults of the Wyld Hunt has. Shogunate armour and Weapons and a scale of troops with Shock Lances and a single Sorcerer, plus any hanger-ons that become attracted to the glory of the Hunt.

The Wyld Hunt without any interference will conclude that this was an attack by Undead from the local Shadowland and pursue the trail that has been left, quite purposely, back towards the Shadowland where they will encounter a token force of undead beings who will lose to the Wyld Hunt and withdraw deeper into the Underworld. The Wyld Hunt will have taken extreme losses and decide that that was enough and back away from committing themselves further.

They will miss a few other things: 1) The log of the Immaculate Monk that is scattered in the wreckage and has been sitting in a lost corner of one of the buildings. the log is damp and starting to moulder, there is also a copious quantity of blood staining to outside of the scroll. The log contains the investigation upto that point that brought the immaculates to the latifundia. HARD

2) A Gossamer knife and glass found in a chest smashed near the side of a building. the chest also contains a few other items including ink and paper, but the ink has ruined the paper and it is thoroughly ruined any script except the name Falsom. Falsom is the Administrator for the area, who would have been present during the Investigation but who claims not to have any knowledge of them being there and had been on tour in another region when the attack had occurred. HARD

3) The bodies of the slaves are scattered through the fields, the attack occurred during the daytime EASY

4) Beyond the wall exit, in the trees there is the remains of a green Jade Power bow, broken into four pieces. Not far from that location the headless body of an Immaculate Monk in a set of Perfect Green Jade Reinforced Breastplate, the head can be found 20m away under a bush. The body appears to have been broken up, limbs torn off, not cut and appears to have been knocked over the wall by the broken limbs of the trees around it. The ribs of the Immaculate have been broken to shards. MODERATE

5) Everything is too perfect, the arrangement of the bodies appears to be placed and set up, the bodies were prearranged before they were liquified, no one ran, they all died in place. MODERATE 6) The bodies are liquefied through great force and created a lot of gore in the process, but not enough, there is a lot of missing blood. There is a lot of extra blood in the barracks and the slave compounds, the floorboards are drenched in it and that is perhaps the reason they did not burn well. The basement reeks of blood, cooked blood, and the resulting slime is ankle deep in places. HARD

Administrator Falsom, appointed for doing a life of service to the Thousand Scales, is very worried that he will be recalled for this incident. He is staying in makeshift quarters in one of the Latifundia nearby and is quite distraught. Should his story be investigated more closely, they will find that he was indeed on tour. But a detailed investigation would reveal that he returned meet the investigators and was therefore present when the disaster unfolded.  Administrator Falsom is the Black Sun.  Falsom is a mortal, but not a slave.  He is undetectable in this form but he can project a Caste Mark through his Falsom's skin if need be.

Exalted Against the Slave States IV

The Nameless started the Winter with some conflict as newly freed slaves; men that were until recently spent most of their lives in a drug addled state, now suffering from withdrawal and having a lot of free time decided to slake their thirsts in other ways, with the out numbered female ex-slaves.  The Nameless enforced a strong zero policy for all these types of incidents.  As the snows quickly piled up the small population of people began to learn to work hard all day and rest as long as they could.  The winter was harsh and there was a lot of work to do in the proto-colony.  

The fields had to be cleared.  The snow deepened everyday and the cold was harsh.  Many of the former slaves did not have the proper clothing and while the winter clothing provided was adequate, it was not the best.  Luckily the Nameless had an ample supply of arrows and the woodland around, in a near pristine state, had plenty of wild life: a small herd of woodland caribou, moose, rabbits, beaver and many others: the mountains had goats and the streams fish.  Berries uneaten by animals were aplenty.  The people were not going to starve and the addition of fur to their clothing made the winter bearable.  

The larger trees were stripped of branches as they fell and were pulled over the snows to the work areas, makeshift sleds made this chore easier later in the project.  The trees were cut in saw pits, built prior to freeze up for just this purpose.  The bark and the larger pieces of unusable wood were burnt for heat and the sawdust for other purposes: insulation for buildings yet to be completed.  Squared timbers and planks were produced for spring and summer construction projects.  A few buildings were built though over the winter due to necessity; a house to store ice and snow for the Summer, covered with a layer of sawdust.  

The surroundings were surveyed, such as they could in e winter, and areas of interest were noted for future post melt times.  The people were the main concern of the Nameless, however, he spent time individually and in groups reinforcing his views and team building.  He tried to teach them about woodcraft for the area, trying to make them self-sufficient.  The building of the new and future settlement of Nowhere, seemed to help with this.  All the work done in the camp had been completed by them, when they arrived there was nothing.  There were a few problems though, mostly due to two factors.

These factors were the gender imbalance and that the two different populations in the camp.  The Slaves, for the first part, were mostly ignorant of how to communicate; the segregation of the latifundia in the slave states by informing different language usage, meant that most of the slaves could not talk to each other.  There were a few that could speak more languages, but there were only a few of these.  The second group was a work crew from The Guild, ten men and one retired caravan master who served as the backbone of the new settlement.  They all spoke Riverspeak and Airspeak, the language of the Riverlands where The Guild was based, and the predominant language group of the North, respectively.  A few of the slaves knew Riverspeak, but none knew Airspeak.  Riverspeak was selected as the language that they would all use in common.  

The largest problem was that there were only seven women and there were twenty-four men, the Nameless decided that for there to be a chance for the settlement to be successful, this imbalance had to be solved.  So as Spring began to break upon the isolated valley, the Nameless left to seek a cure for this problem, to get more supplies for his people and specialized professionals, like healers.  

Walking paths that mortals dared not travel, the Nameless crossed the mountains that served as a backdrop to Nowhere, trackless and passless that they were, and entered the slave state of Dehenna.  He quickly ran to the city of Dehenna, where his guild contacts were to gain any information that they had and to seek aid.

Upon arriving he discovered that they had no new information, other than something was up in the state of Serrat, but what was up and the cause were unknown.  The sad truth was that the infrastructure of the slave states, the methodology on containing and isolating the slave populations, worked in a secondarily function of sealing the boarders against intrusion and leakage of information.  No slave could pass into the Foreign Quarter and no foreigner could move past it and certainly no administrator would pass secrets out for fear of the leak being traced to them and they losing their position because of it.  There being too few non-slaves present that such a task would be all too easy.  So it was that the Nameless turned out to be their own best source of information from within the Slave States.

It was time, in the Nameless's mind, to get a better source than reading the leavings of the scrolls that the slave administrators passed around to provide limited information of the going ons within the slave states.  It was a task that would have taken a concerted effort of a dozen mortals infiltrating the organization for months with established identities of slaves, all doing the work of the slaves and trying to discern the process and rise to a level where they could find the information in a structure that had stagnated due to them being slaves and through rampant drug use.  It took him a little more than a day.  

After blackmailing a bureaucrat that appeared to be near the top of the information destitution system in Dehenna, he offered terms to appease himself.  He wanted to have an updated version of the rumours regularly placed in a drop-off box and he offered to pay with drugs and flavours.  The one favour that he requested right away was for more detailed information from around the slave states and the world at large, particularly on any revolts by the group that left the bloody hand calling card, first seen a year previously.  

The information that he received was stunning and worrisome.  Firstly, because it concerned himself, his activities had been noticed from the previous year in the state of Dehenna.  The head of the Immaculate Order had discovered some of his activities through careful examination of the bureaucratic records of the past year, and following up those leads lead to the discovery of a few of the secrets that the Nameless thought were covered nicely, namely the bodies of the Jackals he killed protecting the escaped slave. Additionally there was some concern that the killings were connected in some way to the first incident with the Bloody Hand.  The Immaculate priest seemed to be hot on his trail, when she dropped it cold and left Dehenna to answer a more urgent call in Serrat.  

In Serrat, there was a separate investigation going on about a missing Dynast and the pursuing Immaculate Monk and her enlisted allies and the latifundia they were investigating disappeared.  A runner bring weekly orders and reports discovered the mess and the runner quickly reported the horror and the region was locked down shortly there after, but it was known that an order was sent out to the Realm for aid in the form of the Wyld Hunt.

This information disturbed the Nameless, as he recognized that the absent Dynast could be none other than Ragara Dinyacout and the erased latifundia had to be the jumping off point that Dinyacout used.  He was concerned that the Fair Folk that he dealt with the previous year had decided to go back on their word and remove the latifundia completely.  But the idea that the region was under scrutiny dissuaded him from sticking his nose further into the issue. Whatever was this Wyld Hunt, he did not want to be near it when it came knocking.  

The Guild had quickly dispatched his request to the Guild Hub in Wallport and so when the Nameless came in with this additional information and the desire to spread his slave gathering to additional slave states to lower his personal risk of discovery, he found he was too late, that ship had sailed.  But his desire was strong, and he elected to attempt to out pace the ship that had a two day head start on him and he ran cross country to Wallport.  He desired that the supply ship might stop along the Coast of Inhajal on the way to Dehenna, so he could load slaves that he thought he might acquire there; so he ran.  He ran for a week, while the day lasted and longer with his caste mark providing light.  

He did indeed run long and hard and was rewarded by arriving in Wallport just after the courier boat arrived and well before the supplies could be dispatched. Talking to the Guild representative, he was able to arrange for the Guild galley to stop in an auspicious location along the coast of Inhajal.  There was some concern that the Realm's Earth Fleet was on alert to smugglers and was stopping more ships this season than in the past, but the appointment was made.  At the conclusion to the discussion, the Nameless, exited to the City's edge and began to run back to Inhajal to free the slaves he desired.  

He ran about 1500 miles through rough terrain, luckily not mountains, in ten days.  He arrived in the latifundia that he scouted out briefly on his journey to Wallport and proceeded to rifle through the slave records to find the most undisciplined slaves in the camp.  Upon discovering the ones that he was looking for he systematically assassinated the slave guards in the compound and those that were guarding the perimeter, one shot trough the head and recovering his arrows all the time.  He slew the thirty guards this way then headed to the slave barracks and called out the seven slaves he decided to kidnap and with them twenty female slaves.  He then proceeded to the administrator's apartments and wrenched his neck and beat his head to a pulp and left the call sign of bloody hand prints all over the scene.  Upon leaving the administrators apartments, the freed slaves had taken up the guards weapons and armour and had dismembered the rest of the administrators.  The Nameless then force marched his liberated countrymen to the rendezvous location.

As the Guild ship entered the rendezvous region it was clear that there was another ship closing in to wards it, but still a substantial distance away.  The Guild ship came to rest on the shore to pick up the Nameless and his gathered slaves.  They set off again in short order, however, the ship got closer to them and it began to wave the colours of the Earth Fleet and signal them for boarding.  The Nameless, conferences with the ship captain about what they should do.  The slaves were not exactly noticeable as slaves except they were Northerners who only spoke Firespeak, the language of the South of Creation. Also, the armour they wore was noticeably that of the Mamulks of the Slave states, so that was another problem.  Lastly however was that the Nameless, was out fitted in his armour and power bow made from the Orichalcum.  The Nameless scaled the mast and looked out towards the oncoming ship, it was clear that it would catch up, as it was a larger galley with more oars, but luckily the flotilla that it belonged to was dispersed far away from it.  There were six galleys and two large tender trimarans in the group and this galley was far away.  The seas were getting rougher and that was the wrong sort of weathering  for galleys.  

Decision made, the captain ordered the oars to be stowed and to prepare for boarding; there was going to be a fight.  As the Realm ship closed to boarding distance, the imperials cast their grapples into the galley and began to pull the two ships together.  The Nameless then struck without warning or mercy and began to plug the Imperials with arrows.  In the first several seconds, the Nameless killed the Captain and the first wave of soldiers, but the Imperials kept hauling the vessels together until there the two ships were close enough that the marines could jump the last few feet; they were getting desperate because the barrage of arrows had killed over half of the twenty-six marines.  The fear steeled their hearts but not their fitting and a full five of the remaining  soldiers fell into the ocean in their full armour, or we're pushed back into the water by the waiting sailors.  

When it was all said in done the battle lasted barely more than a minute and all the troops were dead and no one in the Nameless's ship was injured, except one sailor who tripped and fell into the ocean trying to push the soldiers over, but he was recovered as he wore no armour and could swim.  The ship was scuttled in quick order and the ship reached its final destination a week later, after of course, the Nameless liberated the pressed labour that was manning the oars for the imperial vessel.

After a month away, from the time that he left Nowhere until he came back, progress had been made in the encampment: buildings were set up, the semi cleared forests were burned and planted.  When he came back he also brought fourteen additional men and twenty-one women making a total of sixty-five mortals plus himself.  Amongst the people he brought back were the seven indentured and pressed sailors, they were for the most part originally farmers in the Realm, so they had practice planting and tending crops that the slaves did not have.  Also there were the first swords, self bows and buff jackets that the slaves scavenged from the corpses of guards back in the latifundia in Inahjal.

H1N3?

Crap. Is what I feel like.  Felt like.  I think I got H1N3.  It snuck up on me.  

Monday, I felt the wisps of a cold and ignored it.

Tuesday, my throat was sore and I knew I had something.

Wednesday, I sleeping was hell.  I felt like I was suffocating and I was drooling more; I slept for three hours total.  Still just a sore throat.

Thursday, same sleep, same sore throat, voice sounded like crap and I felt that I did not want to strain it.  I was relentlessly teased about my ManCold.  Gave in and took NyQuil and DayQuil slept in the day more. Add a headache

Friday sleeping the same, woke up feeling better, I might have had four hours of sleep. The sore throat is gone, headache still there, I went for a walk.  

Saturday, sleeping worse, feeling much better.  Horizontal sleep causes hacking cough as diseased mucus clogs up air ways and comes hacking out. Necessary evil but severe hell— 1.5 hours of sleep at a time three total.  Chills at times sevrely dehydrated.  Hot flashes too. But still feel way better.

Sunday, today, slept poorly again.  Fear about sleeping, did not drift off until one am,  hacking cough and awake after an hour, repeat, repeat 1.5 in three.  Eat left overs at four drink water, sleep for three hours straight. Feeling great, need to go out and spread the love.  Feeling great.  Don't know what tonight will bring but my hope is recovery.  Still coughing up chunky green wonders but I feel great, relatively, and tired.  Sleep?  Need to go and resupply NyQuil.  Buy groceries etc.

Rules for Internet Dating: Men

There are rules for everything.  Most people would tell you that there are not, but it is not true, because if you break the rules you fail in what you are trying to do.  Maybe it takes someone who is an aberration like me to see that it is so.    Here are the rules for online dating for men.

1) State honestly what you are looking for in a woman.  Really brutally honest.  They type of honesty that you need to think about for several days.  Spend that time, because once you put it out there people will judge you by it.

2) Have a picture.  Women are naturally suspicious, and the Internet has done nothing but justify this trait.  Your photo should be from the waist up and you NEED to be wearing clothing.  Women don't want to see your chest, they know you have one.  Wear something you are comfortable in.  Or wear what you wear to work or church.  If you would be uncomfortable with your mother or grandmother seeing your picture it is the wrong one.  The picture needs to be recent.  Those lines that have grown with you those past five or ten years that you don't notice?  Those will be the first things that she will notice.  Pictures never look exactly like you actually look like but it is best that have something a few years of your current age.  Certainly a picture before you had to have facial reconstruction surgery will not cut it.

3) NO PENIS PICTURES.  Another thing that she knows you have.  Yes, yours is special, but that is because it is part of you and you are special.  Let your special part be her surprise, because unless you are especially big or you have two, she has seen more of them up close than you have and to her, it is not special.

4) Fill out the standard profile very accurately.  When you are chatting it will be referred back to repeatedly, so it needs to be accurate.  If you don't have a car, state it if there is a spot for it, in the very least it is a conversation starter, but if you don't it can break the deal.  As stated before, women are suspicious, if they catch you in one lie, they will assume that there are others.  If they find two lies, well how would you feel if you showed up to a date with a forty year old obese smoker when you were expecting a thirty year old average weight non smoker?  There are a few stats where lies are expected, like your weight, few women will state their accurate weight, but the key here is that you stay close, within 10% is a good rule.  I could stand to loose fifty pounds— if I lost those pounds I would still be overweight but my picture would look awesome.  Your profile will fit your picture and everything will fit what you look like.  

5) The hardest rule is wait.  Don't start contacting women.  Put it in your profile that you will not be making the first move.  Give them the control.  You were honest, you wrote a good accurate profile, so now let a woman who is attracted to that type of person find you.  You can look at other profiles, but keep your contacts to a bare minimum.  If a woman is looking for sex, she is looking for something quite specific, if she is looking for love, she is looking for something else. 

6) Know this, women play by different rules than men.  Their rule book allows them to lie and exaggerate.  They are allowed this because of all the men not following the rules above.  They are explicitly allowed to lie and not have a picture, because men are pigs and most of them will throw shit at a wall looking for something that sticks, then fuck that woman.  When you understand that, you see the beauty of the rules.  Women will not typically up sell themselves.  They will down sell themselves to make them seem less attractive.  If you were a billionaire and looking for love, you would likely down play your wealth so as to avoid gold diggers.  That is what women tend to do.  There are honest women out there and they get discouraged quickly and stop using dating sites because of all the men with penis pics.   You want to attract the cynical dating site veteran 

7) When chatting be honest.  If she asks you a question that will hurt your chances, hurt them by telling the truth.  It tells them that you are not hiding anything, if you are willing to give away the uncomfortable stuff, it strengthens everything else.  To be clear, men have a reputation for dishonesty on the Internet.  If you want to date on the Internet, you need to be the real white knight, the one that is realistic, with shit sticking to your shoes.

Personal note I met this woman on the Internet last week.  She contacted me.  I read her profile and i impressed her with my first message.  She has no picture, she lied about a lot of her profile and she stated that she is not going to date anyone from the Internet.  Certainly not meet them.  Right from the beginning. Last night we started sort of planning a meeting.  She is a good person.  She has an evil streak that I find shocking.  She wants to meet drive me close to the venue so that I can walk to meet her and then we can publicly criticize each other how we don't look like or eHarmony profile.  I suggested we use Ashley Madison, the extra marital affair site and she agreed. From there we are to have a very public argument and then we are to split apart and later meet up and go home.  She is a French Teacher and she offered to help me get a teaching job, by teaching me French.  I agreed to it.  We might never be more than friends, but that is okay with me.  After a few months, who knows, nothing is for certain in this world.

Another brief note

Started trying to date in the big city.  It was one of the reasons why I came here.  It was one of the things that my friends suggested would improve if I moved there with them, but it seems that that was just a lure, because as soon as I get here the comments that I should not be looking.  I need to find a good job before I look.  I need to do this, I need to do that.  I do need to do those things, I admit that, but I also need to expand out as well.  I need to not depend on them for my interactions and my socialization.  They would be the first people to tell me that I am better than a McJob and that going for that is a waste of my talents.  They are correct, and they are wrong.  I am smart and intelligent and I could do any of the jobs that they think I could do, but I don't have the experience and while they know that I have Autistic Spectrum Disorder, they don't really understand the far reaching effects of that.  They believe it is just a minor aspect of how I do things.  I wish it were.  People are rigid in their thinking and get more rigid as they age, ASD people are as rigid as old people when they are young and get more rigid as they age too, simply knowing that this is true does not make old people less rigid and neither does it work for me.  Give me time for the flexibility to filter through my being and I am better, but I can't spin on a dime.  It is like my neat freak friend suppressing his freak because he has children, he has, but he hasn't.

And I am obsessed with sex,  (Hey are you Blond and a Romanian Hungarian — pay attention) but I am trying to not be, but it is a part of my Obsessive socialization protocols as an ASD person.  I am trying to repress extensive parts of my personality to be a better social person.  As I have said before, Emotional Quotient is much more responsible for economic well being than Intelligence Quotient.  ASD people don't have a high or even average EQ, that is just a fact.  I fear that I will be driving a wedge in our friendship by me living with them because their wishes of me to reach my potential, their ideas of my potential that do not match my real potential.  

Cop out I hear.  Listen, an introvert can have an outgoing job and be social able all day, but when they go home they hide and need to be alone, because they are tired.  Dealing with people drains them.  It energizes Extraverts.  Imagine that I have to concsiously suppress aspects of my personality all the time to interact with people.  I have to repress, sexual comments, rigid thinking, my introversion and a few other things.  It leaves me scattered and I make errors, I have slips.  I screw up.  I have been fired from jobs because of these slip ups.  As an ASD person I have to keep my temper in check, I don't hurt people when angry, but I get very strong and scarey, and I am very strong already.  I don't know how to relax.  I suspect if I am mentally and socially forfilled I will relax, but since that has not ever happened, who knows.

My friends tell me that if I have a good job and I am happy with myself I will get a relationship that works, but what if, for me, I need a relationship to be happy and get a good job?  Is it any wonder that the stereotype of autistic adults is a man who is smart but only works a subsistence job and lives alone?

I tend to be a one woman person, serial monogamy.  It is really worse than that because it extends to trying to date and does not kick in after sex like it does for most people.  Talk to a woman fall in love and then out of love, talk to a new woman.  Crushes are super serious and super bad.  The crush of this summer, SuperGirl, was especially deadly, she is the spitting image of Arya in the Game of Thrones TV show, that is an older version of her, which means I will be thinking of her Everytime I see her, until GRRM kills off her character, which I don't want because she was one of two favourite characters in the books.  Her and Jon.  My friend has started watching Game of Thrones with his wife just the other day, so the effects of the crush of the last summer are hitting me again.  Still, I try to date.  Did I mention that?  After one day chatting I am trying to resist the pull of sudden crushes.  Are you reading this, am I succeeding?  

I could apply for a Tim horton's job.  I might get it then I would be employed and I could relax a little, but I suspect my friends would bug me because I would be selling myself short.  But what jobs are entry level for 42 year olds?  The seven years of Garden centre expertise that I have built up are not worth more than minimum wage here in the City.  Truth is they rely on low skill cheap workers and since I have working knowledge but no letters it would not be worth what I was making before.  Still I will try.  Truthfully, my friends see that work as beneath me too.  They know I am a trained teacher, but they don't know what it really takes to become one.  Engratiating on a principal or two, and that takes serious EQ, not IQ, classroom management and not theoretical knowledge.  I need to bump up my additional qualifications a bit, something that requires a full time teaching job.

Tell me I am shooting myself down before I try, sure, but I will try anyways, I am just being realistic.

The 1 2

There are unforeseen difficulties of changing locations.  In an area without hills and lots of tree coverage, there is a lot of wind.  The wind hits the broad streets and whips along it.  The tree tunnels magnify this affects when they exist the trees are far from the road and the roads are straight, so they offer no resistance.  The hard buildings that are part of the landscape do not buffet the wind, rather they cut it and force it around them.  Understanding this fact is something that you can only understand while on a bike.  Walkers are affected too, but to a lesser affect because they are plodding and the resistance is tiny.  Cars are as hard as the buildings, the wind is cut off.  On a bike your progress is stymied strongly or conversely aided strongly while you bomb down the road at 40kph feeling no wind at all.

Trees bend in the wind, their branches close together split the wind creating turbulence that saps it of its force.  Hills do the same, on a grander scale.  The wind goes up and it hits the wind going across and they pile up like a highway in fog— but unlike the analogy the wind does not stop, but scatters and flexes; it slows. Here in Big Smoke, the wind flows unimpeded.  Which is also not true—true Big Smoke is covered in hills and valleys, Suburbia Big Smoke is a little rougher than a Nevada lake bed or a Utah salt flat.  The boulevards are wide and nearly featureless.  True Big Smoke has trees as old as the city part they grow in and mostly big and tall.  Here everything is new, relatively and so are the trees.  The sharp cut of the buildings, with smooth, straight and flat sides splits the wind, it condenses it and forces it out faster than it would over a barren field.  Oh there are those too, barren fields, the wind runs unimpeded over them, but between the two story houses on wide boulevards, it whips up something fierce.

The first time was last Friday, that I went for a ride.  I used my winter bike, because it was the first bike I put together.  There is no snow on the ground yet, there are clumps but whereas Boonieland had a meter so far this year, (which did mostly melt) Suburbia Big Smoke has had a hundredth, which completely melted.  Anyways I was out riding far from the domicile and my seat broke.  The nose of the seat poked up and the rear down.  This now means I must find a bicycle repair shop before the winter comes to this place.

The second time was today, in the cold, which dropped upon the landscape with all the suddenness of a nature spirit realizing that winter inspection was around the corner and IT had not done a thing.  And then there was the wind.  I wore four layers including a wind breaker, with a hood and hat.  The ride was cold.  My head hurt.  Last year in Boonieland, riding in -35°C I was warm with a hat and helmet, today with a hat, hood and helmet, I was cold.  It might have been because I was cycling INTO the wind and because of the condition of the winter bike, I had to repair my road bike and it is much faster, wind plus speed meant the relative wind speed was close to 70km/h and in -15°C ( let me calculate the windchill factor) feels like -30°.  On the way back 40km/h with the wind feels like, surprise, -15°.  It is supposed to get colder this week than that and snow too.  I need to get the bike repaired soon.