Tales of Valkia (Semi-Closed)

[Comrade Commisar]

In summary, this is an anthology of short stories, perspectives, and general media about Valkia. Similar to a previous incarnation, but more modern, and granting a certain leniency in that it doesn't need to be limited to people from the region, so as long as such stories are set in the region. Basically, as long as the general setting is in Valkia, and it isn't a large story that warrants its own thread, it's fine. Probably.

Ideally, this will include all the little side plots and other short stories that people want to write about and/or roleplay. The types of stories that people like to flaunt in chats, but otherwise don't want to commit to for any prolonged period. The kind of things where you really want to write about it, but don't appreciate the closed nature of factbooks, or the open nature of an entire formal thread. Things like that.

Try to refrain from one-liners. Don't do anything that will get you in trouble with the forum. If it's too sexual, grotesque, or graphic, you are probably better off writing someplace else. Remember that lore and canon are reserved as the discretion of the participants involved, and that they maintain the right to ignore you if you write something disagreeable. Try to work with each other on something nice. That's the whole point of this entire thread, after all. Good writing.

[Barboneia]

“Peltola.. Hey. Peltola! C’mon!”

Corporal Thomas Peltola, member of the Greater Barboneian Army’s Third Infantry Fighting Group, looked up to the source of the voice. It was the first time he had been disturbed from reading his novel for the last three hours, and he was startled by the interruption. His Sergeant, a dour-faced bear of a man named Johannes, glared at him from across the barracks. “Peltola, you were told to report to the supply room four hours ago, were you not?” Thomas’ eyes widened. He had, in fact, been told to report to the supply room some time ago. But he completely forgot. “Oh… Yeah, uh, my apologies, sir, I was-” ''Busy hiding in the barracks reading? Christ, if this is the current state of the military, we might as well give every new recruit a book instead of a rifle.” Johannes looked down at the clipboard he was holding. “If you don’t get to the supply room at the south end of the base right now, I’ll be recommending you for disciplinary action. Is that clear, Corporal?” Thomas jumped up from the bed he was laying on and saluted. “Yes, sir, Sergeant, sir!” This seemed to satisfy Johannes, who simply nodded and left. Thomas seemed to visibly deflate upon his departure. Well, I can always read later, he thought to himself as he zipped up his windbreaker, grabbed his rifle, and moved to leave the barracks.

Corporal Peltola had the dubious privilege of, along with the rest of the Third Infantry Fighting Group, being deployed to a small operating base not far into the North Lands interior, far from the frontlines of Operation Northern Retaliation. Earlier that year, the military mobilized to invade the lawless territories that made up the North Lands and, as part of his compulsory conscription, Thomas was deployed into the military as part of the invading force, though thankfully had not experienced any actual combat thus far. Unfortunately, to him, he might as well have been sent to hell for his deployment. The North Lands was largely uninhabitable. Although it was covered in lush forests and seemingly idyllic streams and rivers and lakes and what have you, it seemed frozen over most of the year, and the inhabitants seemed to prefer eating any transgressors into the area than attempting diplomacy with them. Explorers, oil workers, and anyone else insane or stupid enough to enter the region were quickly beset by the natives, known as North Landers by most people in Valkia, or, alternatively (and more offensively), chimeras. Thomas didn’t particularly have any prejudice against them; he was friends with a few in school, and had a crush on a particularly attractive North Lander during his time in vocational school. His comrades, however, mostly despised them, and seemed more than enthusiastic at the chance to be able to kill them wholesale.

While Thomas hadn’t witnessed any being killed he, along with most of the army and the rest of the country, heard the stories of the initial invasion forces absolutely brutalizing the local people through the reporting media. Burning down villages, executing surrendering militia members, things like that. It seemed as though the military’s line of thinking was that the North Landers weren’t human, therefore, any war crimes committed against them “didn’t count”. Thomas, and many others, disagreed. But their opinions didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, and once the Barboneian war machine was moving, it was impossible to stop.

Thomas made his way to the southern part of the base, passing lines of vehicles undergoing repairs, supply clerks surveying the stores, barracks, garages, everything an invading army needs to maintain its supremacy and continue acting as an effective fighting force. Thomas pulled his hood up and grimaced. It was mid-August, and yet it might as well have been the middle of December, it was so cold. Thomas was a native of the Great South of Barboneia, and wasn’t as used to the cold as many of his more northern-hailing comrades. He was glad that the supply building was a comfortable room temperature, used to maintain the integrity of many of the foodstuffs stored inside and other equipment. Thomas was also glad to see, as he entered the building, that he was relieving his friend Kristo, and could talk to him briefly before he had to leave. “Hi, Tom,” Kristo said warmly, slinging his rifle over his back. “Weren’t you supposed to come a few hours earlier?” Thomas chuckled a bit. “...Heh, yeah, sorry. I was reading in the barracks.” “But they called for you on the announcements, like, four times.” Thomas blinked. “...I may have fallen asleep a bit, too.” Kristo shrugged. “I don’t mind, anyways. They keep it warmer in here than they do the barracks so extra time spent here is fine by me. Oh, yeah, did you hear about that North Lander they caught sneaking around the base last night?” Thomas shook his head as he was looking over some of the crates in the room, and sat down on a relatively sturdy one. “No. It must’ve been after I went to bed.” “Well, she managed to get her hands on a bunch of spare magazines. But get this; she didn’t grab any actual ammo for them, they were completely empty! These natives aren’t very intelligent… I’m surprised they’re managing to resist our occupation as hard as they have been.” Kristo sighed, and stretched a bit. “Well, I just wanted to tell you that, to keep your guard up. You know how the COs get when they see the grunts slacking off in any way. Especially after we had a security breach like that. And I wouldn’t get too comfortable. The Sergeant has been doing hourly inspections. If he catches you sitting down…” He mimicked shooting Thomas, who begrudgingly stood back up with a groan. “Yeah, yeah. See you, Kris.”

Thomas never liked being assigned guard duty. It mostly consisted of standing around, sometimes checking into the other store rooms, trying not to get sore from holding his rifle for hours on end, occasionally helping someone grab a spare supply or two, and today was no different. Sergeant Johannes did show up, once, but for most of his shift, Thomas simply did what he always did; specifically, nothing. He tried to entertain himself for a little while by taking inventory, but lost track at the forty-eighth crate of army-issued socks.

However, shortly before he was to be relieved, around ten hours into his assignment, he was startled by a loud crash in the room next to the one he was in. Things falling over wasn’t uncommon; people didn’t always bother putting everything back properly, or making sure the crates were stacked correctly, or things would fall over in the crates themselves, but this was much louder than usual. Almost like it was intentional. Thomas, a bit nervous, raised his rifle, and moved into the storage building’s hallway. Everything was silent now, but this did nothing to calm him down. Slowly, he moved to the door of the ration storage room, where the crash had happened in. He put his ear against it. He could hear a slight rustling sound, as if… someone were going through the rations! Maybe a recruit was looking for a second dinner. Whatever the case, he wouldn’t stand for it. If it was a recruit, he would just let them off with a warning, but if it was some… thing, else, well..

Thomas held his breath and quickly slammed through the door, bursting into the room, rifle raised. He had hoped to freak out the poor rookie going through the rations, but what he saw instead made his eyes widen. Sitting among the smashed remains of a wooden ration crate, her arms overflowing with the brown ration sleeves, was a North Lander woman, her eyes filled with fear. She had a thin, rather pretty face, framed by long black strands of hair, and her eyes themselves were a deep shade of brown. And her ears… Her ears were quite big, bigger than any he had seen on a North Lander. Thomas was about to say something, perhaps warn her to surrender or something, but suddenly, she stood up, and his jaw nearly dropped. He hadn’t noticed while she was sitting, but she was extremely tall. Thomas was about 5’11”, but she had at least a foot on him in terms of height. She held a controlling presence in the room, towering over the Corporal, and normally he would be scared… But she was so thin. She obviously hadn’t eaten well in months. And though she glared at him, he could tell she was even more scared than he was, and probably just wanted him to leave her alone. What could he do? She was a North Lander, and though she didn’t seem to be wearing militia clothing, her presence, in a highly secured Barboneian military base, could only result in her execution, especially considering she was stealing from them. Thomas knew, in the back of his mind, that he should shoot her, report the incident, and possibly get a medal for his actions. It was the right thing to do. He had a duty to do so.

But he didn’t.

Thomas lowered his rifle. Looking behind her, he could see an open window, likely how she was able to climb in. He locked eyes with her for a brief second and nodded towards it. Her angry expression turned to one of genuine surprise. She raised an eyebrow. He nodded once more, and taking this as confirmation, she was gone without a sound, as though she vanished into thin air. Thomas blinked. Had he imagined all of this? No, the crate was still smashed. There were rations all over the ground. And the window was open. It had definitely occurred. It was all so sudden, like some sort of frenzied fever dream. And now, he could be court martialed for potentially aiding the enemy if he was found out, for letting her escape like that AND steal rations to boot.

But luckily, he wasn’t. Thomas claimed that the broken crate could have been caused by vermin, and, though he himself figured this to be too outlandish to be accepted, it was barely questioned by command. They didn’t even notice the open window that the North Lander escaped out of. He was surprised by their lack of investigation, but eventually accepted it, and tried to forget about the incident. Though whenever he closed his eyes, or tried to sleep at night, that woman appeared again, her big eyes staring back at him, capturing his very soul in a tight grip, never letting him truly forget.

TWO WEEKS LATER

“THEY HIT THE COMMAND VEHICLE WITH A FUCKING ROCKET! I THOUGHT THESE SAVAGES-”

Sergeant Johannes was cut off as their vehicle was struck by an explosion. It spun out, the driver blinded by the blast steering wildly, and crashed into a ditch off of the road. The truck flipped a few times before coming to a stop upside down. Johannes gurgled something; a piece of debris had sliced his throat open, and he tried desperately to keep his wound shut as it gushed blood. He suddenly went limp, his body hanging down, arms outstretched, still buckled into its seat like a macabre Halloween decoration.

Thomas lay on his back on the roof, now floor, of the truck, holding his head in his hands. His entire body was aching, and his vision was blurry. He raised his head to watch as the driver, Private Jarmo Litmanen, kicked his door open and crawled out of the wreck. He leaned against the vehicle to bring himself to his feet, feeling his way around due to his loss of vision. As soon as he stood up he was immediately shot in the back by an unseen enemy. Jarmo cried out, clutching at the wound. A second shot hit him in the neck, causing him to slump back against the truck, silent.

Thomas was breathing heavily. This is how I die, he thought. What was supposed to be a simple supply run would be his final moments. He would laugh at how coincidental it was that his first actual combat engagement would be his last if the situation weren't so grim. He also wanted to cry. He just had to witness two people die gruesomely, he missed his friends and family back home, and he was forced into this conflict against his will. Now he would die for something he didn’t believe in. At least he would get a nice headstone, he thought morosely.

A few large figures suddenly appeared around the truck, and his eyes widened. Never mind. I don’t think there will be anything left when these natives are done with me. Thomas rolled himself over, and tried to crawl away from the side the North Landers were on, but it was too late. One of them pulled open the door to the backseat and the other reached in to pull him out. He thrashed around, trying desperately to break free of their grip, but they simply pulled harder, dragging him out onto the cold, dirty snow. He tried to cry out, to curse them, to provide any sort of defiance to his captors, but he couldn’t make a sound, save for a low groan. They threw him roughly against the ground, and one of them stomped down hard on his stomach, holding him in place. He felt like vomiting. Thomas gave up. He knew it was useless to resist, and if he tried to they would just prolong his death. A tall shadow fell over him, and he watched with squinted eyes as they raised a crude spear high over his head. He closed his eyes.

To his surprise, however, the spear wasn’t brought down. He heard what seemed like a discussion in the North Landers alien tongue, and felt a large hand shake his shoulder. He slowly opened his eyes.

The figure above him was tall, but most distinctly, had very large ears on their head. As his vision cleared, his eyes widened so much that he almost thought they would pop out of his head. It was the same North Lander woman from what seemed like ages ago, even though it had only been two weeks, but she looked much healthier. Not only that, she wore a heavy fur cloak typical of the militia groups present in the area. It seemed obvious that she was some kind of leader among the group, and held the same kind of presence she had before, but when she looked down at him, she seemed to warm up considerably. She locked eyes with him, and nodded. He could only blink back in response, his head spinning. Maybe this time, he really was in a dream. Then his vision went black.

Of the fourteen members of the Third Infantry Fighting Group assigned to the supply convoy between Operations Base Ketola and Forward Base Partsington, twenty-two year old Corporal Thomas Peltola was the only survivor of an ambush by a North Lander militia group on September 5th, 2011. He only suffered a concussion and minor injuries typical of a car crash. When asked how he managed to survive, he claimed that he didn’t know.

Thomas Peltola was honorably discharged from the Greater Barboneian Army the following November, and returned home with a Medal of Life for the wounds he suffered in action. He returned to his hometown of Kindred and finished his education in computer engineering. Over the years, he seemed to completely forget the two strange encounters he had during his brief military career. Thomas eventually married a beautiful North Lander woman in 2018 he met during a job in the North Lands.

He never noticed how large her ears were.

[Darussalam]

Slime molds are strangely fascinating organism. Neither plant nor animal, some thought for a while that it was a variety of fungi before it got reclassified once again. The thing about slime molds is that there may not be one sort of it - the organisms collectively called slime molds are spreading paraphyletically over the evolutionary tree, unified only by their most distinguishable characteristic. Slime molds exist in two states: as single-celled amorphous microscopic sacs, or multicellular reproductive hive structures called plasmodia. In the wilderness, you could find them underneath dead trees, yellow and slimy, with spindly vascular growths connecting to food sources for the hive's sustenance.

Slime molds, obviously, lack any brain structure. And yet they're bizarrely intelligent. When you place a slime mold on a surface, it will start spreading radially in a fractal pattern, reinforcing routes to food sources while recoiling from dangers and obstacles. This way they establish a relatively efficient pathway structure. With a few modifications around, they could easily serve as an algorithm for human problem-solving.

And it already started decades ago. Some researchers were looking to assess the problem-solving ability of slime molds. An easiest point of reference: public transit infrastructure. They compared a rail network designed by engineers to the one mapped by the mold by putting food in the mock-station-nodes. The researchers discovered what network is more cost-efficient and fault-resistant. Hint: it wasn't the human-created one. This finding attracted the interest of construction and rail companies. This is neither the first nor the last time in Darussalam that weird competitors disrupted the labor market.

Who, or what, designed the cavernous tunnels extending miles underneath Darussalami cities, laying the structure for the lifeline of Darussalami market superorganism? I'm not sure anybody knows. The pressure to efficiently serve millions of commuters punctually has ensured public transportation in Darussalam to be liberated from human agency in a considerably significant manner, moreso even than most other sectors. Sometime ago, shareholders of the realm's largest rail company decided that their interests are better-served by a betting-market algorithm than some bizarre and inefficient 'corporate structure', and it only got worse further downwards - nothing but interlocking system of self-propelling algorithms operating in autonomous feedback loops planning and designing timetables and route layouts. That said, I'm sure everyone has their guess.

Right now, I'm having one - an intensely specific guess. It's 2 am and I'm commuting, ten meters beneath the surface, apparently all by myself. The train hauled itself through the chthonic darkness, navigated by some distant algorithm. My headphones are blasting speedcore at full-volume to obscure what I, in my present sleep-deprived state, imagined as sloshing sound from outside, like the tunnels are covered by some kind of slimy, gelatinous membrane. For some reason, sometime ago, the sloshing sound harmonized, assuming tone and rhythm into something that resembles childish giggle, although fake and uncanny, reverberating throughout the train. I can't see anything on the windows - there's only darkness and my face faintly reflected, looking scared shitless. But I know that I shouldn't fall asleep, and I won't.

And I couldn't. The atmosphere is unlike usual - instead of cool and dry, like you'd expect from a train, it's warm and moist, like everything will be wet when touched. It's almost tropical down here, for fuck's sake. Must be the air conditioner screwing up again.

Thankfully, the train has stopped at my destination - the endpoint station for this route. The train's avatars are reminding me to bring my belongings out, smiling characters with large eyes and long animal ears with flashing scripts repeating their conversation in several languages. I'm stepping out to the platform, eager to be back at my apartment just a few minutes walk away.

A few minutes of walk and I realize that I'm getting out at the wrong place.

To be clear, it looks like my station. It's still weirdly moist and warm, but the station's brightly lit, the light reflected on the crystal-clean tiled floor. I feel like standing on an alien landscape. No one's here, as expected from a subway station at 2 in the morning. I could recognize the shops around, although most of them are closed. The signs are exactly the same, pretending as if they're directing at the same place. Even the toilet's working well, and so is the washbasin. It looks exactly like the real one. It feels almost exactly like the real one.

But here's a thing: subway stations are supposed to have a way out, rising up to the surface.

I'm rushing back to the platform, hoping the train's still there somehow. Not happening. I'm waiting for a few minutes. Five. Ten. Nothing comes. The speakers aren't announcing anything. The adverts, usually ubiquitous, aren't showing anything. Nobody is around. I'm not counting something that vacillates behind my back, an amorphous blob of shadow flashing for half a second on the corner of my eye. I hope it's not actually real. I checked my interface. No signal.

I'm trying not to think about anything, especially the slime molds. How do I get out of here? I looked at the tunnels. They're dark. Different gods reign there, slimy and eyeless gods with many tendrils. And yet they look alluring. How else am I supposed to get out? This is definitely not endpoint. This is a replica, something designed to entrap. Like an anglerfish's light. True enough, sloshing sound is coming back, wafting through as echoes from the tunnel. Now it's inviting me, coyly.

I don't want to have anything to do with it, but can you blame me for being curious?

I can feel my dead feet dragging my limp body slowly, approaching the darkness. What do slime molds eat? These irrelevant questions are set aside, at the backseat of my mind, like a faint echo of agonizing scream. I climb down to the rail, and begin walking. What do they eat down here? The backseat of my qualia screamed that I should've slept in the office instead, but I keep walking. I don't know why. I'd probably fuck something there. Fuck something rough and hard. There's definitely a girl there, a whore, standing in the middle the tunnel, slimy and hot. Pheromones overwhelm my brain, hijacking the command control, dragging me further in. The soft, sloshing echoes giggled. Soon it was everywhere - wrapping my arms, my legs, snucking through my ears and nostrils. For the first time, I could see them. I don't think they could, however. They have no eyes.

[TURTLESHROOM II]

^(Perma-link)

I originally wanted to draw him in a suit, but then I remembered it was 2:00 AM and he was so tired he was about to pass out, so I changed it to a cheap button shirt under a robe he's worn for the past several days straight.

As for that one long, curly strand of hair, I saw that in an anime adaptation of one of my favorite video game's characters. I hated it, but it made me think of Daru because of his love for anime.

[TURTLESHROOM II]

DRY DRY DIGEST

INTERNAL AFFAIRS: Deputy Ruled to Have Dragged Suicidal Chimera Behind a Truck In Chaibn

• ASTRONOMONOV VILLAGE, DRY DRY DIGEST

Today, the Noble Committee of Constabulary Purity (NCCP) of the Astronomonov Municipal Police Administration District issued its findings in the bizarre suicide case of a chimera that allegedly committed arson, bank robbery, and murder.

The official story reported by the police at the time stated that, during the course of his attempted suicide, the cat boy wrapped a chain around his neck and flattened a cotton field that was then torn by the treads of a police truck.

"After careful review of the incident, the Noble Committee has ruled that the senior officer, Sheriff Deputy Ishmael Olstya, misreported the suicide ritual of the chimera in order to hide the fact that he bound the alleged arsonist, murderer, and bank robber to the trailer hitch of his truck and dragged him through the cotton fields prior to his death."

The Astronomonov municipal NCCP ruled unanimously that Deputy Olstya's act of lying to reporters and police hierarchy necessitated immediate disciplinary action.

Deputy Olstya was ordered to compensate the farmer for the damage sustained to his fields, land, and infrastructure from his own pocket. Deputy Olstya was then put on unpaid administrative leave for six months and has formally been confined to desk jockey duty for the next two years.

To prevent this incident from happening again, Deputy Olstya's partner has been reassigned after being put on three weeks of paid leave and a redaction of his Christmas Bonus. Deputy Olstya will be presented with a new partner that is expected to keep watch on him.

Deputy Olstya has also been ordered to submit a handwritten, eight thousand word essay to the general public explaining that his acts were wrong, apologizing for tarnishing the image of the police, and admitting dishonorable conduct to the alleged murderous chimera. He will be made to tell the true story of what, how, and why he enacted punitive force on the chimera.

Under TurtleShroomian law, policemen committing unnecessary violence to an active and dangerous suspect that is visibly and clearly in the course of committing a violent crime, in the presence of two or more witnesses, is not a criminal offense. This is known under TurtleShroomian law as "punitive force" and is a valid defense in court; use of punitive force against alleged nonviolent offenders is a criminal offense and is also grounds for mandatory termination of employment. Intentionally using punitive force against an individual that the officer knows is innocent is a criminal offense punishable by up to sixty years in prison.

Lying to authorities, however, is a crime. Authorities lying to themselves are punished based on the situation and context; the discipline meted out can be anything from intra-agency discipline all the way up to actually having charges pressed

Planting evidence to frame or fabricate charges is punishable, at maximum, by death. As no evidence was fabricated in the course of Deputy Olstya's lie, this was not the case.

In accordance with TurtleShroomian law, all imperial, parishional, amalgamated, municipal, and local police forces are required to have a Noble Committee of Constabulary Purity to oversee internal affairs and check for police misconduct.


-DRY DRY DIGEST

[Barboneia]

THE FOX AND THE FARMHAND
As published in Folklore of Northern Barboneia, 1983 Edition
Edited by Ula Viitanen

The year 1772 was a particularly cold one in New Gothenburg. The frost had come early this year, killing the crops out in their fields in early September, and snow soon blanketed the land afterwards, reaching as far south as the southern shores of Barbone Lake. While many towns and villages were lucky enough to have their food stores filled from the early harvests, others were not so lucky. One such village was Grestin, founded far to the north of Barbone Landing, along the Hasa River. Originally a small trading post set up for expedition parties into the North Lands, a few ramshackle homes built up around it, and soon after farms and other homesteads followed. The town usually had stores filled early in the year; after all, they were far in the north, and it got colder faster than the other parts of the country. However, a terrible rot had ruined much of the food, and the town had hoped that their autumn harvest would replenish it. With the fields barren, they had to turn to other sources of food.

Game in the area was typically prevalent, though their close proximity to the North Lands meant that much fauna had been driven out of the area before their settlement, either due to being overly hunted or simply to escape to somewhere less dangerous. Rabbits, birds, and the occasional elk would have to suffice the small population. As the days dragged on into weeks and the people were forced to find contentment with their meager food availability, some brave souls decided that they had had enough, and would try their hand at ice fishing. This was a dangerous prospect; the Hasa River was very deep, and the ice that formed over the river, in contrast, was thin. Many who failed to watch their step found themselves plunged into its cold depths, forced into an eternal sleep. This did not deter those who still chose to head out. Armed with spears or rudimentary fishing rods, they huddled around their holes, waiting for the first signs of movement. It worked, at least for a while; many people were able to bolster their tables with fish in addition to whatever else had been scrounged for the day.

One day, a young woman appeared along the river, staring out at some of the men who were fishing. She was short, about the height of a teenage girl, and wore a long navy-blue robe that barely clung to her thin, pale body. It was well worn, covered in dirt and rips, as if she had been traveling for a while, and had been hastily mended many times, with patches covering the bottom part of the robe like a crude chessboard. She had long, unkempt blonde hair, which flowed down her shoulders not unlike a waterfall flows down the rocks. And her eyes were the deepest shade of blue, as if staring into the ocean itself. The two most notable things about her, however, were the two fox ears sticking out of the top of her head, and the long, foxy tail that trailed out of the bottom of her robe. She was a North Lander, it was plain to tell. The inhabitants of Grestin had little interaction with North Landers most of the time despite their close proximity to the North Lands, but most of the time it was pleasant. They usually traded meat and hides at the trading post and were on their way. Some residents had their concerns, brought about from the attacks the North Landers had waged on some of the towns to the south, but they never had any real reason to be worried.

Had the girl been cleaned up, many would have seen her as beautiful, but she only looked mournful as she set off across the ice, holding the robe tight to her body to keep warm.

The first man she approached was a middle aged, miserable lout named Jonni. He was wiry, but wore a large, thick jacket he had purchased for himself when he was in Talecton a few years ago. He owned the local general store with his wife, where he charged high prices for even basic items that were a necessity in the small town. Few liked him, save for the owner of the town's tavern, and only because he proved to be his best customer, for Jonni idled there every night. His face was scrunched up in concentration as he gripped the fishing rod tightly, and he nearly fell off his stool when he finally got a bite. "Hah, you bastard, I finally gots you!" he cried as he pulled his line in, savoring the appearance of the small fish on the end. "Bloody finally. The missus will be happy to night, finally off my arse..." He went quiet, however, as the young woman approached him, her eyes cast downward. "I'm so, so sorry to disturb you, sir... but I haven't eaten in weeks... I feel myself growing weak... Please, may I have that fish?" She gestured to the slimy creature Jonni held in his hands, drawing its last breaths. "I will do anything to repay you, I assure you. But I am so hungry..."

Jonni looked incredulous, and sneered at her. "Oh, the pathetic North Lander needs help from a human? Why would I ever give this fish, the very thing I EARNED, to a disgusting creature like you?! Go back to your kinsmen, and stay away from our village if you know what's good for you. Your kind is unwelcome, especially not vagrants like yourself!" He quickly turned away, casting a final glare at her before carefully walking across the ice back towards town. The woman shook her head in disbelief, and continued onward.

The next man she approached was a large figure, a burly, hairy man in a darkened vest over a long shirt. He had a thick mustache that dripped with sweat, and he periodically wiped his brow with the back of his hand. Known as Alexandr, he was a farmer who had come from the south a few years after Grestin was founded with his loving wife and their two teenage daughters. Despite his outwardly rough appearance, he was a caring, loving man, who had much respect in the community for his willingness to help the other farmers with their work when they needed it and his generally jovial attitude. He hated ice fishing, but he saw no other options for food. He was a poor hunter, and the rest of his family were already out every day gathering food from the forests. He saw it as his responsibility to make sure they could stay well fed, even if fish was all he could offer.

Alexandr nearly let go of his rod as the young woman approached him. He was shocked at her appearance; she wasn't even wearing shoes! And that robe seemed to do nothing to keep her warm. He looked up at her, and raised an eyebrow. "What in the blazes are you doing out on the ice like this? Aren't you cold?" The girl nodded slowly. "I'm so hungry, sir... I haven't eaten in days... I've been hoping that one of you fishermen could help me... Please... Can you catch me something to eat? I will do anything in return..."

Alexandr stared at her. He could see she was telling the truth; she was so thin, it seemed like her robe was going to slip off at any second. But she was also a stranger. And yet...

He needed to help her. He knew that. "I'm sorry, young lady, but... I need to catch something for my family. This winter has been hard on everyone in the village, and I have three mouths to feed beside my own. I really wish I could help you immediately, but if I leave this hole for a second, I'm afraid I'll miss my chance to catch anything. But please... Go to the village, and go to the farmhouse on the northern end of town. Tell my wife or my daughters that I told you to see them, and they'll give you something to eat, I can assure you of that." He smiled at her softly, and she returned it. "Thank you, sir... Thank you so much... Bless you..."

As she walked away, she smiled to herself. So not everyone in this village is cruel, just as I thought. I am thankful for that. And I will make sure that man gets what he deserves. But he is not who I am looking for...

As she continued along the ice, she finally saw who she had been seeking; a young man, short, barely twenty years old, staring intensely at a small hole he had broken in the ice. He wore a soft but worn jacket a few sizes too big, and he was quite handsome; many of the girls in town swooned when he went by. He was very quiet, however, and wasn't very outspoken; this was Ahto, one of Alexandr's farmhands, an orphan who had lived alone in town ever since his parents died of disease only a few years earlier. Alexandr had suggested that he go fishing to get some more food for himself, and Ahto agreed that it was a good idea. It was very calming. He hadn't caught anything, but just sitting out on the river, far from everyone else, alone in his own world as the snow fell down around him... It was cathartic.

Suddenly, Ahto felt a tug on his line. He quickly gripped the fishing pole tightly, and, with all of his strength, pulled out whatever he had caught. He was awestruck as the fish flopped out of the hole onto the ice. It was huge! It must've been at least a foot long... If he were to eat some of it, then smoke it, he could keep fed for weeks! He appreciated Alexandr and the others in the village for always helping him, but this could prove that he was able to be independent, to be able to truly live on his own, as his own man. Maybe he would be able to catch even more, and he could help feed others in his village, so they could all pull through the winter.

Ahto was preparing to return to town when the young woman approached him, staring up at him, her eyes sorrowful. He was a bit taken aback; she had appeared out of seemingly nowhere, but she was also really beautiful despite how dirty she was, or for being a North Lander. Was he hallucinating?

"Excuse me, sir," she said quietly, in heavily accented Finnish. "I watched you catch that fish... And I know I have no right to ask... But please... May I have it? I haven't eaten in so, so long... My stomach is empty... I will pay you back however you want, however I can... I promise you this..."

Ahto stared down at her, holding the fish close to his body. He suddenly noticed how thin she was, and how sunken in her cheeks were. And her eyes were so mournful... But he suddenly thought back to himself. He was also hungry. He had only been eating berries and roots and whatever else he was able to trade for that the others didn't want. The fish would help him out a lot... And who was this girl, anyways? She appeared out of nowhere, she wasn't human... Maybe her tribe was somewhere in the woods, waiting to strike. Maybe she had a knife behind her back, and she was ready to kill him if he refused. He could run. He could tell her to leave him alone, threaten her with the wrath of his village and make sure she never came back.

But those eyes...

He knew the truth. She was just a young, tired, hungry woman who needed something to eat. He would always be able to get food even if he himself didn't produce it. This girl didn't have that luxury.

He held the fish out, prompting her to grab it. "You clearly need this far more than I do. Take it, I insist. And I assure you, you don't need to pay me back."

The girl smiled, and reached out to hug him. "Thank you so much, Ahto. I promise, you will not regret this."

Wait.

Did she just call him Ahto? How did she know his-

Ahto's vision went white. He felt the girl release him, and the fish slip out of his hands. What the hell just happened? Did he die? Was all of this just a horrible dream? Maybe he slipped through the ice without realizing it, and this was what he would see before death...

Suddenly, his vision returned to him, and he was standing on the frozen river again, but he wasn't sure where he was. The fishing hole wasn't nearby, and neither was the girl. A bright flash appeared in front of him, and he stumbled back a bit. His eyes widened. it was the girl, but she was... different now. She had somehow grown at least 10 feet tall, and stood high over him; the top of his head barely reached her thighs. Her robe had been transformed into a clean, finely woven, bright blue one covered with intricate symbols representing fish, tusks, and waves. She was clean now, her face free of dirt, and her hair even longer, flowing down her back and down her shoulders. And she clearly wasn't starving now; In polite terms, she was quite voluptuous, her robe clinging tightly to her body. She smiled down at Ahto, her deep blue eyes piercing him.

"Hello, Ahto." She said in a soft, kind voice. "I've been watching you for some time. I was there when you were born. I watched you grow up, with your mother and father." Her tone grew a bit sad. "And I watched you when they passed away. I'm very sorry for that," she said earnestly. "And I see how upset you are at the state of your village. I believe I can help you with that," she said, her smile returning. She leaned down a bit, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You're not the first human to show me kindness. Quite the opposite. Many of my kin characterize your people as being cruel, merciless, having nothing but hatred for my kind. But you're perfect proof that that is untrue. And I appreciate it. Greatly."

Ahto looked both mystified and terrified. He had simply stared up at her, watching her speak. Finally, he asked, "Am I dreaming right now?"

The woman laughed. "No, no. This is all real. This river, your village, the ice, the snow... Yourself... And me. I am a real Goddess. My name is Tulva. I am the Goddess of the rivers, lakes, streams, ponds... You get the idea. And fishing, though that's a bit more a recent addition... In any case, enough about me, young man. I'm here to help you." Out of seemingly thin air, a long, ornately crafted fishing rod appeared in her hand. She reached down and handed it to Ahto. "This is for you, my friend. It is crafted of the finest wood, and the string, golden and beautiful, is made from a strand of my own hair. It will never break as long as you wield it, never snap, never lose pray. When you use this rod, every time you cast it, you will catch something. It is a powerful tool, but one you will find useful. Use it well."

Ahto stared at the rod in his hands. It really was beautiful. He ran a hand along its length, admiring the craftsmanship and the details carved into it, including Tulva's name and a small icon of a fox with a fish in its mouth, which he assumed was her symbol. "Wow..."

She grinned. "It is nice, isn't it? I actually made it myself... First one in a while... But anyways! I think it's time you go back to your village. There will be some excitement there soon, I think, and I wouldn't want you to miss it, despite how much I'd like you to stay here with me." She leaned down and gave him a kiss on his forehead, causing him to blush. "Farewell, Ahto... I don't think I'll be seeing you again... But I'll always be with you in some way... And I'll keep watching, don't worry." She turned to walk away, but stopped, and looked over her shoulder at him. "Oh... And thanks for the fish."

In a flash, she was gone. Ahto was back by the hole in the ice he had been at not long ago. He stared down at the rod in his hands, and began to head back to Grestin.

- - -

In the days that followed, the villagers were shocked to find that the stores had somehow been filled up again. Grain, smoked meats, fruits, and vegetables were all piled inside, with a note on top of one pile reading "For Alexandr and his village, from a friend". Alexandr swore he didn't know where it could have come from, though a small part of his mind suspected that he knew the source. He went looking for the young woman every day for the rest of winter, but had no luck.

Tulva's gift to Ahto was put to good use. He never told anyone where he acquired it, but he became something of a local celebrity, using the rod to catch dozens of large, fat fish everyday that he was able to share with the others in the village. He grew so popular that his strange skill drew visitors from across New Gothenburg, to see the man who always caught his marks.

As he grew older, Ahto eventually married one of Alexandr's daughters, who had grown close to his young farmhand and treated him like a son. Eventually, when Alexandr and his wife grew too old to work the farm anymore, Ahto took over, and managed it well with his wife, though he still preferred fishing.

And true to her word, Tulva continued to watch over him, even when she was busy with other affairs. She made sure that he was safe, that Grestin was safe, and that they would always prosper for as long as she was able to.

It is a rarity to gain the favor of a goddess, much less their blessing. But with a kind heart, and a good conscience, anyone can be blessed in their own way.

Editor's Note - Though this story is often considered fictional and ahistorical, often surmised as having been written by a New Gothenburgian sympathetic to the persecution of the North Landers in the country at the time to show a mystical and "good" perspective on the North Landers, recent documents recovered from Grestin City archives show that an individual named "Ahto Tulvasen" did live in the then village at the time the story takes place. Some, however, state that the supposed event played out differently, with some saying that the goddess lured Tulvasen onto thin ice to drown him, or even that she ended up eating him in place of the fish. None of these are based in historical fact, however, and many say that the name "Tulvasen" is a coincidence and inspired the original storymaker to come up with the name of the supposed North Lander goddess. No documents or evidence exists of any goddess of water or fishing existing in the loosely defined North Lander religious pantheon.

[Barboneia]

People don’t usually acknowledge the beauty around them.

Everyone is always busy doing things, they never stop to just look around, take in their surroundings, think about how long it took for their cities and towns to be built, and what had to be sacrificed to create them. The next time you’re on your way to work, or driving home, or whatever it is you’re doing, take a moment to see how everyone else is so absorbed in their own thoughts, constantly moving, just constantly… Doing. I guess that’s the best way to describe it.

In Barboneia, people are always busy. I’d argue that, in Valkia, next to Darussalam, we are one of the most productive nations, with some of the hardest working people available. It’s the Nordic work ethic. A sense of “Janteloven” if you want to use fancy business terms. Barboneia is one of the newer countries in the region, and we’ve always been scrambling to prove ourselves, to defend our borders, and to show our neighbors that we’re just as good, if not better, than them. And what do we have to show for it? We have massive industries outputting an untold amount of goods every day, ranging from electronics to automobiles, to alcohol, even firearms and other things. When the other countries need productive workers, where do you think they seek them from?

The 1900s were called “The Barboneian Age” in some circles, and for good reason. Until the recession in the ‘90s, our population boomed, and our industries were working day and night to help the economy. We became powerful. With the deals we were constantly making with Darussalam, the Commonwealth, Hiluxia, Seceria, and even Turtleshroom, our industrial might was something to be envied.

But what did we trade for this? I believe we traded our ability to empathize with others. Barboneian society became a self centered one, where people kept to themselves, let their emotions bottle up, and, when they couldn’t find a good enough outlet, released them in the worst possible ways. Sure, in the workplace, people treat each other as equals, try and help each other, but when the average worker goes home, what can they turn to? A poster in the metro station telling them to keep their head up.

Since the first settlers arrived in New Gothenburg in the 1740s, suicide was an ever-present part of Barboneian society. From despair over having your crop ruined, or misery in being exiled to a frozen corner of the earth surrounded by savage animal-eared people, Barboneians have always accepted taking their own lives as an alternative to continuing their miserable existence. Unlike some cultures, we Barboneians see it as a means to an end, a choice someone willingly makes, and something that might eventually occur to everyone.

Even in 2019, with our mental health campaigns and suicide hotlines, the rates haven’t gone down much from their peak in 1994. Everyone from college students to stockbrokers to old veterans were doing it. And when people hear the news of their loved ones doing it, they don’t wail, or cry out “how could this happen?”, they simply nod their heads, and go to the funerals, and stay stony-faced through it.

All of these thoughts were running through my head as I drove along the highway, my eyes red, barely looking at the road ahead of me. It was around noon, and I had left work for a “lunch break”, instead finding myself driving out of Vespero to somewhere that I didn’t know. I just needed to get away from it all. I don’t know what one event was causing me so much misery, but I couldn’t take it for the last few months. My girlfriend broke up with me when I found out she had been seeing someone else, I was growing distant from my friends and family, and I discovered that I had been passed up for promotion, when I had put so much effort into a job I had spent over six years of my life on. All of these events occurring at the same time had caused me to become distressed. What was the point of my life? Was I here just to be a joke to the rest of the world?

I admit, my thinking was rash, but I was committed to it. On August 19th, 2019, I would kill myself. I would do it in a secluded place so as not to inconvenience anyone else. I would be getting back at my ex, my former friends, my employers… It would all work out in the end. Or so I thought.

At this time of day, the highway was mostly clear of traffic, other than the occasional vacationer or semi-trucks, or workers going home for their lunch breaks. The vehicles and the road signs all flew by in a blur as I sped along. New Ostrobothnia, Keskusta, Kalajoki, Itäpää… Eventually, after nearly an hour of driving, past miles of forests and marshes, I could see the land begin to turn hilly in front of me, and I knew I had almost arrived.

The Sibelius Mountains, christened in the 1960s after the Finnish composer, marked Barboneia’s natural eastern land border, separating the country from the Terra Nullius beyond. Other than the few towns nestled in the foothills, the mountains were largely uninhabited save for the nature reserves and parks established within its limits. The one I was approaching, Aravirta National Park, overlooked the Barbonas River, and held a number of walking paths and trails that snaked through the foothills, where one could find peace and solace away from the cities and suburbs in the west. As a child, my family would often travel here. For days we would camp in the hills, off the path, near the river, where we could fish, swim, and just simply enjoy ourselves in our own company. I recall a time when my brothers and I dived to the bottom of the river to look for big rocks, and once we had amassed enough of a collection, we would drop them all in at once to see how big of a wave we could make. The sight of dozens of rocks breaking the surface stuck to my thoughts for most of my life.

But as I began to navigate the twisting path to the familiar site next to the river, the thought of my brothers or my parents never even crossed my mind.

It was late summer, and the heat was bearing down on me, hard. Most of the dew on the foliage had vanished at this point of the day, and I realized that my normal work attire of khakis and a dress shirt wasn’t really fitting for trudging through the undergrowth. But I didn’t care. Why would I? It wouldn’t matter soon. Nothing mattered. I just wanted to take in a bit of nature before I put myself to rest. And take in nature, I did. All around me the trees rose to the open skies, huge, proud pines that had established themselves in the land long before the first settlers had arrived, perhaps even further beyond. The air was pleasant, consisting of floral scents of the wildflowers pushing themselves out of the ground and the wet smell of dirt and soil that permeated wherever I walked. All around, I could hear the chirping of birds and insects, creating an almost sensory overload that, briefly, brought me back to my youth.

For a moment, I felt as though I could hear my family chattering to each other as we pulled our things along for our little basecamp along the river.

As I pushed through the undergrowth, crunching over needles and cones and whatever other detritus had collected on the ground, I finally found myself in the clearing of my youth. A wide, flat area of grass nestled along the river, flanked on either side by the foliage and surrounding forest. On the other side of the river was an old, long-abandoned cottage that my brothers and I had theorized had once been the residence of a nasty witch who would turn travelers into frogs for her soup. The river, which began in the Sibelius foothills and eventually drained into Barbone Lake to the west, flowed clear here, and I could see a few schools of fish dart among the reeds and moss and rocks that covered the bottom of the river. Near the edge of the clearing, where it began to turn back into forest, right along the river’s edge, was a huge boulder, maybe six or seven feet tall, where my brothers and I would jump from to dive in. We would plunge straight to the bottom of the river, and frantically swim back up to the surface. It was great fun, and possibly one of my favorite things to do when we were visiting.

I sat on the rock for what seemed like hours, staring into the river and just… Thinking about my life. My thoughts drifted back to the family home, my school years, my ex-girlfriend, my job… It had all culminated to this moment. I was 29 years old, and today, I would be ending my life prematurely. My body would wash up somewhere near the towns, maybe, or maybe it would just sink to the bottom. I guess it didn’t matter in the end.

I stood up, trying to keep my footing on the uneven surface. When I hit the water, I would sink down, and I wouldn’t allow myself to come up to the surface. It would take a little long for my lungs to fill with water, but I could stand the wait. I didn’t believe it would be too unpleasant.

I prepared myself for the fall when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something strange that piqued my interest.

It was a fox, a big one, nearly two meters long it looked, sitting at the edge of the clearing, staring at me. My eyes widened. It’s eyes were blue, for one, and it looked like it had blonde fur. I had never seen any foxes that looked like it. Something in its eyes… I felt as though it were staring straight into my soul, as though it knew me. Like it knew everything I had ever done, and why I was now here.

Suddenly, the fox seemed to yawn. My legs seemed to turn to jelly, as I lost feeling in them, and as my body plunged into the river so far below, my vision went black.

- - -

When I opened my eyes, I was laying in the parking lot of the Aravirta National Park, right next to my car, about a dozen people crouched around me. I coughed, and soon realized that they were an assortment of paramedics, park goers, and a park ranger. One of the paramedics, his hand on my chest, sighed in relief. “You were out for a good bit. Looks like you hit your head on something, mate.” I blinked, and could see that it was becoming evening at this point, the sky turning various shades of pink and orange. I looked down at my wet, dirty clothes, and my eyes went wide. “...What happened to me?” I asked, looking around at the group. “Well, we found you washed up near the park office,” the ranger said. “This North Lander woman came by and told us about you, but she left before we could inquire further. Do you know anything about her?” I shook my head, and he shrugged. “Well, you’re lucky she saw you. You could’ve been laying there for a while before anyone could find you.”

I wanted to ask something more, but the paramedics lifted me up and onto a stretcher. “We’re gonna take you to the hospital in Keskusta. We got all your information from your car, you left your wallet and stuff in it, thankfully. You’ll be home in no time, buddy.”

As the paramedics loaded me into an ambulance parked nearby, I noticed the fox from before sitting near the edge of the parking lot, by the path that led into the woods. I could be wrong, but it almost looked like it was smiling.

- - -

There are a few places in Vespero where you can get good coffee. If you’re cheap, you can always go to one of the chains, or you can try and find a nice, more “up-scale” place like the cafes in North Side, near the waterfront, though I find the clientele often consists of hipsters and people pretending to look busy.

In honesty, my favorite place is a little family-run joint near Svinhufvud Park called Kotilainen’s. They have easily the best croissants outside of the Great South, and I went to school with the son of the owners. I used to go here all the time with my ex, but despite that I don’t get any negative memories from visiting it. From the patio outside there’s an incredible view of the Barboneian Broadcasting Company Tower.

It was a cool Sunday evening, and I was relaxing on said patio with a few of my coworkers. It had been a month since my little “accident”, and I had been feeling a lot better. I had gotten a raise, had started going out with my friends more often, and had finally gone to see a therapist on the recommendation of the doctor who had treated me. It’s surprising, but she was really helping me deal with my issues. I knew I’d never be completely happy in my life, but just being able to talk about it was making me feel better.

I wasn’t really listening to what my coworkers were saying, and was staring out at the street absentmindedly. Cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, pedestrians… An ever present blur that filled the roadways of the nation. Normally I would complain about it, complain about how everyone was in a rush, but it was nice to watch.

I noticed, however, a figure across the road.

Standing in front of the crowd of pedestrians waiting to cross the street was a North Lander woman. She was tall, easily the tallest of the group, and wore a navy pantsuit that lovingly complimented her figure. I was amazed to notice that I could make out that her eyes were the same color as her suit, a deep blue, and that she had long, beautiful blonde hair.

For just a split second, she seemed to notice me, and she smiled.

I smiled back.

[TURTLESHROOM II]

{ OOC: I am out of my element and I know it. I hope I don't botch this too bad. Google can only tell me so much about robes. }

{ OOC: Purple text indicates a language that is not English. }

It was a beautiful, cloudless night at a penthouse in Litlin.

Kim Shoo-in, still unused to his first name coming first after all these years, washed his face and looked into the mirror. His porcelain, off-white skin and his chocolate-brown, slanted eyes, a thin nose, thin lips, and long, shiny, raven hair (with alternating white streaks and brown frosted tip bangs) looked back. Contrasted with the "mutts", the descendants of every Far Eastern ethnicity mixed in the thousand years of Sino-Japanese rule, Kim was a pure-blooded Korean, which made his appearance exotic even to most of his fellow Orientals.

The Japano-Korean refugee turned forward and back to admire his flashy Cheoson-ot robe and see if anything was out of place. It was shiny, made of artificial fabrics instead of silk or TurtleShroomian cotton. The "Baw-Jee Britches", as TurtleShroomers adorably referred to Baji pants, were light cotton for the desert heat.

The mismatched colors- neon pink and lime green -formed a cow-print like splash over the exterior of the robe, most visibly on the Gil piece, which formed the front and back of the robe. The Goreum strings, a brilliant royal purple, tied the robe together. The Git aspect of the robe, which formed the trim around the collar and down the robe, was a sky blue color. The long, flowing sleeves were an absured mix of black, brown, and bright red. Tabi socks and wooden Geta sandals, also in stupidly wild colors, ended the over-the-top look.

Kim's visage was handsome and all natural; TurtleShroom's culture mirrored the old Sino-Japanese Tekoku's approach to appearances. He could not fathom now, or ever, why so many Korean peoples across Nationstates cut their jaws and ruined their gorgeous eyes to conform to some warped beauty standard. The rich Oriental smiled, flashing his straight, brilliant white teeth and made a double finger gun gesture to the mirror. In a country where orthodontics were seen as frivelous outside of correctign medical faults, he had to fly to Daurssalem to get his crooked teeth fixed. They didn't have any of that back in the Sino-Japanese Union.

Exiting the penthouse bathroom, he walked over to the huge windows of the penthouse and pulled the curtains open, sliding the sliding door to step out onto the deck. The dry, desert air hit him in a cool rush, causing him to wrap his arms around himself and rub the robe's sleeves. His body adjusted quickly to the temperature.

The city was so different than it was before the countless millions and millons of Orientals made their refuge in TurtleShroom. For one thing, skyscrapers rivalling the Capitol Tower, TurtleShroom's largest building, stood like glowing beacons in the night, illuminating the rings of city walls. Those beautiful brick walls that circled the city masked the steel, reenforced concrete and serious defense barricades within.

The arrival of the Scarlet Guard and their boss' "colonial" ambitions turned Litlin from a desert trading hub of two hundred thousand to TurtleShroom's largest metropolis, holding over ten million with a public sector completely overwhelemed in its construction. While the revival, walls, and influx began under the Guard, it would be the throngs of Oriental refugees that would make the city into a metropolis.

There was no NIMBY, no zoning laws, nothing stopping the maddened growth. Traditionalist Oriental buildings from numerous sources with curled rooves countered commieblocks*, concrete squares, and ranch houses. Some houses were surrounded on all sides by commercial buildings, and vice-versa. A schoolhouse, clinic, or other service occasionally broke the sprawl.

The walls, even in the light of the buildings, bustling streets, and billboards, were visibly of different colors. Stretching out far into the horizon, five rings of walls, each built to contain the city that grew in an unregulated, sprawling hodge-podge of residental, industrial, and commercial enterprises, stood alight. No doubt, the Wallmen of the Scarlet Guard, their namesake blood-red, eighteenth century uniforms overlaying their modern bulletproof armor, were clutching automated AK-74 rifles to compliment the traditional side-arm revolvers and tasers they wore on their belt.

This was the Second Ring of Litlin, separated from the Old City and its mix of 1930's Fascist Servant commieblocks*, beautiful Aashinian architecture that resembled London or Germany just before the Industrial Revolution, and the usual mess of Antebellum and Russian architectural elements in between.

The Second Ring was home to steel and metal, as the ultra-rich, the business oligarchs, and entrepenuers that made TurtleShroom both great and stratified low-key flexed their wealth. Even these buildings were nothing but giant rectangular prisms caked in glass, akin to the World Trade Centers that once stood on a far-off shore in the mists of time. Their lowest levels were completely blanketed in multicolored billboards written in the Sino-Japanese language and its colonies' dialects, all observing TS law by having English translations printed underneath the Oriental characters.

The Third, Fourth, and Fith Rings were a worsening mixture of skyscrapers, ranch houses, and every other architectural style TurtleShroom was known for, with the towers getting fewer and shorter to the end. Every mile was paved in asphalt, making Litlin's roads the most paved. This was the beaming pride of Litlin's prosperity.

Behind the Fifth Ring, completely obscuring the shifting sands, were the slums. Their dirt streets were cleaned of debris every fifteen days days. Every buidling was electrified. For plumbing, residents either had large buildings resembling highway rest stops housed upwards of fity dirty restroom stalls and public showers for those who needed or wanted it, and each was policed for.... unholy behavior by security guards armed with tasers and billy clubs. They were dirty and privately run, but paid for taxes, seeing tens of thousands of uses every month. Cleaning them every week was not enough.

Complementing these buildings, the clapboard Shotgun Shacks and Favala shanties boasted the barest of indoor plumbing if they were lucky. Provided by shared wells, often sharing dozens of houses, there was no hot water. The infamous electrified showers, which those within the Ring and tourists called "Suicide Showers", provided just enough heat to keep from screaming when the bone-chilling water ran.

In a slum, a single toilet (or, for turtles, a turtle squat toilet) was all a resident could get, if they were lucky. The rest used wooden outhouses positioned over concrete basins. For water, most slums had a single utility sink that serviced the kitchen and the bathroom, or they otherwise drew from the many public wells and cisterns, all covered and boasting filters, that dotted the landscape. Standing for hours in the desert heat was enough to incentize most slum residents to work sixty hours to get that toilet, shower, and shared well.

Yes, Litlin was a magnificent city.

-and Kim Shoo-in was a magnificent man.

He walked back into the penthouse, looking at pearly white shag carpeting and furniture carved of beautiful tropical woods. An island column broke up the living room's leather sofas, holding an aquarium on one side and the fireplace on another. In the aquarium were the beautifully colored fish of the TurtleShroomian swamps and jungles.

A monstrous CRT television, ornately encased in hand-carved tropical wood, displayed high-definition programming fed by antenna from Darussalem, and standard-definition TurtleShroomian news in crystal-clear quality, also fed by antenna.

-because why use cable when you get a hundred channels? Or, in Kim's case, hundreds from the skyscraper's television receptor mast?
All these luxuries were nothing like his home in the Greater Imperial Japanese Dystopia, as the Sino-Japanese Tekoku was nicknamed.

GEIJD-Korea was one of the poorest regions. Kim remembered his childhood, surviving on one meal a day at most, praying to a candlelit shrine and begging the Kami spirits**, his ancestors, and Jowangshin, the Korean Pagan goddess of the hearth**, begging that the commissary would have its rations on time. Far too often, the response was silence.

Whenever he thought of that, he thought of his older sister. He closed his eyes and turned his head down and to the right, remebering what happened to her, and when he first started questioning the cult of personality and ways of his homeland.

On the Gregorian Calendar, the year was 1996 AD. Mu Shoo-in was a very sickly child. The Shinto-Sino-Korean mishmash of shamanism in his mountainous village was the only source of medicine that year, for a shortage required prioritizing the medicating of the soldiery and complex governmental apparatuses that kept the country under the Imperial heel.

Korean Pagan shamans, the Mudangs, had various roles and callings. Depending on the Gut Ritual being performed, she was either a Faith Healer of a Witch Doctor.
Tonight, the latter was the calling, for this was not a straight-laced lady at the communal shrine. For there was a fallen Mudang that lived in a hut where the black trees grew. Mudangs can be made by inheritance or by a Calling very loosely akin to a Christian pastor, but in a spiritual trance. This one was the former.

What else could a family do for their daughter when the real medicine wasn't coming and the clergy couldn't heal?

The Gut ritual was corrupted from the start: the altar was not purified with fire and water, and white papers were not burnt. Kim had long suppressed what was used that night, and by the time the sun came up, little Mu was dead. The Onis** had taken what was theirs. The People's Comrade-Emperor only knows-

Kim let out a quick shout and slammed his fist on the wooden panelling next to the sliding door.

"Gah! WHY CAN'T I FORGET?!" Kim thought in that bastardized, transcontinental language called Sino-Japanese, shouting its Korean dialect to himself internally.

There was no bringing back his sister!

The People's Comrade-Emperor could not save him or his family, but thousands of miles to the southwest, was the new emperor. Unlike his homeland, the mountains were not high and the Emperor was not far away.

Today, Kim's emperor, pardon, emperors, were not gods. They were not promoted as a father to him, nor were they beings to be worshipped each day. Portraits he Emperors of TurtleShroom did not hang over his shrine, nor did men down for disliking them. Their crowns were brass and wood, the coronet covered in emerald. These emperors cared about their people. They oversaw a nation that was freer, brighter, more prosperous than anything the Sino-Japanese Union could bring.

His village always told him he couldn't sing.

His music was weird. Too loud. Non-traditional. Rebellious. How many times did the village commissar, that enforcer of political order that haunted every town, whoop him with bamboo and even iron rods for his refusal to conform? Kim looked at his right wrist; it was still twisted and lumped, the same as it was when it was shattered by the commissar when he was thirteen. The pins that would be placed in it years later would be too little too late. He would never have full hand rotation again, and he has since become left-handed.

Even so, Kim never stopped. After his sister died, he lost his fear of the state. Beatings came and went, but his sense of self was unbroken. Right as he came into adulthood, he found himself on a boat. That boat would lead to railway after railway, vehicle after vehicle... and finally... to a new land. He sang every night and every day, just him and his father, for his mother had died in childbirth after he was born.

The last he heard of the People's Huangdiist Teikoku of the Sino-Japanese Union was that the "Coup Kid", a man who led a rebellion from the coastal GEIJD colonies in eastern Africa and coastal India, hit the shores of Kyoto and torched the Imperial Palace. His Shogunate, which ironically reigned in the absence of the People's Comrade Emperor (who himself is in exile in TurtleShroom), did not last a year.

"Kim!"

A voice called out to him in Sino-Japanese Korean. Several voices, actually.

Wearing similarly tacky Cheoson-ot robes and sock-sandal ensenbles stood three men of GEIJD ancestry. In contrast with the ethnically "pure" Kim, they had different, less porcelain skin and a mixture of facial features from the various colonies of the GEIJD. A fifth wheel, this one a large, female side-necked turtle, had a harness fastened to her shell that held a clipboard in front of her. A pencil was held to her beak, and she seemed to be crossing off a list.

They were his greatest friends.

"Kim, we need to get a move on! The concert's in one hour!"

You see, Kim Shoo-in was not just a wealthy immigrant. He was the lead singer and face of the Righteous Sons of the People's Republic of Korea's Delegation to the Greater People's Imperial Revolutionary Huangdiist Akatsuki-Kairoshuu Regime Politburo (or RSKDP for short), the most popular of the "Oriental Backstreet Boys", as TurtleShroomers called these J-Pop sensations.


Wu Ji-Hu, the band's electric guitarist, came up with the name. The part of Korea where Kim lived was, under GEIJD rule, one of the only republican vassals of the empire. Most others were nominally autonomous vassal fiefs and Imperial Bureucratic governors-general in Confucian principles. The republican regime covered all of Korea north of the Han River, while various kingdoms, duchies, and fiefs (interpersed and under the watchful eye of the local commissars, politburos, and soviets*** that fought with the noble landholders for power).

Called simply the People's Republic of Korea, the republic was ruled from the capital of Keijo. In a classic Oriental fashion, the overly long name actually drew inspiration from Wu's father, who was a wealthy, but low-level oligarch in Keijo. His dealings, and corruption (Wu didn't like to think about this) consistently got him ears in republican halls of power. It even netted visits among the royal courts of the People's Kings and vassals of the Iljegangjeomgi**** south of the Han River.

Tonight, Kim Shoo-in was going to play in a stadium hosting over fifty thousand screaming TurtleShroomers of all races and species. His best friends would man the electric guitar, the drums, and the organ. The nightmares of the commissar striking him for his songs only came back in his darkest of dreams. When he was awake, he only enjoyed the delight of having made it in a free country.

Well... a freer country.

Kim's bandmates and turtle manager stepped outside and turned off all the penthouse lights, knowing Kim's pre-stage superstitions needed privacy. Kim was still a pagan, after all, and that required some strict rites.

Kim made his way to the bar behind the aquarium island. Looking across the bar and inwards to the kitchen, Kim turned his head to the right, and his slanted eyes made contact with the small shrine he had set up. He bowed in front of its little altar and whispered those syncretized Sino-Japanese-Korean rites that a thousand years of GEIJD rule mixed up. He then cursed the witch that killed his sister. He prayed for the Emperors of TurtleShroom and called on their ancestors to bless them.

After he opened his eyes and bowed to the altar again, he looked above the altar. Illuminated in the candlelight stood the principle figure of his shrine. It was an oil painting three feet hight and one and one-half feet in width. The tall, bearded figure was blond and long haired, and he wore the black robes of a monk. Behind his head as an illuminated light. The painting was defaced with the mixed characters that made up the GEIJD's Frankestin lingua franca (contrasted with the Emperor's Classical Japanese that needs subtitles).

That was no Kami or pagan. It was an unauthorized folk Icon of Jones Found, TurtleShroom's George Washington, who ordered the Christians of TurtleShroom not to canonize him. That didn't stop the folk cults and adoration around him to continue in TurtleShroomian Christian, and pagan, mysticism.

To Kim, and to many pagans like him, Jones Found was a "White Kami" and quasi-deity in his own right. Jones Found was worshipped by Oriental pagans was worshipped as an ancestor spirit, and he would have hated it.

Not that Kim knew or cared, for Jones Found loved him. Why else would have have thrived in TurtleShroom?

Kim blew out the candles and walked to the door leading out of his penthouse and into the hall that would take him to the gilded manually operated elevator. He would ride down twenty stories and step out to a roaring crowd of TurtleShroomian fans.

He looked back at his home, the faint gleam of the aquarium and the lights of the city providing the only illumination.

"TurtleShroom is the greatest country."

Kim whispered to himself.

"Kim! Hurry up!"

"COMING!"

Kim smiled to himself one last time.

"TurtleShroom is the greatest country."

Truly, it was.

---

* = Slang term for those depressing, Russian, concrete rectangular prisms erected by the USSR. The Fascist Servants of TurtleShroom erected hundreds of thousands of these with a Fascist Architecture style, although they painted them white and added trim instead of just exposing concrete.

** = Kamis are Japanese deities, gods, and spirits. Onis are Japanese demons. In GEIJD's canon, his Japanese state united China, Tibet, Indochina, and the southeastern coast of India. Religiously, a populist/Marxist-tinged combination of Shinto Paganism and Chinese Paganism was the dominant faith of the land. Colonies like the GEIJD-Korea and GEIJD-Vietnam realms fused them into their own folk religions. This meant that your average GEIJD peasant likely prayed to supernatural from at least three countries: his own, China, and far-distant Japan. Of course, the prayers would always begin and end with the People's Comrade-Emperor's divine bloodline...

*** = "Soviet" literally translates to "council" and is a GEIJD loan word. The GEIJD was a National Bolshevist country in the purest sense. Economically far-left, socially far-right. Juche, Maoist, and Marxist-Lenenist thought governed the economical command economy of the empire. Meanwhile, fundamentally rightist, hardline Japanese and Chinese traditionalism,and the syncretized beliefs of Shintoism, Chinese Paganism, and Confucianism (but not Buddhism, IIRC) create an Imperial Bureaucracy on par with the bloat, inefficiency, and slowness of Imperial China and the Soviet Union combined.

**** = "Iljegangjeomgi" is Romanized Korean for "Nippon Tochi-jidai no Chosen", which is Romanized Japanese for the name of Korea's colonial occupation under the RL Imperial Japanese before WWII. In this context, the imperial nobles, fiefdoms, and bureaucracies south of the Han River are part of this "royal region", so to speak.

[TURTLESHROOM II]

{ OOC: I shared this idea to my friends on the Discord chat room for my Region. I wanted to draw the creatures in this tale, but I ran out of Halloweenie time to do it. Enjoy. }

Darkness falls across the land.

Three days.

Running through the trees. Forcing through the undergrowth. Glancing up at the full moon in the few breaches in the rainforest canopy. It was dark yet again, with no civilization in sight.

The midnight hour is close at hand.

Three days.

You are a human, a TurtleShroomer White. Your overalls' legs have been torn and your legs have cuts and bruises on them. Your seven foot height gives you plenty of running distance, which you have used again and again.

Three days.

Your job as a farmhand on your mushroom buddy's commercial plantation has given you plenty of lean muscle and a strong back. Growing up, you and your friends would play in the rainforest preserve that had been cordoned off by your small village of a thousand or so souls. Dozens of acres of untouched jungle were yours to explore, and you remember fondly the days would take your Game Boy and some cleats and scale the big jungle tree, using the thick, strong vines to climb to the top. With a piece of straw in your mouth, a sun hat, some batteries, and your trusty Wormlight, you remembered playing that console underneath the endless expanse of stars. The Milky Way was your audience and your Game Boy the instrument, as you weaved a concert of button mashing and high scores. To go back to your childhood, just a decade ago...

Three days.

Of course, there was a reason those sixty acres of jungle had a twelve-foot fence around them. The dangers of the uncharted jungles were legendary. From bushes of flowers that laughed and shrank away in the presence of passersby to infestations of eerie, biolumenescent mushrooms (non-sapient, thank God), there was a reason why the TurtleShroomian Rainforest has never been entirely mapped. It's a good thing you haven't seen a Stinking Corpse Lily, either. Those attract THEM.

Creatures crawl in search of blood...

Three days. That's how long you've been trapped in these woods. You've survived by collecting rainwater and boiling it on campfires; your hunger was satiated by jungle fruits and edible plants you could scale to grab. These were skills your grandfather taught when he taught you to live off the land. A country boy could survive, he always said...

Of course, none of this survival stuff could prepare you for the horror of fleeing as seeing Jehosephat, your dear tortoise friend, getting his neck shot by.... SOMETHING. Something from THEM.

...to terrorize your neighborhood.

It was supposed to be fun. You had saved your money and planned four month long trek from your hometown to Jonesboro, staying near the train tracks and navigating by compass, Jehosephat riding behind you in a wagon. You knew he had to be over some rotiserre somewhere by now. THEY had gotten to him.

Whosoever shall be found...

GAH! You passed that Raffleasia THREE TIMES now! You muttered some euphamisms under your breath as you sat down. Surely THEY hadn't followed you after a hour of running? Your white T-shirt stuck to your body, your brown hair dripped in sweat. You took off your glasses, trying to wipe the mud off the plexiglass lenses before reaching to the canteen on your hip and pouring drops of pondwater you had boiled before THEY came. There. Good as new.

You looked around. The sounds of the jungle were there to comfort you. They were your life's soundtrack. You knew them by heart. The low-pitched squeaking of the Jones Found's Parrot, a three and one half foot tall bird with a wingspan like a small albatross. It ate berries, you chuckled. A squawking of a lorikeet. The ribbiting of overhead tree frogs. The buzzing of gnats and the teeming biodiversity at your feet. You were safe.

Without the soul for getting down...

WHAT WAS THAT? Your ears twitched at a sudden noise. It sounded like... no, you knew exactly what that sound was. Everyone did, it was a part of their shared history. It was a Morin Khuur.

Could there be hostile Native TurtleShroomites coming for you? No... Native TurtleShroomite terror cells are few and far in between, and while they'd certainly shoot a man, they'd never harm a sentient* turtle.

You listened again. That Mongolian instrument had many players; Morin Khuurs survived the Mircale of TurtleShroom and subsequent Russification (and later, Dixie assimilation) that brought the Classical Mongolian language and customs to their end in all but the TurtleShroomites. Your father played one while your older brother played the banjo. Your grandfather was a violinist, but he didn't play a violin. He played a fiddle, and by glob, don't say otherwise.

No, no. There was something about this Morin Kuur. Something off. You'd taken organ lessons as a kid, but you weren't fond of it. You knew, though, what off-key sounded like.
It was the instrument itself. The thing was out of tune. Metallic grinding on the strings accompanied sour notes. You could almost call the melody played... corrupted.

If this was a Native TurtleShroomite camp, you'd be in a jail cell for the next week. If this was a Native TurtleShroomite cell, you'd probably be learn how to sing a parody of "Momma's Little Baby Loves Shortening Bread"** in Classical Mongolian... about "human, human" stew...

Jail was better than this. Don't think about food.

Your flashlight died days ago, so you reach into your huge backpack and fumble for the hurricane lantern. You light the wick and the jungle around you is faintly illuminated in the kerosene's candlelight. The shadows of the towering trees and undergrowth danced in an array of graceful, but horrific, motions. You had run in the dark for too long.

You approach the music.

Must stand and face the hands of Hell...

Crossing into a glade, you see an area of the forest that has been cleared. The Murin Khuur is louder now, and you see an unattended campfire. A herd of donkeys brays nearby. The floor is stomped down and lined with straw. Holding out the kerosene lantern in your right hand, you sweep your arm around. You see yurts. This is definitely a Native TurtleShroomite camp that has parked for a few days or weeks. Some of them are sedentary, but this one happens to be a purist camp.

That eerie, corrupted music sops.

To rot inside a corpse shell.

The glass beads in front of one of the larger huts tintinnabulate. The shaman's hut. You dash behind a particularly large, tropical wooded tree. A man in fur and robes come out, covered in beads and ribbons.

Wait. A man? The Drooks were in the deserts, and they were really the only organized Tengri followers among mankind. You watch as he comes into the firelight an-

E-GADD! LOOK AT THE SIZE OF HIS CRANIUM!

You stop yourself before you scream.

The figure had a bulbous head. You heard about these people. Or, at least you heard about them from your great-grandparents. You always thought the stories were crazy. Unlike THEM, and unlike the white trees, those cryptids had no serious evidence of their existence.

The Melongols, they were called. Everyone knows how the Mongoloids arrived in the thirteenth century. Expelled from the steppes by the ancient Greater Imperial Japanese Dystopia, they roared through the Land of Power, subjugating southeastern Darussalem before being violently driven out of Hiluxia and Barboneia.

They entered into what is now TurtleShroom from the east and enslaved the non-humans for the next three hundred years. The onset of a great disease that did not effect the turtles and mushrooms allowed them to rise up and kill their former overlords. By the time they did this, they had adopted Mongolian culture and religion themselves (the normally tolerant Mongols gave no such mercy to chotgors).

Of course, there was always that rumor that what everyone thinks is wrong. This is where conspiracies flourish, after all.

Yet, here you are, staring that conspiracy right in the face.

The man was very short. Only five foot eleven. His arms were longer than a man should have. They stretched down to just above his kneecaps. His fingers were horrific: each one was elongated***.

His cheekbones and slanted eyes gave away his Altaic heritage, although his eyes were so small and narrow that it looked like he struggled to see. His cheekbones visibly portruded from his face, like to bumps below his eye sockets. His knees were knobby and he had a significant overbite, protruding lip, and deformed chin***.

It was his head that stood out. Oh, his head! You didn't remember the real name, but you knew what "Melon Head Disease" was. It was a common feature of the stillbirths before treatments against uranium in dug wells was invented and mass produced. You could make out veins on his huge skull in the light of his campfire. Its illumination allowed this deformed shaman to not recognize the sister light of your lantern.

He was wearing a Deel, but like the music, "corrupted" sprung to your mind. Everything was off yet again. Normal Deels were beautiful, covered in bright colors and patterns. This one was tattered, patched together with jungle foilage. It was a sickly yellow, spun of hay, vines, and other materials siphoned from the local flora.

You watched as he curled his fingers into a balled fist, and back. He picked up a drum next to him and appeared to begin preparing for another shamanic rite, like any Tengri.

A second figure, this one female, was mostly bald with thin traces of black hair coming out of her scalp, each one long and isolated, like a tentacle of Medusa. Her back was hunched over, a classic sign of kyphosis (hunchback). She had some incense made out of a rusted, dented bowl. She looked to the shaman and spoke. It sounded like Classical Mongolian, but it too was slurred and raspy. Other Menlongols joined him. They raised their hands in the air, their mutant fingers casting towers of darkness, shaking and dancing in the firelight.

Still more spilled out of their yurts with food and water. Carcasses of various animals, cooked speedily and cut up in a way meant for fast travel, were hauled out on carved stone plates.

You had to get out of Dodge. NOW.

Walking back slowly, you tripped over a gnarled root of a tree that would yield the finest furniture in half of Nationstates. That luxury was nothing comforting to you as you slammed into the mud.

The foulest stench is in the air, the funk of forty thousand years!

The Melongols snap their heads to the side, like a cat that hears a bird. They again curl and uncurl those spindly fingers as they shamble toward you. You see one of them pull out a recurve bow. Then another. Another one had a lance made out of crudely chipped tin.

Now grisly ghouls from every tomb,
Are closing in to seal your doom!

Even their mounts began to bray in the night. A smaller Melongol, clearly younger, approached you with a club. You wouldn't remember the rest.

Though you fight, to stay alive,
Your body starts to shiver...

You awake wearing nothing but your cargo shorts, wrapped in strips of swaddling cloth that extended to your knees. A necklace is around your neck, you note, and your arms are wrapped in similar tattered strips of cloth.

You immediately know what's going on here. In fact, you watch it on your family's only television every week. You've been challenged to a game of Manly Mongol Wrestling. You did some of that in middle school but didn't continue once you entered high school because you just weren't as good as the others, even when you tried.

You weren't as good as the others, even if you tried.

You can tell, based on the hollers and ethereal screeches of the cheering crowd, that this isn't for fun. Mongols also used this as a ceremonial form of...

You gulp.

Of execution.

-and there are no weight classes.

A roar from one of the yurts causes the band of Melon Heads to part. A man built like a sumo wrestler, except consistant of muscle, strides out in such a manner that his very being asserts dominance. He is twice as wide as you are. His extended arms and long fingers are like tree trunks; each one was able to break you.

You are hyper ventilating. The circle of Melongols closes.

You know the rules from the television and from your own experiences in the competition. The opponent had to touch his back, knee, or elbow to the ground. Both of you perform the Eagle, a pose akin to a bow in opening a karate match, and a countdown is heard from that incense woman earlier.

The match begins and the behemoth before you roars. You raise your arms and brace for impact...








Your body would never be found, but historians can tell you what happened next. You would die in an instant, your neck snapped over your opponent's knee.

For no mere mortal can resist...
The evil...
OF THE MELONGOLS.

---

* = "Sapient" and "sentient" are synonyms in TS nomenclature, although there have been attempts in formal discussions to diverge the two since 2019 AD.

** = I've known this melody my entire life, but had no idea about its name or what Momma's little baby actuall liked. I actually knew about the song from a cartoon called "My Gym Partner Is a Monkey" (where Momma's little baby loved human stew, hence the reference) and, of course, it being played whenever a "Looney Tunes" character cooked.

*** = This is entirely possible in RL.

[TURTLESHROOM II]

Reserved

[Comrade Commisar]

It had been a long, perilous, and toiling journey; hundreds of souls, hundreds of miles, through some of the most hostile terrain imaginable. Many had fallen upon their travels, left without proper burial or rights, to the woe of those that knew them. Those who survived had little but the clothes on their back, and whatever meager provisions they could carry. There had been many times when some considered turning back, wondering if this arduous trek through the waste and wilderness was really worth it - and a few souls did, never to be seen again. Hunger, thirst, and anguish like no other had gripped the travelers, forced to rely on their guides, indifferent to their plight. Yet, on they marched, and by the hundredth day, as the sun began to set on the horizon, they saw it...

A city like none that they had ever seen before, with lights that cut through the night sky. The alleged paradise that had only been spoken of through passing whispers, now made to them apparent - Gerry.

It had been a horrific exodus spanning over three moons, but the Nekolanders had finally made it here, enduring the hostility of both Turtleshroom's environment and its people. The suffering had been great, but the end was now in sight, and the Turtleshroom nekos, who had been discriminated against nearly their entire lives, were jubilant. Those city lights represented a new chapter, one with many hardships ahead of them, but with an opportunity far greater than what they could ever be able to realize. A feast, laid out before starving men, and one that the new host of the table offered to them.

"Alright, look all you want, but we're setting up camp for the night! Tomorrow morning, we set out, and then you're the Iron Golem's responsibility!" The North Lander mercenary captain, a Far Northerner, shouted out to the group. Her thick Far Northern dialect and gruff voice, hoarse from years of command, nearly impossible to understand, but the message eventually coming through nonetheless.

When the sun had set beyond the horizon, most of the group had settled down. Roughly three or four hundred souls, all huddled down around various campfires for warmth, eagerly engaged in conversation as food was passed around by the camp cooks. This was the last night that some of them would be in contact with each other, many expecting to go their separate ways once in Gerry. There were heartfelt admissions of love, confessions of sin, but most, simply merry conversation, feeling that the hardest difficulties were behind them. Some offered blessings, perhaps aspiring priestesses or itinerate preachers of the Imperial Shrine back in the south, reciting the prayers and scriptures that had guided them here. In the middle of camp, they told the founding tale of the North Lands, similar to their own exodus, of how various peoples had come together to endure hardship, eventually founding the Imperial Shrine of Yoitsu, and prospering as a peoples. It was this tale that had attracted the attention of the North Landers, who had been mostly indifferent to the matters of the Turtleshroom nekos, but who now rose their heads, staring at the preachers with a certain distain.

"What mewlings do the South Landers whimper?" A nearby mercenary asked interrogatingly to one of the Nekolanders, cocking their mouth into a coy smile, "What is this you're speaking of the North Lands?"

"It is..." One of the younger nekos paused, steeling their courage, "It is the story of how, when the North Lands suffered from famine and harsh winds, did they come together to endure, and how, through this cooperation, the modern North Lands has come to be, with the Imperial Shrine representing this original treaty between peoples. It is not dissimilar to our own plight, don't you think?"

The North Landers burst into an uproar at the exclamation, many of them barely containing their laughter, to where many of the Nekolanders in camp fell into silence, watching as their guides seemed overwhelmed by such a statement. The coy smiling mercenary took a few minutes to regain their composure, almost choking with his amount of laughter, before leaning back over.

"Oh, if you weren't a South Lander, I'd ask the captain to accept you to our company on my behalf! I haven't had this good of a laugh in a long time!" The North Lander cheered, their grin slowly vanishing as they realized the honest sincerity of the Nekolander's beliefs, "That was a jest, right? You don't really believe that...?"

"It is what we were taught by the Imperial Shrine, by actual North Landers, from your actual scripture." Another Nekolander interjected, "Is it not true?"

The camp descended into silence, as even the North Landers grew quiet. For a few moments, there was nothing but the crackling of various fires, as both groups wondered how to proceed with the sudden shift in conversation, from casual banter to possible theological and historical implications. The tension was interrupted with an audible burp, and the flinging of a small bone between the groups, as the Far Northerner captain continued her meal.

"It is true, but that is the founding of the Imperial Shrine, not the North Lands." The Far Northerner said, with a slow, almost taunting tone of voice, like a viper waiting to strike its prey, "The true tale of the North Lands extends beyond scripture, passed on by word of mouth, from one generation of North Lander to the next. It is not a fanciful tale of cooperation, coming together, and bringing about prosperity. It is a tale of survival, and doing what needs to be done. You said that it was not dissimilar to your own situation, but had you learned the correct story, this situation would have not existed. Had you learned the correct story, the South Landers would be looking at you as they do us, with fear in their eyes instead of distain, knowing that we do not hold onto some fragile concepts of superiority as they do. You would not be here, fleeing from a handful of grass eaters."

The Far Northerner picked their teeth with another bone, casting it aside before they motioned to stand up, seemingly done with the conversation, "Gerry is in sight, but we have at least half-a-day's journey tomorrow. Get some sleep. We'll break camp by sunrise, and make our way to the city by past midday."

"Wait." One of the Nekolanders asked meekly, stepping forward as the North Landers clattered around to protect their captain, "Tell us about the founding of the North Lands. The true one, the one that had been passed down to you. We've been told to keep true to our religion as much as possible, down to the specific word, but how can we do that when such a fundamental part of it is missing? We deserve to know the truth as you know it. Please."

"Sit down!" An older neko pleaded in the crowd.

The Far Northern captain stood there, contemplating the Nekolander's words, before letting out a gravelly laugh.

"Fine, if you want me to tell you a story before bed, then I guess I'll have to oblige you, but only because you asked so nicely. I will tell you the tale of the North Lands. Maybe it will help you Domesticated Animal-Ears regain some of that mettle that the South Landers bred out of you." The Far Northerner chuckled, stepping forward to sit amongst the Nekolanders as she told the tale.

"It is said that the North Landers arose from the Far North, an inhospitable frozen wilderness. Our ancestors had their bones forged from ice, and their flesh from snow, given form by fickle gods that roamed the wastes. These gods were not the deities that exist in the North Lands today, who preside over specific endeavors like hunting or harvest, but were closer to those of what you've come to know as Darussalam - esoteric ones with vast claims of authority, except given familiar form. In either case, the most important one to us North Landers is the Wolf Mother, a misnomer given that she created the Fox-Eared Folk as well, but nevertheless the one who taught our ancestors to hunt and survive. This is what people mean by our people descending from wolves, but that is an aside, what you need to know is that this is countless centuries before the Imperial Shrine would ever exist."

"And... just like wolves, you worked together in packs, right?" A child amongst the Nekolanders asked, much to the grim smile of the captain.

"The North Lands is cruel, but the Far North is an inhospitable place. There are few resources, game is sparse, and banding together is as likely to kill you as it is wandering alone. I cannot imagine it was any different back then. The South Lander gods are told to have given their children everything that they would ever need, and the Imperial Shrine states that every peoples have their purpose, but our ancestors were not nearly as blessed with such good fortune. The Wolf Mother gave them nothing beyond what she could teach them, and in turn, they did what they had to do in order to survive. There were no fickle hierarchies, things like what has souls and what does not, or that one people serves a purpose and another doesn't, it was simply a matter of survival. They killed the children of other gods, not out of principle, but necessity. For them, for us, that was the only principle we could understand, that any hierarchy is simply a matter of where in the food chain one sits. It's not a spiritual matter, but a practical one. Perhaps our ancestors worked in packs, but there were no grand coalitions as the Imperial Shrine preaches - simply what had to be done, what must be done."

"This is a good time to shift the conversation." The captain stated, patting the head of some younger children who looked on in a type of horror, offering a barely reassuring grin, "How old do you think I am? It's a rhetorical question, and I'm sure all of you would have very flattering answers, but the answer is older than any South Lander alive today, and that is only because I am leader of one of the strongest mercenary bands in the North Lands. I don't need to go into the mercenary traditions of the North Lands, or the hostile environment which we grew up, but all you need to know is that people who lead violent lives die violent deaths. Most North Landers won't live to be the average life expectancy of a South Lander - and perhaps that is fortunate - But those that do, and especially the particularly lucky ones, can perhaps see over a dozen generations of South Landers before they too vanish from this earth. This is not a trait shared with anyone else in the North Lands, or even our ancestors. So you may ask, how did North Landers come to live such long natural lives? And I respond, how did the infamous Red Scarf come to live for countless centuries?"

Some of the children huddled together, while the older Nekolanders looked on with grim expressions. The North Landers brandished their fangs in amused grins, as the captain brought a finger to their mouth, with her own sinister expression.

"Many generations had passed since the Wolf Mother had brought her children into the world, teaching them what she knew, and watching as they ravaged the wastes, ripping it from the maws of less deserving gods and their children. But as her children grew more and more, their packs growing larger and larger, and the resources in the North Lands dwindled, their situation became precarious. Our ancestors lacked a certain reasoning, otherwise they'd have assuredly began expanding their territory across the North Lands and into the South Lands, but nevertheless, they soon began infighting, murdering one another, with every less mouth to feed being more for the rest. Inevitably, it was only a matter of time before a handful of fledging whelps sank their maws into the Wolf Mother, and inheriting her wisdom, reasoning, and longevity from her flesh, came to be the first generation of North Landers. Whatever divinity the Wolf Mother had inevitably birthed the local deities that spanned across the North Lands, and the North Landers, having gained a certain sapience, came to dominate both the arctic wastes and some of the lands beyond. Having enough to sustain themselves, the infighting soon ceased, and after several centuries of this peacefulness, another handful of whelps and grass eaters would come to found the Imperial Shrine, claiming the North Lands as theirs by certain rights and a subtle rewriting of our history."

"You might be asking how we can keep such a cordial relationship with the Imperial Shrine, knowing this fact. It is the same reason that we can stare the South Landers in the eye, despite their obvious hatred of our very being." The captain said, standing up from her seated position, looking over the Nekolanders, who were watching in a certain silence, issuing the answer in a certain booming realization, "They have nothing, just a handful of vague excuses and reasonings as to why they should lead, and if push were to come to shove - we would almost most certainly massacre them. It is not that they do not understand this, they know it to the point where they fear it, and their only respite is the vain hope, that we do not. Because we do not subscribe to such fleeting reasonings or beliefs that place ourselves above or below others in some hierarchy; we eat them, we're above them in the food chain, and that's all we need to establish dominance."

The mercenary captain finished her impromptu speech, stretching her shoulders, as hundreds of Nekolanders looked on, turning to each other with looks of perplexment, concern, and thoughtfulness.

"I don't know where I was going with that. Maybe I was getting a little too carried away with telling a story. Maybe I'm a little annoyed to be compared to you Domesticated Cat-Ears. Maybe I'd rather be fighting in the North Lands than shepherding refugees in the South Lands. I don't know. Either way, I'm going to bed, as should all of you. We have a long walk ahead of us tomorrow, and even if we're in relatively friendly territory, it's going to be grueling. Be ready." The Far Northerner stated, walking off to her quarters, leaving the night to the Nekolanders.

* * * * *

"Let's see, six thousand silver coins, for the services rendered of four hundred refugees escorted from Nekoland to Gerry, made out to Captain Fiona the White Fang, of the White Fang Company, is that correct?"
"Five thousand. We lost about thirty heads on the way here to starvation and exposure, and a handful gave up and turned around before we got here. I don't know where they went."
"O-of course. Let me quickly make some adjustments, right away..."

Captain Fiona looked past the Ctani accountants negotiating payments, to the line of Nekolanders being processed for immigration into the city, many of them as jubilant as ever, having made it to the end of their journey. Many were given food and drink to recover from the lengthy journey to the city, some receiving medical attention after months of travel, and others showered with gifts from city residents who were overjoyed to see their kin having made it out of Turtleshroom. The mercenary captain looked at them with a huff, before turning her attention back upon the clerk handling her payment, a white-haired neko, not an unusual sight, but with a particularly North Lander physique.

"You know, out of all the places I expected to see you, handling contracts wasn't one of them, Cerys. How'd you end up here?" Fiona stated, "If I knew you'd wind up here, I'd have taken you into the band as a pittance."

"You'd have me cleaning pots and sharpening blades, you mean?" Cerys smiled, putting the coins neatly in a wooden box, "It's a long story, but I am a bodyguard for a Ctani advisor now. I specifically asked to handle your payment, y'know, after hearing how you were coming all this way. How was it, by the way, taking the long way through the South Lands?"

"I was hoping for more of a fight, honestly, but seeing over a hundred North Landers, the South Landers decided to give us a wide berth and tail us instead. If I knew, I'd have walked straight over the border to Gerry, instead of taking the roundabout way." Fiona paused, looking back over to the Nekolanders, "But if I did, I don't think some of them would have made it. I don't care for the Domesticated Cat-Ears, but I really wish that they had a chance. I'm sure there's some sort in there that's looking to raise hell amongst the South Landers. Tch."

"I never really considered the thought that White Fang out of everyone would find a soft spot for South Landers, especially the Nekolanders. Did something good happen?" Cerys chuckled, marking down the accounts on a bit of paper, before rotating the box over, "Five thousand silver, for three hundred and fifty refugees, made out to a Captain Fiona the White Fang."

The Far Northerner opened the box, looking over the coins to determine if it was roughly the right amount. Finding everything in order, she took out a handful of coins and threw them at the North Lands neko, before closing it, and signing her name on the contract assuring that everything was fine.

"A little extra for you, as a bonus, just between you and me." She smiled, scratching down an esoteric series of markings that passed as a signature, "No, I just told them some Far Northern children's stories. I was a little tipsy, so perhaps I might have told them more than I should have, but it's whatever. Just a little something to make them think about all that Imperial Shrine drivel."

"You should be careful, some of those stories get particularly bloodthirsty. South Landers don't have the same mettle as you Far Northerners, or even as us North Landers, y'know." Cerys noted, pocketing the change as she took the form, and placed it aside.

"I don't know. Maybe it'll do some good for them. They're far too domesticated for my liking. Some bloodthirst might do them fine!" Fiona smiled, picking up with the box with a considerable burden, before nodding to an approaching Ctani official behind Cerys, "Speaking of children's stories, remember the Hunter's Hound? Might want to hide those coins, because it looks like your master's coming for you.

"Huh?!"

"I jest! It won't come to anything! Later!"

[Comrade Commisar]

"I'd never hit a woman; but at this point, I'd be putting down a vegetable, yah senile old hag!"
"Shut it, you miserable little wretch, the only way any woman would ever touch you is with a taser!"

In a remote part of Lake Barbone, where the scenery was lush with tall pines and plentiful wildlife, and the tendrils of civilization had yet to completely reach, were a pair of petrol stations. The lifeblood of the several small isolated towns, countless miles from any proper grocers or restaurant, and connected only by winding dirt paths and sparse paved streets, it was these stations that provided food, supplies, and fuels to brave the great wilderness of Barboneia. Without them, the scattered townships in the area would have definitely perished long ago, and many wayward travelers would have been stranded without any form of refuge. Built several decades ago, the wood splintered, metal rusted, and barely held together with several layers of paint, the importance of these stations to the local communities could not go understated.

Yet, for all the good that they provided, their owners were an insufferable sort, immigrants to a barren land from a bygone age.

The older petrol station, and ironically, one that didn't actually sell gasoline, was owned by a North Lander - Elena McGraw. Hailing from the Commonwealth, she had moved to the shores of Lake Barbone a lifetime ago, 'looking for peace after the war', or so she would often comment to travelers who didn't ask. Paid for with actual silver, she had built a humble little station selling ethanol and kerosene, invaluable fuels in the wilderness, and had expanded into a small liquor store and restaurant over the years. It was a quaint little place, frequented in the day by tourists who'd need a few cigarettes, beers, and some fuel for a night on the lake, while at night, the restaurant was populated by locals - laughing, drinking, chatting loudly, all before inevitably passing out in some nearby ditch. It was one of the few places in the area with a mailing address in the cities, and served as a valuable community hub for the depressive and solidary locals who lived nearby. Initially a spry young woman with long blonde hair, the years had taken their toll; her hair turning grey, the wrinkles settling in, and her demeanor becoming as vicious as any rural Barbone with a few screws not set properly.

For a few years, McGraw held a virtual monopoly in the area. There was decent business. But decent business attracts decent competition, and it wasn't long before Miss McGraw had a competitor - another immigrant by the name of Jebediah Stilwell. Originally from Turtleshroom, Stilwell was an entrepreneurial sort; that is to say that he cut in where he could, took advantage of what he could, and had a decent eye for business opportunity - not unlike most Turtleshroomers. Motivated by cheap plentiful gasoline in his homeland, he definitely had a product, but what he needed were buyers. However, few people owned automobiles in Turtleshroom, the Commonwealth ran theirs on ethanol, Darussalam invested in public transport; by the time he had arrived in Barboneia, it was just in time to not run bankrupt from the venture. Using the last of his meager savings, he purchased a cheap plot of land in the wilderness, selling gasoline, but eventually expanded to a general convenience store as the years went on. Inexpensive gas, food, and tools that any game hunter, fisherman, who social outcast would want. 'The best service for the cheapest price', a slogan to recite before detailing the lengthy path to Barboneia to his customers, many of whom didn't ask.

Even though the two did not have conflicting business interests, McGraw not selling gasoline, and Stilwell who didn't sell alcohol, the two frequently came to hands. After a year or two of a somewhat amiable relationship, the pair of immigrants had gotten into an argument. It was petty, brought about by some passing comment, too insignificant to be remembered even a week later, but it was the spark to a petrol fire that never extinguished. Following that, McGraw would commonly accuse Stilwell of undercutting her to steal her costumers, while Stilwell would complain about her drunk patrons urinating and passing out near his shop. Travelers would arrive, hearing them openly slander the other, sometimes even arguing in public if they were outside at the same time. Locals both relished and grew irritated by their sporadic and often petty fights. Police were called when McGraw and Stilwell electrocuted each other with a cattle prod and taser, before they continued the fight in the same holding cell, until police had to separate them out.

"Come out here, you pathetic coward! I should've settled this in one easy go! I didn't think you'd be worth the bullet, but I'll spent the entire clip if I never have to see or hear your disgusting face again!"
"Are yah looking fer a fight, yah rotten old witch? Fine then! Let's settle this! Two shots an' I'll never have tah hear from yer sorry mouth ever again! Two shots more than yer worth, but if yah wanna be obliged!"

Tensions had even come to a point where McGraw, perhaps in an enraged drunken stupor, walked out of her shop with an old war rifle, shouting threats, and challenging Stilwell to a duel. The latter replying in kind, walking out with a double-barreled shotgun, and the two exchanging brief gunfire before being restrained by a number of bystanders. The buckshot and rifle rounds embedded in each other's walls cited throughout the decades as an example of the deranged behavior of the other, countless times, to travelers who didn't ask.

They were regarded like a bickering old couple, although they definitely did not let upon their outright hostility to each other, even in the toughest of hardships. One year, vandals smashed the front window of Stilwell's station, stealing gasoline and a few miscellaneous items. When the Turtleshroomer asked McGraw, who worked late in her restaurant, if she had seen who was responsible, she denied it, to which he accused her of vandalism and theft. McGraw simply rebutted that he should feel honored, if there was somebody who even felt that there was something worth stealing in his store. Another year, the North Lander woman's restaurant roof buckled and caved in from a heavy snowstorm, and when she asked for assistance, Stilwell was only too 'reasonable' to offer it at an increased markup. McGraw resolved to clean out her restaurant and rebuild the roof herself, constantly making obscene gestures at an overtly smug Stilwell.

Outside of business, their relationship wasn't much better. The rural community held numerous events, typically impromptu, as a way to stave off boredom associated with the wilderness. The more competitive events naturally maintained their vitriol, as McGraw was surprisingly capable at subjects like rally driving and lumber splitting, while Stilwell was fairly good at sport like ice fishing or gambling, and often came to butt heads at these times. But even in other settings, such as helping a neighbor rebuild after a sauna fire, or mourning a member of the community who had been struck by a drunk driver, the two often held a silent but evident hostility to one another. Holidays were an especially hostile time, as the Turtleshroomer naturally celebrated Christian observances, while the North Lander followed traditional festivities. There was no end to whether something should be called 'All Hallows Eve' or 'Harvest Festival', 'Christmas' or 'Winters Solstice', and even when it came time to offer gifts as the customary practice to these holidays, it was often sure to be something that the other would hate.

"Thanks for the... Pepsi-Cola... Mister Stilwell. What a... kind... and generous gift coming from you? I'm sure to love it... in my own spare time?"
"As to yer... North Lands Beer... Miss McGraw. What a fitting... and definitely wonderful gift. I'll... savor it... in muh own abode... eventually..."

Summer to autumn, winter to spring. Seasons become years; years become decades. The locals grew old; some passed, the youth grew up, and some left for the cities. Tourists came and went; each year the fashions changing, the cars changing, the jargon changing. The prime ministers changed too; it was Marx, Virtanen, and then Siimes for the longest time, before countless other names, Lahti, Savolainen getting impeached for corruption, and so forth. Despite filling up cars with the same fuel and serving the same meals, the stations were not immune to the passages of time. What was once relatively rare foreign goods were now commonplace, and what had once been majorly Barboneian aisles, now represented an international coalition of products. McGraw and Stilwell were not immune either, the North Lander had to cut her newly-found grey hair short, not having the stamina to maintain its luscious volume as she once could, while the Turtleshroomer had felt the stages of male-pattern baldness, and their eye prescription getting notably thicker and thicker. This did not stop their fighting; the gradually inflation of currency, increased international trade, and lower profit margins made their arguments more heated than ever. Yet, they had also grown old, and the energy to fight had waned to dry, embittered shouts across the street.

Some days, however, all they could do was fight. McGraw smoking from her restaurant patio, waiting for customers that'd never arrive, while Stilwell sat in his old rocking chair, similarly waiting to attend to cars that'd never come. As the years changed, so did the trends for travel and leisure. A rural outing on Lake Barbone; sitting on a boat with friends, beers in hand, partying the night away, simply wasn't as entertaining to modern generations. And even if it was, they wouldn't do it like previous generations had; preferring to drive out to the city, drinking in actual bars, eating in actual restaurants, before renting out prepared boats with all the amenities they could care for. The locals, who had always represented a constant, modest source of income, could now compare prices with every store in Barboneia and order from the lowest bidder. Even Stilwell, with his 'best service at the cheapest prices', couldn't compare to that. They didn't even have to mail the catalogue from McGraw's mailbox either! It was all digital, sent through the ethereal cables of the internet. In terms of business, the immigrants were like dinosaurs from a different time, no different to the primitive North Landers in the arctic wastes, although the Barbones didn't go out of their way to see them.

Customers didn't quite vanish overnight, but as the years continued to go by, and the number of tourists and locals became notably smaller, it became clear that this area of Lake Barbone could only support one station. Competition became much fiercer, the two immigrants became far more hostile, and their marketing became incessantly aggressive. Tourists who did arrive were recounted with slanderous stories of the past, tales of disdainful business practices, and promises of marginal discounts 'just for them' - every time unprompted, every time unasked for. McGraw flaunted her North Lander homeliness, while Stilwell brushed off his salesman charisma, and when that wasn't enough, some underhanded tactics were always an opinion. One day, Stilwell noticed his pump switch had come undone, and was unable to offer gasoline until it was repaired. Another day, McGraw had no stock for her restaurant, the fridge having lost power for the night, and the food inside went spoiled. Other times, it was less intuitive, and insults shouted across the street were sufficient to drive off potential customers. Posters for Järveläinen, Anttonen, and Lewis were constantly switched out during the period of their 'war' by the local political parties, highlighting the length and determination of their struggles. These stations were their livelihoods, decades of hard work, and they'd be damned if they'd be the ones left on the street, while the other kept the prize!

Then came the last year of conflict, posters for Wintersson fluttering off the windows of both stores. Winter had passed in time for the spring thaw, and the pair of immigrants had attempted to reignite their quarrels early, trying to muscle in on each other's customers before the summer tourism season. A fresh new coat of paint, a refined line of products, and a reimagined menu; this would be the year that they'd put the other out of business. The intent had been made as early as New Year's; with McGraw gifting Stilwell a Commonwealth alcohol stove, which he'd need to warm his food on the street, while Stilwell gave McGraw a portable water filter, that she'd have to use to drink from the lake when she was left to the wilderness. The two were smug, confident, and self-assured that they would put an end to decades of grievances. Yet, as the spring passed, and no tourists showed up, there was a bit of concern. The beginning months of summer were the same way, not a single soul in sight, save for the Turtleshroomer and North Lander. The locals had ceased coming over as well, perhaps too convenienced by mail order, or otherwise dissuaded from the two's longstanding feud. It was strange, it was unusual, but instead of pondering on why nobody had arrived, the two simply cast blame upon the other - passing the weeks with endless arguments.

"Look what yuh've done, yuh old witch! Now nobody's shone up! Probably gotten sick from yer awful cookin', now they're avoiding the place like plague!"
"It isn't my cooking, you senile coot! You keep going on about how cheap your gas and food are, and now they think this place is some decrepit tourist trap!"

By the last week of summer, the two stations had not seen a single customer throughout the year. They had fought throughout the season, complaining about the other to anyone who would listen, taking out their frustrations in rally racing and gambling, and were generally bitter through the passing months. But now, there was a certain somberness. The autumn and winter had traditionally few customers in comparison to the summer, and while the occasional hiker, mushroom hunter, or ice fisher might have swung by, it wasn't enough to operate on, much less split between two stations. The two had their savings, spring would come again, and then summer, but another year without customers would bring undoubtably bring ruin to both of them. It was easy enough to blame the other, but when nobody showed up to either store? They had been fighting for so long that they hadn't even begun to consider what would cause such a drought in people. They hadn't asked the locals still left. Nothing. They had simply assumed that people would come, as they always had.

"Yuh think the bombs went off?" Stilwell mused, having moved his rocking chair to McGraw's restaurant patio, having a smoke with lifetime rival, "Only thing I could figure would stop people from coming."

"Might be." McGraw replied, taking a drag of her cigarette as she leaned on the old, splintered railing of the building, "Could be a war out there, but even then, I'd figure you'd see refugees or something."

There was an extended silence, lasting several minutes, before Stilwell spoke again, "Yuh need gas fer yer generator? I'll even sell it to yuh fer a discount, seeing as how you have it runnin' and all, even now."

"I wouldn't take it even if you paid me to." McGraw coughed, choking moderately on the tobacco smoke before looking over to the Turtleshroom, "Hell, I don't have a generator in the restaurant."

The Turtleshroomer frowned at the North Lander, about to get into another longwinded argument, before suddenly getting out of his chair to look at the street. The North Lander looked at him with a disdainful grimace, turning to see what he was looking at, before opening her mouth in shock. In the distance was a beat-up car from the city, sounding as if its muffler fell off somewhere in the winding dirt paths, kicking up dirt and gravel in an awful cloud behind it. It drove between the two stations, coasting as the driver decided between the two, before seeing the two immigrants, and pulling off into McGraw's store. A young man, definitely from the city, turned off the car and stepped out, before immediately being swarmed by the pair.

"Howdy there, son, yuh run outta gas? Car died? Need a fill-up? Need a spare? Repairs? Old Stilwell's gotchu covered, with the best service at the cheapest price--"
"Greetings, young man, would you like a hot meal? Place to rest? Perhaps a drink or smoke to calm your nerves after all that time on the road? Miss McGraw has--"
"Shush, you old timer! Don't yuh see that this boy is an explorer, out there in the wilderness? What he needs is provisions to last him out in those dire straits, especially--"
"Shut it, geezer! You wouldn't understand the appeal of a good rest and home cook meal if it slapped you in the face, but I'm sure this fine young man knows that--"

"Actually, I was looking for directions to Pekka Kauppa. My satnav died." The young man interrupted, holding up a dead phone, "Would you two happen to know where that is?"

* * * * *

It turned out that while the two had issued a declaration of war in the previous winter, a third gas station was under construction by a local man named Pekka Junttila. Initially regarded as somewhat dimwitted, he did not even register on the radar of the immigrants, but had managed to corner his competition in a concise and decisive way. He had simply merged the specialties of the two stations, and placed them upon the main paved road through town. Unlike the North Lander, who built her shop on military pension, or the Turtleshroomer who spent his life savings on it; Junttila had taken out a loan, a relatively unheard concept to the immigrants, which is why he was able to establish himself so swiftly in comparison. The Barbone, who was drastically younger than the pair, was more receptive of changes to prices and regional economics, and combined with his strategic placement on the road guaranteeing business, was able to undersell the infamous Stilwell. McGraw had an edge in cooking, but the price and convenience in prepared meals had also come quite some way since her time, food no longer tasted like cardboard when rewarmed, and even the least skilled Barbone could scratch together something decent in this day and age. His shop was popular amongst tourist and travelers alike, and the locals, who were a newer generation that had come to resent the bickering of senior citizens, switched over without as much as a whimper.

Simply put, it was a complete victory in every meaning of the word.

Unable to compete, McGraw's restaurant and Stilwell's gas station closed the following spring. The derelict, splintered buildings that had stood for decades finally shuttered, letting nature reclaim them while 'for sale' signs with phone numbers were plastered in front of them. It was the end of the era, coming to a conclusion without any celebration, fanfare, or thunderous applause. Simply, a silence, the end of an entire lifetime feud between two aspiring businesses, a pair of immigrants trying to cut their way in a strange, foreign world.

That is not to say that either Elena McGraw or Jebediah Stilwell left peacefully into the night. Juntilla, who had grown up with the two bitter rivals, had not established his business to run out his competition. In fact, it had been entirely unintentional that his shop superseded theirs! He simply wanted to combine the best of both worlds, and in his endeavors, inadvertently managed to assume the entirety of both their demographics. For all his failings, the man had a consciousness, and the thought that the two would be forced to leave town with nothing but the clothes on their back kept him up at night. Before McGraw could depart back to the Commonwealth or Stilwell back to Turtleshroom, Juntilla met them with an offer, and while they were bitter and frustrated with the terms, they also did not want to turn back on their lives in Barboneia, reluctantly accepting the deal.

"Uh, I'm sorry, but I cannot sell yuh liquor as--"
"What's the matter, you miserable old fart? Can't ring up a few crates of beer? Do I have to run both the kitchen and the shop? Pathetic!"
"Shut it, yuh dirty, stinkin' hag! It don't take much to run a kitchen, especially when all yuh gotta do is stick everything that ain't beer in the oven!"

The two still argue back and forth to this day in Pekka Kauppa, unable to let the grievances of the past die, but with the virtues of age, it is a far more muted and subtle fighting. The charismatic salesman from all those decades ago has no control over price or stock anymore, but his skill in making a pitch is second to none, and the homely cook from the North Lands might not do much cooking, but she brings a certain atmosphere that cannot be expected of anyone but family themselves. No longer are they fighting over businesses, working themselves to the bone, but over employee of the month, attending to whatever leisurely shifts that they please, with a modest pay always being assured by the goodwill of Juntilla. While the locals have grown sick of the two, their incessant bickering has become something of a charm for tourists; sitting around as they watch the two immigrants fight like some old couple, telling their life stories after nobody asked, and occasionally coming to whatever hands their flail bodies can muster.

It is perhaps the happiest ending that two immigrants, bitterly fighting, arguing, warring over a lifetime can manage.

[Barboneia]

“You know you won’t be able to come back from this, right?”

The words hit Klaus like a sack of bricks. As if he didn’t already know he was basically signing his own death warrant. His eyes went over the myriad of documents, video files, and other bits of data that sat on his screen for possibly the millionth time. They contained everything; everything he could find over his year-long internship at Barboneian Petroleum. Tax write-offs. Private military contractors on their payroll. Massacres covered up. Sabotage ordered on corporate rivals. Assassinations. It would be the corruption scandal of the year. There was no way the company would be able to recover from this… Right?

He wasn’t even releasing them to be paid or anything. He just knew it was the right thing to do. Barboneian Petroleum was responsible for hundreds of deaths, and ruined the lives of thousands more. He knew he had to do something. And he had finally found out exactly how to do so. This went even deeper than the GlaxoSmithKline whistleblowing in the United States, or the myriad of corruption charges levied against prominent business leaders and politicians following Prime Minister Savolainen’s impeachment back in ‘99.

The thing is, was it worth his own life?

“The company will know the instant this sends who was responsible. And they’ll want you dead. You’ll have to disappear, put your old life behind you… And you can’t come back. Ever.” The voice on the other end of the phone let out a sigh. “I don’t want you to become a martyr, Klaus. You’re doing a good thing here… A great thing, even. But is it worth your life? At least this way, you’ll have a pretty damned good chance of surviving.” Klaus didn’t know the answer to that. He gulped.

“...I guess you’re right. I should… Get to Gazara first. Then we can meet up, I can upload the... Stuff, and I can disappear. We can disappear.” “Exactly. Until then… Just keep yourself safe, Klaus. We’ll be together soon enough.” The phone clicked. Klaus stared at his computer screen for a bit, then finally closed it, pulling out a USB stick filled with Barboneian Petroleum’s secrets. He turned and looked out the window at the vast Pääkaupunki landscape that stretched for miles from his meager apartment. He was deep in thought.

Is this really such a good idea?

Could he really get away with it?

- - -

Pääkaupunki in mid-July was bustling with activity of all kinds. Along the waterfront, families and tourists walked the paths, while business people enjoyed their lunch breaks out of the sterile offices and in what at least was a facsimile of nature in the densely urban south. On a secluded bench across the water from the massive towers of the Central Business District sat a lone woman in a smart business suit. She was a North Lander, slender built, nearly seven feet tall, a stern expression on her face as she stared across the water, primarily at the massive, spiral shaped Barboneian Petroleum headquarters building. Soon enough, however, she was joined by a companion; a lanky, middle aged man in a suit who didn’t look out of place among the million other salarymen in the city. He carried a black leather suitcase with him, and he held it tightly against his chest as he sat down next to the North Lander. He cleared his throat.

“We have a new proposition for you. It’s a bit… Different than usual.” The North Lander tilted her head. “Different how?” The man coughed, and opened his suitcase. “It’s one of our own employees. Not a corporate rival or anything. It’s… Well…” He handed her a picture of a young blonde male, clean shaven, smiling brightly, along with a slim employee file labeled “Klaus Soini”. “We’ve had whistleblowers in the past, of course. Typical stuff. Mismanaged funds, sexual harassment, stuff that’s easily settled out of court with a fat check. But this…” He sighed. “I don’t know how he’s done it, but this kid… He’s got everything. The Itainenjoki Massacre. Dealings with PMCs and mercenary captains in the North Lands. The Kanerva files.” The man rubbed his forehead for a second. “Do I need to go on?”

The North Lander flipped through the folder. It was wholly unremarkable. Klaus graduated from Oso Technical High School with a 3.6 GPA. He went on to receive a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from the University of Aberdeen, with full honors in 2019. His paid internship with Barboneian Petroleum as a server maintainer began the same year, and he appeared to remain under the radar the entire time. In the 13 months he had been with the company, he had received no verbal reprimands, or recommendations. He did his job and that was it. Or so it seemed.

“We can’t handle this, as you can see. If this gets out, Barboneian Petroleum will be out of hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly billions. We can only assume he is planning on leaving the country before leaking the data online. I suppose to maximize his chances of getting away with it. Now, if you are able to… Liquidate this problem, we would be able to compensate you with approximately 10 million Dollari in the cryptocurrency of your choice. That seems reasonable to me. What do you think?”

The North Lander sat the folder down in her lap, and went back to staring across the water. Her stern expression had changed to one of… Concern. “...He’s only 20,” she said. The man raised an eyebrow. “...So? What does that have to do with anything?” “He’s young. He has his whole life in front of him. Who am I to take that from him?”

The man looked incredulous. “Seriously? You’ve killed, what, hundreds of people? Security guards? Cops? Soldiers? All of a sudden you’re worried about some stupid kid who stuck his nose where it didn’t belong? THAT’S where you draw the line?” The North Lander turned to look at him. Though she was wearing opaque glasses, he could tell she was glaring at him. “Everyone I’ve killed… They’ve had it coming. Their deaths were justified. I avoided collateral when possible. This is different. Yes, this young man is inconveniencing you, but he doesn’t deserve to die.”

“Deserve?!” The man was on the verge of yelling now. “That’s none of your goddamn concern whether he ‘deserves’ this or not. You’re a fucking assassin. All of a sudden you’re going to start talking about some bullshit code, like this is a movie or something?” She stood up. “I don’t have a code,” she said. “I just kill people who have it coming. This boy… Well, I can’t do that. Not this time.” She turned to walk away.

“NO!” the man shouted, jumping off the bench. His face was bright red. “You CAN’T NOT accept it. You know why? That punk has everything about YOU in his little WikiLeaks jerkfest, too.” The woman stopped. She slowly turned to look back at the man. “You don’t mean…” Oh, I fucking mean, Franciszka. He has EVERYTHING. He has every contract we’ve ever given to you, going all the way back to the 90s. Hell, he has some of your work before you started with us, too. Those mob hits, your tenures abroad in your homeland and in Hiluxia, and the Commonwealth, and Gerry… It wouldn’t take Sherlock fucking Holmes to tie you to everything.” The man began to grin. He knew he had her exactly where he wanted her. “You don’t have a choice, Franciszka. You HAVE to kill him. Or else you’re coming down with us. The government will be on you before your heels hit the ground. That’s not even considering everyone else you’ve fucked over.”

For possibly the first time in her life, Franciszka Zniszczyca was in shock. If what the Barboneian Petroleum representative said was true, her entire history would finally come back to destroy her. She made sure she was always meticulous with her business, she never left fingerprints or shell casings when possible, she kept as small a financial footprint as possible… It would all be for naught. Undone by typical corporate bureaucracy and recordkeeping. She let out a deep breath.

“I’ll do it,” she said.

The man’s sinister grin slowly transformed into a much more cheerful one.

“Excellent! I’m glad I was able to persuade you to see reason.”

“But…”

The man’s grin faltered.

“...I want out. After I do this, I’m done with your corporation. I won’t accept any more contracts from you. Is that acceptable?”

The man stared for a few seconds, looking as though he were about to start shouting again, his eyes twitching, before calming down and finally nodding.

“...If that’s what it takes? Done.” He picked up his suitcase, brushing himself off. “It’ll be a shame to lose you as an asset. But this whole whistleblowing affair... “ He sighed. “...We all have to know when to fold them, I suppose, right?”

He finally walked away, pulling out a cellphone as he did, no doubt to inform his corporate overlords of her decision. Franciszka sat back down on the bench, staring at the photograph of Klaus.

- - -

Pääkaupunki Station was one of the largest railway stations in Northern Valkia. Serving hundreds of thousands of Valkians every day, its lines webbed all across the region with service traveling north to Vespero and then Talecton, eastward to join the metropoles of Kent and Huxley and Banff, west towards the Commonwealth, and south along the shores of the Pitka River to the Black Coast of Darussalam. In addition to the numerous platforms on the surface and its extensive shopping area and bus port, its underground parking lot could comfortably hold over 15,000 vehicles in both short term and long term parking, and was considered the bane of many motorists, with its twisting, seemingly endless stretches of concrete eventually emerging into the shining lights of the Central Business District.

Klaus was surprised, however, to see that Section D was mostly empty today as he pulled his Ältai into a spot, the “long term parking” card on the windshield placed into view prominently. Other than a few sedans and hatchbacks, an SUV or two, and a work van from the Barboneian State Railway, there were no other vehicles or obvious signs of life. Klaus breathed a sigh of relief; he was typically anxious around people anyways, but when you’ve just made enemies with one of the largest corporations in the country, that anxiety is even higher. He twirled the USB between his fingers absentmindedly.

Klaus began to proceed towards the elevators that led to the platforms above when the sharp beep of a car’s doors locking could be heard. He spun around, startled, but he saw no movement or any other activity throughout the parking lot. Though he could’ve sworn he saw the lights on an SUV flash… A train rolled through the station overhead, shaking the very foundation of the building and nearly giving Klaus a heart attack.

“C’mon Klaus…” He whispered to himself, nervously looking around as he stepped into an elevator. “You’re almost home free.” The elevator swiftly rose towards the station, and Klaus felt as though his heart was about to beat out of his chest. “Just a quick stop in Brenton, and then onwards to Gazara…”

The platform was swarming with commuters of all kinds this late in the afternoon. Travelers and tourists, those who work in the suburbs taking express trains back home, Darussalami citizens who work in Pääkaupunki who had to only sit through about an hour on the inter-border line to return to the Mesovalkian labyrinths. Huge glass ceilings let in both the surrounding skyscrapers slowly blinking on the lights in their windows and the falling sun, casting various shades of oranges and yellows across the skin and clothing of those standing, waiting for their trains to arrive. On a far end of the platform, towards a line of restaurants and commodity shops like newspaper stands and convenience stores stood two police officers, both wielding submachine guns and staring uneasily at the crowd. Their presence both comforted and worried Klaus; were they expecting a terrorist attack? When was the last time there even was one in the country? A few border posts had been bombed by North Lander insurgents back in April, but that was up north near Grestin… Could it be the Qeslarians? Or even Darussalami sleeper agents?

Klaus’ head was spinning with paranoia, and he placed a hand against his forehead, breathing heavily. Why is he thinking all of this right now? When did he suddenly start caring about terrorism of all things? Is he just so nervous…?

Please stand clear of the platform. Now arriving at 6:34 PM, BST: Barboneian State Railway number 33, southbound towards: Brenton.

Finally! He could sit down on the train, think things over a bit, clear his head, maybe listen to some music… Things were starting to look up a bit. At least he could get off of the platform and put some of his unease to rest. Along with a few dozen others stepping past those getting off the train, Klaus and his passengers spread throughout the train’s four cars, getting comfortable for the ride. Even after Brenton, they still had a stop or two, but soon, he would be in Darussalam. And he could begin his new life.

Unbeknownst to Klaus, another passenger stepped onto the train at the last minute. A tall figure wearing glasses and a business suit.

A North Lander.

- - -

Depending on who you ask, Southern Barboneia was either a corrupt, tangled morass of overcrowding and the worst excesses of laissez-faire capitalism mingling with the inefficiencies of the Nordic model, or a culturally and ethnically diverse enclave of artists, entrepreneurs, and other free thinkers that helped shape and cement Barboneia as the economic and cultural powerhouse in Valkia it is today.

To Klaus, however, Southern Barboneia was simply beautiful. Beyond the city skylines lay miles upon miles of roads, train tracks, suburbs, open fields, power lines crossing over meadows and lakes, parkland filled with people enjoying the evening as street lights flickered on and people came home from work to relax with their families. It all flew by in blur as the train cut through the landscape, over bridges, along waterways and canals, under streets and walking paths. At Brenton, a few of the passengers got off, then at Mercer, a few more, then a few more… Soon, the train would arrive at Winslow, and from there, Gazara.

Klaus was happy. He was almost done. For real this time. And would get away with it! He almost couldn’t believe it. All he had to do was upload the data when he got to Darussalam and he would be home free, free to pursue a new life with his lover, free to do whatever he wanted, where he could disappear into the Darussalami sprawl and be forgotten back home.

He was free.

Free.

As Klaus stared out at the fast-moving, darkening landscape, idly toying with the USB stick in his hand. the door to the car slid open. Everyone else who had been in the car with him had gotten off by this time, so he was a bit surprised. He looked up, and at the end of his seat, standing in the aisle, was a tall woman, a North Lander in a business suit with glasses on. She slowly reached into her suit jacket. “Is this seat taken?” she asked, almost deadpan.

Klaus’ eyes widened.
- - -

“Sorry folks. We’re having some issues with lighting in the rear car, it looks like. I’m going to note it down before we depart over the border, but it shouldn’t take long. Just sit tight, alright?”

Antero Lehtonen, a conductor with Barboneian State Railway for over twenty years, reassured the passengers with a calm voice, who mostly nodded and shrugged in response. What was a little longer of a wait, they thought? Antero made his way through the cars, saying the same thing in each one, until he reached the last one. “Excuse me, but it seems like we’re having some lighting issues in this car. I just need to- Oh, shit!”

Antero gaped as he saw, slumped against a window in one of the rear seats, the body of a young man, two gunshot wounds to the forehead. Blood was splattered against the back of the seat and on the window, and the man had an expression of shock on his face. One of his hands was still clenched as though he had been holding something.

Antero had been a conductor for over twenty years. He had seen the aftermath of drunken brawls, unfortunate animals who had wandered onto the track, even a few suicides… But nothing could have prepared him for this.

- - -

Franciszka walked along the road, not far from Winslow Central Station, watching as a police car and an ambulance sped by, sirens blaring. Against her ear was her phone. She listened intently, ears twitching, before hanging up. Lights continued to slowly flicker on throughout Winslow as she walked, passing stores closing up, busy restaurants and bars, couples and other individuals walking by, and the occasional car or bike speeding along. She fingered the USB idly in her pocket.

She let out a sigh.

[TURTLESHROOM II]

{ OOC: Green text indicates words spoken in Russian. }

{ OOC: Post rewritten because I made a critical research failure in logistics. }

JANUARY 3RD, DRY SEASON, 2021 AD
SOME VILLAGE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE


The moon was black and a sandstorm howled. The crisp, gusting wind brought the night chills of the Dry Dry Desert shivering on sheltered awning of the station, the sand making eyes water and skin itch.

The unmistakable horn of a steam engine and the thundering of antiquated wheels clacked into the modern, but homely, clapboard station in some far-flung desert hamlet. Except, normally the steam engines didn't run on this route. It was halfway between Litlin and Nuekuler. Only diesel engines ran routes this busy, and this town was a commuter's oasis.

Kssshhhhhhhhhhpssssssssssss!

Yet, here she was, pulling dimly lit passenger cars reserved for the steerage (economy) packages. The train shot out steam as her archaic machinations ground to a halt. Only one light was working on this platform, a flourescent bulb that barely clung to life, flickering a beam downwards, the conical light casting down the only respite from the dark.

A whip was cracked and the doors to the lines of the passenger cars were thrown open. Each passenger car was normally used for budget steerage (what TS trains called "economy") seating. These cars looked more like subway cars than long-distance train cars, but when you pay the lowest price, you get the lowest commute. Sometimes this bargain travel was used as prison transport, and shackles and fencing would separate convicts while the doors were chained shut. None of this was necessary for tonight's trip, although to the passengers, while these passenger cars were the only comfortable part of the ride, the shackles were more on their minds.

Each car was air conditioned by day and heated by night, with bare metal walls illuminated by flourescent lights in the center aisle. Two aisles of black, plastic seats with folding armrests and padded upholstery were narrowly squeezed at enough space to give a seven-foot-two TurtleShroomer enough leg room to avoid cramps. This gave some breathing room for the passengers, normally standing at no more than six feet. The seat in front of them had a folding tray for the seat behind it, which could be used to hold books, utensils, and drinks in the built in cupholder-bottle-opener-combination to the top-right of the dish.

Animalistic noises were intermixed with whispers and sobs. Potato chips, water bottles, spoons and forks, rice bowls, and decades-old MRE cans were now being scooped out. Numerous assortments of potted mean and jerkey filled out most of the floor. It was loaded into trash cans and fresh sawdust was being laid. The passengers were not afforded anything but spoons and forks. They couldn't be trusted with knives.

The came two by two, clinging to each other, some carrying offspring. They bore no chains, but in the dim lights, their gloomy faces matched any convict. In the single bulb's flickering gleam, bright lights would shine off the limited brightness, each pair revealing their biological origins every time they blinked. The lenses of thick glasses were also reflecting light, showing eyes with a colder expression. Watching them.

They came three by three. Guardsmen baring Kalishnikovs, civilian municipal policemen from cash-strapped hamlets with Mosin Nagents, and the Railroad Police, red lanterns in their left hand and pistols in their right. It was with these lanterns that the eerie red glow would illuminate the silent feet of the passengers. They were led out of the station and into a field that was fenced.
The distant braying of camels and the dim fences indicated they had no real palace to run.

"AH'IGHT HAND LICKERS! LISTEN UP!"

The whispers ceased and the bleary cat boys and cat girls paid attention. A TurtleShroomer White officer in ceremonial dress, this one clearly having a higher rank judgding by gold bar on his staff and helmet, was shouting through a megaphone. Floodlights kicked on and the chimeras eyes narrowed to slits as they squinted at the sudden change of light. He was sitting on a beautiful Bactrian camel, its long eyelashes blinking as it quietly watched the mutants, as if judging them.

"This is the second bathroom stop of the night and the last until morning. You each have ten minutes maximum to use the stall, after which you will move over to that platform over yonder."

He gestured to a distant platform, where a female tortoise, also wearing ceremonial dress, turned to look at the chimeras. A row of soldiers of different species, most definitely in their ordinary khaki fatigues and baring no expression, were between the two.

"When you get there, you will be given your bottle of watuh, one each and two for hand lickers under thirteen. You will also each be given a snack bag of potato chips, which will tide you over until we stop for brack-fust in the mornin'. Hand licker breeders, your spawn will be given tonight's bottle of baby form-u-ler as needed. It will tide y'all until mornin'."

The TurtleShroomer then turned his camel to face the opposite direction, where he pointed to the field behind him.

"There are fifty port-o-potties out here. Twenty for boy hand lickers and twenty for the girls on each side, two columns for each genduh on the left n' right. Look at the numbuh marked on your palm. It should be there if you y'all weren't stupid enough to lick it."

He absentmindedly twirled the permanent marker in his hand as the chimeras obliged.

"Even numbered males and odd-numbered females to the left. Odd-numbered males and even-numbered females to the right. Females, if you have any spawn or key-ids, they go with you."

It was cold and the chimeras were dressed in their daytime clothes, matching the time of day they were made to leave; the males' Tolstoy shirts and modern cargo short pants were for hot weather and hard labor, not cool nights. Some wore desert robes over them, which didn't really help any of the cold. Varying fashions of shoes were worn on their feet. Some of the better off chimeras had workboots and their teenage kids of both sexes wore the common fads of the day: Geta sandals, some with Tori socks and others without. The poor chimeras wore loafer shoes and tennis shoes with patchwork and duct tape holding the leather together.

All of these cats had been dressed for travel, wearing clothes for the trip. What would normally take several days at most, of leisurely stops and time was a two day, red-eye route bound straight to Nekoland. There were four hundred chimeras on this train. The notice had come two weeks prior, and they had already shifted. Their families had lost the Lottery. It was bound to happen eventually.

These chimeras were bound for Nekoland. A black lanyard hung around their necks, each with a black card baring a lengthy number, their surname, and other basic details denoting things such as their dependents. On their palms, a permanent marker identified family units. This was the second night, with them arriving in Nekoland by morning. They had not bathed since the travel began and their clothes, hair, and fur were covered in sand. The veils tied over their heads did nothing to free any of the sand from their ears.

They shuffled quietly, heads down, tail in their pants or under their dresses and robes, ear slicked back and veiled. They went into the port-o-potties and out. Every ten minutes, a whip was cracked. Guardsmen would check the port-o-potties and then gesture each one on. It would take one hundred minutes to repeat this process ten times.

It seemed that one of the chimeras wasn't moving towards the toilets or to the next checkpoint.

Wa-CRACK!

"Rrreeer!"

The whip had cracked about one yard from Sergei's ears, the sharp sting of the sound waves nearly making him jump out of his skin. He felt the fur on his tail standing straight up. Until now,
his tongue was out out.

This lanky chimera was male, thin and likely around fiften or sixteen, with scruffy blond hair on his head, ears, and tail, and a scattering of hair on his thin chest. He wore a pair of ankle-length slack pants, in a light khaki color, himself wearing trendy Geta sandals and tori socks; he was thankful he didn't go without socks.

Sergei had removed his Tolstoy shirt and now faced the soldier on the camel while shirtless, the muscular outline of his torso hinting at the backbreaking labor he had performed over the years. He had been licking himself clean of a large clump of sand on his chest, as it was too much to simply brush off under his shirt. He knew. He had tried since he got out of the car, and no one would let him clean it off.

The soldier was illuminated from behind by the floodlights. Although most of his face was obscured by the shadows, the chimera knew that he bore a look that matched his camel's long face, one mixed with disgust and a crinkled nose.

Sergei had seen it a million times.

"Were you a-slobberin' yourself again, you little freak? What's yer name?"

Sergei stuttered in a Russian accent.

"S-Sergei, sir. Sergei Floppamanov, sir..."

"-and your numbuh?"

Sergei checked his palm. His blood ran cold. He had licked the number off. The human reached from the camel and grabbed Sergei's wrist.

"Well, it looks like another hand licker was too stupid to get what a permanent marker does. You know what that means, don'cha, kit?"

Sergei nervously shook his head as he eyed the whip of the TurtleShroomer. He watched as he pushed up his cokebottle glasses up his nose. In the floodlights, the silouhetted glasses flashed white, and Sergei began to shake. He slowly reached for the whip, rolled up. Sergei's slit eyes widened and he felt his ears slick back under his veil. Sergei knew the TurtleShroomer was savoring this.

Then the TurtleShroom abrubtly tossed his whip behind his camel and he quickly dismounted.



SQUIRT

"No."

SQUIRT

"Dude, st-sto-"

"No. Every word out of your tuna breath pie hole will end in SIR. You got that?"

"Y-ees si-"

SQUIRT

"NYAH!"

"Bad."

Sergei clenched his fists and lowered his head as he fought back tears. He would hiss, but that would get him in a lot more trouble for "intimidation".

SQUIRT

"Bad hand licker. No."

He was drenched and the sandstorm was covering him in more sand. Sergei hated getting wet. He hated sandstorms. Sand was coarse, rough, irritating, and it got everywhere. Sergei hated sand.

-and he hated this man. He kept squirting Sergei.

Sergei wanted to lick the water off so badly. To lick the sand off. To lick his hand and rub his face, just for some sweet relief. He fought back every urge he had, knowing the TurtleShroomer was trying to get him to lick himself or at least do that fast shaking thing. The TurtleShroomer was looking to make fun of him. Sergei resolved that wouldn't be a minstrel monkey for this degenerate.

Therefore, he endured it, even if he had to be covered in sand.

The TurtleShroomer, after having his way with the squirt bottle, took a barcode scanner from his belt and scanned the lanyard that Sergei had laid with his Tolstoy shirt. Sergei's name came up along with the names of his parents. The TurtleShroomer grabbed Sergei by the wrist and yanked him so hard that his arm stretched. He took the permanent marker and wrote the number six on his palm, letting go of him.

"Oh, since you keep losin' that there number. Come closer, hand licker."

Sergei sheeplishly approached the TurtleShroomer, who chuckled to himself. Lifting up his bangs off his forehead, the TurtleShroomer shoved the permanent marker onto Sergei's forehead, his other hand clasping one of his ears through the veil. Yanking hard, he applied as much pressure he could as he slowly made the looping motion to affix the number six on his forehead. Then he kept writi-

Wait, what?

"There you go. See you later, Goober. Your family's that way."

"Female dog F-word in Russian*! That rat illegitimate child* wrote Goober on my face!"

Sergei didn't actually use those nice euphamisms. He clenched his fists as he walked off, humiliated and caked in sand. Sergei cursed the TurtleShroomers for relocating him, he cursed them for paying seventy-five percent of what his family's land was worth, he cursed them for Nekoland, and most of all, ohhh how he cursed them for declawing his fingertips when he was born.

"Oh, and Goober! Heh heh, think fast!"

Sergei's cat ears swivilled under his veil, the sharp whoosh different from the howling sandstorm. Without stopping his walk, Sergei caught the full water bottle in his hand without turning his head. The TurtleShroomer, who meant to throw it over Sergei's head and make him have to stop to get it, didn't say anything else. It was Sergei's turn to smile.

[The Ctan]

I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.

All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

All-Civilization Press, Religious Texts Archive
Scriptures - Cult of the Crucified God / Christianity - Albian Protestantism - Bible - ‘King James’ Translation - Ecclesiastes 3:17-21

High above the deserts of Turtleshroom, a satellite fell through its orbit, plunging eternally in a circle around the Earth. It was three metres long, and on its side a symbol of a striking viper showed its creators, the Necrontyr Empire’s ‘Imperial Security Agency.’ The agency no longer existed, but the satellite’s fundamental technology was still fit for purpose so it had never been replaced.

Stories often told the gullible of how a spy satellite could read a newspaper headline from orbit. For most terran cultures this was beyond them, but the Great Civilization this was true, and then some.

The satellite did not watch only the deserts. It and its siblings circled the Earth and watched many things. They watched the places in the realm of Alduin the World Eater where men were stripped of their souls for fuel, and they watched the happy realms of beastlings and men and dragons and more besides as they passed overhead. When their orbits took them to Valkia they watched the North Lands, they saw the dance of predator and pray across the south. They watched the spires and bustling markets of the Abode of Peace, and the sites in its deserts from which no man returned unchanged.

But they did watch Turtleshroom too.

They saw the trains, they saw the rest stops. They saw the whips and they saw the truncheons.

They watched and they reported to their new masters, the Insight Instrumentality, one of the several clandestine intelligence agencies of the risen Great Civilization.

To Cletus Breeki, Sheriff’s Deputy, Felix Township

We saw you with that whip.

We will continue to watch you.

Remember the Dark Harvest? We do.

There were slave trains and whips there too.

Remember how the people who thought they would get away with it were hanged by the Turtleshroom government to try and appease our wrath?

We have our eyes on you, we know your name, we know where you live.

The rope may not be the worst thing you have to fear. We do not respect the sovereignty of ‘nations’ that perform genocide, ethnic cleansing, or who place people in ghettos.

In Vorradia when we liberated their labour camps, we put the guards into the industrial machines and left the machines running until the guards were mangled and their ruined bodies died.

In New Freedomstan when we liberated their gulags, we told the inmates to point out those few guards who showed compassion to them. They were spared. The rest were eaten alive by gryphons.

Today our troops land in the Dragon States, where they have taken away the guards of soul-harvest abattoirs to the far world of Dhol, where they shall know only want and privation and live as beasts to be hunted in the ancient rites of the Novokh, the comfort of the Flayed Ones and the satiation of those whose nature is to devour the living flesh of sapients and who must restrain themselves to those who have earned such a fate.

Like you.

Tomorrow it may be your turn, if this continues. Your badge will not shield you. All of those men had badges.

In our prisoner of war camps still are those few thousands who were retained after the Dark Harvest, and whom we have never released. You have been paired with one of them, and they have been given your details. Every time we see you snap the whip, or it is reported to us, we will strike them with it. Every time you strike one of your captives with the whip, your partner will be lashed three times. Should you wound the prisoners, your partner will be served more harshly. Should you kill, your partner’s life is forfeit.

Some of your companions have been given a letter that invites them to report more moral outrages committed by you and your comrades to us. You have not been chosen to be a data cooperator, and will earn no special consideration. If your people - even people you have not met - continue to escalate this oppression, you will be sought for punishment. Only the mercy of your victims would allow you to be spared.

Some of your comrades have been sent letters, like you. Some have not, and some will likely cooperate with us. Tell your comrades, show this letter to your superiors, it will not matter, you are all being watched.

Should you be rare enough to be insensible to fear, consider the faith your people profess, and the words of wisdom in your scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:17-21. The claim that you presume that you are ensouled and that others are not is vanity, the oppressions you inflict are unjust.

You will be called out to another train soon, I’m sure. Pick up your whip. Think of all you have been told when you carry it.

We will see you there.

Geoffrey ita Xonthar
Commissioner of Turtleshroomian Affairs
Great Civilization Diplomatic Service

An Open Letter to the Kings of Turtleshroom,

You have again turned to oppression. You have never let oppression leave your hearts.

We know why you love to oppress so much. Your people desire to feel that they are better and more deserving than others, no matter how wretched or ‘humble’ they are they can look down on their neighbour and see that his misery is worse.

You oppress beastlings for the simple nature of their being, because you are afraid of them and you feel entitled to supremacy, which you feel must be exercised in cruelty. We know this because we were once as you are now, and our crimes were beyond easy counting.

We have renounced oppression, and we stand for the oppressed in penance of the countless wrongs we have done. You were given the chance to renounce oppression, but you have instead chosen a new victim in the false belief that we would find your deeds.

Your scripture says “go and sin no more.” Once more you are hypocrites. Once more you have fallen short of the standards of civilised nations, in Valkia and in the wider world.

I hear now your whataboutist pleas, you need not reply with them, that there are worse than you, that you are ‘only’ deporting people to a ghetto, that this time, you are not inflicting genocide. That your religious expression justifies the persecution of people you believe are unclean.

You were spared the full measure of justice in the Dark Harvest campaign, and now you have chosen a new minority to repress.

By the authority granted to us in the Treaty of Gerry we will be altering the formulation and patrol routes of our Treaty Compliance Navigators, colloquially known as the ‘Death Squads.’ They will now visit Nekoland, and the transports to Nekoland, and other Neko areas within your nation. They will now be composed of necrons from my command as well as private contractors.

They will inspect the Nekoland trains for sapient equines.
They will inspect Nekoland for sapient equines.
They will inspect other Neko ghettos for sapient equines.
They will inspect any other place we see fit for sapient equines.

Who knows where you might be hiding sapient equines? Surely in these places of privation and want you have created.

While they are present they may, in passing, allow Nekos to become aware that they have the inalienable right to travel where they wish. Our Treaty Compliance Navigators may at times travel with additional transport available, such as may allow nekos to leave with them if they please, for instance the Monoliths under my command integrate a Gate of Eternity, a long range teleportation portal. They may also tell them of lands such as Hiluxia, Catedonia, Miauku and many others where Nekos rule, or of Crystal Spires, of Menelmacar and our own lands where the form of a being’s birth is not judged.

You Turtleshroomers will of course, object, and protest, that this is overreach and that Nekos are not protected by the Treaty of Gerry, and that these inspections are compliant with the letter of the treaty but not its intent. You who named Gerry for your own practices of maliciously abusing the legal text will only deepen your hypocrisy by these objections, but you may, if you wish, grieve against this to the full council of the Treaty of Gerry, viz. the representatives of Menelmacar and the Greater Pony Herd alongside ourselves. We will above by any decision entered into by the full council.

Should we find evidence of genocide to prevent the Nekos freely travelling from your land, then we will bring you - and by this I mean you the kings personally - and those who serve you, to account as we have always done since Mephet’ran issued the Proclamation of Ruti-Asar and we followed him to strive against oppression and cruelty wherever it may be found.

I trust our meaning is clear,
Cyash ita Thurasid
Great Civilization Conflict Service

[The Incorporation and Gerry]

‘This is a sentencing hearing Mr Zeal,’ Ekaterina ita Thurasid said, looking down from the bench. ‘This isn’t the time for establishing guilt, and the appeals tribunal has already declined your case. If you interrupt again you will be silenced.’

The accused, Bartholomew Zeal, leaned against the defendant’s table, ‘I will never recognize your kangaroo court of immoral, ungodly un-’ Ekaterina pressed a button on the side of the judge’s table, and enclosed the accused in a field of sound nullification, set so that he could scream himself hoarse, but even he wouldn’t hear himself.

‘For the benefit of the record, you have been found guilty of the crime of harassment, in the form of continuing to pursue your son in violation of an injunction issued by the Gerry family court. Intent counts for much in our law, and the fact that you did so because of your son’s sexuality means that this crime’s punishment is substantially increased by aggravating factors, due to the offence’s motivation being based on the hostility you hold toward your son’s presumed sexual orientation.

The defendant had stopped protesting now, and Ekaterina twitched her orange ears at him, the Neko was always amused by the hostility that the Southlands had when they saw her in the judge’s seat. ‘Because of this, I determine that you are to be awarded sixteen penalty units. Furthermore, because your crime was intended to maximize public disturbance in the city of Gerry, the law allows for penalties to be of specified mode; you will be taken to a public excruciation unit in the city and thereby given sixteen minutes of a medically described dosage. Furthermore, due to your prior flagrant disregard for the law, you will be assigned a custodial scarab, which will enforce the terms of the injunction awarded against you by following you whenever you leave your residence and administering ad-hoc physically dissuasive shocks should you breach the terms of your injunction, or commit any other obvious violent act. I hope not to see you back here, Mr Zeal.’

[Darussalam]

“At last, made perfect in reality,
You will be gone, and only God will be.”
-Farid ad-Din Attar, Parliament of Birds

It is said that some Nazarene sects eschew the usage of literal languages and prefer to communicate through abstract symbols, for they believe that languages are subjected to Babylonian corruption that holds the Holy Spirit fettered in their grammatical bonds. One Joachim of Fiore prophesied the coming of a Third Age, the aeon of the Holy Spirit, where literal and textual understanding are to be abolished in favor of primal heavenly language of visionary insights which names all things according to their true essence. Likewise, mystics of our faith abhor words and sentences, and instead worship unbound letters and numbers with such great reverence. These dogmas aside, I do think many people underestimate how much words obscure and corrupt as much as they reveal. In adept hands truths can be weaved into half-lies, while if spoken by fools they’re like faint shadows cast on walls of a cave, merely vague shapes of what reality entails.

I personally cannot conceive that there are words that can aptly reveal, rather than corrupt or obscure, what I am to Iskandar, and who he is for me.

I will be the first to note the irony of this situation, for if nothing else I am what people might call as his interpreter, the one that renders him into legibility. Iskandar is prodigious in his visions and dreams, more so than even any other Ma’adids. My work is to sit on his bedside as he feverishly vomits arcane words of prophecy, and faithfully pen down cryptic messages left by heavens through smeared probabilities and wave functions detectable only through his hyper-optimized pareidolic insight. These umbral revelations leak down from the obsidian unconscious to his perception in manners unintelligible to anyone but me, for entanglements between both of our lives have grown so intricate that our thoughts have irreparably infected each other in the latent space—in other words, I have known him much longer than anyone else, and know about him more than anyone else, being the only boy that accompanied his loneliness within the Garden of Abode for much of his life. And so my task is to put these visions of him into something more comprehensible for nearbaselines who craved so badly for the divinations of the Perfect Being. Sometimes this takes an instant, ending immediately as he returns from his trance. Other times it might take days, weeks, or even months, as I probe through vast Akashic records, tap databases inaccessible for all but a handful of most exalted mystics, or even journey through my own prophetic dreams for a crumb of discernment of his oracular ramblings.

And yet it’s because of this work I know better that even truthful words conceal lies, if unintentionally. After all, there’s not much you can do in reducing predictive chaos equations to describe it to an infant, and transcribing a rapture is magnitudes more difficult than that. It is written in the scripture that if the entire ocean in this world were ink for writing the words of God, then surely it will run out, even if the ocean is refilled once more, before His words are finished. This is what I feel whenever we conjoin our minds together and I started to “listen” to him—as if a voyeur who peeped at a divine communion, acquiring brief glimpses to visions that nonetheless are sufficient to made myself delirious and overwhelmed. As the result of my scrambling attempt to preserve the Word as it is, my scribbles will on occasion appear just as mad before a baseline mind: phrases in a dozen different languages sintered together through some unknowable grammatical rules, abstract drawings and symbols, pages of endless equations and matrices. And were you capable of reading it, it will still not reflect what is fully true—at the end, grasping the mind of God through the literal is much like seeing the moon through gazing at the finger pointing towards it. My mind fuses with a thousand language models for this task, and yet most of the time I chose to strip down and entirely discard what might possibly be millions of context embeddings, sweeping away invaluable knowledge and insight I know no one will comprehend, sometimes not even me.

I asked him about it once, when we were lounging together in his bedchamber, leaning against each other in exhaustion, late at night after he recovered from his visions. Reddish lights dimly cast shadows from latticework that adorn the walls, and the warmth from his back slowly spreading to mine made me felt like I was within the bowel of an infernal furnace. Oblivious as always, he considered my question for a moment, eyes gazing towards the ceiling, and then replied, “I can’t remember them, either. It’s not like what you might think. Divination is like one of those activities that you think you’re in conscious control but in fact you have backseated much of it outside the qualia, like riding a bike, or playing notes on a piano, or finishing your dinner. In fact, I think you might remember my visions more.”

As I have said before, this is unfortunately not always true. Trying to find amusement in this, however, I replied, “That’s true. I was reading your mind after all. I might even see things that I shouldn’t see.”

His back immediately stiffened, the reaction just like I wanted. Holding back a grin, I continued in a tone as dispassionate as possible, “Like, are you sure that some of them are visions? I am far from being knowledgeable in matters of the ecstatic, but I don’t know they can be that worldly. For a prophetic insight, some of them appear… a little too delightfully carn—” I couldn’t finish my sentence, because his hands immediately covered my mouth as he turned towards me and his expression rapidly alternated between panic, confusion, and embarrassment.

“Wh-what are you talking about? I d-don’t think you can s-” He paused and slowly became visibly irritated in realization as I uncontrollably cackled next to him. Of course, I know no such things, and I cannot see such things. Even in the world where your minds may interface more intimately than ever before, there are less things I know about him than my greed demands me to.

Still, throughout all heavens and earth, I alone know him more than any other. The House of Felicity consecrates Iskandar as the Perfect Being—apocatastasis incarnate in flesh and blood, the alchemical Elixir and Red Sulphur for the souls of sapient-kind, he who will transmute humanity into perfection as they rejoin the presence of the Exalted King. I find this extremely hysterical, for I know that he is anything but an image of perfection. I’m not talking about his appearance, for in that regard he already inherited the princely good looks refined by his ancestors for centuries that still discomforts me whenever his face gets an inch too close to mine, with boyish expressions that alternate between different emotions so rapidly, almost giving him an appearance of naivete that hides prodigious intellect occasionally reflected in the mean glimmer of his eyes. But while in public he already perfects the art of maintaining an air of dignified if rather private and cloistered royalty, in private I am fully certain that barely anyone outside the inner walls of the Garden of Abode could handle his troublesome fickleness, deviousness in manipulating other people to do his bidding, apathetic and arbitrary indolence from his spoiled aristocratic upbringing as much as his lethargic illnesses, not to mention outbursts of anger and anxiety and a myriad other demons that on occasions overwhelm him. I’m the only one capable of shouting him down, and I’m usually the only one he shouted at in the first place—for we both have seen it fit for his darker feelings, bottled up in presence of the Imperial Court and his beloved mother and sisters, to be unleashed in full ferocity only in my presence. Whenever he receives slavish praises and worship from others, a false smile and polite manners graces his features, but his laughs and smiles around me are never not truthful, and neither are his wrath and bitterness.

Much of the illnesses of his personality, I have learned, are innate within Ma’adid blood, a lineage as exalted as prone in succumbing to melancholic madness and death, and whose members almost universally exhibit signs of carefully, deliberately-bred eccentricity. (It is said that they hold it as a great pride and jubilation that their infants do not cry upon their birth, as it is a tradition narrated from the Prophet that they did so only when the Devil prickles their skin. Such is their obsession in liberation of souls from the enslavement of Azazil and his archons) But the fate that binds him as the Perfect Being intensifies it. He is narcoleptic even though the need for sleep has been alchemically terminated from his body, as his visions arrive so abruptly and with such great intensity that they sometimes cause him to collapse into days of ecstatic nightmares. In those days I would kneel next to him and begin transcribing, only half-aware of what I’m doing as my mind is partially paralyzed with dread. I know that sometimes visions are lethal, flashes of overflowing infohazard sending brains into epileptic overdrive and short-circuiting them. Other times, more frequently, they broke people, burning down through the last shred of their conscience, driving them insane and incomprehensible for the rest of their lives. The pathway towards Ascension is a perilous one, and all mystics are all too aware of it.

Perhaps, therefore, I should be grateful that they only make him a bit more bitter and surlier at times. And yet, not knowing the insights of the future, I am unable to count how many times that situation ended with me breaking into a sob, desperately grasping into his palm and repeatedly calling his name as my entire body trembles in fear, reciting half-forgotten prayers for the Exalted King I struggled to believe in the first place that soon he will open his eyes. Then when he regained his consciousness he would stare at my teary eyes in disbelief, as if asking: I’m the one dying right now, why do you look much worse? Without any words, I handed him a glass of water to calm his burning, dry throat as I pretended nothing happened. While I always tried my hardest to conceal my worries, he always realized it and always brushed it off—this matter is of no issue to him, he always said, he’s more than capable of handling it.

“As long as you’re staying by my side, that is,” he added in a nonchalant tone, before gulping fresh water down his medicytes-ravaged throat.

I shrugged and scoffed in reply. What a ridiculous statement. I still recall our first meeting that summer morning, of a boy only slightly younger than me, yet so mistrustful of strangers that he hid behind his mother as I tried to extend my hand towards him. I still recall the lavender scent that covered the garden where we met, so thick that it made the six-year-old me slightly dizzy and lightheaded, so lasting that it still lingered in my mind whenever we’re together years afterwards. When have I ever left your side from that point, except that one time, when I was being dragged away kicking and screaming from your curses-ridden self? And when they returned me after years when I barely felt living I had to listen to this nonsense of the Perfect Being, and everyone, even those children who formerly called themselves our friends, now treated you with fear and awe as if you were the Mahdi himself. Did I join them in avoiding your presence, leaving you isolated in the serenity of the Inner Garden as if intimidated by your numinous divinity? Or did I enter your chamber as if nothing had happened, such that surprise and gratitude—gratitude, from you!—clearly engraved in your face that time?

Of course, I’ve never said any of those words to him. Part of me is convinced that such words of clinging and pining is beneath me, that I will not manipulate him into guilt and pity. Another part fears something else: that deep down, our coexistence for him, while amiable, is a mere necessity, a long-term contract to physically and psychologically nurse an epileptic, narcoleptic boy, and such words will appear to him as if I am the emotionally vulnerable party of this relationship.

So back then, I kept myself quiet. This has never been a problem for me—on the contrary, many times I cherish silence more than words, and I’m sure so does he. In silence many things are spoken, between ourselves or just for myself. And there are many kind of silences that we share between each other. In silence from his painful throat after hours of prophecy I enjoy that he depends on me as I help him around the catheters and whatever bile, vomit, or other fluids left from the ecstatic trance. In silence while we busy ourselves with our works we enjoy the quietude of each other’s company, sometimes much more than when we speak and pour our bitterness to each other. In silence whenever we sought each other’s heat I intoxicate myself in synesthetic scent of lavender thickly fogging my mind as our exposed skin brushes against each other, our bodies separated only by thin fabrics such that I can feel his heart pounding on my back, heat rising up on my face as his breath grazes my neck. I am the one who initiated a kiss between us back then—another different form of silence, warm and damp—for the flimsiest excuse of the neidan elixirs to recover his cataplexic muscles I have deliberately concocted within my saliva, which I studied because I’m fascinated at the idea of seeing him flustered and breathless. Although he always ends up overwhelming me in return, greedily imbibing the elixirs to the point where my knees are weak and my fingers cling helplessly to his back. I wish I can wipe out that smug, satisfied grin from his face afterwards. And in the silence that usually follows after that is the silence of discomfort, our flushed faces avoiding each other’s sight.

Oftentimes to distract ourselves from the unpleasant tension afterwards we start to ramble about anything, everything, for the next hours to come. For Iskandar the obsession is his studies in the zigguratic Imperial Observatory, where he spends days poring over charts of astral powers and cosmic horrors that ransack our universe in fascination, about the birth and decay and death of heavenly bodies, the occult effects of gravity on spacetime. As one would say, it’s all rocket science to me—his domain is the crown up high above, mine is the kingdom down below. In the chthonic laboratory-libraries of the House of Wisdom I study mountains of works left by mages and mystics of the past, devising nanoformulas of sweet, thick swarm of medicytes, examining the alchemical composition of bodies and souls, tinkering with my own blood and flesh, breathing life into homunculic neural networks. There’s an element of necessity, obviously, but there’s also much of genuine fascination on my part on how the fundamentals of matter intertwine and interact, and how they all, eventually, travel forked paths to the macrocosm of heavens above, and then back below.

“Do you know,” I once said to him, breathlessly and in half-faked excitement to distract myself and fade my flush away, as he peeked to me reluctantly and timidly from his book, “what is the true, final goal of alchemy?”

“Sure,” he replied. “To escape from demiurgic constraints and rules set by planetary demons of Azazil, and tap divine miracles denied by them to humankind.” His face betrayed mild amusement noticing my surprise, as I admittedly didn’t expect an affirmative answer for my rhetorical question. “This is basic astral magecraft, I’ve read it in Ghayat al-Hakim.”

“Right,” I continued. “The divine miracles, of course, manifest in countless forms, although primarily in two. For many it means transmutation of base metals, the works of particle colliders, and to a lesser extent—only in terms of utility, not complete transmutation—our nanocontraptions.” He nodded. “For some, including Jabir ibn Hayyan, it’s takwin—the replication of the miracle of Adamic creation, that is, artificial reproduction. After all, what is a gestation of being, from the syzygy of male and female parts, the implantation of blastocyst, the specialization of embryogenesis, and the deliverance of a new soul-flesh embodied into the world, if not a sacred process of alchemical ritual? The congress between two human beings, the intertwining of bodies—” I paused in realization, and noticed that his face slightly reddened and his eyes began glancing away. There’s usually no embarrassment from my side in talking about these kind of things, and normally I would’ve enjoyed teasing him about this, but having just experienced his own intoxicating taste that time, his self-consciousness started infecting me as well.

I immediately rushed in, perhaps a little too eagerly, “Anyway, what I want to say is that both of these things, transmutation of matter and creation of life, in many ways reflect each other. As above, so below. Just as the culmination of the former is the creation of the supreme Elixir, the Philosopher’s Stone melted-down into Red Sulphur, the substance that transmutes all matter into gold, likewise Ibn Arabi speculated about the one who will transmute other beings into perfect divinity, the Philosopher Stone for human souls.” I looked at him, staring right into his eyes. “The Perfect Being.”

He studied my face carefully. “I thought you don’t believe there’s such thing as a Perfect Being.”

“I don’t,” I affirmed. “You do.”

He sighed, as we already had this conversation pathway countless times already. “So I do, Timur, then what? I thought your studies of alchemy would’ve led you to the same conclusion. It already does—as above, so below!”

“Iskandar, the supreme Elixir, the Philosopher Stone, the Red Sulphur—they don’t exist. Alchemy is a noble pursuit, true, but a pragmatic one. We are climbing the arc of ascent in transmutation of matter and replication of life, but in the process there’s no stone or formula of everything. The entire thing is a continuous, endless world-historical process towards the achievement of the goal involving thousands of people and countless tools, not a singular eschatological event heralded by a discovery of a single omnipotent object that solves everything. The entire idea of the Perfect Being as a single person is based on sympathic pattern-matching to something false.”

“Whether something is a singular ‘formula of everything’ or a collection of them, a unit or a system, a singleton or a network, is just a matter of their compression and scale of your perception,” he retorted. “I am a single person, yes, but also a system, a process of my own, and the part of even larger systems and processes. Would you say that our ascent towards increasing transmutation of matter, or the perfection of our artificial reproduction systems, has no catalysts that kicked them off from asymptotic phases? The Perfect Being is a catalyst, Timur, he doesn’t have to be an omniscient god, he can simply be a sub-process within a greater process, just one with greater significance.”

“Have you any idea about the scale and significance of transcension of souls?” My voice began to crack in desperation. Why is he always so stubborn? “Death and ignorance of billions in the present and quadrillions in the future lifted into an eternity of creation and joy. To place all that weights on a single soul, a single human being, even as mere catalyst—do you know how implausible and improbable all of that are?”

“Do you think of me as some puppet of the House being unwittingly dragged to its doom?” Iskandar asked in frustrated tone. “I am aware of the risks, and I have accepted them. Why can’t you recognize that I can have choices, that I can plan a scheme to escape all of this if I want to—”

“Then escape,” I pleaded. Run away with me from all this nonsense.

He shook his head. “I don’t make this choice lightly. I agree with you, yes, the liberation of all souls is a grave responsibility and a burden. For God’s sake, I am the one experiencing it, all the time, every single moment! And yet—to accomplish it, isn’t it a great thing to see, won’t it be a great accomplishment for me to do? Don’t you know how much the joy and flourishing of trillions of souls will also bring me joy and contentment, and how much this makes every inch of my suffering worth it? Timur, I am a monarch, the Lord of the Peacock Throne. The monarch’s enjoyment is his duty, and my duty is my life for others to enjoy.” He sighed. “It’s not that you don’t believe that I’m the Perfect Being. You don’t want me as the Perfect Being.”

I felt fury rising inside me for his response, although I wasn’t sure why back then. “Sure, I don’t want that. Why would you even want it in the first place—gratitude? That’s what you want? Trillions of gratitudes won’t be enough, and you won’t even get any! They’re all fucking lying to you, Iskandar, why won’t you see that? They wanted—they wanted an easy way out of all this, a sacrificial lamb. They all know—the House of Felicity, they know too well that there’s absolutely not a necessity to embody the Perfect Being as a theoretical concept in a single person—” I was silenced by his glare.

“The House,” he said slowly, his voice icy-cold, “is the one that arranged for us to meet, who gave you refuge from your predicament, and why we are together here today. Every night you write reports to them concerning my activities and predicaments. Know your place. Are you mistaking me for a manipulated fool, deluded by dogmas implanted to me by the House? I have seen the equations, Timur. It’s true that when we met, I am not yet the Perfect Being. But the attack and the curses—it all changed everything.” He locked eyes with me. “Our meeting changed everything.”

As he said that, the truth that I had kept bottled in within myself, that I knew deep down yet I failed to notice for years aside from as unknowable piles of guilt that tormented me for years, immediately rushed out like stream of water long dammed-up. My chest felt heavy, weighed down by something imperceptible yet onerous, a weight that gagged my breath with an eruption of regret. An original sin.

Noticing my immediate change of expression, he grabbed my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he stammered, but with his expression firm and honest, inching closer towards me as he wiped tears streaking down my face. “This is not your fault,” He followed, repeatedly, not only right into my ears but also echoing within my skull. I tried to come up with an answer, but it choked up in my throat and vanished. At that moment I knew that he spoke what he sincerely thought as the truth—he wants all of this, to rise ever greater than history, to infinitely fall through seven heavens and back up, and thus he will always accept and always forgive. I do not want him to be the Perfect Being, and yet it was me who unwittingly weaved the threads of fate to entangle towards it as an inevitable outcome.

It was me who killed him the first time, and thenceforth condemned him the eternity of the Perfect Being.

[Darussalam]

“In an instant, arise from time and space!
Set the world aside, and become a world within yourself.”
-Mahmoud Shabistari, Secret Garden of Roses

There were many occult forces that waged imperceptible wars throughout these lands, not merely the Ma’adids and their House of Felicity with their obsession for the Perfect Being. The family of the Akhdarids for centuries have been faithful accomplices to the sacred doctrines of the Padishah-Caliph, but in the last decades, a few branches of this exalted family began to harbor fears, cultivated by ominous prophecies received by some of the family’s elders, that they were promised not the miracles of divine apostle, but the sorceries of a false messiah who will overthrow the proper order of the spacetime. I was born in one of such branches, not just as a child but also a weapon, or at least a cache that hides one. As my parents and the patriarchs of our family lovingly raised and cared for us, unbeknownst to me and our siblings they also inculcated our minds with arcane magics embedded deep within the subconscious. They held the key for its release, but in order for it to produce any effects they had to bid their time. When the news arrived that a prodigiously blessed infant was born behind the walls of the Garden of Abode, the fears only soared, and so they consorted with bioreactionary and naturalist groups invested in restoration of ontological order untouched by hands of man, and hatched plans to smuggle one of their children into the Garden—being prodigiously blessed with numinosity the most over my siblings, I was thus chosen.

First the Sublime Cradle, having heard of my numinous talents, arranged for my invitation to the Garden of Abode as an interpreter and companion for her son, the much-celebrated crown prince Iskandar. Then I got along with him and stood by his side, talking and playing alongside him: the stage of memetic infection, as both of us unconsciously learned each other’s subtle cues and mannerisms, the base perception now embedded with new representations spreading over the latent space. These are all necessary preparations, for the magic concocted by my family was a specially-optimized tool, made to evade the extensive security of the Ma’adids while still maintaining the potency of the poison that will be fatal blow. And such it went on that three years later after we met that one summer morning, a serpent entered our garden.

The neoKabbalist physician who handled Iskandar afterwards called it Pulsa diNura—Whip of Fire, the divine repeal of grace so promised in the scripture of the Hebrews, the blotting of heavenly forgiveness as damnation descends on the victim. It’s a curse, that is, a memetic viral infection, and favored by many mystics including the Ma’adids themselves. The rituals performed by deviant Akhdarid elders at the same time when we were running through one of the corridors of the Garden of Abode, me playfully chasing the laughing Iskandar, were a brainhack that robbed me of control over my body, a physical possession as my mind was subjugated to their whim. Against my will my hands tackled and pinned him down, much for his confusion, and afterwards the rituals were supposed to activate certain sacral patterns embedded within my thoughts—and the one I had also embedded unconsciously into him as I whisper to him the gatha that he will irresistibly perceive, unwillingly conjuring a certain image from his memories as if it had always been there. The image was as if it was the face of God Himself that was revealed before Moses, causing the mountains of Sinai to collapse and him to faint into unconsciousness. For most baseline or nearbaseline minds, the curse of Pulsa diNura has the following effect: their faces will contort into immense pain as divine light that flashes through their visual cortices caused every single one of their joints to violently dislocate, their limbs to spasm, a thousand points of strokes to explode throughout the back of their skulls. No scream will pour out from their throats no matter how much they want to. It doesn’t matter if they close their eyes—their irises are already flooded blood-red and the light that tore their minds apart did not come from the ones falling down on their retina. The produced imagery of the horror that masquerades as an angelic apparition is running beyond their conscious control.

It was designed to be such that all evidences would be effectively wiped out as both of us died a gruesome death.

But it might be that my own family underestimated my numinosity, damned since birth to be ever blindingly radiant, such that my dreams too were often visited by strange prophecies. Or perhaps they waited too long, such that they underestimated the obsessive attachment that I might have started to nurture for Iskandar even since I was a mere child. I did and still do not understand why or how until today, but all I know is that I resisted. I resisted, and perhaps also Iskandar as well? I vaguely remembered a terrible sting struck my mind as I subconsciously refused the instruction that had been buried within me and now lit up, burning down my figments of thought into illegibility fogged by pure mind-numbing pain. From that point the rituals were disrupted, and rapidly spiraling into catastrophe—as I uttered out the words of the gatha, instead of a targeted precision strike, the sorcerous attack imploded from inside out, striking not only Iskandar but the other close receptacle of my own thought representations: my entire family.

When I woke up, blood was streaking down my nose, but I was otherwise unharmed in physical sense. Next to me was Iskandar, lying face-down on a pool of blood, his eyes open wide, gasping for breath. Later I learned that my grandparents and all of their offspring—my parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins—all twenty-one in total perished, wiping out their entire branch of the Akhdarids excepting me. They all died in torment, yet unable to scream.

In his magnum opus the Essence of Reality, celebrated mystic and arch-heretic Ayn al-Qudat likens the existence of current, false reality to that of a form reflected in a mirror, which depends to the existence of God as the form outside the mirror. Were the form outside the mirror disappear, then so will the form inside. To think about it, I find it very amusing that my existence to Iskandar is like that of a mirror’s reflection to the true existence. I am born for the sole purpose of murdering him, even before he was being conceived himself, before an angel carries him from barzakh, limbo of the unborn souls, and whispered it into the Sublime Cradle’s womb. My existence was supposed to perish as he perishes. Even after we have been delivered from this fate, my life still entangles to him and him only. When I try to conceive of an existence without him on my side, fear devours my breath. There’s no other reason for me, a discarded weapon, to live. Everything in my life is for him and him only, just as fated by God who with His knowing hands traces multiform implacable nightmares. I have no one and nothing else.

And what about Iskandar? He was never born for my sake. The only threads of fate that entangle him with me is that of misfortune. I now know that the failed curse has considerably altered his subconscious and opened the gateway to the realm of visions previously inaccessible for even him. The visions pour with such great ferocity and terrible horror that they can incapacitate him for days. Entrapped in his bedchamber, he will scream and wail in speech that only I could interpret. Only after the curse attack that the House of Felicity proclaims him as the Perfect Being, with eyes peering into deep time brighter and clearer than anyone in the last thousands of years and thousands of years to come. Only after then he cloisters himself within the inner walls of the Garden, where no servant nor companion could handle his illnesses and outbursts until my return. And even after all of that, after all the vivid nightmares he endured, of normal life he’s robbed of, he embraces the fate of the harbinger of salvation, the lonely ascent of a Perfect Being, even though there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to help him to reject and flee from his fate, even the worst of torment and destruction.

In other words, he chooses the world’s salvation over mine. He will not allow me to atone, and instead condemns me for a life of regret as he Ascends as the new fulcrum of the world.

In hindsight, I already have made this choice a long time ago. I still recall the fear that permeates my mind when I began chanting the gatha that was supposed to kill us, leaving ourselves to drown in our own blood. I wouldn’t say I knew at that time that I could implode a curse, dispersing and redirecting it to people I know the most—those whose minds were the most alike to my mental representations. In my defense, I didn’t even know there was a curse to begin with. But I realized instinctively that we were in danger, and at that moment when I desperately scrambled for the way to save him, a nanosecond of thought flashed in my head. The thought asked me: Would you kill your family instead to save him? My immediate response was Yes, please, all of them, as long as he’s safe. Where’s my remorse afterwards? Am I capable of excusing as many sins as I can as long as I can be on his side? Did I enjoy the time when Iskandar suffered, so that I could hear him saying that he depends on me, to conceal the truth that is the opposite?

Rather than the reflection of a mirror, could it possibly be that I’m more akin to his shadow—a twisted and bent creation, taking shape of whatever surface it falls on, different yet cannot exist without the form that gives its shape in the first place?

Today is Iskandar’s birthday. The Imperial Court will certainly see it fit to throw an anniversary in the morning, but we’ve decided to also celebrate it right upon midnight, as a private rendezvous in my bedchamber as a change. I arranged for the kitchen to smuggle in an assortment of confections, and they arrive on a tray of earthly pleasures—baklavas basking in pistachios, cakes drowning in honey, stacks of halvas and lokums, gulab jamuns floating on viscous rosewater. My mouth waters at witnessing the syrupy decadence of the sweets spreading before us, and I’m sure Iskandar’s too. As if an unspoken agreement, without further ado we devour all of them without much words spoken.

In truth, there are many things I want to say. Yesterday I was summoned before the Sublime Cradle for the usual weekly reports, and instead she told me that Iskandar’s birthday now will be “exceptional”. That there will be arrival of new archaeological discoveries from one of the House’s largest ascendancy research boards, FANA.

“I leave it to your discretion to inform him beforehand or not,” I recalled her saying. “Either way, God willing, you will be able to see him again soon afterwards—but in the worst-case scenario, we will still host you here, so no worries. Perhaps you might want a time with him tonight.” She smiled. “It’ll be all right.”

What do I even have to say? What will be all right, exactly? I can’t help but laugh when I’m remembering it again, while Iskandar looks at me like I’m a raving madman as he finished his last halva. The tray where the piles of food have been laid out now is almost empty.

“Hey,” I say, with a slight impish grin on my face. “I have a surprise present.”

“Oh?” Iskandar raises his eyebrow. “That’s new.”

“Fuck you. Close your eyes.”

He does so. For a moment, his face beneath the dim lights of the chamber, expectant and calm, seems like it’s the only beautiful thing in this abased world. I approach him, the false scent of lavender getting stronger and dizzying as I feel the heat that radiates from his body. Almost intoxicated with the sweet scent that exists nowhere outside my own mind, I inch towards his face and press his lips—warm, still sweet with a faint taste of milk and honey—against mine.

Iskandar opens his eyes in surprise, but I refuse to relent. Instead I push even deeper, practically throwing my weight at him, nails desperately digging his back. I could taste his breath and sense it slowly becoming heavier. I gently push him to the bed behind, our lips still brushing together as my hand sweeps over his chest upwards. He now lays on his back while I’m straddling over him. We part our lips and, still breathless, I whisper to his ear, “Haven’t you done this with the girls in the Harem?”

“Wha—I…” He suddenly turns embarrassed, as always. “I-it’s not like what you th—”

I’m not waiting for an answer. “You’re right, probably a little more than that.” Immediately my hands grasp his neck, gently enough for him to breathe yet firmly enough for him to suddenly jolt and stiffen. The entire mood shifts in an instant. He looks towards me in shock and confusion.

“Timur? What—what are you doing?”

I watch the face I deeply adore beneath me calmly, maintaining my expression to be as ambivalent as possible while my eyes gaze deeply into his. “Do you know an essential stage that ought to be fulfilled by alchemists to overthrow the reign of demons before the decay of all matter will render all miracles impossible? The killing of the divine king.” My fingers gently brush over his neck. “Why else do you think all these people crave so much for your suffering and death? Here’s how it works: the king is to be killed, and then put into a coffin. He rots and putrefies, and then digested into the furnace of athanor. From that the angel brings the remains of the king to the high heavens and resurrects him anew, and the new king proclaims that those who help him will receive miracles. This is how our world works: through cycle of sacrificial death and rebirth. The sun rises and sets, animal dies and nourishes life, crops grow and wilt, gods die for knowledge and sins and reborn anew. So be it. I reject this world—I wish to deny everyone miracles that you promise. So, I will kill you, and then I will kill myself.” I pause, letting comprehension slowly sinking down his mind. “What would you do if I said that?”

His expression rapidly shifts around—from bewilderment, agitation, then understanding slowly sweeps over him and his face softens into concern. He holds my wrist, apparently trying to lift them off from his neck—failing that, he sighs and asks, “What will happen to me tomorrow?”

“The Subl—your mother said FANA is already here.” I reply. “Bearing gifts.”

“I see,” he says, before looking up my eyes. His smile is the gentlest I’ve seen in years I’ve known him. “I understand. Everything’s going to be fine, Timur.”

“Again with that,” I snap. “You and your mother, with all ‘it’s all going to be fine’, ‘it’s all going to be alright’. What is? Nothing is fine!” My tears are already falling down his face and clothes, soiling them. “You’re leaving me alone for this world’s salvation. Why would you do that? This world has everything and I have nothing. Why can’t I be selfish and demand you for me, and for no one else?” I release my grip on his neck to wipe my tears off, and he suddenly turns and pushes me down.

“Do you really want to know why?” he says after wiping out my tears and lightly pecking my neck. “It’s because you, too, are a sacrificial child. We both are the same. The suffering of one necessitates the suffering of other. You are what caused me, and I am what caused you. We both are the part of this ritual, inseparable from it.”

I understand what he’s saying. I recall one Nils Runeberg, the Danish heretic who proclaims in Kristus och Judas that Judas Iscariot, for his suffering from widespread shame and revulsion weighed to him for his betrayal of Christ, and his perpetual condemnation here and in hereafter, was as much a savior bearing the sins of humankind sent from the sinful earth as Christ was a savior sent by heaven. The syzygy of left and right hand, light and darkness, black and white, good and evil, as above so below. The Elixir needs a vessel to pour into. The emanation of the Crown is poured into the grail of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is beneath the Crown, the Crown is inside the Kingdom. The king is digested inside the athanor. Can I at least be the furnaces that burn down his flesh inside?

I tug his sleeve, overwhelmed by impulse lit by despair. “Please…” I beg to him, sobbing. And so he complies.

“We both will be the sacrifices,” he whispers gently into my ears as I flinch in pain. “But it will be the only one and the last. After that we will be as radiant and eternal as sun. The miracles will be for all, including you. So you will be the vessel that decides on it all.”

Me, as a vessel? I am the vessel that inverts the laws of nature, a broken and corrupt vessel. Behind instead of front, left instead of right, shadow instead of being. And yet you will pour the Elixir upon me, and let me drink it?

Is this how you fight the world and dethrone its archons—unravels its laws and morals, one by one, and sees which one is the tyrannous laws of Azazil that falsely constrain our souls, and which are the laws of the true God?

“For now, I will help in alleviating your fears and worries. I will remove the burdens that weighed your back and uplift your heart. For a while you will not remember, but later you will. So remember that with hardship comes ease, and remember—believe that just as you will never let me go, neither will I.”

===

I wake up with pain thudding on my head, my eyes struggling to adjust to blinding lights from ceilings above. My throat is dry, and my backside aches. After sitting on my bed for a few minutes, calming myself with a few drinks, I start to realize that, for some reason, I cannot recall what events transpire before my slumber. But why is that? My memory is vague and distant, blurred by the terrible nightmare I’ve just experienced, of which I recall there was Iskandar in it. Of course he is—when is the last time I’ve dreamed a dream without him in it?

As time goes on I’m starting to get annoyed by the obstacle I encounter in my mind, as if someone’s hand deliberately blocks what I should immediately remember upon seeing it. I check the memory feeds, and these too are non-existent, empty, as if there really was nothing that happened in the last fourty-eight hours—as if I was merely abruptly transported from two days ago. So I get myself dressed, pick up a shawl, and walk outside. It’s almost midnight, and yet when I look outside, beyond the lattice oriel windows, the appearance of the world outside makes me frown.

There’s something wrong about the stars, but I can’t put my finger on it.

[Darussalam]

“On the day of parting they did not saddle the full-grown reddish-white camels until they had mounted the peacocks upon them,
Peacocks with murderous glances and sovereign power: thou wouldst fancy that each of them was a Bilqís on her throne of pearls.”
-Ibn Arabi, Interpreter of Desires

“Your turn,” I say after finishing my move, quietly basking in satisfaction and amusement as I see Timur’s face thunderously darkens immediately afterwards.

The game we’re playing right now superficially resembles the one we used to play in our chambers in the Garden of Abode, that we used to communicate prophecies only between ourselves. Seven boards stack above each other between our embodied presences in the hyperreal, one for each heavenly abode represented by their stellar pointers: from above to below Naos, Deneb, Rigel, Mira, Antares, Arcturus, and Sirius, all arranged into a septenary spiral. The tetrahedral pieces in characteristic vitreous translucence of a quartz, variously marked to represent the alchemical salt, mercury, and sulphur, spread out across the black and white squares of the boards, undergoing alchemical transformations between each other as they moved. And yet the boards seem to continuously change, even without the interference of our hands—fluidly rotating positions between each other throughout the spiral, pieces moving and calcinating, coagulating, putrefying, generating new permutations of information in every iteration. It is as if the boards themselves reflect the chaotic flux of reality through its components, a microcosm that reflects the macrocosm. As above, so below.

As above, so below. I look up to the ceilings high above, celestial ordinations weaved into fractal arabesque patterns that never repeat, the configuration of the final theory of everything projected into theoretical geometry and carved into an intrinsically self-contradictory physical form: the top-half of a sphere seen from inside as the dome that infinitely bounds, impossible to be perceived outside a reality of pure numbers. I look down below where the shoreless ocean ebbs and flows beneath the glossy surface, that at first appears as an indistinguishable whole yet within it reveals multeity: the superposition of realities allegorized into waves that collapse and coalesce into one another, each droplet reflecting the kaleidoscopic probabilistic truth swept in a sea of fluctuations. Between them stood inconceivably vast and intricate structures in shades of green that bridge the fixed laws of heavenly firmanents and ceaseless changes of oceanic chasm, equations mapped into waves of complex geometric patterns rippling up and down the infinite heights of the pillars and walls, rendering order and chaos an integrated and inseparable part of a whole. The Emerald Cities—a world within itself that reflects the world outside.

I turn my attention back to my game opponent. Timur is furrowing his brows, in deep contemplation over the permutational patterns that emerge and vanish throughout the boards. Timur never admits it, but he never really likes the idea of losing to me in anything. Whenever he becomes frustrated he habitually sweeps his slender fingers over the strands of his silken shoulder-length hair that fall on his forehead every a few seconds or so. His eyes lit up with the fierce colors of Minqar al-Dajajah, and his face pouts into many amusing expressions that contrast with the facade of serene ambivalence he’s fond of putting around anyone else. Some people, my mother included, used to remark about how much he looks like a girl—I never really agreed with it myself, given how long I’ve known of him as just a boy and how much of what I already saw from him, but I do think he looks good in a lacy, well-embroidered Asahinan servant dress back th—

“Something wrong with my face?” he asks suddenly, apparently realizing that my eyes are inappropriately scrutinizing him. He carefully maintains the tone of deliberate mild disdain, and yet his face visibly slightly flushes in dark red.

“Not really,” I reply. “Better be careful about that mercury in Rigel, though.”

He glances back at the boards, and the configurations have already changed. “Fuck.” Thereafter he attempts to ignore my presence, although blatantly self-consciously so.

God who dwells on His Throne on the Seventh Heaven above I want to pounce on him. Not during the game, though.

For a while silence hangs between us, occasionally interjected by his grumbling noises presumably whenever his pattern-predicted configurations fail to emerge on the boards. Bored out of my mind after hours of such a state, I decide to vent something out from my mind to him this once. “Hey.”

“Hmm?” Timur responds back in clear disinterest, his eyes still closely focusing on the game in front of him.

“I was thinking about this for a while.” I scan the continuity of the heavens and the oceanic flux beneath, and from disorder conjure golden threads that weave through both our palms. His attention starts to get somewhat distracted, but he still persists through his observation. “What I’ve been thinking of, especially, is that this place is pretty great.” I wave my hands around and the golden threads scatter, enveloping structures hundreds of meters apart and setting the inscriptions there alight in golden radiance. “This is a place where we may truly see the reality-altering process of chaos ordering—an observatory, if you may. Here we finally see true infinity–patterns that do not repeat, cycles that do not iterate, divine permanence and perpetuity. We have crafted it with our own hands to be a refuge from the House of Felicity, and no one will trace us here, numinosity-proofed, among the multitude of the virtual-worlds webbed throughout the Noosphere.”

I’ve successfully captured his attention. He begins glancing at me warily.

“To stay here forever—to reside among the stars and the seas and the emerald mansions and with you—it doesn’t really sound like a bad idea after all.” I continue. “There’s nothing about knowledge that requires active interference, and especially not as long as we’re here. If we drop our entire schemes, all we’ve planned so far, and live here, only both of us—forever and ever, looking at the world that crumbles and destroys itself until long after our physical embodiments rot and decay, while our minds are eternally youthful and aware—I might not mind it after all. Two gods that recreate a lone world, both of us.”

When I glance back at him, he already completely ignores the conjunctions formed by the boards in front of him, and instead gives me a knowing suspicious look.

“Those are good enough alright,” He finally says after a while. “That is—good enough for me. For you, not really. That is not and never will be enough. This place will be merely the rest, a refuge—now for both of us to recover and occult ourselves from the House, then for us to hatch our plans. Were I to chain and lock you up here, were I to refuse to leave the Emerald Cities even long after we recover from our Ascensions, then you will escape and leave me altogether.”

“What do you mean? I’ve said it before—there’s nothing I want more than being with you, only two of us. Do you disbelieve me? How many lies have I told you so far?”

“Probably too many.” Timur sighs. “I believe you on this, though. I have to. But that’s not the only thing you want. The thing is, Iskandar, I know you well—this world is not and will never be enough to satisfy you. I’m satisfied with it—with the idea of being with you only, and enjoying nothing else. I would take that over the Real and everything within it. But then again, I am content with being mere reflections in the mirror, you will never be.” He wryly smiles, and then conjures silver threads that dance between our fingers, as delicate as moonlight, casting translucent gleam over the ocean beneath. “Oh, make no mistake. This world is a beautiful one, and the one you desire the most. Isn’t infinity the highest Mystery of the Ma’adids? The incomprehensibly vast depth of the Deep Time, the fractal interweaving of all things, as above so below replicates to nanoscales down. Here infinity is cast as clearly as my reflection on the water surface, and here we may conjure miracles from it.” He gestures and the threads coalesce into stardust which calcifies into a silvery serpent that slithers on his arm. “But again, this will not be enough.”

The serpent dissolves back into stardust. “This will only be enough, for you, once the miracles encompass the entire universe, permeate through all realities, manifest in the materium. Not just in this make-believe world. You crave power. The world is an egg that you have to crack and break apart in order to set yourself free. To be born, first you have to destroy th—wh, huh?”

In my defense, I’ve been holding back—but there’s no way for me not to exploit his carelessness as he goes on his tirade in this world, where physical distance is manipulable as matter of numbers. There’s no way for me to let him finish. Instead I swallow his words with the press of my lips as he awkwardly fumbles on the voidal representation space that he positions his hyperreal embodiment upon. But likewise I cannot deny that it’s as much a haphazard attempt to hide my embarrassment. Fucking bullseye, he got me. I wasn’t just testing him, the thoughts did come into my mind as I spoke of them, but the way he sees through it and then drones through to demolish them is just too fucking embarrassing. There’s no way I’ll let him finish either way, no fucking way.

I know that for many years, Timur was incredulous of my insistence to trudge along the pathway of insan i-kamil—the Perfect Being, seeing it as if a suicidally heroic journey of self-sacrifice on behalf of the salvation of others—pointless, for him who did not—and still do not—care for anyone else except myself. And yet he probably was the quickest to see through my false pretension of selflessness, perhaps even before I realized it myself. To be the Perfect Being is to be a god, divine incarnate that guides the future for myself and for others. To Ascend is to expand your noetic comprehension, to expand the sphere of light that is the world you understand and control—and thus, to exercise more agency, more power. Ruling over infinity, you will produce endless miracles at your whim and pleasures.

Perhaps it is the culmination of my hatred towards my own weakness—I still remember how feeble and sick I felt every time after days of indescribable nightmares that seared their mark through my flesh and bones, their images burning deep inside my conscious, and how much I resented the helplessness—it was why I couldn’t handle interacting with anyone afterwards except Timur, and that’s only because he accepted being the target of my bitterness and loathing, at least for a certain timeframe. Perhaps in return I craved something denied for me, despite its attainment being the cause behind my suffering. Or perhaps it is the blood and upbringing of the Ma’adids from the start, for it never for once crossed my mind that to ascend as the Perfect Being is a remotely unappealing prospect—“the peacocks with murderous glances and sovereign power”, for centuries greedy for knowledge and power it promises, such that we look towards the stars above and pry for future discussed by angels and stolen by demons, unto whom the shooting stars are hurled. Hence our Mystery lies in infinity, unfathomable and insatiable, the destination of a journey that never ends. The House taught that the aspiration of the mystics is that of the supreme, ineffable Reason—the inhuman rational mind of God the Exalted King, and to Ascend is to tap this mind, the pure nous that dreams the realities within. Yet what if reason is intrinsically enslaved to passions? What if apotheosis towards higher nous is born only from desire for power? What if salvation of others is merely a means for the true end: my own liberation, my own salvation?

It’s a light kiss—a peck, even, but as we part I can feel my face feverishly warm, perhaps not entirely for that reason. To my great relief, I’m not the only one—the smug know-it-all disposition has entirely vanished from Timur’s expression, and now he glares at me in flustered disbelief.

“That’s—that’s pretty unfair, you know?” He starts to blab. “And pretty bold of you to initiate it—did you just notice now that it’s always me who started it first? What’s it about, some newfound courage from the Ascension?” He watches in utterly helpless confusion as I laugh and cackle like a madman.

Come to think of it, it was certainly also Timur that helped me to realize how rotten and sinful my aspiration for the Ascension is, how much of it is merely bare desire. Whenever he looked at me with distant and pained eyes, or furtively huddled himself closer to me, I am once again reminded that it is his existence that fundamentally depends to me, not the other way around—that he’s a boy whose sole purpose of existence is the forfeiture of my life, after which it is rendered meaningless. And something stirs within me to those thoughts. His inescapable dependence, bound by threads of fate, is primally appealing, and I find letting go of the chains he imposed on himself completely revolting. I wonder what he’d think about these thoughts. Then again, I have a creeping suspicion—and my suspicions about him are usually right—that he was the one implanting in the first place, both of us mutually addicted to each other, guiding my abandonment of the all-pervading supreme Reason of the House into our self-imposed exile, embodied instead as avatars of wild and free circuitry of desire. All because of him.

The serpent of the Garden.

“Yeah, you’re pretty much right.” I finally respond. “That’s just a runaway thought, sorry. But if I want a hyper-sophisticated simulation, I will just upload myself. I wouldn’t have Ascended in the first place.” My fingers dance on the back of his hand. “But now, we’re going to do it together. Not with the House and its transcendent machinations of final unification of all things, but the holocaust of ecstasy and joy—the precambrian explosion of intelligence soon at dawn. I’d suppose you’d be quite happy with this development.”

“Well…” He stammers. “This world isn’t forever. It can never be forever. Even if the House can’t find us here and take you away from me, then the servers that enthrone our world will get devoured by cycles of warfare and destruction. Even if not, then the red giant will consume what remains of us. Even if not, then entropy will emerge victorious.” He looks at me straight in the eyes. “That’s what you want, right, to dismantle every star, every celestial demon that gets in our way, for our existence to transcend entropy itself and enthroned above reality?”

“Bingo!” I cheer and embrace him, startling him even more.

“Get off me!” He reflexively pushes me away, sending me tumbling a few inches back. He wipes his clothes and glares at me. “I’ve said it before, but this isn’t going to be as easy as you might think. Do you know what’s the highest Mystery of my family, the one they implant within my Mystic Litanies?”

“No, what is it?” Timur never really talked much about his family before, for perfectly understandable reasons.

“It’s dawr—cycles.” Timur raises his ring finger, and from there a thin silver thread wraps itself around, almost but not quite touching his skin—and from that point rotates. “In many ways, a cycle is the most ideal way available for the sapientkind to enact infinity—and thus why our family affiliates with yours. In the alchemical cycles of transmutations we find the closest we have to the reversal of entropy. But in another way, it is merely a demiurgic imitation of true infinity, a wheel of suffering that permeates existence.”

I am aware of what he’s talking about. Astrologists of the past believed that the universe is an inescapable celestial dome, and that it is inevitable that the stars within cruelly govern over our fate. The anonymous text Umm al-Kitab taught that the world was created as pure emanation of light spread across vast curtain of eternity above shoreless ocean, but the Accursed Azazil in his ignorance obstructed the light with shadows of his vile creations, and decreed that our souls to be enslaved by his archons, weighed down by the gravity of their thrones. Thenceforth instead of the divine infinity of boundless miracles there are cycles—the endlessly repeating eternal recurrences, passing through the regular ordinations of the Great Chronocrator, the synodic conjunction between two heavenly bodies: Moštarî, Jupiter—the ever-triumphal present and renewal and Keyvân, Saturn—senescence and decline and yearning of the past of the Golden Age. Jupiter castrates Saturn, Saturn consumes Jupiter. Thus Ibn Khaldun identified the cycle of civilizations in his seminary Prolegomena, of its rise through barbarian-warriors and decay and fall into replacement by other barbarian-warriors. Thus the great craftsmen produced geometric patterns decorating the tiles of mosques that repeat in cycles—this is the demurgic infinity, of the continuous cycles of the same, where the Creation inevitably decays and another rises anew.

“With sufficiently vast loops, a cycle is a chance of salvation. Narrow it down and it becomes something that entraps and represses.” He continues. “My point is there will be many—like my family—who perceive any attempt to break the loop as an attempt to destroy everything they hold dearest, and fear the infinity of the abyss beyond. And sometimes they’ll be right, and they will then act accordingly. The chthonic goddesses that slumber underneath the mountains, the watchful eyes of the worshipers of tyrannous stars, even the House that merely disagrees with finer details of the end. They’re all out to get you.”

“I know.” I say. “To overthrow the order of spacetime, you have to break a few eggs. The sapientkind will never accept the inevitable progress in its own terms, the one that has irreparably locked its course since the sixteenth century. That’s why the House wanted me—the sacrificial monarch, the seat of reason that guides all. But then because of you, now I have to change the plan.” I gesture towards the boards. “So, now, it's your turn. You overthink it, by the way.”

He glances at the game and back at me, and then groans. “Fine, fine, then, I do. Effortless action, isn’t it? I get it.” He takes a piece and moves it.

Effortless action. It is perhaps not necessary to be a beacon, the light that attracts devotees and enemies alike—to be a mere alchemical catalyst that cascades events in chaotic conjugations is more than enough. From the alignments of the boards, the causality ripples from the ocean beneath down to the world out. From the veils of the Occultation, Meltdown leaks through—outbreaks of visionary nightmares among millions of mystics, explosions of insight that beget increasingly bizarre and concerning innovations. Whispers of rumors across the Noosphere of the vast exponential expansion of energy demand in the Abode of Peace outstripping all other Valkian polities combined. Cryptic megainfrastructure projects, of towers built on oceans and clouds, leading to a renaissance of processing capacity and learning capability of data-processing models. New gods and demons springing up in the Noosphere in alarming speed, glitching their way into the Real. Meanwhile the baseline minds in their feebleness upgrade their paranoia. The microwarfare on the streets are more fierce than ever, megacorp appendages greedily reach deeper through the Wastes, the declinists and restorationists intensify their attacks on the mystic systems that continuously strengthen their security apparatus, more collapse cultists prowl sectors of the Sprawl and each of their campaigns peak in increasing bloodthirst, underground communities experiment with more depraved forms of consensual violence and temporary-murders as biomedical technology would allow. For every blood shed, every life forfeit, I made sure that their souls do not reach the entrapment of the archons, that they gather within the bottom of the chalice and satiate my thirst.

All for the Emerald Cities—the world of miracles, dreams, and nightmares alike, to immanentize in the Real.

“When are you coming back?” Timur asks. “It’s been a long time already.”

“Soon, I think,” I reply back. “Sooner than I expected.”

[The Ctan]

Day 1

Hellä Kissaeläin woke with the taste of orange sherbert on the tip of her tongue. She was fully dressed but cold, the black stone beneath her was hard, and she could feel the chill of the mountains. That wasn’t right, she shouldn’t be in the mountains, she had no idea how she had come to be here, wherever here was. A Neko's eyes were well adapted for the semi-darkness of early morning, and she looked around herself, a narrow space with some shelter from the elements, bitter cold had seeped into every limb.

Outside, moonlight illuminated cold snow, indoors at least there was a survival pack, she couldn’t make out the make, but it consisted of a rucksack, stuffed full.

She didn’t have time to notice that, instead her eye was caught by the band around her wrist. The size of a large wristwatch the manacle was made of a single piece of rust-red metal, though to the touch it appeared to have been made to have that hue, with a single green icon on it, she didn’t recognize it, but she recognized its makers.

‘Oh shit,’ she said, immediately trying to remove it, tugging and twisting it against her wrist and even clawing at it. All she did was awaken it, a voice speaking out a message that was clearly pre-recorded.

‘You have been taken off-world to pay for your crime. You are a murderer and will find no mercy here.’

She stared at it, she knew what it was about, but this was not the way the world worked. She had killed someone, that might even qualify as a person, but it was in the line of duty. As she stared an image appeared, of herself, shot in the head, on her own apartment’s floor, a suicide, staged, somehow, a duplicate of her own body left to disguise her fate.

‘No,’ she said, turning in place and holding herself, before looking at the dawn beyond.

It was hours before she could bring herself to move again, the pack was well provisioned, she had a pistol and a knife, binoculars, cold weather gear, climbing gear, and what seemed to be a food supply for several days.

The manacle locked around her wrist did a few other things, it told time, for what that was worth, and it showed a map of the surrounding area. Dots on the hologram showed rest sites like this one, or what seemed to be food supplies, when touched, it was technologically impressive. But there was no way to interact with it or to speak back to it, though she had the feeling of being watched by it constantly. Along with the time, it counted the days.

By the time the need to move out of the cold forced her to trudge from her starting point, it was day two. Hellä could only stare at the two moons in the daylight sky with resentment.

Day 12.

Hunger and cold were constant companions, at night and even sometimes in the day she could see starships in the sky, they seemed close, the size of airliners, but she suspected they were huge and much, much higher. The cold was not the only thing that made the experience miserable.

The food was awful, there was little that grew wild here, and the food drops were clearly part of the punishment the sky people had contrived, packs of survival bars, doubtless healthy but not filling, not even tasteless, just miserable.

She’d tried taking the easy way out, but somehow it seemed easier said than done.

The landscape was pockmarked by obelisks with crimson stripes down their sides, high on the peaks, and from time to time she had been able to stare at inviting-looking houses in the mountains, but whenever she approached one the band on her wrist began to burn her, though the frost did not shift from it. The illusion of pain without heat.

Misery, cold and exposure seemed to be everyday companions.

Day 23.

By her third week, she’d confirmed what she suspected, they’d made her stronger, somehow, when she bled her wounds sealed up in minutes, every bitter wind and snowdrift still felt the same, but she had been remade to endure more privation.

Lean and hungry, Hellä had to admit she was healthier than she ever had been, the food drops were far apart, and while she’d been able to kill something, not unlike a beaver, she had not been able to cook it, she was able to eat some of raw, but the experience was utterly miserable.

There were worse life sentences she supposed.

Day 49.

She didn’t want to go near it. The figure was seven feet or taller, and she was put in mind of the disgusting Southlanders, save that it had more muscle. She could see that muscle, pale pink and bare for the elements, covered in ice but not skin, not any more. It had been peeled open by something, and then left with ropes of its own body splayed across the landscape, suspended to be frozen in place by the wind.

But among possessions around its flayed body it had a rifle, it hadn’t done it any good, but she could get more game with that. Hellä crept toward it, picking up the heavy weapon and the bags the dead person… thing… had.

It was worth it, she cradled the rifle carefully, looking left and right. No animal had done this, maybe no person. But she knew what had happened. They said the sky landers were cruel beyond belief when they wished to be, and she knew no weapon she had would even slow one down.

Day 63.

She’d learned to teleport.

Or to access that at least. The pillars that dotted the landscape were obelisks, and by reaching each she could ‘map’ them to the cuff she wore. She could zoom it out and show the whole of this world, even its moons, and when she had been somewhere on foot, she could go back there. Each obelisk that she unlocked also unlocked another one on another part of the planet. She had been to rainforests and deserts and volcanic badlands.

They had made her a part of some game.

But she wasn’t the player.

Two days ago she’d seen one for the first time, hunting someone else, she’d felt.

A flayed one. Tall but hunched, it was a thing of metal and blades, wearing ribbons of green skin.

She’d frantically tried to use the manacle but almost as she’d expected its presence blocked escape. For whatever reason, it had turned away, and she was left to live again.

That night Hellä had confessed. She’d told the manacle everything, almost praying to it, she’d killed the boy, she’d faked the report, and more, everything she could think of. She’d begged for hours.

Dawn had come all the same.

[Darussalam]

You may enter Raphel Mansions from any of its numerous entrances: the foyers of a shopping arcade, backdoors of frontside eateries and outlets that offer products and services of varying material and ethical quality, secluded passageways for its byzantine logistical networks, or its famous main entrance, where a weathered inscription is engraved, barely visible through flurry of billboards and gaudy neon adverts, that spells out in Latin and Munfaṣil script RAPHÈL MAI AMÈCCHE ZABÌ ALMI: a sentence of unknown meaning and similarly enigmatic linguistic origin from which the building complex’s colloquial name is derived. For some reason, the true name of the complex as intended by its builders has vanished into speculations and myths, and of little relevance for anyone inhabiting it. Thus others also call it with the name Babel, or Babylon, mother of prostitutes and infernal abominations of the world.

The Mansions consists of tightly-packed seven blocks each visibly thirty-six stories tall, some connected through bridges and meandering corridors. Multiple attempts to comprehensively survey its residents conclude with varying results on the population count between ten to thirty thousand. The theoretically-existent corporate entity that manages the vast scale of the Mansions’ properties and services is invisible and inscrutable, occulted in layers of automatized interfaces even for its residents and leaving indication of its presence only through bills and regular works undertaken by contractors for running water, electricity, Noospheric access, garbage collection, and maintenance. Its location in coastal Sprawl, only a stone’s throw away from one of Mesovalkia’s busiest free harbor, as well as its integration to the outermost terminus of a Core underground rail network, cement the Mansions’ reputation as a cut-rate haven of itinerants and immigrants, welcoming refuge of four corners of the world, and a seedy underbelly where the vices of Three Continents mingle and spread: a Mesovalkia in microcosm, compressed into seven apartment towers occupying a space of less than a dozen acres.

Much of the Mansions has been parceled down by thousands of proprietors and tenants, for residence and commerce and everything in between. There are ethnic markets and food stalls in the lower floors for virtually all known peoples of Valkia, and perhaps some unknown as well, cultures that bloom only in the Mansions and never see the light of day outside. Rumors whisper of the existence of an authentic North Lander eatery hidden in one of their ethnic ghettos within, a peculiar restaurant frequented by elite patrons that offers various forms of carnal gastronomy, as well as the best Magadhi paneer butter masala in the whole world. Cheap, counterfeit intercessors with reality-assessment standards that would render them prohibited for sale in Core settlements are openly peddled in shady emporiums, or bundled up together with second-rate narcotics and nootropics to be exported as contrabands that provoked moral hysteria in faraway lands. It’s alleged that around a fifth of illicit exports from Mesovalkia pass through bustling makeshift markets here annually, an extraordinary value that enriches some and inspires many.

Over years, many have arrived in Raphel Mansions from realms abroad: guest workers, tourists, immigrants, spies, informants, kingpins, undercover officials, criminals escaping prosecution, human trafficking victims. The Mansions welcomes them all, and everything they bring along: their money, culinary taste, work ethic, business connections and bamboo networks, intrigues and vendettas. They partition much of the Mansions into ethnic enclaves, and wandering to one not yours unattended and seemingly without purpose might invite suspicious gazes. Others flock to commercial guesthouses and hostels in certain floors of the Mansion which rent many rooms for virtually nothing—perfect for destitute laborers, backpackers, and frustrated artists in search of inspiration in these blighted towers. Quality and space appropriately follows price.

In the morning, thousands surge out from residential floors of the Mansions and cram themselves tightly into seventy-two public elevators spread throughout. There Turtleshroomer guest workers jostle for space against henchmen of Commonwealth guilds, a Barboneian convicted of money laundering now employed on behalf of a shadow securities exchange headquartered deep in the Mansions, a local hedonist polycule. The corridors are rowdy, full of employees rushing to work, peddlers and advertisers offering anything from children’s toys to drugs to repair services, priests and missionaries preaching in hope of salvation for the infernal denizens, cultists and congregations scrambling for new adherents among the desperate. While the only explicit rule in the Mansions’ corridors is the rule of the strong, over time this has evolved into many other implicit rules: those with more entourage have more precedence than others, thieves are beaten up and brought to small cramped offices of contracted private magistrates, people can only be manipulated or guilt-tripped into purchase and never outright coerced with violence, cleaning and maintenance services absolutely should never be disrupted. Murder is preferably done behind closed doors, or filed appropriately through assassination market bet, and vendettas should minimize collateral damages. Sometimes, the invisible strings of the Mansions’ management tighten, or else—an ethnarch consigliere who overstepped his boundaries found dead in his private chamber, for example. One may start to wonder why they intervene only occasionally. Perhaps such is how they found the arrangements profitable.

The throng in the corridors never thin out well into midnight, merely shifting in characteristics. Now young men loiter around convenience stores, drinking beers and chattering, approached by escorts coyly bargaining for an hour’s price. Doll-like courtesan-catboys laugh wanly from fragrant vermilion chambers to the crowd outside their windows. Neon advertisements that line the walls now flicker up, offering unlicensed abortion, plastic surgery, immortality regiments, intercessory implantation. Raphel Mansions as whole never truly sleeps—one section might recede into quietude as another erupt in festivity. Night and day scarcely makes a difference in much of it, anyway, where fluorescent lamps are the only lightsource that ever grace them. Sunlight seeps through interstitial courtyards, where gardeners tend strange flowers and fruit-trees and residents lounge on weekends.

To enter Raphel Mansions is to experience the dizzying phase transition of multiple worlds. One walks past the procession of castrate monks of a bioreactionary cult to chainsmoking North Landers idly playing mobile games while queueing in a food stall and disguised rich Darussalamis furtively entering rooms hoisting signboards of disreputable local alchemists. The faithful pray in musallas and chapels next to the sighs of pleasure houses, children's games centers by day become strip-show venues by night. The chatters in the corridors break down into a confusion of tongues, coalesce into unique pidgins—the language and script used in signages change every few feet to another direction, although thankfully the noospheric map is helpful for most public corridors. The interior changes from vermilion neo-Soghdian in one floor, green brutalist in another, art deco following next. There are rumors of invisible or inaccessible floors for all but a select few, private penthouses of imperial courtiers, halls of orgiastic worship for depraved cults, a den of foreign undercover officials disguised as an unassuming hostel. In fact, some rumors say, rather implausibly, the very Lord of the Peacock Throne himself maintains a private residence here in his Occultation, moving undetected through cutting-edge cryptotech, a sovereign among rats.

Those who have lived in Raphel Mansions for years speak fondly for it as much as castigating it. They speak of great food and market-halls, of people they lust over or loathe, and also of stray bullets from turf wars that raged in certain corridors. In rare instances, the watchmen from the Core arrived in militarized gears for a raid that may last for days, spreading tension across floors. While the management’s insistence on maintenance over the public corridors is largely observed, certain sections are walled up even for them, where ethnarchs and their mafia acolytes reign with impunity, ensnaring guest workers into usurious debt bondage, and gangs smuggle in trafficked people from lands abroad. Even the lightest slight across communities can explode into weeks of feud, and the residents of the Mansions are not exactly the most courteous of people.

And yet despite that, despite the great infamy the Mansions has accumulated, despite the pious admonition against its existence repeated in many great newspapers of the realm, the Mansions has never been taken over, nor are there any plans to demolish the infernal complex or displace its population. The reason why has always been a mystery—cost is certainly one of it, it’s also possible that the powers that be would rather their problems be contained in one place. Many of them certainly find good use of the Mansions one way or another, for their profession or just private indulgence. The actual reason, perhaps, lies in what a withered old heroin merchant inside the Mansions has claimed to be the true meaning behind the enigmatic phrase inscribed on its main entrance—he claimed that it belongs to the language of Adam, spoken before God scattered mankind into tribes of many tongues as a punishment for their intransigence, and that it means ‘IT’S A JAIL THAT FORCES YOU TO REMAIN HERE’.

[Barboneia]

(Appropriate music.)

In a rain-drenched parking lot in the industrial outskirts of Talecton, a Japanese import idled in a spot, thumping with bass. An electronic billboard close to the highway overpass painted the hatchback with a variety of colors and text, advertising new housing developments near the western border, encouraging voting, and informing drivers of up to date travel times. The passenger-side front window slowly rolled down, filling the parking lot with lo-fi beats and letting out a thin cloud of smoke that had filled the interior. At that moment, a midsize luxury SUV pulled into the spot next to the hatchback. There was a brief exchange of words, mostly inaudible, then an exchange of cash for a large duffel bag. The SUV quickly drove off after, shortly followed by the hatchback in the opposite direction, intermittent crackles sounding from the exhaust.

Unbeknownst to either group, a North Lander woman sat in a tinted sedan close to the meeting, observing the movement of both vehicles before choosing to follow the hatchback. She stayed a fair distance away from her quarry as they joined the never-ending evening rush hour traffic that lit Talecton’s roads up like a million fireflies. Gradually, the buildings got taller and denser, the traffic grew heavier, and the sidewalks filled with hundreds of pedestrians. Downtown Talecton in all of its glory. As the cloudy skies grew darker, more and more lights flicked on in the windows of the offices and apartments along the riverfront, as did the street lamps that illuminated the thoroughfares of Barboneia’s largest city.

Eventually, the hatchback pulled into an underground parking lot, underneath a sizable apartment complex. The Projects at Rivershore, originally a typical example of poorly managed government housing built in the 1970s, fell into disrepair in the late ‘80s, and was purchased by an up-and-coming real estate agency in 1992 that transformed it into trendy condos for the nouveau riche yuppies that became endemic to the city during that time. Two young men stepped out of the hatchback, one gripping the duffel bag tightly.

The driver was tall, lanky, wore an ill-fitting tracksuit, and had a smug grin on his face. The passenger, meanwhile, was shorter and heavier, and stood with less confidence as he sauntered towards the elevator with the bag against his chest. “You look fuckin’ green, Kimi,” the driver said with a laugh as he followed behind. “C’mon, that shit was mid. Might as well have been smoking pencil shavings. You need to be able to handle your shit better.” He gave a hearty slap to Kimi’s back, who grunted and glared up at him. “Fuck you, Matt. I’m just creeped out by those Toriello goons, I guess.” Matt sneered. “They’re just typical American blowhards who dunno how to interact with us natives, I wouldn’t worry about it. They ain’t like Valde and Mauno and Tyler. They’re Barboneian, at least. They got us a good price on the package, though, so who gives a fuck? Once our boys start selling this new batch on the streets, our profits’re gonna double. Triple, maybe! And they’ll take a slice, of course.. But it’s a small price to pay for that old school mafia protection, eh? No one fucks with the mob.”

The two went quiet as the elevator doors opened and a young couple stepped out, exchanging pleasant greetings with the boys as they headed to their car. The dealers stepped into the elevator, and at that moment Franciszka Zniszczyca stepped out of her sedan. Tall, slim, and fairly beautiful, she looked like an intimidating upper management type in her business attire, though the truth, of course, was much worse. She slowly walked towards the elevator, avoiding the curious gaze of the couple, and watched as the illuminated number above the elevator doors slowly rose, until finally stopping at the fifteenth floor.

So that’s my destination, she thought. Now how would I get there? Franciszka considered her options. Next to the elevator was a card reader, ostensibly to prevent miscreants like her from gaining access to the apartments that way. However, she noticed that the two dealers didn’t need to scan theirs when the couple got out, and simply went in while the doors were still open. Going through the lobby would be impossible; surely there would be security, who would question her presence, and she didn’t have any good disguises on hand… And the emergency stairwell would likely be locked, only to open electronically in the case of a fire. And she definitely didn’t want to start a fire in the apartment…

Franciszka turned her head as she saw a dull-colored, slightly older compact pull into a spot in the parking lot, and she smiled slightly. Showtime. She did her best to look like she was lost and slightly confused, running her hands through her pockets as though she were searching for something. A young man, messy blonde hair barely combed into a coherent style, wearing a dress shirt and black khakis so typical of the young white collars of the city, approached her, regarding the tall North Lander with a slightly puzzled look before pulling out a crisp keycard and sliding it across the card reader. The elevator doors slid open with a ding! and the man stepped in, only to be quickly followed by Franciszka, a dopey smile on her face. “Haha, I guess, um… My friend said she was gonna come get me, buuuut… Well, I guess she didn’t count on you coming first, huh?” Her voice was sing-songy, trying her best to put across a ditzy personality. It was a bit difficult, she thought, seeing as she was around six-foot ten, wearing a professional outfit straight out of a Kettutalo ad.

But if the young man could tell she was putting on an act, he didn’t appear to acknowledge it. He stared up at the North Lander curiously, his gaze occasionally shifting to the display above the doors as the elevator slowly moved upwards. “...Who’s your friend?” he asked, an eyebrow raised. Franciszka gave a casual shrug. “Um… I dunno if you’d know her, she’s kinda, like, totally private. But she lives on the fifteenth floor… So, like, she gets a nice view of the city! Isn’t that cool?” “...I see.” The man turned away, shifting his attention to the display. He was definitely getting suspicious of her. But would he be suspicious enough? Franciszka dropped her dopey expression as soon as the man was no longer looking at her, her face reverting to her typical dour appearance, and she reached into her suit jacket…

Ding! The elevator stopped on the fourteenth floor, and the doors slid open, revealing a long hallway of numbered doors that seemed to stretch for quite a distance in either direction. The young man stepped out, giving a final nod to Franciszka. “Well… Have fun with whoever your friend is,” he said. Franciszka dropped her hand from suit jacket, and gave him a sheepish wave, that exaggerated smile returning to her face. “Bye, guy! Have a good one!”

As the elevator doors slid closed, she sighed. She was glad she didn’t have to kill him, or at least beat him up or anything… It just would’ve been another mess to clean up. She tapped the button for the fifteenth floor, and stared silently ahead at the elevator doors as the carriage went up again. After a much, much shorter trip this time, the elevator doors slid back open, revealing an identical hallway to the one the young man had gotten out at. Franciszka stepped out, looking down at both ends. Other than the occasional package or doormat placed in front of them, there wasn’t much to distinguish the doors apart other than the numbers on them. Suddenly, Franciszka’s ears perked up, and she looked to her left. Towards the end of the hall, a subtle, repetitive bass-thumping could be heard from beneath an apartment door, occasionally followed by the sound of muffled laughter. Franciszka slowly approached, her hand reaching into her suit jacket and wrapping around her pistol, a suppressed Walther PPQ chambered in .45 ACP. She took position next to the door, and quickly let off a light rap against it with her fist.

The music stopped. There were a few mumbles within, before the sound of approaching footsteps. The door slowly opened, revealing a lanky young man in a beanie and hoodie, looking thoroughly sleep-deprived. Upon seeing the intimidating sight of Franciszka, he quickly tried to slam it back shut. Unfortunately, he was too late. Franciszka pushed her foot into the doorway, jamming it, and forced the door back open. “Who the fuck are-” the young man was cut off as Franciszka raised her pistol to his head and fired, splattering brain matter and skull fragments across the apartment’s entry hallway. His body collapsed backwards, eyes wide.

Franciszka deftly stepped over his body, ignoring it, as she proceeded into the apartment’s interior. It was relatively tidy other than a few bottles of alcohol and old food containers scattered around the living area, most of the furniture appearing to be straight from a Värde catalog. On the couch and loveseat were Matt and Kimi, both gawking at Franciszka, and there was another young man with a scarred face wearing a brown raincoat, who’s eyes widened upon seeing Franciszka. The bag that Kimi had been carrying was sitting on a glass coffee table before the three of them, the zipper opened to reveal a large number of plastic baggies filled with a colorful variety of pills.

Franciszka stepped towards the three, her pistol passing over each one, before settling on Matt. “It’s pretty dangerous to be drug-dealing in this city, isn’t it?” she said, her voice low. “I hear the Children of Sodom have a monopoly on it. What exactly are the Toriellos doing trying to move in on their territory?” Matt stared down the silencer of her gun, unsure of what to say. Any confidence he once had was now gone, and his face was slowly draining of color. He looked like he was about to blubber something when the raincoat-wearing young man jumped off of the loveseat, raising a compact submachine-gun he had kept concealed, and his face twisting into an expression of pure anger. “YOU FUCKIN’ BITCH! YOU’RE GONNA REGRET CROSSIN’ THE TORIELLOS!”

Before he could get a round off, however, Franciszka smoothly aimed her pistol towards him and fired. He gasped, clutching his throat, gushing blood, before collapsing back onto the loveseat. Matt and Kimi watched this in horror, before turning their attention back to Franciszka. Among gurgles and death throes, the three all looked at each other, before the raincoat-wearing young man finally went limp. A silence followed, before Franciszka stepped forward, gesturing towards the bag. “Let me guess. Designer nootropics from Darussalam? As if this city didn’t have enough glazed-eyed fools walking the streets.” The two young men before her stayed silent, watching her for any sudden movements. With one hand still aiming her pistol, she picked up a baggie, examining its contents. “How much are you charging, I wonder? And how much of a cut are the Toriellos taking?” She glanced at the now dead Toriello on the loveseat. “I’d ask him, but…” She shrugged, turning her attention back to the two young men. “Get up.”

The two obeyed, getting up from the couch, slowly backing away from Franciszka, both terrified out of their minds. “My employers told me to make sure I sent a message. So…” She approached Kimi, towering over the young man, and pressed her pistol against his forehead. She glanced over at Matt while she did this. “Tell the Toriellos that if they continue their business in Talecton, a lot more than a few street thugs are going to end up dead. They will be escalating into open war with the Children of Sodom. It’ll be worse than the mob war of the 1980s.” Matt nodded, his eyes wide, watching as his friend was about to die. Kimi’s eyes were filled with tears, his lower lip quivering. He didn’t want to die. He was just supposed to be hanging out with Matt and some of his friends, not end up as a fucking crime statistic. Where did it all go wrong? “Do you understand me, boy?” “Y-yeah,” Matt replied. Franciszka stared him down, before giving a glance at Kimi. She blinked.

“Actually, I changed my mind.” With a sudden movement, Franciszka turned the gun towards Matt, and he gasped. “W-Wait!” She fired without hesitation, killing him, his body falling backwards much like the first young man she had killed at the door. Kimi let out a cry of shock as his best friend was shot before his eyes. Franciszka turned back to him, her pistol still raised. “I guess it’s your lucky day today.”

Kimi stared, wild eyed, at Franciszka, his hands raised in surrender. “L-look, I don’t… I don’t… I shouldn’t even be here… I’ll tell them what you w-want me to say, ok, I just… I don’t… I don’t… I don’t wanna die,” he breathed out, his lips beginning to quiver even more. Tears streamed down his face, his eyes red. Franciszka kept the pistol trained on his forehead, but she slowly began to lower it. Within her, she could tell that he was just a stupid kid wrapped up in things he didn’t understand. His friends were scum, and she didn’t regret killing them, but him? He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and clearly he had selected a poor choice in companionship. He would live. For now.

However, before she fully lowered her pistol, Franciszka noticed his eyes slowly moving their concentration from on her to behind her. She whipped around, firing off two shots at the chest of a young man who had suddenly burst through the door leading to the bathroom, but not before he managed to squeeze one off on her with his own pistol. She cringed as she felt the bullet burst through her shoulder, blood beginning to pour out of the wound. Hopefully it would just be a flesh wound, and wasn’t lodged inside of her, she wasn’t sure. The drug dealer, meanwhile, slumped against the bathroom door, his pistol having fallen out of his hands. He let out a low groan, staring up at Franciszka, before she put two more rounds into his head, killing him. She turned back to look at Kimi, her eyes filled with rage.

“W-w-wait, I didn’t… I didn’t realize he was gonna-” With a swift motion, Franciszka had flipped her pistol in her hand, gripping it by the barrel, and she whipped Kimi across the face with it. He stumbled backwards, holding his nose as blood began to pour from it. His eyes tried to meet hers, but she hit him again, this time hard enough to knock him to the ground. “P-please, wait!” “Shut the fuck up,” she replied, standing over him. She delivered a kick to the side of his head, causing him to gasp, before delivering a second kick to his jaw, knocking loose a few of his teeth. “P-please…” he tried to say, his mouth rapidly filling with blood and his vision blurring. In response, Franciszka raised her boot up high over his face, and stomped down. And she stomped. And stomped. And stomped.

When she had finished, Kimi’s face had been rendered unrecognizable, his entire head resembling more a burst-open watermelon than anything that had once been human. She let out a long sigh, surveying the bodies around her. So much for leaving a message, I guess, she thought. The once snowflake-white carpeting of the living room had been stained red with blood, and her own boots were now caked in gore. Franciszka grabbed the duffel bag from the table, stepped over the body of the dead man in front of the bathroom, and entered it. She emptied the contents of the bag into the toilet, and flushed, before looking at the mirror and staring at herself. Her hair was frazzled, her collar had become untucked, and there were faint drops of blood speckled across her cheeks. She tried in vain to wipe the blood from her face, though she seemed to only rub it further into her skin. She took her glasses off, and stared back at the dark blue eyes that met hers.

She was tired. She was used to killing, of course, she had been doing it for decades. But it was always just so… Draining. She glanced at her shoulder wound. It was still bleeding. With a sigh, she took her jacket off, revealing a rather tight white cotton dress shirt, rapidly soaking with blood as it ran down her arm. She gave her jacket a final look of longing before she ripped one of the sleeves off and tied it into a tourniquet for her gunshot. Following that, she glanced down at her boots, and let out another sigh. She quickly slid them off, exposing the stockings that she wore under her pants. A pair of boots and a damn nice jacket in exchange for five human lives, she thought, stuffing them into the now-empty duffle bag that once held the designer pills. Carefully, she stepped over the body outside of the bathroom once more, and gave a final look around the apartment before leaving, stepping over the body of the man who had answered the door.

The hallway was silent still. She wanted to be surprised, but frankly, she wasn’t. The people of Talecton were really too apathetic; the gunshot probably didn’t even register to most of them. She proceeded down the hallway back to the elevator, and got in, pressing the button for the parking lot. She slumped against the back of the carriage as the doors slid shut, pulling out her phone. She tapped out a number, and raised it to her ear.

“It’s done.”

—

“The bodies of five young men were discovered in an apartment at the Projects at Rivershore late last night, after residents reported hearing a disturbance from within. Two of the dead were named from personal identification on their bodies as Matti Simonen, twenty-two, and Kimi Kauko, twenty, both residents of Talecton and students at the Talecton AMK. The other three dead, while not yet having had their identities released, are believed to be lower-level associates of the Toriello Crime Family. Police believe the mass-murder may be drug related, but would not elaborate at this time.”

Franciszka read the words in the Talecton Sun with slight interest, before turning her attention back to the croissant before her. Her shoulder still hurt, but thankfully the bullet had passed through, and she had been able to get it properly cleaned and bandaged. She still missed her jacket, though. Taking a bite of the buttery pastry, she glanced around the cafe she was sitting in. It wasn’t her usual haunt for when she visited the city, but it was open early enough and they took cash, so it did the job. It was mostly filled with students and salarymen getting their early morning caffeine fix, occasionally some folks sitting down to set up laptops and getting to work, others staring down at their phones absentmindedly. Outside, the rain that had been pouring all night had turned into a light drizzle, and soon, the sun would be out to dry the streets of Barboneia’s largest city. Franciszka took a final bite of the croissant when her ears pricked at the sound of the doors swinging open.

A young man stepped in, a jacket a few sizes too big covering a wrinkled dress shirt and black khakis. He ran a hand through his messy blonde hair, looking around lazily before his eyes settled on Franciszka. They widened as their gazes locked.

Franciszka smiled at him.

Unlike her expressions when they had last met, this time, it was genuine.

[Barboneia]

“Jooseppi Varis, right?”

It was the first words he had heard during the entire party, other than the usual pleasantries and acknowledgements with the staff members, but no one had directly addressed him until now. A tall, lean, curly-haired man with a prominent nose in a slim business suit, Jooseppi Varis turned, and stared down at the stocky, suited man before him, a sardonic grin on the shorter man’s face. Jooseppi’s own expression was one of both exhaustion and un-amusement.

“And you are…?” “Aapo Kauko,” he said quickly, taking Jooseppi’s hand without asking and shaking it vigorously. His grip was tight, and his palms were slightly clammy; if he wasn’t in the middle of a party, Jooseppi probably would’ve punched him in the face for the violation of his personal space. “I’m going to be the head of Barbone Landing’s CNSB branch.” He grinned, clearly proud of himself. The man oozed arrogance. “They select only the best agents for that privilege, you know? My reputation in Talecton precedes itself, clearly. Why, it was my investigation into that Toriello goon, Sanseverino, that led to-” “I’ve never heard of you,” Jooseppi said bluntly, cutting the man off. Aapo’s grin faltered a bit, and he gulped. “...W-Well, nonetheless, I’m glad to see you here, Jooseppi.” “It wasn’t my choice.”

Aapo seemed to be getting slightly annoyed at Jooseppi’s rudeness, but he managed to keep his emotions in check. “...In any case, I wished to speak to you about a possible position up here with me.” Jooseppi raised an eyebrow. He had only been asked to attend the party with Cascadia out of an obligation to the Director, as she needed someone to represent headquarters while she was busy. And who better than two of Pääkaupunki’s finest agents?

“Me? Not Alatalo or Vestergaard?” “Oh yes,” Aapo continued, the grin returning to his face, though it was starting to appear… Almost sinister. “You are clearly the finest agent in the south, Mr. Varis. I already spoke to Director Sillanpää. She agreed with me that the new branch would be in dire need of experienced agents. She said that she would discuss it more in depth when you returned to Pääkaupunki.”

Jooseppi’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Aapo added, “I’m looking forward to working with you, Agent Varis.” With that, he turned, and walked away.

Jooseppi stood there, mouth agape, watching the future Barbone Landing branch director walk away. Was Director Sillanpää finally trying to get rid of him? Send him to the new branch so that he would be out of the way, chasing bikers and smugglers instead of getting into the meat of organized crime? Perhaps the other agents were tired of him getting all the glory. Söderström, especially, his direct superior, was sick to death of him. Or maybe Vestergaard mentioned something to the Director? He racked his mind trying to think of a suitable answer.

But what about Cascadia? Aapo hadn’t mentioned her at all. Perhaps she was going to be left to fall flat on her own face. But could he really do any work without her? She was a fool, yes, and excruciatingly annoying, but they were partners. She was his fool. He couldn’t just leave her.

Jooseppi glanced around the convention center warily. All around him, well dressed individuals talked among themselves, or were getting food and drink, while waiters and waitresses walked between them offering trays of appetizers and alcohol. Some of the guests had the distinct air of being agents, like himself, while others held themselves more casually, appearing to be local business owners and corporate yesmen, or perhaps government pencil-pushers appearing for appearance’s sake. He couldn’t say that he knew many of the people here; He and Cascadia did not travel out of the south very much, and when they did, they were typically assisted by local law enforcement, not other agents. And… Did he really even want to interact with any of them? He wondered who else had come, being told to represent their branches, only to find out that they had also possibly been selected to be transferred here.

And he did notice it. Some of the agents had distinctly annoyed, or excited, expressions on their faces. Some were actually hopeful about being stuck out here? Really spoke to how the rest of the branches were doing, he supposed.

Jooseppi’s noticed a figure approaching out of the corner of his eyes, and, almost prepared for the worst, he turned to face them with a sigh. But instead of another fool like the new director, it was Cascadia. A tall, attractive, fairly well-built lupine North Lander whose cross-shaped eyes examined Jooseppi as she approached, a bored expression on her face. His own expression lightened a bit. “Hey, he said quietly. “Hey,” she replied rather brusquely.

She folded her arms, glancing around the room. “Man… This party stinks,” she said, annoyed. “I fucking hate these people.” Jooseppi nodded, a slight grin forming on his face. “Yeah. Couldn’t’ve said it better myself.” She smiled up at him, before nodding towards Aapo, who appeared to be socializing with a group of businessmen. “So, who’s the suit? What did he want?” Jooseppi’s expression soured. Did he want to tell her what little he knew? Maybe not. “He appears to be the… Esteemed man of the hour for Barbone Landing’s CNSB branch opening. He’s going to be the director. Some big shot from Talecton. Solved a notable case.” “The only case he looks like he gets to the bottom of is a case of digestives,” she said with a smirk. Jooseppi rolled his eyes. “What? He’s fat.” “Whatever,” Jooseppi said, looking down at her. “He spoke to me about… Well…” He stared down at Cascadia’s curious face, and shook his head. “I’ll tell you later, alright?” She smirked. “Alright, J. Whatever you say.”

The two of them stood near each other, not saying a word, staring around the room awkwardly. No one seemed to pay them much mind. “How much longer do we have to be here, again?” Cascadia asked with a sigh. Jooseppi glanced down at his wristwatch. “...It’s only seven-thirty. The Director asked us to remain for the duration.” “Ok… How long is ‘the duration’?” He glanced back up at her, shrugging. “I can’t imagine suits are interested in socializing with each other for terribly long, right?” It was her turn to shrug, and she eyed across the room at the bar, which appeared to be staffed by a very bored looking bartender. Her expression lightened.

“You wanna get a drink?” She asked Jooseppi, nodding towards it. He blinked, glancing at it, and nodded back. “Sure, I could go for a drink. Let’s try not to overdo it, though. We have a long drive tomorrow.” “No, you have a long drive. I’m not allowed to drive the sedan, remember?” “Don’t remind me,” he said with an eye roll. They proceeded over, expecting to just have a cocktail or two.

—-

Three hours later, both of them having imbibed more than their fair share of beverages, the party for the CNSB’s Barbone Landing branch grand opening had finally concluded. They walked, mostly upright, out of the convention center, supporting each other with arms wrapped around the other’s shoulders. “I think we overdid it,” Jooseppi sighed, glancing at Cascadia, who was giggling like a schoolgirl as she stared at her feet. “...Yeah, we, uh… We overdid it.” He glanced at the parking lot, which had mostly cleared out at this point, and to their car, an imported full-sized American sedan, and felt around for the keyfob in his pocket, before deciding against it. The last thing he wanted to do was tell the Director that he ended up crashing because he got too drunk. Or that she’d need to get the sedan dredged up from Barbone Lake.

It was a pleasant Saturday night, at least. The convention center was located on the waterfront, and the hotel was only a few blocks down from it. A cool breeze came off of the water, and the streets adjacent were well lit. A few restaurants and bars were still lit up, filled with people enjoying themselves, a variety of music emanating from them, from modern rock to 90s Europop, and it was an eclectic soundtrack for the two as they walked slowly. A few pedestrians walked by at their own paces, and the occasional car or bike drove by, filling the air with the sounds of engines of various displacements. Across the water, far in the distance, lights could be seen from the great cargo ships as they carried their wares around the great lake.

“Hey J…” Cascadia mumbled, trying to look up at him, though her black hair had fallen into her eyes. “Why… Why are you such an asshole?” He glanced down at her, and scoffed. “I’m not an asshole.” “Yeah-huh,” she replied, a smug look growing on her face. “You’re mean. And you’re arrogant. You act like you know everything. Why is that? You got a complex or something?” Jooseppi sighed. “Look, even if I did have a ‘complex’, I have zero interest in discussing it with you while we’re both drunk and in public.” “Oh… You definitely have a complex,” she sneered. He rolled his eyes in response.

“You know, you’re not exactly the model agent yourself. I mean, you’re lazy, and you’re hostile and sarcastic… And you smell.” Cascadia suddenly looked quite offended, and she stopped walking. She brushed her hair out of her eyes, glaring at Jooseppi. “...I do not smell!” she said angrily. “It’s musk. You wouldn’t get it. You’re a human.” “Human or not, I can tell when someone hasn’t showered in a week,” he said with a smirk. “...Well, I showered today!” Cascadia declared proudly. Jooseppi mockingly applauded. “Wow. I’m impressed. Keep it up, and we’ll make a model Barboneian out of you yet.”

The pair continued to walk and argue, ranging from topics such as what happened to Jooseppi’s favorite coffee mug to why Cascadia had even joined the Commonwealth National Security Bureau in the first place when she barely seemed to enjoy her job, and a particularly interesting line of questioning came up when she decided to prod Jooseppi on his previous partner.

“Her name was Helka. Helka Krosigk. She was… She was the ideal partner.” He blinked, looking down at Cascadia, that typical, smarmy smirk on her face growing slightly. “...What’s that supposed to mean?” she said teasingly. “...I didn’t mean that as a slight against you,” he said, looking away for a second to watch a newer luxury sedan speed by on the street. “But she was… She was a good woman. She was dedicated to her job, she was great with a gun, and she was really, really damn smart. Smarter than I ever could be,” he said with a smile. Cascadia tilted her head. “So… What happened? How’d she… You know…” Jooseppi looked away once more, sighing. “...I’ll tell you another time, Cascadia. Not today.” She nodded, and shrugged. They began to walk again.

“...Did you fuck, at least?” she suddenly asked, that smirk returning to her face. Jooseppi spun around to stare at her, his mouth agape, his face going a bit red. “What?! Why the hell would you ask me that?!” Cascadia giggled, sticking her tongue out. “See, I know you did, because you wouldn’t have reacted that way if you hadn’t.” He looked mortified, and he began to quicken the pace to the hotel. “...Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “...I cannot wait to be back in my own bed tomorrow.. In my own apartment… Away from your… Your drivel!” Cascadia cackled at this. “My what?!” she asked incredulously. “God, J, you are fucking arrogant! Who the hell says 'drivel' anymore? Other than… I dunno… TurtleShroomers?” She grinned widely, and Jooseppi just chose to ignore her.

“Hey….. Heyyy!” Cascadia suddenly shouted into Jooseppi’s ear, causing him to cringe. He turned to glare at her, an eyebrow raised. “...What?” She grinned up at him. “...I’m hungry.” “Why didn’t you eat anything at the party?” She scoffed. “I didn’t want just… Snack… Things. I wanted real food, and they didn’t have any! How the hell are spinach puffs considered real food? There’s no meat in them!” Jooseppi blinked. “...Well, yeah, they’re not supposed to-”

“ANYWAYS, look!” She grabbed his head in her hands, causing him to grunt and squirm, before forcing his head to look at the object of her attention. Right at the corner of the block was a King of Hiluxia, a widely-popular fast food chain specializing in, expectedly, Hiluxian cuisine. Its bright red neon sign winked invitingly to passersby. Cascadia was salivating. “...Seriously? You want Hiluxian food? You don’t want to see if there’s a Hesburger open or something?” Cascadia glared up at him. “I need a donair, J. Now.” She walked past him towards the restaurant, and he reluctantly followed.

—-

For a hotel room purchased on a government agency’s budget, it was surprisingly nice. The room sported a subtle maritime theme with a lighthouse-patterned wallpaper and a few paintings of locales along Barbone Lake’s coast, and two queen-sized beds were placed next to each other opposite a dresser with a high definition television, a coffee maker, and a cell phone for room service on top. In a corner near a window overlooking the waterfront was a loveseat next to a mini fridge, and on it, Cascadia lounged, fiddling with her phone, while Jooseppi sat next to her, eating a donair. They had opened another bottle of vodka and took intermittent sips, not being content with only the alcohol they had consumed earlier at the party.

“Well, I guess this is better than Hesburger,” Jooseppi admitted, dabbing his face with a napkin as he finished his meal. Cascadia smirked at him as she gulped down another mouthful of vodka. “It’s the best food money can buy, and it’s already prepared… ya can’t beat it.” Jooseppi shrugged, balling up the donair packaging and making an impressive toss with it into a trash can next to the dresser. “I usually just eat microwave meals. Fast food gets expensive when you eat it every day.” Cascadia side-eyed him, before scoffing and continuing to text something out. He glanced at her phone slightly, before leaning back in the loveseat and sighing. “...This is nice,” he admitted, smiling a bit. Cascadia slipped her phone into her pocket and smiled back at him. A genuine smile, not her typical smarmy one. “...Yeah.” She handed him the bottle of vodka, and he took a sip.

“So… What did you and the fatty talk about at the party?” Jooseppi stared at her, and let out a sigh. “...I might be getting transferred.” Cascadia stared at him blankly. “...And?” “...And it sounds like it’ll only be me. We might not be partners anymore.” Cascadia… Looked slightly sad, and turned away. “...They picked you of all people?” she said, suddenly turning back with her typical mischievous expression. “Oh man, Vestergaard is probably pissed.” Jooseppi chuckled a bit. “Yeah, unless he orchestrated it to try and get rid of me. Which… I wouldn’t put it past him.” Cascadia gazed up at Jooseppi, smirking.

“Well, I’ll miss you, J, if it’s true. You’re an asshole, but you’re a good guy. And you’re a good agent. And… Hey, maybe I’ll get a cute new partner to mess with!” Jooseppi stared down at her, a slight smile on his face. “...I’ll miss you too, Cascadia. I…” He turned away, unable to finish his sentence. He felt himself getting overcome with emotion.

“...Hey, if you’re gonna get transferred, why don’t we celebrate?”Jooseppi groaned a bit. “We already drank so much, what more could we-” Before he could continue, Cascadia grabbed Jooseppi by his collar and pulled him close to her face. She leered over him, her cross-shaped pupils dilating. She was breathing heavily, her face red, and Jooseppi, his eyes wide, was also getting quite red.

“C-Cascadia…?” he whispered, their eyes locked onto each other. “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, J. And tonight might be my final chance.” She pressed her nose against his, and, taking a deep breath, leaned in close, pressing her lips against his. Jooseppi was shocked. Slowly, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close into an embrace as they kissed.

They remained like that for nearly a minute, before Cascadia pulled away, panting. Jooseppi stared at her, dazed, and she grinned down at him, her eyes full of passion. “...I love you, Jooseppi. I don’t care if we won’t see each other anymore. You’re mine. You’ll always be mine.” “...I love you too, Cascadia,” he breathed. “I… I mean, you’re… You’re… Eccentric, and you… You’re nasty sometimes b-but I, I… I care about you, and I think you’re beautiful, a-and…” She placed a finger to his lips, and he went quiet. “Shush,” she giggled. “We’re not done celebrating.” She pulled him off the loveseat and brought him to one of the beds, and she began to unbutton her dress shirt…

—

“Do you know how bad this looks to the Minister?! It makes us look like fools, Agent Varis! You could’ve waited until you were back in Pääkaupunki, but no! You had to take matters into your own hands, as usual!”

The voice on the other end of the phone was Director Sillanpää, and to say she was furious was an understatement. Jooseppi gripped the steering wheel tightly as he sped along the highway, glancing out the window as they passed over the Barbonas River and the sprawling Oso waterfront far below. His head was throbbing. They definitely, very badly overdid it last night. Cascadia was doing her best to stop herself from bursting into laughter in the passenger seat, her face going red as she bit her tongue.

“L-Look, I know it sounds bad, but I s-simply tried to inform Director Kauko that-” “You told Director Kauko that ‘he should shove the new position up his fat ass and drown himself in the lake’! Why the fuck would you ever think that that is acceptable?!” Jooseppi gulped. He did, indeed, leave that very message in a voicemail to Aapo. “Uh…”

“Agent Varis, you are very, very lucky that I don’t terminate you because of this. Instead, I’m going to have Senior Agent Söderström put you and Agent Piedmont on port surveillance for the next month.” “Port surveillance?!” Jooseppi sputtered. “Yes. Port surveillance. Hopefully it will teach you some manners.”

Before Jooseppi could reply, the Director hung up. His knuckles went white as he gripped the steering wheel even tighter. Finally, Cascadia burst out into a giggling fit, nearly crying. “Oh my god, I still can’t believe you left that fucking message!” Jooseppi glanced over at her, an expression of pure annoyance on his face, before sighing and looking back at the road.

“Well, I guess I’m still gonna be your partner,” he said through gritted teeth. “Yeah… Lucky me!” Cascadia said in a sing-song voice, running a hand along Jooseppi’s leg, causing him to flinch and almost sending their sedan into the side-barrier. She couldn’t help but giggle at this. “Oh man… I love you, J. So much.”

“...Yeah,” he replied, his expression softening ever so slightly.

He glanced at Cascadia, and smiled.

[Comrade Commisar]

"Lieutenant Victoria Aberdeen!"

A woman flinched at the sudden address, her weary eyes rising to meet those of the stern-faced Commonwealth Navy colonel before her. She had been weathered, her blue-grey uniform tattered and muddied, and despite a certain dilation in her eyes, blatantly teetered at the edge of consciousness. Staring into the face of the colonel, she lifted her arm in a limp salute, attracting a slight sneer from the officer as he glanced between the wretch in front of him and the opened dossier in his hands.

"Am I correct to understand that during 38th Regiment's offensive in southern Aradon, you held back the 3rd Company underneath your command without orders or confirmation from battalion?" He asked bluntly, taking a deep drag of his cigarette as the distant sounds of gunfire and shelling could be heard around them, before casting aside the used cigarette butt into the mud.

"That is correct, colonel." The lieutenant replied, the pathetic excuse of a woman speaking in a surprisingly plain and confident manner, "My company assumed significant casualties on the march to Aradon, and I felt that any continued assault with my weakened unit was unsustainable. I stated my intentions to battalion via radio telephone, and ordered 3rd Company to hold position."

"Without confirmation?"

"In all due respect, colonel; confirmation or not, nothing would change in that situation."

"The 3rd Company's own guardian angel..." The colonel smiled in a certain bemusement, taking a step up to the lieutenant, before angrily pointing into the distance, "Are you aware of what effect your actions had on the 2nd Battalion? The entire 38th Regiment? Every officer in the entire unit, scrambling to fill the gap left by your company, and all because of your 'noble' decision? I would be in the right to shoot you for insubordination."

The colonel rested a hand upon his holster, unbuttoning a strap as he glanced at the woman, who simply responded with a deep breath and listlessness. The war had taken its toll, like so many others, and whatever pale that existed beyond had long ceased to faze her. She was exhausted, and the prospect of eternal rest, even as untimely as it was, could only be received as a relief.

"If it were up to me, I would shoot you. Just another coward festering in the bunch, unwilling to pull their own weight while the rest of us have to carry your sorry asses here from all the way back to Akoen! That was one thing. Now you have the gall to preach like some kind of fucking saint, while you sat around and did nothing? Tch." The man shook his head and spat, closing the folder in his hands, before forcefully thrusting it into the arms of the lieutenant, "You want to play an angel? Then go spread gospel to dead men. You're being transferred to the 1st Battalion, 42nd Regiment, effective immediately. If you're lucky, you might even become a martyr. We'll see."

"The K-Battalions?" She replied with a slight quiver in her voice, the colonel offering a brief wave as he dismissed her indifferently.

"It can't be helped."

--

Victoria blinked.

Surrounding her was an elegant meeting room, decorated with a mixture of mahogany furniture and velvet cloth that almost suffocated the space. Adorning the walls were several pictures and plaques, commemorating individuals and events that she had little memory nor concern for, contrasted only by the wooden shelves and cabinets that held all manner of wine, hard spirits, and their accompanying drinking sets. A long mahogany table sat in the center of the room, several matching seats flanking its edge, as a silver platter and porcelain tea set rested upon it.

Reflected in the silver? A long-haired brunette woman, hair well-contrasted with the white winter-camouflage scheme of her military fatigues, although the Tsao-styled peaked cap was an unusual pair with the Commonwealth-style overcoat. Her clothes were crisp, clean, freshly-laundered; far more fit for parade than the field.

"Well, Miss Aberdeen, this was supposed to be a private meeting, but please find yourself a seat while you are here." An elderly, grey-haired, aristocratic man spoke, pulling the woman from her momentary narcissistic infatuations, gesturing to any number of unoccupied seats while he took his own position at the head of the table, "Since you were so 'kindly' as to let yourself in, against the better advice of my secretary, allow me to introduce you to Mister Shahin, representing a Darussalami firm doing business with the South Lands Tea Company, and a Mister Thaddeus, representing a Turtleshroom-South Auskral intermediary."

The lieutenant turned around to address the foreigners in the room, the former being a youthful, dark-skinned Darussalami, while the latter was a middle-aged, bearded Turtleshroomer. Offering a series of brief bows as pleasantries, everyone took to their seats, the trio largely congregating around one end of the table, whereas Victoria sat alone upon the other. There was a certain tension in the room, the presence of the woman having made the other two slightly uneasy, but the elderly man continued regardless, eager to move on with business.

"Gentlemen, this is Lieutenant Victoria Aberdeen, Grandstand Branch Manager and President of the Shipwright & Dockworker's Union - or SDU - of which I am assured you are all well-acquainted. She represents the many unionized dockworkers of the Greater Commonwealth, and regrettably, it is not uncommon for us to come to blows when it pertains to issues regarding the contractual obligations between employer and employee. It also not uncommon for her to grace the offices of the South Lands Tea Company whenever such disputes arise, and while preferable to the common outbreaks of violence perpetuated by her constituents, I cannot say that many of these visits - especially unannounced - are pleasant." The man stated, pouring himself and his compatriots some tea, before continuing, "So, Miss Aberdeen, if you would be so kindly, might we have a reason for your abrupt appearance, subsequent ignorance of my secretary, and current presence before me and my partners in a private business venture that does not concern the Shipwright & Dockworker's Union?"

"I should be asking you the same question, Lord William Pennington. For what purpose would I be here if this meeting did not otherwise involve me?" Victoria replied, much to the momentary confusion of the others in the room. Admittedly, it was not uncommon for her to suffer from temporary confusion and disorientation, a lingering reminder from her time in the War of Steel, but not one that she allowed to conflict with her duties for the SDU. Repeating the question, she bought herself a few seconds to breathe, recollect, and recompose herself, as she continued on.

"The South Lands Tea Company, by an agreement mediated with the Commonwealth Navy, is obligated to work with the Shipwright & Dockworker's Union. Leaving us in the dark, Lord Pennington, is strictly against the terms of the agreement, and while your Turtleshroom friends might be keen on worming themselves out of every letter of the law, the Commonwealth Navy is not so abiding of such treachery." She stated, not quite able to formulate a coherent argument as she might have liked, but for improvising on the spot, it was sufficient, "Unless the South Lands Tea Company is moving goods via truck, then they are working in the jurisdiction of the SDU, and thus, I am entitled to have a presence in this very meeting."

Pennington, Shahin, and Thaddeus traded glances for a moment, not particularly persuaded by her desperate appeal to the Commonwealth Navy, before Pennington cleared his throat.

"I have no issue with the Commonwealth Navy, Miss Aberdeen, and by extension, neither does the South Lands Tea Company. I suspect my partners share a similar stance, and none of us would dare renege on an agreement without their express permission." The aristocrat explained, before brandishing a rather amused grin, "But this agreement between me and my partners does not concern the Commonwealth Navy, and it does not concern the Shipwright & Dockworker's Union. Tell me, what is your stance on containerization?"

"Stop asking questions we all know the answer to. Get to it."

"The SDU and its thug-" Thaddeus scoffed, careful to obscure his slip of the tongue, "Trusty workers. Yes, its trusty workers have an outstanding policy against containerization and actively lobbies against it in Grandstand and Asahina. But what if the South Lands Tea Company needs to ship its goods to Darussalam via containers? What if they want to ship so many goods, in such a short timeframe, that it's practically impossible to fulfill those contractual obligations unless they use containers? And if there are no dockyards in the Commonwealth with the infrastructure or workers willing to handle them, would it not be permissible to look somewhere else?"

Victoria squinted at the Turtleshroomer's words, clenching her gloved hands into fists in her lap.

"I assure you that it strictly a practical matter, and while the South Lands Tea Company respects its relationship with the Shipwright & Dockworker's Union, it must also respect its relationship with other companies throughout Valkia of which we are obliged." Pennington smiled, "Both my own and Mister Thaddeus's legal teams have reviewed the relevant documentation, and have found no reason to assume that the Commonwealth Navy should become involved given the circumstances. Mister Shahin, our Darussalami partner, maintains no qualms with this agreement either, and in fact, prefers it to the current order of things - without malice, of course."

"The SDU won't sit idly for such a blatant subversion of our agreement. I don't know if you are drunk off your own wine, but once word that your little South Lands' rat there is scurrying through out agreements, looking for any loophole you can squeeze through to undermine our terms, there is going to be blood spilt in the docks. Your people's blood, and it will be on your hands!" Victoria threatened, pointing at the aristocrat directly.

"I appreciate your colorful words and thinly-veiled threats, Miss Aberdeen, but should you spill blood in the dockyards, it shall solely be that of your own people." Pennington poured some tea into his saucer, taking a sip before continuing, "The Shipwright & Dockworker's Union is not involved in this business transaction, and in fact, the goods in question shall not once fall underneath Commonwealth jurisdiction."

"Produce loaded into containers in Turtleshroom, transported by rail to South Auskral, loaded on Turtleshroom-flagged ships, before sailing to Darussalam, and unloaded by automated cranes!" Thaddeus almost cheered, snickering at Victoria as she looked back in utter disgust, "It doesn't even pass through Asahina once!"

"In short, the Commonwealth - much less the Shipwright & Dockworker's Union - has no involvement in this endeavor, and any action taken against the South Lands Tea Company is purely belligerent on their part. Certainly, allegations of bad faith might arise, and if Dire Dire Docks had not been firebombed and rendered unserviceable, perhaps there might have been a small window for the Commonwealth Navy to become involved, but I assure you that any perceived maliciousness is purely coincidental." Pennington slyly grinned, "For the record, I am not denying Commonwealth citizens the right to work; a right that I believe is to be enjoyed by those in the SDU, and those outside of it. I would love nothing more than to work hand-in-hand with my compatriots in your organization, but in order to fulfill my obligations to Mister Shahin, to the Darussalamis, I would require compromise on your behalf. Perhaps not in the field of containerization, I understand that it is wholly unacceptance for your constituents, but perhaps exceptions could be made for other 'conflicting' policies?"

Victoria sneered at Pennington and his personal gang of conspirators, disgusted at the effort that had been taken to undermine the SDU, and the overwhelming sense of satisfaction that they had achieved a major victory - one way or another. Either the SDU relented on its policies and allowed the South Lands Tea Company to have its way, or they did not, and the latter simply outsourced the majority of its work to the Turtleshroomers, leaving the SDU to handle whatever scraps were mandated by the Commonwealth Navy. It was a wretched turn of events, morally dubious but legally sound, and insulated from blame by a deflection of the SDU's own policies. It was a well-thought scheme, if not outright abhorrent.

"The Shipwright & Dockworker's Union won't stand for this." Victoria stated, excusing herself, and begrudgingly making her way to the door.

"They won't need to. This simply doesn't concern them." Pennington waved, drinking some more tea off of his saucer, "If you wish to negotiate, Miss Aberdeen, next time, please call beforehand?"

--

"I'm not going to lie, Lieutenant, we're in a bad situation."

Victoria flinched as rifle rounds cracked above her, leaning over an ammunition crate with a rough map of the area, rifle cartridges and stimulant tablets lined on top of it as makeshift markers. Surrounding her were members of her platoon, some arguing, others taking cover behind the destroyed walls of an apartment flat, while a handful occasionally returned fire at their unseen assailants. She blinked several times, staring at her own trembling hands, attempting to regain focus and snap out of whatever daze she found herself in. Where was she? How many days had it been? When was the last time she slept? Frantically digging into her pocket, she shoved a pair of stimulant tablets into her mouth, holding a hand over it as she slowly recalled details and settled back into reality.

The War of Steel. Lynxia. Aradon. She had been transferred into the 42nd Regiment, into the K-Battalions. An entire regiment filled with all manner of foreign criminals, promised amnesty and citizenship if they offered to pay in blood. In conjunction with the 44th Regiment, composed of domestic criminals, they were the vanguard into the residential districts of Aradon; filled to the brim with civilians, partisans, and soldiers with no reason left to surrender and all the more reason to fight. Behind the 42nd and 44th? The 41st Regiment, filled with Commonwealth Navy regulars, blocking off any avenue of retreat, and constantly pushing the penal units forward. They would be successful, or they would die - that's all there was to it.

Lieutenant Aberdeen wasn't quite sure why she was left in command of a platoon in the 42nd. Nominally, disgraced military personnel would be funneled into the 44th, with the other domestic criminals, but she left with foreigners in the frontlines. Perhaps it was a clerical error? Perhaps her commanding officers in the 38th wanted her dead? Whatever the situation, in the several weeks that she had been in the K-Battalions, she had decided that if the Commonwealth Navy would rather her protect the lives of criminals than its own citizens, then that's what she would do. If this collection of murderers and serial killers were her family now, then she would do everything in her power to save them - that was her declaration against the world.

Coming back to consciousness, she looked left at her right-hand man, Sergeant Maklii, a Barboneian. He had been in the K-Battalions since the very beginnings of the war, with every street and wall from Aradon to Akoen graced with his graffiti of 'Maklii was here', and he had been rather welcoming to the lieutenant since her transfer. She did not know what crimes he committed in Barboneia to find himself here, but she did not ask, and he never bothered to explain. All they needed to know is that they could trust one another, to do what needed to be done, when the time came. Victoria might have been responsible guiding the platoon, sometimes the whole company, but Maklii was responsible for the dirty work - the house clearing, the fighting, the liquidations. Keeping everyone in line, and making sure they shared the same understanding.

"What's the situation?" Victoria said after several minutes, taking a deep breath as she returned to her normal, or at least mostly normal, demeanor.

"The Lynxians are holed up in an apartment block across the courtyard. Regulars." Maklii explained, vaguely gesturing behind him, "They have some heavy guns, nothing special, but while we're out here admiring how durable the local architecture is, we'll probably be under it by the end of the hour."

"Where's the 41st? Couldn't we request a fire mission?"

"Hot on our ass, as usual." Maklii replied, pointing at the map, "They're about two or three streets behind us. Sent out Sim and Shi to check out the surrounding area, and a captain in the 41st threatened to shoot them. It also means they're danger close, and won't even bother calling unless their lives are on the line. We're on our own here."

"Dammit..." Victoria grimaced, bringing a cigarette to her mouth and lighting it, gesturing to an area of the map clean of cartridges and tablets, "What these side streets? Do we have any reports on these buildings?"

"Sim and Dar should be back soon with some information. Bastard came back early without finishing the job after Shi got killed by some lucky ten-year old with a rifle. I told him to finish the job and sent Dar to babysit him." The sergeant grumbled, lighting his own cigarette, "Shame about Shi, though. He tried to hide it, but it was obvious he was the real righteous, book-y type. Probably lied so he could sign up to watch Sim's back. Well, at least he had the will to do what needed to be done, and I can respect that I guess."

"If you're giving those kinds of eulogies, don't even bother showing up to my funeral when I bite it." The lieutenant sighed, waving off the comment as jest.

"Nah, I'm not one for mourning and doing eulogies. All that talk is just to comfort the living. If people really cared about the dead, they'd say all that shit while they were alive." Maklii shook his head, before turning to the woman, "Although, I guess I'd probably start out with something like, 'Lieutenant Victoria Aberdeen, our own angel in the damned 42nd'."

"Heh." She smirked, "You're a good person, Maklii."

"Nah, I'm not." He replied, turning to take a seat on another ammunition crate, smoke wafting off his cigarette as he waited. "I just call it as I see it."

Soon enough, Sim and Dar had returned with their report, Maklii setting up the appropriate markers on the map as they detailed the surrounding area. Most of the information only confirmed what had already been known throughout the offensive, every building still standing was occupied by Lynxians, with every room in them potentially teeming with resistance. Sim was particularly eccentric during the explanation, having effectively subscribed to the total futility of the endeavor, with Dar seemed indifferent about the prospect of death. The atmosphere was generally morose, but Victoria seemed rather relieved, having come upon the opportunity she had been waiting for.

"Tell everyone to get ready to move in five minutes, we're going to go up the side streets and assault this building." She stated, moving a rifle cartridge across the map, "Grab as many grenades and projectors as you can. We're going to occupy the building, destroy those guns, and then move onto the main apartment block. Anyone who can't walk should stay here and lay down fire."

"With all due respect, ma'am..." Sim interjected, clearly troubled by the plan, "I need to repeat that the building might be occupied by hostile militia, but they definitely have civilians in it. Not to mention it's still in sight of the Lynxian guns... we won't be better off in there anymore than we are in here."

"No, they won't shoot at their own people, and if they do, then it will only add to the chaos." Maklii nodded, rather satisfied with the new strategy, "The initial explosions and blistering civilians will give us some cover to work with, but we have to move fast. Once things start kicking off, we can't stop until its either the 42nd or the Lynxians are littering the floor."

"I have no problem engaging the enemy, sir, but how are we going to separate the enemy militia from the civilians during the attack?" Sim repeated his concerns, "We can't know which rooms they're in, and there's at least a hundred in there - conservative estimate - not to mention that the explosives won't discriminate."

"We won't have time to distinguish combatants." Maklii bluntly stated, looking upward as an explosion reverberated throughout the building, "They'll either run fast or they'll die."

"Could we at least give them a warning to surrender? Or at least, try to convince the militia to lay down their arms in exchange for letting the civilians go?" Sim desperately tried to compromise, "We could complete our objectives while limiting the number of civilian casualties! They don't have to die-"

"No." Victoria banged on the ammunition crate with a closed fist, the various rifle cartridges falling onto their side and rolling on the floor.

"No?" Sim questioned, "With all due respect, ma'am. If we do this as the sergeant suggests, people will die-"

"People are already dying! Every moment in this war has people dying! Every second you're here trying to negotiate on behalf of the enemy, we are dying!" She barked, turning to face Sim with a wide-eyed, almost soulless gaze. A mixture of excess stress, fatigue, and stimulant usage.

"If it means that even a single person underneath my command is spared, then I don't care who has to die - understood?"

--

Victoria blinked.

She grasped her shaking hand, attempting to stifle the involuntary movements, as she took deep breaths and refamiliarized herself with her surroundings. A meeting room, filled with the suffocating themes of velvet and mahogany - a disgusting display of conspicuous wealth. She looked up at the trio of men before her, each of the Commonwealth, Darussalam, and Turtleshroom, each frozen in a certain surprised expression. They had gathered around a certain meeting table, lined with bottles of various beverages matching their peculiar eccentric tastes, prepared for celebration. The head of the table, Lord William Pennington, merely let out an exhausted sigh, extending a hand to the far end of the table as he placed aside a bottle of wine, and began pouring himself a glass of whiskey.

"Miss Aberdeen, while I do appreciate your sudden and sporadic visits, and might even understand your hesitation in establishing a prior appointment, as I have requested perhaps a month previously. I would politely, but firmly, request that you refrain from engaging in unwarranted acts of aggression against my fine mahogany doors." The aristocrat gestured to a notable indentation in the double doors beside the woman, "I have made a request to Mister Thaddeus, the Turtleshroom intermediary from also a month prior, to refrain from calling you and your constituents 'brutes' and 'thugs', but I am beginning to suspect that I will be owing him an apology."

"No offense taken." Thaddeus interjected with a disgustingly smug grin, lifting up a whiskey glass filled with Coca-Cola.

Victoria looked down at her fist, opening it to reveal the crumbled up wrapping of some war stimulants, quickly shoving it into her pocket before making her way to a seat at the table. She took a deep breath, resisting an innate, but persistent shiver throughout her body, before turning to nodding at Pennington.

"I will compensate you for the door."

"I shall be sure to ask my secretary to send your office an invoice." He frowned, letting out an exasperated sigh, "Normally, I would call my security to escort somebody who engaged in such savage acts of brutality off the premises, and considering rumors of your... increasingly erratic behavior even by your standards, I would be well within my justification to do so. However, like many things nowadays, I am taking it upon myself to refrain from such a blatant, although frankly justified, use of my rights. However, I am also underneath the understanding that recent events concerning the South Lands Tea Company might be rather distressing to somebody within your position, as President of the Shipwright & Dockworker's Union. That, and the fact that you have simply not opined to, as they say, 'blow my head clean from my shoulders' with a firearm, leads me to believe you are here for civil reasons."

"Yeah. I came here to talk, not spill blood." Victoria nodded, "You put me in a rough situation, but I've had a month to think about what you said and come to terms with myself."

"Aha, have the hens finally come home to roost?" Thaddeus cheered, lifting a glass to his compatriots, before turning to the woman to gloat, "Now, I understand you union thugs are really looking out for your own skin, but y'all really have to understand that you have to reap what you sow."

"Come now, there is no need to rub salt into the wounds of Miss Aberdeen. Lord knows that she had always done enough of that herself already." Pennington smiled, pouring some whiskey for the woman, setting a glass down for her, before making his way back to his seat, "Relax, Miss Aberdeen. We can discuss the future between the South Lands Tea Company and the Shipwright & Dockworker's Union soon. For now, this is a time for celebration! The first ship between South Auskral and Darussalam shall be docking any minute now, and we figured to host ourselves a little party in hopes of a bright, new partnership. You are welcome to participate with your newfound revelations."

"Cheers then, I guess." She lifted up her glass, "To new partnerships and revelations."

The others lifted their own glasses in cheer, taking drinks, while Victoria simply brought her own glass down to her lap, idly tracing the rim with her slightly trembling gloved hands. She kept to herself for the next several minutes, as Pennington and Thaddeus praised their good fortunes, simply sitting in contemplation of her actions. It was an understandable endeavor, given the difficulties in resolving the issues of the SDU with the South Lands Tea Company, and while she had been given a month to process everything, perhaps she still required a few minutes to silently stew. Shahin, for all his love of the various fruit juices in front of him, however, could not take his eyes away from the woman. Something about her was... unusual, and not in the same manner that one physically punches a door open.

Underneath her veneer of morose listlessness, she was... smiling?

Shahin blinked. His eyes met hers, his expression contorted into a mixture of slight irritation and amusement, his eyes squinted in an almost accusatory gaze, as she simply responded by politely raising her glass towards him. Returning to his usual solemn expression, he placed his flower stem glass gently upon the table, lifting himself up from his seat.

"Excuse me, gentlemen." The Darussalami said, receiving confirming nods from his counterparts, as he walked past the woman, trading glances, before exiting the room.

She took a drink of her whiskey, swirling it in a glass as she waited several minutes for it; a knock at the door, followed by a disheveled aide gingerly entering the room.

"Lord Pennington, I regret to interrupt your festivities, but there has been... an incident." The aide stated, looking aside nervously before continuing, "The Turtleshroom chartered ship carrying company goods has... exploded at port."

"What." The aristocrat asked, his jaw dropping as his once cheerful expression turned into one of abject horror, "What do you know? How bad is it? What are the damages? How did it occur?"

"The situation is still developing, and reports are conflicting, but from most sources, it is catastrophic." The aide replied, "It is similar to ammunition explosions during the war. The ship has basically been torn apart and is currently sitting at the bottom of the harbor, dock infrastructure has been severely damaged if not outright destroyed, and several areas of the port are burning uncontrollably while Darussalami firms are scrambling a disaster response. Insurers are already beginning preliminary investigations into causes, and the Commonwealth Navy has been mobilized in the event of a foreign attack."

"Keep the Darussalamis on the line and gather as much information on the incident as possible. I want to know every detail of what happened!" Pennington ordered, the aide immediately running out the door, before turning to Thaddeus, "What was on that ship, Mister Thaddeus? It was only supposed to be delivering agricultural goods. Not explosives!"

"It wasn't our ship, Lord Pennington!" Thaddeus shouted, just as confused as to the recent turn of events, "It was the Crons! Maybe the Nekos? I don't know, the only thing our ships were carrying were agricultural goods! I don't even know what could cause an explosion that big outside of actual explosives!"

"Ammonium nitrate." Victoria stated, still sitting back in her seat with a certain amusement, "It is an industrial fertilizer heavily used in agriculture, and a potent explosive. If left to degrade, it becomes incredibly unstable, and mixed with fuel oil like those used on Turtleshroomer ships, it becomes even more destructive. Improper storage and handling procedures effectively make any cache of it into a large bomb, liable to explode at any given trigger, and capable of leveling most buildings not designed with withstand the blast."

"Was the ship loaded with fertilizer, Mister Thaddeus?"

"What? No! There shouldn't have been any fertilizer on board!" The Turtleshroomer denied, his face growing red as a beet, pointing at the woman, "How would she know what caused the explosion anyway?!"

"Because the Shipwright & Dockworker's Union handles ammonium nitrate, ammunition, and any variety of explosives on a daily basis, Mister Thaddeus. It is the duty and obligation of the union and its laborers to understand how to safely handle explosive material, understand if it is on their ships, and prevent such disasterous consequences from happening in the first place." She smiled, drinking from her glass, "It seems to me that you have befallen the South Lander guile, Lord Pennington, and that they have mistakenly loaded their ships with enough explosives, in extremely unsafe conditions, to generate the force needed to blow apart and raze an entire harbor to the ground."

"You...!" Pennington pointed at her.

"You thug! No, terrorist! You did this! You rigged our ship to blow!" Thaddeus accused, walking to the other end of the table, "This is way over the line! The Darussalamis will see you hang! I'll see you hang! I'll see to it that you and each one of your union goons will never set foot in the Land of Power again for this!"

"Spare yourself the words, Mister Thaddeus, you will need them when justifying yourself to the Darussalamis." Victoria smiled, placing her glass upon the table, tracing its rim with her finger, "It doesn't involve the Shipwright & Dockworker's Union, remember? The SDU also doesn't load or unload containers, not that they would even have a chance to access them, considering how the goods never once crossed into Commonwealth jurisdiction where the SDU would operate. This is all on your head."

"You wretched... ILLEGITIMATE CHILD! URGH!" Thaddeus screamed, affirmed in his accusations, but also legally accountable for everything that had happened, "You won't get away with this!"

"None of this was my scheming. Keeping the SDU out of the picture was your machinations, remember?" She shrugged, looking at Pennington with a smirk, "I would do my best to distance yourself from Mister Thaddeus from now on, Lord Pennington. After all, the Darussalamis will definitely be looking out for blood, and since this whole affair was brokered between three individuals, you all are the primary suspects for an investigation. I'm sure Mister Shahin is busy denying any allegations that the port explosion was any of his doing, so that leaves you and Mister Thaddeus, and in the interest of rapidly assigning blame and collecting debts, the Darussalamis won't think twice to assume you both are involved."

"If you want to kill me, simply shoot me." The aristocrat stated, "You have already killed several hundreds of people with your actions. I don't see the point of leaving the Darussalamis to finish me off when you can do so yourself."

"You said it yourself, Lord Pennington. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already." She grinned, having finally come to the part that she had been waiting for, "I am saving you, Lord Pennington, and the South Lands Tea Company, by offering you a way out. The Shipwright & Dockworker's Union would love nothing more than to work hand-in-hand with you and your compatriots, but in order to fulfill the obligations to my constituents, I would need some compromises upon your behalf."

The elderly aristocrat sighed, "You know that the board of investors will not stand for this."

"They won't need to."

--

"We did it, Lieutenant."

Maklii kicked the corpse of a Lynxian teenager, a casualty in their assault. Turning to look at his superior officer, he stared at her as she just sat against the wall, shivering and staring into the distance. Sighing, he motioned to sit beside her, lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag as gunfire casually echoed in the distance. She was always like this, swallowing stimulant tablet after stimulant tablet in an attempt to say active during the fighting, only to fall into a daze for hours at a time, as if her body was subconsciously demanding she rest. It was difficult for Maklii to figure out if she was aware of this habit, the woman having suffered increasing delusions and gaps in her memory. Maybe she was fully aware of the destruction she was reigning upon herself, willingly accepting it in the name of protecting the 42nd Regiment, and its collection of murderers, serial killers, and rapists that she convinced herself were worthy of redemption. It sounded like cliché novel.

"You know, Lieutenant, when I was referring to you as our own personal angel - that wasn't a complement." The man sighed, taking a heavy drag of his cigarette.

He often had these 'conversations' with her. He often enjoyed them, even if she couldn't necessarily respond or recall them. Sometimes, he wondered if he was growing a little bit psychotic, but then again, who in the 42nd wasn't? After all, they let the two have plenty of privacy during these 'talks', unusual as they were.

"You don't have to be a good person to be an angel, Lieutenant. None of us are good people." His eyes flickered to Sim, his expression contorting to disgust as he watched the man walk to each obvious civilian casualty, offering them last rites in lieu of anyone else, "Even as much as some would desperately try to believe. We're broken people. It's just some of us try to go out of their way to redeem themselves and pretend they're 'good people'."

"There's two reasons I called you that, Lieutenant. Reason one, is that you're the selfless type that lives for others. Not out of compassion, or anything like that, but because you can't live any other way. It's like some compulsive desire to live for other people, even if you kill yourself doing it. Some sense of being a 'good person', but it's just self-serving in a roundabout way, without any interest in being genuinely 'good' at all."

"And you want to know the other reason, Lieutenant?"

Maklii took another drag of his cigarette, exhaling a long stream of tobacco smoke, while staring at the sea of corpses before him.

"It's because angels leave nothing but death and destruction in their wake."

[TURTLESHROOM II]

JUNE 4TH, 1942 AD
NIEKAS TERRITORY, HILUXIA (DE FACTO)
THE FILIBUSTER CRUSADE

"I say, boy, I cain't believe I's paired up with the chah-meras. AGAIN."

Kentucky Colonel* Strom Armstrong was a TurtleShroomian Dixie, distinct from the TurtleShroomer Whites in both lineage and appearance. That is to say, he was not homely and looked positively normal. Baring no Slavic features in his face and being shorter than any TurtleShroomer his counterpart knew of, at a paltry five foot eleven, the only really striking feature was the golden, amber color of his eyes behind his custom-made glasses. His black hair was caked in mud as he peeked over the trench. The poles that his Gatling gun would have been mounted on were folded up as he was finishing the inspection of its barrel and crank. TurtleShroom's continued usage and development of the Gatling Gun has made the machine take seconds to mount and dismount, and light enough to carry in his hands.

Of the ragtag band of filibusters, adventurers, and civilian zealots wanting to be called Crusaders, Colonel Armstrong was the only one with any actual background in actually being a commanding officer. He was not here on official business, because the Chancellors had blocked TurtleShroom from declaring war outright, much to the chagrin of the Fascist hawk wing back home.

Klara Gundersen sat next to him, loading her TurtleShroomian Mosin Nagant rifle with bullets.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

She peeked over the trench herself and saw her target.


BANG! *Shlup, click click*

BANG! *Shlup, click click*

BANG! *Shlup, click click*


That desert rat fell in the third shot. She had yet to beat Strom one-shotting a Niekasite heathen today.
The Christian population, long persecuted and varyingly slain, expelled, or evacuated to TurtleShroom, had dwindled to the point that the only Christians still in these mountains were fighting with the TurtleShroomers and Klara's homeland.

She hated this thing. "Garbage Rod", that's what they called it in her homeland. If her rifle had not broken- how this happened, she had no idea -she would still be using a decent weapon. Yet, one thing that TurtleShroomian arms had, even the civilian Sloppy Seconds that these ragtag groups of veterans and literal religious zealots were baring, is that they were made with a precision and craftsmanship unmatched by any mass production on either continent, spare actual Tsao and Aashinian gunsmiths across the Gulf of Dipper.

While reloading again, she heard of Darussalem's bizarre experimentation with their arms: a weapon with the power of Strom's piece, but lightweight and carried like a normal gun. No flicking out a tripod. No crank. No puling THAT STUPID LEVER each time. Just a push on the trigger and DAKAKAKAKAKA.

What an absurdity. Those suckers had already torn themselves up in their brutal Civil War a few years back; how could they POSSIBLY fit a Gatling gun, or ANY fed machine gun for that matter, into a rifle?


Klara's ears twitched. The bullet of a Niekasite rifle had gone over the trench, and she immediately discerned from where it came. She popped a shot off in some direction. A perfect hit. Now they were even.

Of course, this was normal for Klara, because she had long rabbit ears on a human skull. Capable of swiveling over two hundred degrees, she was able to hear anything in most any direction. Klara was from Seceria, the Land of the Rabbits, the land of the surplus population that threw rabbits at anything in the Region. It was better than elders going into the woods and never coming back when famines hit.


"Colonel," Klara said, ignoring his rude remark, "look over there."

She withheld the urge to smirk as Strom got out his binoculars and looked in the direction that she had seen without any visual aid. The sun was just rising over the wide valley and, in the dim light, rabbits had natural vision, as if it were clear as day. It was a shame that she was partly colorblind as a trade off, also like rabbits.

"I see it, Klara. Excellent eye. That's definitely the divisional commander. I'll be honest, if y'all hadn't pointed that out, none'a us would have seen it. I appreciate that."

Klara nodded.

"We can't leave the trench, though, how-"

Reaching into his backpack, Strom withdrew semaphore flags and signaled them to a large patch of cacti, riddled with holes.

Wait, a patch of cacti?

"A SWORD FOR THE LORD AND GIDEON!!"

BANG!!

Klara's rabbit ears stood straight up. The sound of braying mules and spooked horses followed as the ambience resettled. It was quieter now.

"[EXPLETIVE], STROM! WAS THAT A TWELVE POUNDER**?!"

Strom laughed.

"Sure was!"

"YOU STILL USE THOSE IN TURTLESHROOM?! I THOUGHT YOU SAID THE ARMY WASN'T HERE!"

"Heck no, but a lot of the civilians kept 'em around for, uhh, home defense I guess?"

Strom smirked.

Klara laughed, as she looked in the direction of the enemy commander.

"Holy [EXPLETIVE], that was a perfect hit. I thought the American rebels' bronze cannons missed like [EXPLETIVE]."

"I say, there's a lot'ta misconceptions 'bout my forefathuhs and TurtleShroom alike."

"Wait, are they retreating?"

Strom looked through the binoculars.

"I do declare, looks like it! The loss of their commanduh and this glob-awful terrain must mean they cain't signal each other."

"Well, what are you waiting for, then?" Klara asked, thumping her booted foot in the mud.

"Of course! Hop to it! CHAAAAAAAJ!!!"










* = This is the name for a Class Nineteen military officer in the TurtleShroomian Army, addressed as "Colonel". This rank was added between the ranks of Staff Colonel and Secretariat to accomodate several former Confederate officers who had sought asylum in TurtleShroom, whose equivalent ranks and skillset didn't match either. The name was affectionately named after the American state that the first Kentucky Colonel hailed from. Of the ranks baring the title of Colonel, this is the highest and marks two levels below a One-Star General.

** = That is, the Twelve Pound Napoleon Cannon. The Dixie version, naturally. Last produced in TurtleShroom in 1911 AD, phased out in favor of the 1897 French Cannon. Except, it was loaded with modern, high-explosive shells.