Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Kezmarok, Counting Houses, and Amazon Battle-Barges: Recent News from the Hill Cantons

 And now the news from the Hill Cantons…



The great half-ruined southern metropolis of Kezmarok is back in the shouted news of Cantonal town criers with recent developments. Not only is the lost lower half of the city back from its sojourn in a fell pocket dimension, but the eternal host of Turko-Fey is back at the gates and resuming the long half-millennium siege of the city–though from more distant positions. Contracts are once again being offered for “bonders”, paid rough men of the Hill Cantons.  


But bonders are also not the only ones in demand for immediate employment, the Zem-renowned great hostel Duke Mraz’s Folly, is seeking ruffians, hedge mages, procurement specialists and other so-called adventurers to clearing out the “Back of the House” of Tihomir’s Great and Evermore Abalienation, its satellite location on the Isle of Foosz. Applicants should be warned that Zdenko the Scarificator, hostel chain domo/manager, is “no casual tavern thug roustabout but is paying detail-oriented attention to the large walled off section in the “more secluded” regions of the large structure.  Advance payment will be made to the order of two pounds of hruz hruz (Duke Mraz’s premium hallucinogenic mollusk paste). 


Back in Marlinko, the newly-rebuilt Golden Counting House is back in business after a horrific and tragic fire that swept Svako’s Square in the Mendacious Mercator contrada three years ago. Usual night hours of service are naturally to be observed. 


Hisfytla the newly-crowned queen of the Amazons (western branch) is holding a lavish contest in which outlanders are invited to captain large combat barges “long-term leased” from the Eld in a battle of wits and valor. Qualified contestants will be supplied with a barge and crew of male-helots. The winners are promised a 2,500 silver “balsaccs” (extremely-large Amazonian coins worth 5 of your masculine tainted gold suns) and magical accouterments worthy of your ranked status. Losers will be granted special lifetime entry-level positions in the Regal Torture-Harem. 


Long live the Vy-Queen!