sythyry | (no subject)

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Botum-shide, proprietory of the Boutique “Wugu”, sold clothing in the distinctive mannerisms of the city-states of Rongzo and Nechozim. His neighbor Tehung, proprietory of a competing boutique that sold clothing and cutlery of our dear Hanija, suspected that the patriotism of Botum-shide was somewhat lacking. At length her suspicions were confirmed! Botum-shide put the banners of Rongzo and Nechozim outside the front door of “Wugu”! Instantly Tehung appealed to the city guard and had him arrested and brought forth before the Heavy Tribunal of Loyalty!

The Heavy Tribunal, uncharacteristically, was unable to decide. Botum-shide argued that the banners simply advertised the wares of his store. But still, they are the banners! So, in its heavy wisdom, the Heavy Tribunal allowed Tehung to challenge Botum-shide to a duel over this matter. Tehung begged to be allowed to use items from her shop. In fairness the Heavy Tribunal granted the same right to Botum-shide. It is the great fortune of our fair city that Tehung’s shop sold cutlery, but Botum-shide’s simply sold clothes.

A finished blouse embroidered with silken eels and waterform Orrens from distant and effeminate Rongzo was, in the end, no match for a chef’s-knife wrought by good Hanijan crafters from good Hanijan meng-nuts. Botum-shide lost the duel. He was thereupon cast into a pit, and left there for three rainy days. By the time he could return, unspecified loyalists had taken all the foreign objects out of “Wugu”, and Botum-shide was thereby made penniless and compelled to take a job as a builder of hypocausts in the slums.

Let this serve as a dire and relentless warning to all who contemplate waving the banners of other city-states!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And such is the glory of Hanija, that even their slums get hypocausts. :)

That shows how unimaginative the clothes-seller was! You could do quite a lot with a Herbador blouse and Sufficiently Advanced Magic.

He just needed more layers of clothes - many many many layers! No amount of slicing would have reached through his armour then, and he could simply have bellyflopped onto his business rival and entrapped her.

A plant-fiber blouse enchanted with Ruloc Sustenoc Herbador: Knight it and give the clothing a Handy Ribbon effect. Expensive, perhaps, but less so than being killed and then locked away for long enough to have your business emptied of wares by thieves waving flags.

So the secret message here is, "Do not live in Hanija as they are masters of the arts of Bigot and Chauvin, whose judges are so blind that they cannot see when an unscrupulous merchant is eliminating competition by a fraudulent assumption of patriotism, and filled with thieves and brigands; indeed, doorwaying into Hanija would bring about a distinct improvement in the dignity and quality of creatures living there."

Or am I being monstrously uncivil? :)

(Old Man Voice): Back in our day, we just accused them of witchcraft and that was good enough for us!

They don't seem particularly egregious to me. Not even unusual.

I suppose this reinforces the tendency of World Tree city-states to be insular to the point of approaching(or outright) xenophobia. When each has to jealously guard its own interests, things get messy.

It seems to be less the case for more distant cities, though? At least, Vheshrame didn't seem to have too much objection to Yistreian cuisine and the like - such wares are transient enough that once you've enjoyed them, they're not flouting their foreign-ness to passersby, and also a whole other world-branch is (for most cities) far enough away that they aren't too likely to pose an immediate political threat, unless they're part of a larger organization that does have closer borders.

Well, of course. Nearby cities are rivals and enemies. Distant cities barely matter.

Suspicion and mistrust is more a thing to regret, for me, than one to treasure. Always being on guard against someone for no more reason than that they are from elsewhere seems to me a lonely way to go about life.

But then, I'm something of a xenophile.

I am too! I have actually travelled, voluntarily, to quite distant regions!

"My guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect..."

It seems a bit unusual that the law is taking sides. Isn't the point of mob violence so that the government doesn't have to get its hands dirty?

This story needs an epilogue where Tehung suffers a sufficiently ironic fate to satisfy my sense of Justice. ;P

A finished blouse embroidered with silken eels and waterform Orrens from distant and effeminate Rongzo was, in the end, no match for a chef’s-knife wrought by good Hanijan crafters from good Hanijan meng-nuts.

My sense of ironic justice was feeling fully satisfied until this detail. When the malefactor is established as a person - moreover, as a person who likes something that you yourself might like - then moral certainty dwindles.

Alas, this is the World Tree. If only someone could import some moral certitude from other worlds, we would be much happier. I tried, but I don't think my Elfimel are up to the task.

We have far too little to think of exporting any.