Silver Moon
Adventurer
Chinese Take-out
Chapter 8, "Nothing to see here, move right along", September 15, 1018, 11:00 A.M.
The party teleport away from the Heian Empire at noon, arriving approximately a thousand miles to the southwest (and one hour earlier, local time) at a temple near the city of Shosun. The cathedral-style building is made of large polished stones, with marble pillars and a marble floor. Huge stained glass and clear class pictures cover most of the upper walls, allowing a great deal of light to enter. This creates a greenhouse effect, given the vast quantities of trees and plants growing inside the building. “Is this a church or a garden?” Narg asks.
Cassie gestures to and asks about the thousands of iron and ceramic pots sitting on shelves throughout the vast building. “Those contain the ashes of the ancestors” is Hiroshi’s answer. “What! Are you saying that you teleported us into a funeral parlor?” she exclaims. Hiroshi explains how it is the Heian culture to cremate bodies, and store the ashes in a shrine. As this building served as the only Heian place of worship at this city for many centuries it is therefore the final resting-place for the tens of thousands of Heians who lived and worked in Shosun. “Tens of thousands! Let’s get out of here, this place gives me the creeps,” she answers. “This from the woman who dissects any monster's body she comes across?” comments Fiona. “That’s different,” Cassie answers, “I usually know how they died, and most of the time am the one who wanted it that way.”
They exit the temple, finding them to be along a lake. It is about ten degrees warmer than the Empire that they just left. Surrounding the lake are fifteen different churches, each of a different pantheon (a design similar to the International section of Disney's Epcot). Hiroshi explains that the pantheon native to this continent (Chinese) is the only one allowed to be worshiped within the city walls of Shosun, so these church parks were established nearby for foreigners living in Shosun to continue their own religious practices. He says that it is about a four-mile walk from here to the city itself. It is a pleasant day, and the party sets off to the southeast.
After a few miles they see in the distance a large wall, standing eighty-foot high and stretching for approximately three miles north-south, with the northernmost section of this wall still being under construction. Set a third of a mile in from the section being built is a mile-long wall running east-west, ending at another wall going three-quarters of a mile north-south.
They approach the city from the northwest, heading towards the part of the wall under construction. As they near, they see that there are several thousand workers actively engaged in this task, moving and placing huge slabs of stone. Three quarters of the workers are of the dwarven race, with the remaining quarter being either human or dwarven-centaur. Lono looks at these centaur creatures, with dwarven torsos atop mountain goat bodies and mutters “And I thought that dwarves couldn’t get any dirtier.” The group can see how the wall is being made, basically as two fifteen-foot-wide stone sections with twenty feet of space between them, which is then filled with dirt, for a total of a fifty-foot depth. They see that the center section rises seventy-five feet, with a five foot high battlement both sides of the top of the wall, to the full eighty-foot height. Huge pulleys and cranes sit atop the finished wall beside the part under construction, being used to hoist the massive rocks. The party also sees elaborate piping and spiral staircases being built up the center of the section of the wall, which Hiroshi explains is for fire fighting, tapping into the aquifer below the city, to pump water to the top of the tower to spray on a potential fire in the city below.
They then travel further into the open part of the city between the wall under construction and the completed north-south wall a mile to the east. The city is very crowded, with tens of thousands of people of various races. Buildings are everywhere, and look to be poorly constructed, of flimsy materials, mostly bamboo, wood scraps, or in some cases, paper. There also does not appear to be any rhyme or reason to the design of streets and alleys, with buildings and trash heaps protruding out in all directions. Most people are quickly hurrying about, minding their own business, and paying little to no attention to the party. They see a large amount of beggars and other poor just sitting in alleyways. The stench of this part of the city is nearly unbearable. “I’m not very impressed with this city,” Fiona comments to Hiroshi. He replies “That’s because we are not in the city yet, it begins there,” as he points to a huge gated opening at the mid-point of the mile-long east-west wall ahead of them, one of three such openings along this east-west wall at quarter-mile intervals. He adds, “When they eventually complete the walls of this new district these ‘squatters’ will be forced out, and this area razed, so that proper buildings can be constructed along a well-planned grid of streets and alleyways.”
The party witnesses an altercation between a man and woman, leading to the man drawing a knife and slashing her arm, cutting her dress sleeve, with her bleeding heavily. Both Serita and Narg want to intervene, but Hiroshi strongly advises against it, telling the party to keep moving. Toshiro misunderstands his Uncle’s advice, and makes a comment which Serita thinks is Toshiro's approval of what they had just witnessed, leading to a verbal confrontation between the two of them. Hiroshi later informs them that there was a 99.9% chance that what they had witnessed was staged for their benefit, and if they had stopped pickpockets and thieves would have swarmed them. “But he cut her?” Serita says. “Probably just a pouch of pig’s blood strapped to her arm beneath her robe,” Hiroshi answers. She answers “Well, even with your one-in-a-thousand chance that it was real, we still should have done something.” Hiroshi suggests they stop arguing, as they are nearing the city itself, and yelling at each other would just make the gate guards suspicious of them .
As the party enters the opening, they see that it is comprised of a fifty-foot high archway, with a pair of twenty-foot wide double doors, which are currently opened. The doors are made from huge trees, and are each over two-foot thick, supported by vast iron bars. Narg comments that it must take at least one-hundred men just to close them, but as there are three times those numbers of armed troops guarding this gate, concludes that it wouldn’t be a problem. They see on the wall top above archway a huge iron wall, fifty feet wide, which can be lowered to completely block the doorway opening. Hiroshi tells them that this is only one of three barriers that can be lowered, and that up on the wall above are several tons of stone that can then be poured between these metal walls, to completely seal this gate in the event of an enemy invasion. “They’re serious about security,” comments Narg. “And it’s paid off,” Hiroshi adds, “This is the only city on this part of this region of the continent to hold off both the Mongol invaders and the Zhentarum mages, both groups of which ruled the rest of these lands for centuries.
Hiroshi hands each of the party five copper coins of the local currency, which they give to the gatekeepers. They are each given a copper pin with Chinese markings to wear. He tells them that they should wear the pin on their left lapel while in public, as it designates that they are visitors who have now paid for free access to all districts of the city. They notice that about one-third of the people they see wear similar badges, the others wearing more elaborate pins, mostly of gold or silver, on their right lapel, which Hiroshi says are resident identification pins.
Chapter 8, "Nothing to see here, move right along", September 15, 1018, 11:00 A.M.
The party teleport away from the Heian Empire at noon, arriving approximately a thousand miles to the southwest (and one hour earlier, local time) at a temple near the city of Shosun. The cathedral-style building is made of large polished stones, with marble pillars and a marble floor. Huge stained glass and clear class pictures cover most of the upper walls, allowing a great deal of light to enter. This creates a greenhouse effect, given the vast quantities of trees and plants growing inside the building. “Is this a church or a garden?” Narg asks.
Cassie gestures to and asks about the thousands of iron and ceramic pots sitting on shelves throughout the vast building. “Those contain the ashes of the ancestors” is Hiroshi’s answer. “What! Are you saying that you teleported us into a funeral parlor?” she exclaims. Hiroshi explains how it is the Heian culture to cremate bodies, and store the ashes in a shrine. As this building served as the only Heian place of worship at this city for many centuries it is therefore the final resting-place for the tens of thousands of Heians who lived and worked in Shosun. “Tens of thousands! Let’s get out of here, this place gives me the creeps,” she answers. “This from the woman who dissects any monster's body she comes across?” comments Fiona. “That’s different,” Cassie answers, “I usually know how they died, and most of the time am the one who wanted it that way.”
They exit the temple, finding them to be along a lake. It is about ten degrees warmer than the Empire that they just left. Surrounding the lake are fifteen different churches, each of a different pantheon (a design similar to the International section of Disney's Epcot). Hiroshi explains that the pantheon native to this continent (Chinese) is the only one allowed to be worshiped within the city walls of Shosun, so these church parks were established nearby for foreigners living in Shosun to continue their own religious practices. He says that it is about a four-mile walk from here to the city itself. It is a pleasant day, and the party sets off to the southeast.
After a few miles they see in the distance a large wall, standing eighty-foot high and stretching for approximately three miles north-south, with the northernmost section of this wall still being under construction. Set a third of a mile in from the section being built is a mile-long wall running east-west, ending at another wall going three-quarters of a mile north-south.
They approach the city from the northwest, heading towards the part of the wall under construction. As they near, they see that there are several thousand workers actively engaged in this task, moving and placing huge slabs of stone. Three quarters of the workers are of the dwarven race, with the remaining quarter being either human or dwarven-centaur. Lono looks at these centaur creatures, with dwarven torsos atop mountain goat bodies and mutters “And I thought that dwarves couldn’t get any dirtier.” The group can see how the wall is being made, basically as two fifteen-foot-wide stone sections with twenty feet of space between them, which is then filled with dirt, for a total of a fifty-foot depth. They see that the center section rises seventy-five feet, with a five foot high battlement both sides of the top of the wall, to the full eighty-foot height. Huge pulleys and cranes sit atop the finished wall beside the part under construction, being used to hoist the massive rocks. The party also sees elaborate piping and spiral staircases being built up the center of the section of the wall, which Hiroshi explains is for fire fighting, tapping into the aquifer below the city, to pump water to the top of the tower to spray on a potential fire in the city below.
They then travel further into the open part of the city between the wall under construction and the completed north-south wall a mile to the east. The city is very crowded, with tens of thousands of people of various races. Buildings are everywhere, and look to be poorly constructed, of flimsy materials, mostly bamboo, wood scraps, or in some cases, paper. There also does not appear to be any rhyme or reason to the design of streets and alleys, with buildings and trash heaps protruding out in all directions. Most people are quickly hurrying about, minding their own business, and paying little to no attention to the party. They see a large amount of beggars and other poor just sitting in alleyways. The stench of this part of the city is nearly unbearable. “I’m not very impressed with this city,” Fiona comments to Hiroshi. He replies “That’s because we are not in the city yet, it begins there,” as he points to a huge gated opening at the mid-point of the mile-long east-west wall ahead of them, one of three such openings along this east-west wall at quarter-mile intervals. He adds, “When they eventually complete the walls of this new district these ‘squatters’ will be forced out, and this area razed, so that proper buildings can be constructed along a well-planned grid of streets and alleyways.”
The party witnesses an altercation between a man and woman, leading to the man drawing a knife and slashing her arm, cutting her dress sleeve, with her bleeding heavily. Both Serita and Narg want to intervene, but Hiroshi strongly advises against it, telling the party to keep moving. Toshiro misunderstands his Uncle’s advice, and makes a comment which Serita thinks is Toshiro's approval of what they had just witnessed, leading to a verbal confrontation between the two of them. Hiroshi later informs them that there was a 99.9% chance that what they had witnessed was staged for their benefit, and if they had stopped pickpockets and thieves would have swarmed them. “But he cut her?” Serita says. “Probably just a pouch of pig’s blood strapped to her arm beneath her robe,” Hiroshi answers. She answers “Well, even with your one-in-a-thousand chance that it was real, we still should have done something.” Hiroshi suggests they stop arguing, as they are nearing the city itself, and yelling at each other would just make the gate guards suspicious of them .
As the party enters the opening, they see that it is comprised of a fifty-foot high archway, with a pair of twenty-foot wide double doors, which are currently opened. The doors are made from huge trees, and are each over two-foot thick, supported by vast iron bars. Narg comments that it must take at least one-hundred men just to close them, but as there are three times those numbers of armed troops guarding this gate, concludes that it wouldn’t be a problem. They see on the wall top above archway a huge iron wall, fifty feet wide, which can be lowered to completely block the doorway opening. Hiroshi tells them that this is only one of three barriers that can be lowered, and that up on the wall above are several tons of stone that can then be poured between these metal walls, to completely seal this gate in the event of an enemy invasion. “They’re serious about security,” comments Narg. “And it’s paid off,” Hiroshi adds, “This is the only city on this part of this region of the continent to hold off both the Mongol invaders and the Zhentarum mages, both groups of which ruled the rest of these lands for centuries.
Hiroshi hands each of the party five copper coins of the local currency, which they give to the gatekeepers. They are each given a copper pin with Chinese markings to wear. He tells them that they should wear the pin on their left lapel while in public, as it designates that they are visitors who have now paid for free access to all districts of the city. They notice that about one-third of the people they see wear similar badges, the others wearing more elaborate pins, mostly of gold or silver, on their right lapel, which Hiroshi says are resident identification pins.
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