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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ratzofftoya" data-source="post: 8486635" data-attributes="member: 98819">Introduction from Session 1:People say morning comes slowly in Flint; they say it so much and with such conviction that most folks never stop to think what it means. In fact, like any good adage, it doesn't mean any one thing. To the fishers and whalers who leave the harbor for the Ayres Islands and farther into the Atleiotes Sea, it means that the dense layer of marine fog and, these days, coal soot is barely ever pierced by sun until noon, until they've already returned with the day's haul.To the Dockers and workers of Flint, toiling away on the night shift at the factories and abbatoirs, turning newfangled, grisly machines upon the fishers' largesse, anointing barrel after barrel with precious crude, to them the phrase is also bitter, muttered as they wait for the bells chiming their freedom.But to some in Flint, those who find sustenance in the old ways, the slower ways of doing things--and those who can afford a languid hour amid the ceaselessly grinding new age--the  phrase harkens the sleepy burg that Flint once was, a humble harbor on the northern edge of Risur, largely shielded from the years of war with the land of Danor across the water to the north, and likewise isolated from court intrigue in Risur's capitol, Shale, many days to the south. But the march of progress carves an unrelenting path across the land until its ends up at your doorstep, bringing with it riches and plenty, but also war and toil. And when the men and women of Pardwright University ecstatically announced that just like its denizens, Flint's machines and workshops too could siphon life from the body of the whale, well, then Flint turned from just a hapless waystation along the march to its ardent trumpeter corps.A lone crow stretches its wings and takes to the air from its humble nest on Cauldron Hill, the highest peak among the small spur of mountains called the Nettles, which cut into the city from the southwest. The crow is hungry, and has lately found repeat success at one particular windowsill in the city's central district. Its flight takes it first over the ever-increasing mass of clapboard hovels clinging to the side of the mountain, teeming with new immigrants looking for work in Flint's factories. The shacks cover the the switchbacks of the highway cutting through the nettles, just recently built to improve city travel, but offer little more than crumbs for the hungry crow, if that. An updraft, briny and cold, bolsters the crow as it flies over the walls of the central distric, homing in on its target. Finally, it spies the bright brue lintels of the building and alights on a first-floor window sill. It is a building belonging to the Risuri Naval Service, one of their few properties outside of the Royal Shipyard district. This building is an annex, where some of the more, let's say inessential work happens. Outside, two young men in uniform stand guard, barely able to stifle their yawns.  The window which most interests the crow is foggy, almost completely obscuring the two figures inside as they rush about a spacious kitchen...</blockquote>

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