When Verspacian (the minion from CoG) finally transported us to wherever we went, we were in a defensive circle with most of us with our weapons drawn (see the CoG 1103 report). Which somewhat surprised the guards in the Imperial circle, so we figured sheathing the swords would be a good plan. After all, if we were in trouble, we were in a LOT of trouble, so we figured that even such mighty heroes as us couldn’t slay the whole lot single handed, and thus going along with things would be the better notion.
Verspacian explained the situation and untroduced us to a guy about my age, Kassirus, while Verspacian went off to take Lady Imogen and Celadore home. Wonder what Josharim thought of Verspacian helping Celadore and his Tome escape – apparently Celadore’s clan were all wiped out by the Empire except him, I wonder if Verspacian knew that.
Kassirus took us along this well-paved road, through some farms and stuff and passed a city he called New Tebronia, along to an army garrison where he said we’d be kept for a while while they checked out our credentials. Since they couldn’t really do that without going home and asking people, we were a bit worried. He also said that he didn’t know how long it would take. Oh goodie.
There were lots of soldiers in the camp with us, going through drills, but they seemed to be mainly showing off rather than actually training, though generally a load of them were off doing stuff elsewhere. They weren’t very talkative.
They decided that the checks would consist of a number of interviews, we figured there wasn’t much we could do about that. It consisted of us being taken individually into this room with a big huge carved magical chair in front of three men, all nice and intimidating. Two of them asked us questions, like”What is your name?”, “How old are you?” or “What are your feelings towards the glorious Reformed Empire?”, while another one stared at this little crystal thing while we answered.
After a while it occurred to me that my name is technically a lie, since my surname is technically my mother’s, Sena R’Ios, and not my father’s, Ashwine. But they didn’t seem to notice, or at least didn’t comment, so I assume the crystal and chair set up was either meant to do something else, or just to intimidate us. To be fair, it was pretty intimidating, partiacularly cos they kept asking us the questions a few times each over three sessions. Just in case our names/ages/opinion about the glorious reformed empire had changed.
After four days of this they said that was fine, and that we would do the same if he came to our homelands (actually, since unliving can’t exist on my homeland, we probably wouldn’t. Though I wasn’t sure if he was undead – he looked living, but then so did Josharim and Verspacian). Then he took us to the city, New Tebronia. We stayed in a pub there. They gave us servents, which was really weird. They kept wanting to do everything for us, and everything is quite a lot. They offered to give us baths and stuff, though they didn’t seem too insulted when I declined quickly.
From them on we could wander about happily with a guide, though it was another week and a half before they let us write letters and so forth.
Architecturally, they go in for huge wide roads with trees down them, and big buildings. They’re building a fething enormous great circus called the Circus Callebus after the Calebi, since the Calebi are part of the Empire now. Also, an only slightly less fething enourmous place called the Senate (but longer and less round), so the two main things seem to be shouting matches (in my experience of senates) and blood sports.
All in all it was an interesting trip.
All Works are © Original Author
(OC Author - Marianne Wells)