What the river brought in

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Nithi Kirenion
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Joined: Sat Dec 25, 2010 8:47 am

What the river brought in

Post by Nithi Kirenion »

The system of oracles and computers that served as the Raikothin government was perfect. Not perfect in the sense of never being wrong - that was a claim beyond the scope of mortals. It was perfect in a more technical and less exciting sense: it was never consistently wrong in a predictable way.

It had not been Nithi's first instinct to trust Jalil Simrani, nor his second. But the Oracles said he should take a chance on him. And Nithi had faith.

Faith. Few words were more misunderstood. To many southerners, faith was a fundamentally proud thing - a thing made of trusting your own intuitions even when the evidence showed otherwise.

Nithi's faith was a starker and less pleasant thing. It was the humble admission that his own brain was fallible, that all of his deepest and most cherished thoughts could be wrong. And so he had faith in those systems that had proven themselves time and time again, even when he himself wanted to scream against their conclusions, even when they said he should trust a Babkhan and every cell of Nithi's body wanted to cry out "IT'S A TRAP!"

Nithi had faith.

And so far that faith had been justified. Jalil Simrani seemed cut of a different mold than the Babkhans of old. Simrani's new statelet of al-Ribat Eluinshahr was slowly taking shape, and so far it seemed content to concentrate on raising the living standards of its own people, eschewing the sort of violence that had so recently torn Aekophan apart.

If only anything else was going equally well.
Border guards on the Aekophan frontier were stunned when a half-frozen traveller pulled gasping out of the Elwynn River turned out to be Daniel Kalirion, nephew and namesake of Daniel Qioon-Audonoi, current Prince of the Elw and major West Elwynn potentate.

Kalirion reported being held as a near prisoner in his Elirian mansion after expressing reservations about current Raes Iain de Vembria. He escaped only by disguising himself as a servant, slipping out the servants' entrance on the pretence of buying food, and then commandeering a rowboat from the docks; the rowboat sank in the Elwynn rapids several miles downstream but Kalirion was able to swim to the Shirerithian side of the river despite the frigid March waters.

Daniel was quickly flown to Tala, where he was mined for information on current West Elw politics and defenses. An incipient protest in ethnic Elw stronghold Azshara was cut short when a Raikothin representative promised Kalirion would have full freedom of movement and political action as soon as the debriefing was over.

Rumors that Raikothin [untranslatable] Nithi Kirenion had offered him the north half of Illumination had not been confirmed as of printing.
Aekophan, recently the scene of heart-wrenching violence, did much to shake off its image as a hotbed of ethnic strife when its Viking population presented the Natopian Quarter with a new community center.

The Vikings control large parts of the north of Wintergleam, a relic of when the entire province was a possession of Stormarkian Emperor Harald Thorstein in fief to the Kaiser of Shireroth. Although the Viking population is centered upon the large city of Avaldsnes, many also live in Aekophan in close proximity to the Natopians. The community center was not only a replacement for the old center burnt in the recent Babkhan riots, but a sign that the conflict between their two homelands in Tapfer and reportedly in West Elwynn will be given no foothold within Shirerithian borders.

"This city has already seen too much violence," said Haakon Magnussen, originally from Grendvald but now a butcher in Aekophan's Viking Quarter. We wanted to let the Natopians know that despite the Port Chloe conflict we're ready to stand with them as our friends and companions.

The Lindstrom Community Center, named for a famous Natopian philosopher of Stormarker descent, opens next Ughday.

The Raikothin governor of Aekophan, Lile Itsarion, denied rumors that her country had put sedative drugs in the city's water supply, "at least not recently"
Although most Elw in sparsely-populated Southern Illumination have accepted the new Babkhan statelet of al-Ribat Eluinshahr, some have vowed to fight the new entity.

In the law establishing Ribat's creation, the Raikothin government included guarantees that the native Elw would have their freedoms protected if they stayed, or be generously compensated if they moved. Most, having something of an ancestral memory of the Babkhans, chose to leave and have been resettled further north.

However, some of the remainders have formed "gangs" and "defense leagues" to ensure "equal rights" for their communities despite the new influx of Babkhans. Although there has yet to be any major violence, some are worried that it is only a matter of time.

The Elw Defense League, the largest umbrella organization of these gangs, has sent a letter to noble-blooded refugee Daniel Kalirion asking for his help and guidance; the Raikothin government has promised to deliver the letter to him once his enforced stay in Tala is over.

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