Voices from Port Outreach

Yesterday we talked about Lilia Twistedleather and Deep Dust Oasis. Their caravan, Caravan Basalt, was to lead a force of five Flux caravans in defense of Port Outreach (which as you no doubt remember, was then known as simply the Reach).

A siege force, led by Carpin Longarm, the last survivor of the Longarms, had taken up residence for some time in and around the farmhouses on the western outskirts of the Reach. Faced with dwindling resources and growing defections, Carpin knew he had to strike while he still had a chance of outnumbering the far less organized Reachers. A phase before the arrival of the Flux, Carpin’s force had begun a devastating series of skirmishes and small battles with the weary guardians of the Reach. His tactics were varied and clever; during one battle, he set several hemp fields ablaze, creating a deadly division of nagara between those who fought to save their crops and those who turned away the invaders. On the last day of the phase, Carpin issued an ultimatum to the Reach: surrender or be overrun. He was refused, but the Reachers were severely demoralized.

Battle began, and one by one the defenders fell. Unknown to them, however, the Flux were moving into position. Just as some were beginning to reconsider surrender, the Flux came streaming out of the lucia fields on either side of the invading force. Lilia, armed with her carpenter’s hammers, fought alongside Deep Dust Oasis at the front. Though the camp and their allies effectively cut through Carpin’s people, by the time Lilia reached Elms Gate every one of her band was dead or gravely wounded.

And so it came to pass that Lilia made her famous stand against the “barbarians” at Elms Gate, the site of which was so lovingly described in a previous post by my esteemed colleague Dak. Though she did not fight alone as some believe, all accounts agree that her presence was key in keeping the invaders from taking the Gate. Sources differ, but it is believed that she personally felled between one and five dekads of Carpin’s people before succumbing to her wounds; some sources claim Carpin himself was among them.

Even if Carpin died by Lilia’s hammer, there were many other loyalists to take up the leadership role. Why then did the battle end in such decisive defeat for his people? Some say that Lilia’s death was the final element of a Wonder created by the collected efforts of all the city’s defenders and that its effects swept the invaders from the field. More sober minds credit the ferocity of the Flux, who at that time fought under the influence of Naerj, a potent concoction made from fermented dreamflower and several other psychoactive substances (a recipe which has been sadly lost to the ages). The substance made them utterly fearless, surprisingly quick-witted, and given to shouts and ululations that one witness described as “like the sound of a rutting, angry kishtarna.” (Tales of the Flux v. 22)

One can just imagine what it might have been like to come face to face with Lilia, a bloodstained hammer in each hand, screaming as she split the skulls of men and women you’ve camped and fought and lived with for months or even years. Now multiply Lilia by hundreds more like her and you have some idea of why the Flux turned the tides that day, especially considering the rallying effect their arrival had on the native populace. I will let a contemporary account tell this part of the story:

The Flux fell upon our enemies and the sound of them entering battle was sweet to all our ears. Weapons and tools struck leather and flesh, and all around the city every nagara seemed to look about them for whatever was near — blunt or sharp, kitchen knife or broom handle. As we walked together to Elms Gate, we sang “The Glory of our Forgotten Home, Long May It Travel” in solidarity with our allies returned to us at last. I remember very little of the time that came after entering battle, but I do recall the moment when it seemed I could fight no more: I ached fiercely, my leg was bleeding, and my scythe had become so deeply embedded in a barbarian skull that I feared I could not retrieve it. As I looked up from her body, I saw the backs of the rest of her kind as they fled. Our cheering was so loud they must have heard it in the Valley of Glass. –From a unknown agricultural worker’s diary as quoted in Basalt

Although Lilia and many others had died, the surviving members of Caravan Basalt remained in the area for the next 10 years, working with the Reachers to rebuild and heal. At the end of the decade, we are told by the histories that they once again packed up and left in one night — the nagara of the Reaches simply woke up one morning to find that Basalt had repaired their wahjs without their notice and moved on.

In closing, I will note that except for direct quotations I have left references out of these postings, as every volume referenced is sadly unavailable to our Tellurian visitors. The complete bibliography can be found in the corresponding posting to my academic mlog, so I will cite just the most essential here. A modern study of Lilia and her time, including both well-researched history and many colorful legends, can be found in Basalt: A History Written in Dust, Blood, and Fable from Timespast Collective. An excellent — though overly fawning — contemporary source is Lilia: Hero of Deep Dust by Jarq Fullwinds of Camp Allwords, available in an excellent modern Zayzan translation (with detailed notes) from Desa Noisykeys of Bookwahj Alliance.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little history lecture, and that this makes up for any offense I gave our Tellurian friends before. Like your world, ours is rich in history. I hope the people of Tellus and the people of Mother can benefit from sharing our pasts as well as our present.

A humble scholar,
Enkin Binderstape of Bookwahj Alliance, Teacher Town

The end of the ninth cycle had been a bloody one, and the surviving communities of Mother became insular and secluded — it was a struggle for some to provide sufficient fresh water for their populations without the power of the Gurge, much less communicate with their neighbors freely as they had in the past.

Even the Flux found themselves unwelcome in several communities, including Port Outreach, known during much of this time as simply the Reach. After the fall, the Reach was faced with a terrible combination of plague, thirst, and internecine struggles among the remnants of its former governing class that resulted in the murder of entire extended families. After an urban skirmish called the Miller’s Fight, the podnetwork known as the Longarms seized power over much of the city. One of their first acts on taking power was to declare a ban on the Flux for as far as a nagara could travel in a day in any direction around the city limits.

Even after they were later routed by the populace, the Longarms sponsorship and strategic planning were behind several successive waves of so-called barbarians, actually loose alliances of the disaffected from many nearby communities.  Some of these may have believed they had just cause in taking up arms against the Reach while others were merely stirred up by deliberate rumor and propaganda.

Into this time was born the girl who would be known as Lilia Twistedleather (already mentioned by Dak). Like many caravans of the time, Caravan Basalt had stopped traveling. Instead they took up permanent residence by the edge of the Sunset Desert, along a road frequented by many thirsty travelers. Lilia was born to actors in Laughter and Masks, a theater camp. During her youth she built sets and scenery for her parents and friends. Her second name was given after she invented an ingenuious system of livec hide, leather straps, and pulleys which could be used to make an actor appear to fly over the stage with far more control than previous techniques.

A few years after her naming, Lilia reportedly grew tired of the high-stress of the theater and joined a newly forming camp. Deep Dust Oasis, as they came to be known, had discovered a new water source in Sunset Desert and decided to pool their resources and create a secluded but accessible place of relaxation, comfort (in both the literal and comfort house sense of the word), and ease. Lilia joined Deep Dust as a carpenter and engineer. It is important to keep this in mind: that one of our history’s bravest fighters spent most of her days building new ways for people to find peace.

Though the ban on the Flux was no longer being enforced, the Fluxers still stayed away from the Reach. The emotional wounds caused by the ban ran very deep: many Fluxers to this day consider Port Outreach the closest known embodiment of the White City, our legendary ancestral home. Being turned away from such an important place left the caravans loathe to return and potentially face further hostility and even physical danger if the tides turned again.

One night the Deep Dust Oasis played host to a lone refugee from the Reach. As he smoked hemp from Lilia’s pipe, it is said he broke down in tears. There is no record of exactly what he told the camp, but that night they consumed dreamflower together and ritually burned their camp’s permanent structures. Their home in ashes, they traveled in their newly repaired wahjs into the main encampment and roused the entire caravan. First Laughter and Masks, and then gradually every other camp in Caravan Basalt joined their cause: the defense of the Reach. They left almost immediately, and along their journey were joined by four other, smaller caravans. Had they delayed even a single day longer, Port Outreach as we know it might not exist today.

I’m afraid this is getting rather long, and I can just imagine your eyes glazing over. I’m going to end here for today, and continue later in another part. Feel free to ask questions here, but kindly save your curiousity about the defense of the Reach for my next installment.

Yours in Words and History,
Enkin Binderstape of Bookwahj Alliance, Teacher Town

Although I have great respect for my esteemed colleague, Dak of the Point, I am afraid that I must respectfully disagree about several of his points here. First off, I will say that Dak’s lectures on history are always illuminating, even if only of the preconceived notions of a certain school of historian. I will certainly agree with our Tellurian visitor, TexAnne, that I hope he continues to share his knowledge with us.
 
The period of which Dak speaks here, the early part of this cycle, is one I happen to have studied quite a bit. In my paper, “The Sewer System and the Sandies,” I go into quite a bit of detail about the competing theories surrounding the septic system designed by Nowes and his pod.
 
At the time, the sewer system was extremely controversial. Many nagara felt then, as they do now, that subsistence is a basic human right and therefore cannot and should not ever be traded for — it can only be freely given. Many nagara were furious about rumors that the City Council had indeed traded subsistence for 500 years to some Sandies for the sewer system. Even worse were the widespread rumors that the trade had actually been for access to city resources that the Council had no business trading — I won’t bore you with the minutiae here, but many felt they’d overstepped their bounds — for details see, City Council History Volume 5, by Liemchek, et al. One group of nagara began calling for a full investigation, another for the City Council’s resignation. Every member of the council resigned at once, and then refused to cooperate with any investigations. As such, the full details of the Nowes’ Septic Deal have never been unearthed.
 
Dak, you do a disservice to the past by conflating the Sandies of the early cycle with their compatriots today. There were significant philosophical differences. I recommend you contact Chalim, who has been conducting a detailed survey of extant paper documents from the first century with a focus on Sandytown. In her unpublished research, you can see several documents from a movement known as the Manakhists. This group departed Port Outreach for Sandytown in protest of the use of the modern calendrical system because they preferred the previous agriculturally-based system that, though more complex than the one we have now, was, in their words, actually more true to the ebb and flow of life on Mother. They were, in fact, ‘back to the land’ types as jeffy puts it. Because their objection was to the calendar and not subsistence, they made arrangements to receive it in Sandytown. Though the original beliefs of the Manakhists are forgotten, their descendants represent the largest percentage of Sandies who receive subsistence.
 
In other words, an obscure and confusing breakaway group of nagara, and a obscure and confusing political maneuver have been blended in the memory of history, and we actually don’t really know what it took to get our septic system.
 
Yours in Teacher Town,
Enkin Binderstape of Bookwahj Alliance