Notes from Nochet from Tales of the Reaching Moon #06

[XXIX.12-65] Even once one gets used to sucking water into the lungs, the sensation the Breathe Water spell gives remains most unpleasant. Even worse is at the end of its duration, when you needs must retch and vomit up the water still in you. Expel it from your lungs quickly or you may drown, even if on land.

[XXIX.12-66] Notes about the Agimori, as dictated to me by Khost, most famous among the Desert Trackers: The Agimori of Prax, due to the harshness of their environment, must live in harmony with the land. If they did not they would perish through starvation, as they would take more from the land than they would give back. There philosophy is thus simple: nothing is wasted; water is precious; those that cannot provide a valuable service to the tribe in exchange for their food must die. My duties took me to Prax, five years before the Building Wall war (1600 S.T.). There I witnessed the death of an old Agimor who, lamed by age, could no longer run in the hunt and disdained (nor had the teeth) to do women’s work. When his family moved on, he simply sat down in the midst of a dry wadi and waited. It took him eleven days to die! Appended here by Wrontos the Pursuivant.

[XXIX.12-67] Never wager “tails” on the flip of a Salilgori coin, for the Salilgori had two kings.

[XXIX.12-68] An old Orlanthi oath: “By all that is truth and honour I swear by my lungs that give me life, my legs that give me movement, my mind that gives me magic, and by my hands that give me mastery that I will give faith and fealty, until I am honourably released from this service, or death take me, or the world shall end.” Leonidas the Short, wind voice.

[XXIX.12-69] The so-called “droit de seignora”, the Esrolian law that states that a feudal lady has the right to sexual congress with a vassal’s bridegroom on his wedding night, is I think, the most iniquitous of all laws in all the Holy Country. Telgonius the Jurist, law-master of this temple. No doubt old Telgonius would be less indignant if his holdings lay in the Heortland. There the law of “jus prima noctis” applies, in which it is the lord, not lady, who may sleep with his tenant betrothed on their first night. duenna Agrippina Muliebritrix.

[XXIX.12-70] Old Kralori proverb: The man with feet sweeps for the man who has none.

[XXIX.12-71] “Good principles and feelings are extinguished in him. He loves himself, his own convenience and his pleasures. He distrusts everyone, suffers from extreme weakness of mind, and is tyrannized over by constant fear of death.” Attributed to Dagius Furius, Chief of Lunar Intelligence, describing King Moriades of Tarsh.

[XXIX.12-72] Another Pentian of note is A captive of the Teetons, an apparently true story by one Janus Sardinus, a Lunar common soldier who was held for ransom by a Pentian tribe. He was released after a year, his family paying a ransom of several horses. Sardinus writes of witnessing human sacrifice (indeed, the sacrifice of his commander, and his fellow troopers – why the Teetons chose to spare Sardinus is not explained), and the summoning of the demon Kazamed by the shaman Pintoff, a man so hideous that he might easily be mistaken for a broo, yet is apparently one of the major chieftains of Pent. There are other works, which I may describe in a future entry. Thredbo the Traveller, Temple Cartographer.

[XXIX.12-73] Never wager “tails” on the flip of a Salilgori coin, for the Salilgori had two kings.

[XXIX.12-74] It is said that two people in the whole of Ralios know of every matter which moves therein. One is Suriana Ravenwing, God-Queen of Tanisor, who in forty years of ruling has not grown old: her agents are in the hall of every lord and the fane of every temple. The other, in the northern city of Rilche, is the high priest of their minstrel-hero and founder, Amaril: he knows the name of every wandering minstrel and needs no other spy.

[XXIX.12-75] The Humakti temples of Ralios are unusual, even heretical, in that they often use ravens as familiars, rather than binding spirits into their swords as we do.

[XXIX.12-76] For those wishing to gain information on the complex subject of ear-markings or seeking fair price for good specimens of Uz ears (must have details of where and when they were taken), see Arasmath Quill, Sage of Lhankor Mhy in the city of Pavis-outside-the-wall.
A marginal note by Saryte Lekile, Grey Sage: Some few weeks after Arasmath Quill let it known he sought Uz ears for study, the following note, [carved onto a battered shield], was thrown over the wall into New Pavis: “Have newly started collection of Sage Ears, mainly from Pavis area. Seek scholars interested in contributing to the advancement of knowledge. Klegar Darkhide, Death Lord of Zorak Zoran. And who says troll humour lacks subtlety?

[XXIX.12-77] The fabulous conceit of Sir Ethelrist, the immortal Lord of Blackhorse County whose rise from humble beginnings to Herodom is chronicled in his “History of my Black Horse Troop”, is famous. It can be truly said that he is a self-made man, who worships his creator.

[XXIX.12-78] The Lunar Empire imports few items of note from Pent: horses and slaves, mainly. One commodity of interest though is rainbow grass: a powerful narcotic, said to be used by the Pentian shamans to heighten their spiritual awareness (crushed in boiling water, it is also a remarkably efficacious remedy for the bluewater pox).

[XXIX.12-80] “There are many types of fox, all of which are descended from the Silver Fox. One of the rarest of these is the Yellow fox, often known as the Desert Fox. The natives of Pamaltela have their own name, they call him Lemmor which means winer [sic] – due to the high pitched screams the fox makes during the cold desert nights.” Y.Y.B.

[XXIX.12-81] Addendum to the paper by Theodopolus Pandarus on the vulnerability of Darksense, by Photius of the Fine Split Hairs, initiate. I fear Pandarus has made a gross error in his theory. In the interests of good scholarship, I must correct this problem. Pandarus claims that by altering the density of the air, a troll’s darksense can be muddled. He attempted to prove his theory by summoning a sylph and getting it to shrink around a target. A troll subject then claimed he could not accurately strike the target. As all adherents of Stremma Windsbane, mistress of natural philosophy at the Blackwell temple of wisdom can attest, increasing the density of the air, i.e. the sylph, is accomplished by putting pressure on the air. Unfortunately, these two factors, pressure and density, have opposite effects, and since density is directly related to pressure the overall result must be that there is absolutely no effect on a troll’s Darksense at all. I suggest that Pandarus was duped by his troll subject. The troll, seeing an obvious advantage in making a human believe he’d found a weakness, played along with the hapless Theo.
A marginal note by Saryte Lekile, Grey Sage: This, yet again, brings home the point that non-humans have their own motives and that ugly does not automatically mean stupid.

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