of “moral reformation.” Complaining loudly that “one can hardly throw a rock in the mazes without killing a fornicator,” he vowed to put an end to the amours being so energetically conducted there. Sadly, his campaign for a “return to family values” came to a groaning halt when he was discovered buggering a sweetboy in the very mazes he proposed to clean up, and to this turn, they remain a sanctuary where every citizen of the Republic is free to fuck their tiny brains out with a partner of their choosing.
Ah, romance.
* Arkemist’s salt is a solidified variant of the fuel that powers many of the wondrous devices in the Republic, such as War Walkers and the great mekwerks beneath the Republic’s arenas, as well as mundane items like flintboxes and arkemical lanterns.
The fuel is reduced to a solid state by dangerous processes, and the salt itself is highly volatile—its production is outlawed outside the Iron Collegium. However, its yield per pound is five times higher than liquid fuel, which means smugglers have the option of earning five times the profit if they’re willing to risk hauling a bomb in their bellies.
One famous incident concerns a ship called the Iron Codger, which had been badly loaded with forty tons of arkemist’s salt in Dawnspear harbor. The nevernight before the ship was due to set out, one drunken sailor desperately in need of a tobacco fix decided to defy his captain’s strict “no fucking smoking” policy by ducking down to the hold for a quick ’rillo. The resulting explosion was heard all the way up in Stormwatch.
Even in seaside taverna today, one can hear the words “lighting the Codger” used to describe a particularly marvelous fuckup.
* This always struck me as a peculiar turn of phrase, truth told. While a donkey’s accoutrements might be of particularly impressive scope to an average littleman, according to annals in the zoology department of the Iron Collegium, a donkey’s proportions simply pale in comparison to some of the other denizens of the Itreyan animal kingdom.
The whitedrake, for example, Itreya’s largest ocean predator, has an average body length of twenty-five feet, and their harpoons of love can measure almost three feet long—a ratio of 10:1. Liisian blackbulls stand near seven feet tall, with a chief of staff that can measure over three and a half, a ratio of near 2:1. (Interesting fact—when slaughtering their unneeded male calves, Liisian farmers often save the penises, dry them out, and feed them to their dogs—a treat known as a “bully stick.”)
The image of the flayer squid, a hooked horror that roams the Sea of Stars, can be made all the more horrifying with the knowledge that its babymaker is as long as its entire body (and yes, hooked, to boot). But the clear winner in this struggle of the ages, the sovereign of swords, the capan de phalli capanni, as it were, is none other than the humble barnacle, whose undersea admiral can extend to fifty times the length of its body.
To put things in proportion, that would be the equivalent of a six-foot man with a three-hundred-foot phallus.
Thank your gods, ladies and gentlefriends.
Thank your fucking gods.
* In actual fact, it doesn’t. Like most occupations in the Republic, piracy is a highly regulated affair. The Itreyan navy is part of an impressive military machine, gentlefriends, and could crush any individual privateer with ease. But the Four Seas are very big places, and being in all of those places at once is somewhat tricky.
Truth is, gentlefriends, no matter what you have, there’s always some bastard out there who’s looking to pinch it. And this is especially true of fellows with a penchant for drinking grog, wearing eyepatches, and ending each sentence with the word “matey.”
Since the Battle of Seawall, the idea of working together has sat rather comfortably with Itreya’s freebooter population, but it was quickly realized that governance by anarchy among a pack of thieving pricks simply wasn’t going to work. Give everyone a platform, and everyone will think they’re entitled to voice their opinion, and yes, while everyone’s technically entitled to an opinion, everyone’s also technically entitled to take a shit once a day, but that doesn’t mean I want to hear about it.
Monarchy, strangely enough, was discovered to be the solution. And not monarchy in a “pomp and pageantry” kind of way, more monarchy in an “I am king and these fellows agree, so you will do what I say or you and everyone you ever loved