Oliver D. Bernuetz's Stories

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A Visit to Pavis

This letter dates from after his exile but was discovered in the same archive as the others.

Dearest Felicitus,

Dry and dusty, dusty and dry. That is how I would characterize Pavis, the so-called centre of culture in Prax. The New City is surrounded by manmade walls and is nothing special but the Old City is surrounded by enormous walls 30 meters tall said to have been built by giants. The Old City is mostly bare land scattered with ruins and the odd clump of buildings inhabited by humans or trolls, if you are lucky. The Old City was built by a demigod named Pavis who was an offshoot of the Empire of the Wyrm’s Friends. The New City was built by a descendant of the Orlanthi god Sartar and was recently conquered by our forces. The inhabitants are extremely varied for a place of this size. Worshippers of Yemalio rub shoulders with people descended from the original inhabitants of the Old City. They in turn rub shoulders with the river folk who are said to predate the Old City who rub shoulders with Praxian tribesmen who follow some outlandish god whose name resembles a war cry. You can also meet dwarves and elves and trolls, sometimes in the same barroom. The place is rife with sedition and Orlanthi rebels are everywhere. There are temples in the New City to all sorts of gods both from within and without the Empire. In the Old City are temples to gods unheard of elsewhere. The city dominates trade with the Empire and points south (not that much comes up river, or goes down it for that matter). The styles of architecture are as varied as the people themselves, (though the choice of construction materials ranges from mud brick to...mud brick, though stone is used for the more important structures). The local Lunars are much like the lot I described in Elkoi. (Though they do seem to tend to either of the two extremes I described, being either saints or degenerate madmen. I may be doing them an ill service describing them like this but I then again I think not). As far as I can tell the main value of the place is to control the plains of Prax, control the route to the sea and the only Lunar sea port of Corflu (having heard this place described I am making all efforts to avoid it), and control the removal of artifacts from the Old City (which the locals call the Big Rubble). Oh yes, the place also seems to be the hub of the local drug trade which only seems to have sprung up after the Lunar occupation. (Surprise, surprise). The governor, Sor-Eel the Short seems to be doing his bumbling best to run the place and he seems to be fairly successful at it.

From here I travel to a place called Sun County where I expect to "savour" the joys of the local Yemalian tradition. I can hardly wait.

Yours as always,

Fresser

Late of Glamour

August 31, 1998 

Last updated October 07, 2016

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