For the Consequence!
In which we meet Gebbon Yettle and discover the role of our Teller.
SIX OF MARKS | HARVESTLIGHT
Shortly before daybreak, the Seneya and its crew left the familiarity of Hoal for Uroun, a land heretofore undocumented by Hoalen souls. I am called Gebbon Yettle. I am a teller. My action to the Hoalen Consequence is an action of story: I am to recount the findings from my travels aboard the Seneya to all of the Consequence. I do not know what to expect from Uroun, and as such, I must offer a preface that I hope all will hear—though these writings may seem fantastical in nature at times, they are, to the best of my ability, as real as I can offer. I will, at times, for sake of comparison or clarity, overexplain, to further illustrate any differences between Hoalen and Urounden cultures that I discover.
From the deck of the Seneya, Uroun offers twisted skies of orange and gray. Much of what I can see appears uninhabited, but there is the possibility that the Uroundens are a people disconnected from our shared Peltal Sea. The Seneya’s voyage from Hoal to Uroun took one day short of a half chord, and I spent all twenty-two of those days connecting with the crew amidst strong drink and stronger seas.
Michet, the captain of the Seneya, is a deft sailor and an even better gambler. Her mastery of Six King Action may be enough to keep me from ever picking up another hands of cards—I’m lucky we’ve only played for fun, as gambling for material possessions is banned during Actions of Consequence. I find myself in the bunks of Michet’s Seneya with a linguist called Arshem and a naturalist called Vikkers. I know little about either one of these two, so I can only share what I can see.
Arshem is a small, stocky man, perhaps three heads shorter than myself. He wears an intricately braided goatee and bathes in a spiced cologne that lingers in rooms long after the rest of him is gone. Despite a self-professed love for the spoken word and the history of it, Arshem speaks in very brief sentences in a remarkably high, sort of nasally voice. Vikkers, on the other hand, has spoken only in raspy, emphatic interjections, filling the subdeck of the Seneya with spirited hmms, oops, and huhs from underneath their cloak of some of the most supple leather I’ve ever seen. I know very little about Vikkers, save for the fact that I would recognize their musk of moss and soil long before I would know their face.
My Action does not lie in detailing the members of my voyage, but should their names arise in my writings, I thought it important to give them context.
SIX OF MARKS | FULL SUN
Since my last entry, the crew of the Seneya has placed our feet on solid ground. I must admit, while I am here on Action of chronicling Urounden culture, our own Hoalen innovations never cease to amaze me. I spent my adolescence and much of my adulthood in one of Hoal’s many landlocked provinces. As a result, I am removed from much of what a coastal Hoalen may not think twice about. In this instance, I refer to the Seneya’s winchfoot construction, allowing the ship to pull itself onto land by “walking” out of the water. Hearing the creaking breaths of steam from the unseen locomotion bays beneath our sleeping quarters yawn to life is an experience I hope every Hoalen is able to have at least once in their lives.
The Seneya walks with a bit of a swagger, swooping from side to side wildly with each step. Michet tells me this is due to a combination of the high concentration of copper in the Peltal Sea corroding the ship’s mechanics and the Seneya’s age—it doesn’t look it, but the ship has seen nearly two hundred cycles. One can’t help but wonder how many horizons the Seneya has sailed off into in that time. Another more filth-averse ponderer may ask how many times the bunks have been cleaned. But those thoughts do not belong in my head, for my time aboard the Seneya is done. Uroun soon. The skies above have matured from a blotchy kind of calico to a uniform gray warmth. It’s as if we’ve been in a perpetual state of sundown since we arrived. The humidity in Uroun is nearly unbearable, but I remain hopeful that with time, our party will become accustomed to it.
My time aboard the Seneya may be complete, but my time away from the ship has not yet begun. To my amazement, the ship has journeyed onto dry trails with us. Its exaggerated gait makes it difficult to be comfortable on the deck, but Michet, who wears a harness at the helm, pilots the ship through dense forests like some terraforming beast of burden while Vikkers, Arshem, and myself walk underneath it. In a thousand cycles, never did I think I’d find myself staying cool from the sun of an unseen land using the bottom of a walking ship.
Arshem and I are both in awe of the powerful vessel moving through sand and then brush just as easily as it would water, but Vikkers is less than impressed. With each step, it’s hard not to imagine Vikkers wincing underneath their hood. I can’t help but empathize with the naturalist experiencing first interactions with new species that are immediately crushed underfoot by the very same vessel that introduced them in the first place. Based on the expression on Arshem’s face, I’d imagine he feels the same way. Our march into Uroun continues nonetheless.
SIX OF MARKS | SEEDING
The heat feels different in Uroun. Whether it’s from humidity or nerves, I can’t say for certain, but I can say with absolution that I have never sweat so much in my life. Thankfully, the sun is less than two fingers from the horizon now, and I intend on using the last of its light to recount the rest of the afternoon. I’m not certain how much further our trek will take us before we find signs of civilization, and it could be further still that I am reintroduced to the luxury of candles or lanterns. I have with me a limited supply, meant to last me a full chord, but anything beyond that, I must rely on what I can forage myself. I only hope the Uroundens are a sufficiently sophisticated kind that I will be foraging from markets as opposed to forest floors.
As a Teller without a people to Tell about, I feel I must instead speak of my traveling companions. Of course, these souls offer more than satisfactory Actions to tell about. Michet, our dear captain, has revealed a secret of the Seneya that gives its winchfoot capabilities a strong competition—the ship is alive! Not like you are I, mind you, but alive nonetheless. Now that we’ve removed the vessel from a copper-filled sea, its masts have hints of shoots, and the railings are showing the beginnings of vines. Michet explained to me that the Seneya is something she calls Hiptam. It means “harvest ship.” She says the longer the Seneya is out of the Peltal Sea, the more overgrown it would become. Short voyages on land, perhaps no more than four chords, would yield bountiful harvests of fruits, and would encourage nesting birds to build roosts within its branches. Longer trips, however, could become detrimental to the winchfoot systems that carried the ship over treetops. My first question, of course, was how this could be. She told me she’d show me, on the condition that I beat her in a hand of Six King Action. I couldn’t, so she didn’t.
Vikkers, unsurprisingly, was giddy when they learned of this. A cloak may hide one’s face, but body language is nearly impossible to mask. Since the Seneya’s first sprouts appeared, the naturalist has been glued to the deck, cooing at leaves and scrawling in their notebooks. The only time I’ve seen them look away from the Seneya is when we’ve heard birds sing. Vikkers has said very little, but their excitement has said more than enough about their character. I do hope they find time to eat in all of this.
On the topic of eating, I come to Arshem. By my hands, that man can cook. I don’t think I’ve eaten better food a day in my life. A hatch leaf red curry with some kind of citrus zest topping so good it still hadn’t cooled by the time I had finished my bowl. After expressing my ardent appreciation for the meal and asked him where he’d learned to cook like that, he simply laughed and showed me the beads in his goatee. A sigil of a pot over fire glinted in the last bits of sunlight signified his time in one of the cooking guilds of Hoal. As a linguist, he explained, he learned early in his Action that food was one of the great unifiers. I’m thankful to be in his company, but not as thankful as the amount of walking I’ll be doing to keep his meals off of my frame.
I rest tonight knowing that I’ve fulfilled my Action to the best of my ability. My gut is filled with curry, my mind with a new tale. I expect the birds I hear tonight will be named by Vikkers tomorrow. I know not the details of what Uroun holds for me, but I do know that they take the shape of a story untold.
Action above all.
As always, consider the Consequence!