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The Tyranny of Summer: Othilia Swelters Beneath a Merciless Sun

From The Othilia Times, January 3rd, 1956 SA

It has been said that Othilia was built by the sweat of her fathers, and of late, it seems the valley has chosen to remind us of that founding sacrifice. For six long weeks the sun has ruled as tyrant over man and beast alike, and no cloud, no rain, no mercy has dared to trespass upon its dominion. The Greenbank has run to a trickle; the Enki River lies gasping in its bed like a dying serpent; and even the birds, once heralds of our dawn, now hide beneath the eaves in silence.

Night itself brings no comfort. The stars shimmer like coals in a furnace sky, and though the lamps burn low, the heat lingers—a cruel guest that refuses to leave. Housewives wash their linens by moonlight, the miners sleep on their porches, and in the alleys behind the Heron’s Blessing, the stray dogs pant and stir not even for scraps.

Yet, Othilia endures. We are a people of habit, not hysteria; and if this infernal season has tested us, it has also reminded us of our quiet virtue. The laundresses still hang their lines; the lampkeepers still make their rounds; and though the ground cracks beneath our feet, the bells of the old church still toll for vespers. There is defiance in that sound—a refusal to bow before the elements.

Yet one wonders: what does the Empire do to relieve us? Where are the water trucks from the capital, the rations from Calla Lily, the promised aid from the Commonwealth Office of Welfare? We are told to endure, to conserve, to remain calm—fine words to be written from marble halls. But here, beneath the mountain’s heat, such counsel dries in the mouth like dust. Until that hour, Othilia breathes on—sweating, suffering, yet unbroken.

—Leon Addison, Society Columnist

From The Othilia Times, January 7, 1953 SA

Councillor Attila Durant Dead at 47 Othilia Mourns the Passing of a Steadfast Servant

Othilia awoke this week to the grievous news of Councillor Attila Durant’s untimely passing. A man of unshakable principle and long service, Durant was known across the valley as a pillar of civic order, a voice of reason in the council chamber, and a loyal supporter of Baron Wordsworth’s vision for our town.

Durant’s career spanned two decades, during which he acted tirelessly as a liaison between the Baron’s office and the working men of the mines. Though at times misunderstood by outsiders, his diplomacy ensured peace and prosperity during an age of great uncertainty, when the Commonwealth’s distant bureaucracy had all but forgotten our frontier.

Those close to the family report that Councillor Durant succumbed suddenly after a period of ill health. He is survived by his wife, Mary, and their two sons. The Baron’s office has expressed “profound sorrow at the loss of a man whose light burned so brightly for Othilia.”

Funeral arrangements are to be overseen by the Wordsworth Hall, with a public procession to follow. In the Baron’s own words:

“Councillor Durant served not merely as a bridge between men, but as a lamp unto them. His passing is not the dimming of Othilia, but its proof that the flame endures.”

Let us honour his memory not in grief, but in gratitude, for his loyalty and labour which strengthened the bond between the people and their Lord.

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From The History of Othilia, Lee Heston (unpublished)

The Gate stands like a wall on the Northern Road—what the Last Empire once called Checkpoint Seventeen, before the Baron seized control following the Candle Riots. It is a daunting monstrosity. It greets visitors with no banners, no guards of ceremony. Only rust and vigilance.

Raised in the age when the Last Empire still believed the frontier could be measured in steel, it once marked the line between wilderness and civilisation. Now it marks something else: the edge of the Baron’s dominion. Here the influence of the Senators ends, and the will of one man begins.

Two Guardians live there at all times—rotating eight-hour shifts, day and night. Their names change, but their purpose does not. They are the Baron’s eyes. Every dawn they send a sealed report northward to Varena, carried by courier.

Each report details the uneventful: which soldiers turned away, which trucks passed through, which clouds hung low enough to resemble movement in the hills. They are instructed to write everything, no matter how trivial. It is droll reading.

To the Imperials who sometimes arrive under the banner of the Great Eagle—delegations, inspectors, or those who fancy themselves diplomats—it is the end of the world. Even the covenant man is met on the gravel before the Gate by a Guardian, rarely by the Baron himself, and they do not cross the threshold. Othilia is courteous, but never compliant.

The Gate’s living quarters are built into the wall—a narrow corridor of rooms: bunks, stove, log desk. The men say the walls sweat in winter and hum in the summer heat. They play cards by bloofire light and carve their initials into the doorframes. A few have written verses; one scratched simply: “I hear the mines at night.”

No one leaves their post except by order.

I have stood upon the parapet in the early hours and looked down the Northern Road—empty, save for wind and dust—and I have felt it: the the immensity of the Last Empire waiting at our doorstep. One day they will grow tired of being turned away. One day they will dare the Baron open his vaults, and all hell will break loose in Othilia.

From Orationes de Othiliate, spoken by Senator Raymond Cassius Antigone in the Year 1977 of the Second Age:

“And what of Virgil Decinta? Here lies the wound that will not close. Once, he was the Light of that town—he seemed a friend of the fair folk. It was he who slew the worm as Othilia burned; he who stood, beneath a blood-red dawn and before a broken town, reciting the Litany of Order. The people loved him not as a commander, but as a redeemer. They would have followed him through the fire, and indeed—they did.

“For Othilia did not endure for love of its Baron. It endured because it believed in its Guardian. It believed in him.

“But belief, my friends, is the cruelest faith of all. When Decinta bent his knee to Wordsworth, when he traded the way of the hero for the hollow comfort of command, it was not merely a man who fell—it was a city. Every heart that had once burned for him dimmed that day; and the darkness that crept through Othilia was not born of strife alone, but of the silence that followed when its last true voice was stilled."

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From the Othilia Dossier:

“Elevated swiftly under Chief Decinta, Durant exhibits signs of instability masked as devotion... May have killed Guardian Martin. Remains useful—so long as he is steered. Monitor closely.”

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Strife: Chapter 3.1 — The Old Wordsworth Manor

Giles lived in the south wing of the Old Wordsworth Manor, the oldest surviving structure in Othilia since the waterwheel was lost to the river. The manor stood beside an ancient willow tree, its gnarled branches casting a spiderweb shadow when dawn shone over the town. Broken lattice, choked with wild ferns, crept up the stone facade—nature slowly reclaiming its hold. The bricks were cracked, the timber weather-worn and rotting; yet even in its decay, the manor held a quiet grandeur.

Giles was no lord of this crumbling estate, no heir to the Wordsworth legacy; neither kin to the baron nor the beneficiary of some estranged fortune. His annual retainer, earned through years of unyielding service, scarcely eclipsed that of a common tinker. His only inheritance was his father’s name—known well in Othilia, respected by the many, though the reasons had faded with time. The south wing was his, not by right, but by the baron’s good graces, rented for a pittance in honour of the late Attila Durant.

Strife: Chapter 2.8 — The Wilting Lily

The rest of the day dragged. Papers shuffled, the old filing cabinets screeched and clanged. There was little chitchat, and the air was heavy with tension.

Giles wrote his report, but he was distracted, constantly lowering his pen and staring at the old fan wopping away on the roof. Like vultures over the dead, Giles’ thoughts circled the demon spice.

He recalled his brother’s stories of their father—a shadow in his fragmented childhood. His father had been a strifer; and it was the strife that had killed him. For he fell into his own nightmares, and amid thrashing and screams, they devoured him.

Strife: Chapter 7 — A Great Chain of Mistakes

For a time, neither man spoke. Giles lowered his gaze, swore under his breath, shook his head.

Virgil sighed, opened a desk drawer—pens rattling, papers shifting—and dropped the pouch inside.

"Listen to me carefully, Giles; listen with the ears you once gave your father. I care not for pulling at every loose thread I find, because if you're not careful, soon enough the whole thing falls apart. Sometimes you must wait, even if waiting is the last thing you want to do. Because if you wait, and you watch, then maybe you'll see something. Better for us that no one knows what we found; that no one knows we're watching."

Strife: Chapter 2.6 — Roaches in the Walls

As he recounted his discovery, Giles poured himself a cup of burnt coffee, plonking a bar of chocolate into the boiling water. Steam curled into the air, the smell of coffee mingling with the sharp sinister stench exuding from the pouch on Virgil’s desk. The Chief Commander dipped his fingers into the demon spice, took a closer smell (as if wishing his first thoughts were false). He wrinkled his nose, then sprinkled the deadly grains back into the pouch. He frowned, and he looked unappealingly like an old man tired of the world.

"I understand your concern, Giles. But I caution you against getting ahead of yourself. This isn’t a hoard, and we don't have strifers lying in the streets. It's the demon spice all right, I know the stench well enough; but let’s not call a flame an inferno. I think I know what's happened here. A couple of kids, maybe the Turner twins and their little gang—they've bought this filth from a hawker out of town. They've tried it, because they've heard from Bill, what Bill heard from Ted, that Ted knew a guy who sniffed strife once, abandoned his body for a night, and flew over the mountains to Fairyland.”

Strife: Chapter 2.5 — Old Habits

Virgil blinked as Giles stepped through the doorway. He scowled, his weathered face tightening. “You're late,” he said. It had been a wearisome day. Heston still wasn't back from Calla Lily; Hendricks was sick; Millard had worked the night shift and was due back again this evening; and Vashe hadn't answered the Chief Commander's hammering on his door that morning. So much for Virgil’s day off.

He had made plans to go fishing on the upper waters of the Greenbank, where the woods grew thick on either bank. He had attached his reel and hooked his line last night, and woke early before sunrise to dig the worms out of his garden, dropping them into an old can. Giles had told him to go, to let the day pass without him, but the Chief Commander, as stubborn as a rock in a snowstorm, had refused. He insisted on remaining behind so that two sets of hands were on standby. For Virgil was a veteran of the defunct Othilia Sheriff's Department, the last deputy to take the oath, and so he held hard to old habits. Old habits, Virgil was wont to say, harder to kill than cockroaches.

Strife: Chapter 2.4 — The Archives

Scraping mud from his boots on the edge of the stoop, Giles pulled open the door which groaned on tired hinges, and stepped inside. The air was stagnant, heavy with dust and the faint scent of mildew. The waiting room was quiet, the service desk empty. In the general office the afternoon sun slanted over the vacant desks, a thousand motes dancing and drifting in the light. He strode with purpose through the desks, his boots heavy on the worn-out floorboards, and came into the archives.

Their filing system had reached the point of utter entropy. Filing cabinets under the threat of rust were clustered against the walls, drawers hanging crooked on broken runners. Great stacks of papers and folders loomed like stalagmites in a deep cave. The Chief Commander was amid this mountain of bureaucracy. For six months Guardian Force had struggled through the mayhem of re-categorisation. It wasn't going particularly well.

Strife: Chapter 2.3 — The Bullet Hole

Giles was sweating as he came back to the office, and clinging to his pants were small spines and dry needles. The lily on his jacket had started to wilt. He ran the tap outside, drank from his hands, and splashed water over his face and neck.

Like the last sentinel at their post, long after their company was scattered, the old sheriff’s office stood on the high street. Its thick stones were pocked and weathered with age. Lichen spread like liver spots over its surface. Above the doorway, Guardian Force’s sigil caught the afternoon sun. Behind it, faint and half-erased, the ghosts of old letters remained. If one squinted, they spelled: SHERIFF.

Flanking the doorway were two stone pillars. In the face of one was a bullet hole. Here was the memory of the skirmish that had erupted as the Othilia Sheriff’s Department, and its hold on order, finally dissolved; when the terror of lawlessness briefly caught Othilia in its merciless grip.

Strife: Chapter 2.2 — The Will to Step Out of the Dark

The day he met Virgil, nearly a decade ago, he sat outside the pub, his hands and face smeared with the black grit of the mines. A plate of steak and chips rested before him, a pint of cheap ale in hand. It was dusk, and the town was winding down—wagons rattled down the road, merchants shut their doors and counted their coins, bloofire streetlights flickered to life with the buzz of failing globes—but the distant clank and grind of the copper mine endured.

Suddenly, a brawl erupted over a heated game of Two-up. Without hesitation, Giles leapt into the fray, his instinct honed by years of labour, hard camaraderie, and sheer survival on the streets of Othilia. Fists flew, voices roared, coins chinked on the floor. Virgil, whose cider was spilled amid the flurry, stepped in, his posture stern, his face calm but severe. Giles wrestled away one of the offenders; Virgil grabbed the other, and subdued him with the butt of his dagger.

Strife: Chapter 2.1 — The Last Bastion of Order

The Othilia Sheriff's Department had dissolved fifteen years ago. For decades, the High Sheriff in the great city had slashed the department's budget, trimming fat, then flesh, then carving through bone and marrow. For Othilia was at the edge of the Last Empire, and when money was needed—for weapons, for war—it was easy to plunder a town few in the capital had ever heard of.

When the last sheriff in Othilia removed his star, hung up his sword, and locked the door behind him, Baron Wordsworth—whose family had ruled in Othilia since the deluge (or so it was said)—drew deep from his own coffers and established Guardian Force. The abandoned sheriff's office became their base of operations, its thick walls and bygone authority now the last bastion of order. Next door, the long-abandoned Holy House of the Wind became their shed, its once-hallowed halls now cluttered with crates stacked like drunken towers.

Strife: Chapter 1.2 — The Oath Beside the River

Giles turned to leave, but something discarded in the dirt caught his eye—a pouch, half-buried. Its contents were small—a few grains of dusty brown powder—but the scent that rose from it was deadly. Giles knew what he had found.

Strife.

The demon spice.

Inhaled or ingested, it could hurl a man into a land of fairies and elves—or down into jagged dreams and delirium. Strife was no trifle: it was dangerous, deadly, and terribly addictive.

Another memory rushed back to him. Years ago, in the alleys of Calla Lily, Giles had seen the shrivelled and blackened body of a man addicted to the demon spice. A cadaver in all but name, a shriveled husk of grey. His eyes—bloodshot, glassy, unseeing. His breath reeked of something like cinnamon and rot. He had begged for coins outside a backstreet pub, shaking palm outstretched. Giles had tossed a few coins, met only with a grunt. Giles had walked away feeling sick.

Strife: Chapter 1.1 — What He Found

It was midsummer. The sun was stark, yet cool air lingered in the valley’s shadows. A breeze whispered through the tall grass, shaking the leaves.

The ranchers toiled in their fields, steady in their purpose. The shops on the high street were alive with faint chatter and the occasional clang of tools. Upstream, the baron's copper mine drummed and hummed, its din carried by the wind to every corner of the town. It was but another day in Othilia, seemingly without consequence.

Strife: Prologue

Long had the valley of Othilia slumbered beneath the mantle of time, its fields golden in the sun’s gentle gaze, its waters winding their ancient course through wood and vale. Between the high hills and the deep riverbanks, the town stood as it had for generations, weathering both famine and plenty, war and peace, chaos and order; its people bound to the land with the patience of stonecutters and the steadiness of sowers. In the foothills the mines toiled with a ceaseless murmur, the high street bustled with folk about their daily business, and in the hall of the Guardians, the last sworn keepers of order, the flame of vigilance yet burned.

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