Of Scholars and Scribes
Fourth Day of the Seventh Month 294 AC
The Sorrowful Men will make a somewhat uneasy addition to the realm in the absence of the fig leaf of being named a temple, as the House of Black and White had been, you think as you lay down a signature with a flourish before sealing the writ with the three-headed dragon in crimson and black. For all that there is not really anyone with both the power and the inclination to argue about it too much. Qarth is a far off tale of yellow sails and rich perfume to most of the realm, particularly west of the Narrow Sea where the concept of an assassin's guild is likely to cause the most uproar. You might almost welcome a bit of uproar if you were being honest with yourself in the silence of your own thoughts.
The past month has been more peaceful than the hectic preparations for the pacification and the coronation. Even with the royal wedding already on the horizon, it seems as though the world has settled a little, like a river channeled onto new banks that foams no more, though the currents are still swift enough to drag one under if one is not careful.
Qarth will be ready for peaceful annexation in but a few more months, Alinor writes, among anecdotes carved with razor sharp whit at the expense of some of the Pureborn who are slower to grasp that fact.
City at the Gates of the World: 88 (Success)
You glance over the papers before you. A story in the
Silver Eye, the Braavosi paper named for its short-lived investigative order, catches your eye.
Grave Lords of Lost Sarnor: Does and Don'ts
Many have been the folk, strange and foreign, who have found succor and sanctuary in the Secret City from distant ports and of late from cities beyond the reach of any sea, but none have caused more furor or more alarm than the withered lords and ladies of Sarnor.
They come in shaded palanquins festooned with gold and silver. They speak with the harsh voices of death, knowing not our customs nor our tongue, yet I assure you, gentle readers, they are not our foes, but perhaps one of the greatest opportunities our fair city has seen.
Here enclosed is the interview with Prince Uzu Kugal, who far from the fearsome chill lord he must seem is an admirer of the city and its people the likes of which he had not seen when he yet walked the world as a living man. Indeed, much of what might be thought of as rudeness was caused by ignorance of customs on both the part of guest and host, a lapse which I hope this humble scribe might help remedy...
The article continues in that vein as much advertisement as news, as one might perhaps expect of a paper written by the Braavosi for the Braavosi. You suspect there had been more than a few marks changing hands in the writing of the article, but more than any report of the Ministry of Diplomacy, this and other similar stories from across the realm show the success of tempting the dead lords from the isolation they might otherwise have fallen into.
In the absence of Qyburn's stabilization mechanisms, unlife is a cold thing ever coiling upon itself, beyond light of sun and breath of wind. You are glad indeed that does not seem to be the fate of the Sarnori, be they your citizens or those of Naamaru's realm. Trade is blossoming and not just in works of craft or sorcery. Texts that had been lost in the chaos of the Century of Blood had been retained, if not in the looted halls of the dead cities than in the minds of its unquiet citizens.
There are almost as many scholars going east into the plains as there are venturesome traders, though as ever in these last years almost anyone and everyone who can have a claim to a wide ranging education is snapped up by one of the many branches of the bureaucracy, which always has more jobs needing such skills then there are people to fill them.
Trade with the Dead: 86 (Success)
For those who have itchy heels, though without the courage to set off to dwell among the dead and those who choose to take up bodies of steel and bronze, there are many more opportunities to the west than to the east, though not without the understanding that they must learn to make themselves understood by the people they are to dwell among.
More or less affectionately named 'Glass Gardens', for the way they are concerned with growing the knowledge of their students as quickly as possible, the new schools are present in every city along the Narrow Sea, but especially here in the Deep where the magics of winged-serpent and weirwood offer wisdom in matters great and small. There is an atmosphere of frantic study there and of competition for the best posts that could all too easily have turned sour, but fortunately Veda had stayed on top of things, demanding competence, yes, but also making it clear that there are enough posts for everyone. The use of a random draw in certain cases as a means of differentiating between those with similar grades had been inspired. The draw had even been projected on the mirrors a few times, in an attempt to 'draw back the curtain' on the inner workings of the ministries and humanize the various clerks and teachers.
While the campaign had not been a rousing success, it had not been a failure either, and you can certainly appreciate a novel idea when you hear one. Of greater immediate note is the report you received a few hours after the diplomatic correspondence from Qarth. The spreading of printing secrets that you had been almost certain would happen did happen... though not where you thought it would.
A Common Tongue: 46 (Success)
A Gulltown merchant had come into the possession of enough of the lore that goes into the making of a press to try his own hand at it after he hired away several of the low mages who watched the press that printed educational texts there as well as hiring an enchanter from Volantis to put things together at what you imagine must have been ruinous expense. The man had done nothing to hide his feat, it would have been pointless to try in either case, since he plans to get his own paper off the ground soon. It will not be written in True Speech, only in Common, yet you expect it to have quite the following.
True Speech Presses: Automatic Success -> Presses get into private hands
How do you react publicly to the news?
[] With concern over the purloined lore, though content to let the Gulltown courts handle the matter
[] With congratulations at the ingenuity, this was going to happen anyway once you decided to put the presses into wide use, better like this than in other ways it could go
[] Write in
OOC: Taking newspapers and the educational presses guaranteed that some of the lore would fall into private hands this month.
