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 Post subject: Description
PostPosted: Tue Oct 03, 2017 10:09 pm 
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Someone who last had been in the port quarter of the city two years ago would hardly recognise the places he had considered familiar. Most of the Waterfront has been transformed this way or another. The long piers of the Dragon Wharf was made even longer to reach deeper water, and now two of the Explorers' impressive vessels, Yamato Maru and Kunshu Maru, tower on both of its sides like a gateway, bustling with activity of their mariners by day, casting long lights across the port waters at night. They are often likened to the Dawn Tower and the Sunset Tower guarding entry to the Golden Sun Bay as they leave similar impressions on all those smaller vessels who pass in their shadow on their way into the wharf, amid the creaking of modern rigging that is a subject of envy for any mariner who knows their craft. Vessel-watching has increased its popularity, in fact, and both distinguishable establishments overlooking the wharf, Seaside Teashop and Hakko Tako, have witnessed steep rise of low-quality competition in nearby warehouses turned into establishments from which the wharf can be observed. Warehouses were indispensable, however, so buildings further inland were claim and some of the port population displaced, often moving to the Northern Outskirts or into the Pan. Traditional cart fishmongers and produce salesmen have perhaps not been removed by certainly overshadowed by many other food vendors fiercely competing between each other in design, packaging, exoticity of ingredients or just price. Street grassroots capitalism at its finest, with just the expected amount of feuds, thievery and violence in an unforgettable concoction of pleasant smells and ugly odours.

Part of this money-making chaos is the making of the new merchant lord of this area, Gusai Shumpei. He's hardly an unknown element in the city, but few have expected an aggressive business acumen from him as he always seemed to be a clerk-like passive harbourmaster of the Mantis Quay, minding his business and favouring it being as usual. Perhaps he was just biding his time or preparing for the right moment for since the demise of Tortoise commercial sway he has recorded a meteoric rise. Relegating most of the commercial riff-raff of the former Mantis Quay to work for him around the Imperial Wharf, he has ordered an estate hastily build for himself near his office, pretentiously calling it the Sapphire Abode for the level of sumptuousness marking its decorations. He has actually cornered another sector of the market with this, that of the services of ronin artisans formerly of the Kakita family who have been forced to actually work during their sharp impoverishment that had come from hasty, honourable decision of leaving the Clan without full realisation of consequences. Winter has made many of them inward and humble, something Shumpei takes full benefit from, peddling artwork for much, much more than what he's paying the authors. But most importantly, he picked up where Jose Pavo had left off by sailing away in haste - he took over the moneylending. But while Senor Hosei had been quite benevolent to his debtors, Shumpei is using his bureaucratic proficiency to be a true loan shark, both refined in instruments and merciless in collecting. His loan notes and letters of credit are very reliable, and he's good with paperwork and legal issues, so he does not complain on the lack of clientele in his new banking house. Some whisper he also advises on how to pay smaller taxes, tolls and fees... The Mantis samurai and heimin, some of them speaking strangely and more dark-skinned that could be expected from even a southern Rokugani, certainly don't question his choices, for the Quay started to become fashionable, with Coffee & Curry being the template for exotic establishments dotting the paved boulevard. There are more shops dealing with exotic foodstuffs, wares and services. Rogan josh or a dokhla cake can be eaten here, a sarong bought, and a henna tattoo made. And opium? It's there, somewhere, where it doesn't irk those who'd take issue. Either way, the Quay is additionally legitimised by the presence of the Walrus, one of smaller vessels of the Imperial Navy.

Feitoria is no longer Feitoria, at least in official discourse. The whole walled grounds of it are now called the Campus and hold the Imperial Naval College. Many of the warehouses that had burned on the night of Pavo's flight were not rebuilt, and instead dormitories, dojos and training yards were founded in their place, a little makeshift at times but constantly improved and furbished. At the southernmost spot of the Campus a garrison for the 1st Marines Regiment was built, near a larger drilling yard where Seppun Hiraga inculcates the loading sequence in his soldiers. Most of their training happens along the Long Beach, however. Gone are the days when it was a place of casual swimming and long romantic walks. It's now being daily stomped by the musketeers who train shooting and littoral combat in an environment that is supposed to be the closest to their target theatres. They even grounded on the Remote Shoals a damaged Tortoise vessel Sierra Madre which Hassei had captured and had damaged further during his occupation of the Feitoria which acts as both a target practice and the staging ground for landing operations.

Apart from the salvos coming from the beach, the life within the walls is quieter than elsewhere, less cramped. Those who have chosen or been chosen to study in the Naval College usually do not regret it. Moshi Noriko, the headmistress of the College, has invited renowned sensei from all across the Empire and they are relatively easy to approach across these grounds. The Red House, formerly La Casa de Las Cuentas, has been rearranged into an administrative heart of the College and Noriko's living quarters, depriving it of former commercial functions. By design and feel, there is still a lot of the old Casa in it, with cypresses in pots still growing on the mosaic courtyard and the wine cellar worth a fortune still being triple-locked. However, the slope down from it toward the waterway is much more peaceful. The end of the channel now features a moored training ship, also a post-Tortoise loot, but in much better shape than Sierra Madre. The original name was scrubbed away, there was a contest for a new name but it ended with too many inappropriate contributions to be resolved. The problem is that it's curved, buxom starboard and port as well as the gifted mermaid-like feature at the front give ample reason to call the ship what it's casually called by students, Holy Tits.

The commercial traffic at the former Tortoise Docks has diminished proportionally. Most of the space, between two jetties, is occupied by Ashitae Maru, the fourth of grand vessels meant for the First Voyage. The walkway toward it leads on one side of the channel, the other is where the old Feitoria has condensed. The stretch between two taverns, Los Ojos de Isora and Tasca da Esquina, is occupied by the Merenaese community of the former Feitoria, now labeled as Foreign Resources of the Explorers managed by Miya Edogawa. While there is a lot of nostalgia, most reverberating in the new name of the stretch, La Ultima Esperanza, life goes on here. Skilled labour and craftsmen are not unemployed as the demand for Merenaese wares has not really abated, and those who don't have their sailing days behind them hope to be enrolled on Imperial vessels meant to cross the ocean. Edogawa holds sway here, in (big) part because of his shadow pistoleer guardian, the man known as Quick Lopez or El Rapido, who is well-respected locally for being an undisputed boss of 'independent entrepreneurs' who keep Merenaese affairs afloat without their Tortoise benefactors.

The bay has witnessed relatively frequent visits of a Blue Fin and her young calf, and both sometimes sing their song. There is little doubt that it's the same whale which disturbed the Imperial Regatta last year. It deeply polarises the city population, into pro-whaling and anti-whaling factions. The latter claim that she is an incarnation of Isora and killing her would incur a terrible curse on the shores, and so far it's been enough to deter bloodthirsty whalers. Betty and her Junior apparently feel well in these waters. Although some try, it's hard to blame Betty for sporadic disappearances of solitary fishermen since those almost exclusively occur where the sargasso gets thicker toward the southeast, as this is where the whale doesn't venture.

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For more information on mentioned locations, please check this forum.

Since it is a multi-location forum, separate threads in same timeslots are allowed.



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