User:JohnB/The Book and the stone 11

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The Outcome:[edit]

Almost four years after their departure, one galleon was spotted by sentinels who were guarding the Cyrodiil estuary. The expedition had already been given up for lost; therefore, great was the sentinels' surprise when a longboat approached with men in it presenting an official pass to enter Cyrodiil harbor.

Runners were dispatched to the city to convey the news, and exploding sky rockets were launched from the citadel to alert the citizens. People poured into the streets and plazas, and there was an uproar as the news was spread by word of mouth that the intrepid heroes were back home.

The sea tide helped propel the ship up the river, then barges of rowers towed the ship the rest of the way. As the ship was being towed, the crew set to work lowering the main yard and putting all the equipment back in shipshape order. As they worked, they bellowed out in unison the following chanty:


And it's home, boys, home!

Home I'd like to be,

Home for a while in my own count-r-y!

Where the oak and the ash and the bonnie ruins free,

Are all a-growing green in the north country!


A tremendous "Hurrah!" and "Huzzah!" went up as ship and its masts glided into the harbor. The crew stood at attention on deck as citizens craned their necks to see if they could spot their loved ones. There was a contingent of Ahemmusa Ashlanders who happened to be in Cyrodiil at that time and cheered as the thinly-bearded Asantus Needlegazer hobbled slowly and painfully down the gangplank. They hoisted him and IXOHOXI onto their shoulders and carried them with "Hurrah!" and "Huzzah!" to the lodgings that had been prepared for the returning heroes. His legs were to remain slightly bowed from the effects of scurvy on his young body, but that wouldn't stop him from signing up for the next voyage to the new continent, which came to be called "Asantia".

A deputation of Asantians came with the Tamrielites, and when asked what they thought of the name Asantia for their continent, they admitted there never was a collective name for them. Each region and tribe had its own designation that set itself apart from the others, and of course there were internecine conflicts and rivalries among them, but this name gave them an entirely unexpected sense of unity. And if it came from of a boy who saw an object fall from the sky and led to their contact with the outside world, so much the better.

A contingent of Cymri pipers marched at the head of the procession playing "Cymri, the Brave" as a herald cried out, "Here ye! Here ye! Make way for Captain Maurice Delamer, the Hero of Cymri, and his noble wife Lady Arowhena Delamer!"

The captain still hadn't gotten over the loss of Vaezbrub, so the festive occasion didn't sit well with him. Hand-in-hand with Arowhena, he led his crew among the cheering crowds, and he happened to look up at a raised stage of a slave market. There were the usual Khajiits and Argonians lined up along the stage—and wasn't that Vaezbrub standing among them? He wore a placard around his neck saying, “Fit for any filthy job.”

“Vaezbrub!” he captain called out to him. There was no response.

“WHOA!” the slave auctioneer shouted pushing him away. “No talking to the merchandise! Besides, those bracers make them totally impassive.”

“He's a member of my crew!” the captain objected.

“Not anymore! You want him back—you pay up!”

Some of the crew members urged him to leave him to his fate. For his part, he was caught between doing something and doing nothing to remedy the situation. The captain would never have countenanced buying a human being. He grew up in a hard-scrabble fishing village where if you wanted something done you either did it yourself or paid somebody to do it for you. But never would you order somebody to do it for free and threaten him with the lash if he refused. Slaves were notorious for doing only so much to avoid the lash, which gives the lie to Kanye West's assertion that slavery was a viable career choice for Africans. But then he was never one to say anything intelligent anyway. It was highly uncommon to see the captain, a man of action, stuck thus in the tar pit of indecision.

In addition to being morally reprehensible, slavery was a very bad economic model. As with the Roman Empire, economic expansion was synonymous with territorial expansion, and when the Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent, its economy ground to a halt. The underemployed masses had to be pacified with bread and circuses at a great expense to the State, which was partly why life for the average commoner in Rome was nasty, brutish, and short. (Google "Why the average ancient Roman worker was dead by 30") The House of Septim never got around to doling out welfare to the masses. Maybe this is why commoners in Vvardenfell say they do a little of this and a little of that when in fact they are forever traipsing around aimlessly.

"Maurice, you can't just leave him here!" Arowhena pleaded with a sincere look of pity. "Vaezbrub didn't leave you with the cannibals, did he?"

Others were grousing that the procession was being held up for no good reason, so the captain lost his patience.

“I can't blame all of you" the captain suddenly yelled at them "for not being there when the cannibals caught me, but you were useless when it came to finding a way out of that ice—ALL of you, USELESS!”

There was an embarrassed silence all around.

“How much?” the captain asked turning to the auctioneer.

“I'm having trouble unloading this one, so you can have him at a big discount.” He named his price.

“Done!” the captain responded.

He called for the accountant to bring the cash box.

"Sir, this money must be returned to the consortium!"

"Let me worry about that," the captain responded counting out the sum, "I can't let this poor fellow remain in this condition any longer."

He received the bracer key from the auctioneer and promptly unlocked the bracer then dropped it and the key at the auctioneer's feet. The auctioneer glared angrily at him.

“Well...what do you say?” the captain asked.

“Thank you, for your kind patronage, and please call again," the auctioneer responded doffing his hat.

“Go to hell!” the captain barked and continued on his way with Vaezbrub and the crew.

"Vaezbrub, what happened?" the captain murmured out of earshot of the others.

"Sorry, my bad!"

"What do you mean?"

"I was waiting where you told me to when two guards came up to me. 'Keep moving!' one of them said. 'My master told me to wait for him here,' I answered."

"Ye GODS!" the captain exclaimed stopping in his tracks. "I'm not your master!"

"I know, damn it--just listen! 'Then where's your bracer?' he asked. 'My what?' That's when the second guard grabbed me from behind, and they slapped a slave bracer on me. They hauled me off to jail, but they couldn't find my name on the master list of escaped slaves. So they sold me to a slave trader, and I was schlepped here because nobody would buy me along the way."

"Couldn't you have used a more appropriate title for me?!"

"I thought 'my employer' or 'my captain' or even 'the big kahuna', but 'my master' was what slipped out."

"Vaezbrub," the captain said petulantly, "next time, why not try 'my boss'?!"

Vaezbrub did a slapping face-palm and shook his head in remorse.

"Forget it, Vaezbrub," the captain added mildly as he clapped him on the shoulder, and they continued on their way.

After a few moments of consideration, Vaezbrub spoke again.

"Sir, do you think you paid too much for me?"

The captain flashed him an irritated look.

"You tell me, Mr. V! How much would you pay out to redeem a bastard-lunatic who got himself sold into slavery, huh?"

"Well, I'm worried about the consortium. I've got some fine pieces in my inventory that exist nowhere else in Tamriel. They can be pawned to pay them back."

"Nix! Nothing doing! You're wrong on three points, Mr. V: 1) the slave merchant sold you at a great loss to himself, so I didn't bother haggling. 2) The consortium has more gold than they know what to do with; what they paid out for this expedition was mere pocket change to them. 3) You've got it butt-backwards: the consortium is indebted to you, not you to them. If it wasn't for your soothsaying and intervention, we wouldn't be walking together along this street right now, don't you think? So, what did I say earlier?"

"'Forget it, Vaezbrub.'"

"Right."

They walked on silently.

"Still angry?" Vaezbrub finally asked.

"Naah!" the captain responded. "It's just that a lot of bad things happened during this expedition. There's a lot I need to answer for."

"Sir, a lot of good things happened as well."

"I know, I KNOW!" the captain answered petulantly. "So what?!"

"Well, mathematically speaking, goodness = √1. You can't break it down. Evil, on the other hand, finds a way to multiply itself exponentially. But it can be broken down. The death-camp inmate can still celebrate his birthday and not curse it. All of us can go one way or the other, but let me tell you. Nobody stays forever on the goodness side. We all have faults, but we all have our good side as well. N'est pas?"

The captain smiled broadly.

"You're a first-class stinker, Mr. V!" he guffawed giving Vaezbrub a sideways hug.

"Shucks, I'm only making up for the dearth in anyone's saying sooth during my bondage."

"Yeah," the captain nodded a bit woebegone. "Arowhena has a big heart and a good noggin, but she hasn't got...what's the word for it?"

"Savoir-faire?"

"Yes!" the captain answered and glanced about to see if she was within hearing distance. "She's still rather young, but she's spent too much of that youth among mute mechanisms. In fact, her thinking can be rather..."

"Mechanical?"

"Vaezbrub, again you took the word right out of my mouth!"

"Well, Sir, I've come to read your mind like a book."

"I won't grudge you for that. After all, sometimes I can't even tell what I'm thinking, so it's good to be reminded."

At the Guild of Merchants, the captain took out his globe and reported to the consortium that this is what Nirn looks like. The pencil marks had been modified and inked in to conform to the size of Nirn as it was actually found it to be. The captain ran his finger along the route he took from Cyrodiil all the way around the globe back to Cyrodiil. The investors were dumbfounded to see Nirn in all its glory. But there was one catch: the number of days spent on the voyage was one less than the calendar day when they arrived. Somehow the voyage was actually shorter by one day. The captain was at a loss because he'd kept meticulous records in the log.

(Note: Now according to Special Relativity, the time of a moving clock will run slower than a stationary clock by a factor of γ=1/1−v2/c2√γ=1/1−v2/c2

So for the clock on the plane traveling east (in the direction of the earth's rotation) will measure the trip as taking 455 nanoseconds less than the clock on the north pole.

The clock on the equator at the airport will measure the time for either the east or west flight that takes 193 nanoseconds less than the clock on the north pole. [www{dot}quora{dot}com{slash}If-I-travel-against-earth-rotation-would-I-gain-extra-time] This fact is what saved Phileas Fogg in Around the World in Eighty Days.)

Imperial officers suddenly came pounding on the door of the Guild of Merchants hall in order to arrest Captain Maurice Delamer for the murder of the captain and the entire crew of the imperial ship that was sent after him. The captain turned to Vaezbrub and murmured, "Aldaril at it again!" Vaezbrub murmured back, "Patently to set himself up as the lord and master of the trade mission." The captain demanded that his soothsayer be allowed to accompany him in order to help him in his defense.   An emergency conference was then held in which Articles of Procedure were drafted to prevent any abuse of the native population. These were as follows:

1. Local authorities are not to be corrupted or replaced by the company.

2. Nothing is to be taken by force, and no local labor is to be conscripted by force.

3. Local customs, no matter how bizarre, are not to be suppressed, and Tamrielic gods are not to be forced on the local populace.

4. The land on the continent is not to be claimed for the empire. The continent is sovereign and indivisible.

5. The purpose of the company's activities is strictly to conduct business on equal terms, not subjugation.

The Procedures were later challenged in a court of law, and the Imperial authority was soundly defeated. It was ruled that the Articles of Procedure made perfect sense. The Empire may have started out as a kleptocracy that stole all of Tamriel, but those days were over.

The Trial:[edit]

The captain and Vaezbrub were brought before the emperor, and a bailiff read out the charge that the captain had ordered an imperial captain to be beheaded and the entire crew of an imperial ship hanged by the neck. The emperor asked how he pleaded, and the captain requested time with his soothsayer to formulate an answer. The two set themselves apart from the court and went over all the points that they knew about the rogue ship and its captain that could be flung back into the emperor's face. They returned in a pugnacious mood.

"Your majesty," the captain began, "I plead not guilty. It was by the authority vested in me as the captain of this expedition to thwart the espionage and sabotage aimed at it by a ship that, A, was not flying the imperial colors, B, was captained by a man who would sooner die than reveal who'd sent him, and C, was carrying secret orders against my person that was sealed with a faceless stamp. And so, your majesty, allow me to ask how I was to know this was an imperial ship, imperial captain, and imperial crew? My crew and I believed ourselves to be defending not only the business interests of Tamriel but your own interests as well. Yet now we find it was YOU who had been cravenly thwarting your very own interests. Yes, I executed spies and saboteurs against our expedition. No, I did not murder an imperial captain and imperial crew of an imperial ship. Furthermore, your mole is still active in Asantia to continue thwarting your own interests as well as ours. I rest my case."

The emperor fidgeted while listening to the captain's defense.

"Then explain why no letter of patent from us was applied for!" the emperor fired at him.

"If your majesty will explain why that was just cause for having me brought back in chains. A lot less damage would have been done if your majesty had pointed out the error immediately and not go about stirring up trouble so surreptitiously."

The emperor groused to himself and let out a sigh.

"Case dismissed!" he finally blurted and ordered that the captain be freed.

The Consortium Loses and Gains a Trade Representative:[edit]

The captain was true to Vaezbrub in not letting on what he and Vaezbrub knew about Aldaril's villainy, so the consortium of investors deemed themselves fortunate to have found somebody who was willing to remain behind as their company representative.

Of course, these Articles of Procedure weren't yet formulated and so were unknown to Aldaril when he began violating them as soon as the ship sailed out of Bellehaven Bay. He had been ordered to live among the people, learning their language and their customs. However, he had bigger fish to fry, immediately setting to work dragooning workers into constructing an opulent "Governor's" Mansion for himself. He promised that whatever he owed them for their labors would be reimbursed when the captain was back in Bellehaven.

Well, now that he had his mansion, he needed a harem to occupy it, so he went to the "tainted" women who'd stayed behind and told them they were welcome to move in with him and enjoy his hospitality. However, when the women realized what was expected of them in the Governor's Mansion, some of them opted out preferring to remain tainted instead. So Aldaril decided the only thing to do was to bend their will to his. He scraped and scrounged the wherewithal to barter for a crate of slave bracers then set his teleportation ring to Tel Aruhn, the site of the big slave market. Once he had his crate of bracers, he prepared to return to Bellehaven only to find to his great dismay that the ring was programmed only for Tamriel. He hadn't set a Mark spell and so was stuck on the wrong side of the planet with a crate of slave bracers that he no longer needed.

When the voyage returned about a year and a half later, Aldaril was to be installed by letter of appointment, but he'd gone missing long before. It was as if he'd been abducted by aliens. When the captain set eyes on the new Governor's Mansion, he realized it was all for the better because this level of extravagance in the company didn't bode well. At least Aldaril had supplied a company headquarters in advance of their arrival, so the captain reimbursed the workmen for their troubles. He crossed Aldaril's name off the letter of appointment and installed Vaezbrub instead, knowing he would never let the company down.

"I'll bet a wooden nickel Aldaril warped away from here and was unable to return," Vaezbrub mused.

"Why, you've just given me a splendid idea!" the captain said to himself and began rummaging through his inventory. "Here it is."

He pulled out an Amulet of Mark and set it at the entrance to their new company headquarters. Then he walked to the shore and pitched the amulet into the bay so as to prevent it from ever being reset unintentionally or otherwise.

"It doesn't help to be out of touch for as long as it takes to sail back, reprovision, and return," he told Vaezbrub. "This way I can pop in maybe once a week to see how things are going for you."

The captain reasoned that, in a world where everything is possible (e.g. cures for the Corprus and Porphyric Hemophilia), there should also be a cure for Vaezbrub's dung-elf malady. IXOXOXI's mother examined him and diagnosed it as a metabolic condition that caused his poop to ooze from the pores of his skin. He was packed off to her hospital for a week of treatment and returned without the foul stench.

Before long, he grew fantabulously rich from the 3% commission. The whole venture could have petered out due to lack of financial means or an insufficient profit motive, especially after two barrels, one of gold nuggets and the other of diamonds found all over the ground in Asantia, proved to be nothing more than pyrites and quartz. (So much for the get-rich-quick frenzy that drove many a conquistador to debase his own humanity.) Fortunately, the Asantian passengers had brought along 200 casks of the finest bee honey produced from hives set up on the flower-bedecked meadows of Bellehaven. It caused an immediate stir among the merchants.

Honey isn’t entirely unknown in Cyrodiil, but the wild sort found wherever bees gathered in the forests of Skyrim and Solsteim is suitable only for the production of mead. It is drunk in great quantities by the Nords in those regions, but like the meat-based liquors of Valenwood, it is either unknown or shunned by the rest of Tamriel.

Asantian beeswax also made a superlative candle compared with the Dreugh-wax that gave off a smoky fishy odor when burned. The Asantians demonstrated by lighting both candles, and one Tamrielic merchant murmured to another, “The candle makers are going to be clamoring for this, don’t you think?” And the two secretly sent messengers to their home offices to bring more funds post haste.

For a people untutored in international commerce, the Asantians were amazingly astute. They let the merchants sample honey from one of the cedar-wood casks, and already merchants were digging deep into their money bags. The Asantians set up an auction table and sold the honey in lots of five or ten casks each. The going prices went through the ceiling. The whole shipment was gone before you could say “How much mud can a mudcrab grab if a mudcrab could grab mud?” Then flush with Tamrielic gold, the Asantians turned around and bought a 40% stake in the new venture, putting themselves on an equal par with Tamriel after the emperor’s investment of 20%, which gave the venture a much needed imperial prerogative to promote its development.

The circumnavigation showed that it would be far more cost-effective to sail west from Wayrest, so the port was dredged to accommodate larger ships, and the fleet was assembled there under the auspices of the newly incorporated Asantia-Tamriel Global Enterprises. The Asantian traders also went on to establish a large emporium in Cyrodiil showcasing their other commodities, adding to the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the Imperial City. And before long, an IPO was offered on the Cyrodiil Bourse, and it looked as if Tamriel’s stunted economy was going to take off like a skyrocket.

However, the Tamrielites were caught off-guard by these developments and had little to offer in return. The Asantians inquired into the availability of glass commodities and were soon shown numerous samples of peach glass and what not. Of course, orders could be placed only after Tamrielic glass was advertised in Bellehaven, but the prospects were highly encouraging.   Asantus had entered into discipleship under Master Cyreril to learn to read and write, how to calculate after the manner of the Earthlings, and how to pilot a ship by the stars. As the events of his recent life unfolded, the details of the Lady's prophecy came back to him, and he understood that fate now drew him back to Asantia, his young bride's homeland, forever.

In the meantime, IXOHOXI was instructing the Guild of Healers in Cyrodiil in the various diseases that afflicted the people of Asantia and would soon make their way into the already long list of maladies that afflicted the people of Tamriel. She also learned how her people should cope with the Tamrielite diseases if and when they became widespread. She was now 19 going on 20 and ready to make a new start with Asantus. When they finally returned to Asantia, her mother was presented with a strapping granddaughter, named Asantina, to initiate into the ancient lore of the healers.

The Captain Settles Down:[edit]

Arowhena became one of the most radiant ladies of Cyrodiil. Heads turned as she and the captain promenaded in the park, she stepping out in style in the most fashionable dresses and he sporting a sky-blue frock coat. As the crew spread out frequenting the alehouses of Cyrodiil to make their burly cheer, stories of the captain's bad-assery were told and embellished to the locals, how he bluffed the port master of Wayrest into letting them disboard, how he threatened the battlemages in Firsthold to give way after he took on the refugees, and how he sent the Bosmeri scurrying back to port by blowing up one of their boats. They all drank to his good health and to their signing up for the next voyage under his command, which unfortunately was not to be.

But the ultimate tale they told was of how he rescued the lovely lady who was now his wife. The tale went through multifarious permutations till it was no longer recognizable. One version actually had her chained to a rock in Skyrim as the captain brandished his vorpal sword to fight off the jabberwocks that menaced her. The captain's protestations that that's not what actually happened were accepted as an overly-humble view of his own fighting ability. (Only Vaezbrub and Arowhena witnessed his taking "The Amaterasu" sword, and they kept mum about the uber-weapon he now possessed so as not to make him the target of powerful antiquities collectors.)

Arowhena could feel in her body that a new life had been formed at the summit of the pyramid; however, she refrained from telling the captain during the remainder of the voyage so as not to cause him undue anxiety. When she finally informed Maurice, he applied to the Asantia-Tamriel Global Enterprises for a position on the board of directors. The company would have preferred that he continue captaining ships, but he protested that (unknown to them) he had already been liaising with their trade representative on a weekly basis and was thoroughly up-to-date on conditions at the company headquarters in Mount Royal.

He explained how he'd been using a Recall amulet to do this and also pointed out that having just started a family, he was no longer willing to risk his life to shuttle goods back and forth over the ocean. The company appointed him on the condition that he train new ship captains, and he willingly accepted. He was also to continue his weekly visits to Mount Royal to carry correspondences back and forth and keep Vaezbrub on his toes. They reminded him that a bastard-lunatic needed constant supervision. Maurice, however, understood that bastard-lunatic was a misnomer--he was more like a bastard-eccentric. And I personally can vouch that there's nothing wrong with being a bastard-eccentric.

Meanwhile in Asantia, a brisk trade flourished, and as an early English commentator might have written:


Yet many now have been there;

And that country is so large to roam,

Much larger than all of Christendom...

For diverse mariners had tried,

To circumnavigate its sides

Above 5 thousand miles!

But what commodities be within

No man can tell nor imagine!

(Adapted for this story from Morison, pp. 249-250)

THE END