Contract Renewal

[DoS Archive]

Date: 10/19/97 1:35 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: Perrinis


((This is a storyline, not a post. Post concerning the SL will come later.))

It was late in the Garrison offices, and this Saturday night had no moon to light the windowpanes. Perri looked up from his desk to those windows, sighing wistfully with thoughts of his wife, who was in Velcour for the night, a distance so far away that only magick can cross it, a land that he would never see.
He looked back to the stacks of papers that piled before him with a thoughtful frown. The 18 months that the Garrison had last been contracted to were nearly up, and now, some problems were complicating matters of renewing the contract. First, the budget figures had slipped into the red yet again, and were not showing signs of rising. The costs of maintaining patrols in the municipality were skyrocketing, not to mention the Garrison's non-law
enforcement projects. After no short amount of time noting and evaluating the financial situation, he came to a report filed by a patrol officer.

General Alabaster:
In the past few weeks, a small group
of citizens have taken up insurrectionist
protests against the Garrison's contract,
citing that the Red Dragon Inn is sentient
and does not wish that the city surrounding
it should have any means by which to
protect themselves save by vigilantism.
I responded to one such apple-throwing
protester with "If the Inn has objections,
you tell it to conjure up a letter and mail it
to the Garrison offices."

Perri frowned thoughtfully. He had heard such claims from a sparingly few citizens before, but this by no means held any weight in comparison to the amount of support shown for the Garrison. Nonetheless, opinions could change during the next contract, and things could very likely become messy. The Garrison was established to prevent and punish crime, not to put down detractors and revolters.
The General stretched back in his chair, then stood and exited the offices for the night to think over this.

[DoS Archive]

Date: 10/19/97 2:07 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: Perrinis


::two weeks before the last entry::

The hasty blare of a bugle sounded to the townspeople of Karrah a familiar and dreaded warning: the raiders were coming yet again. Men scrambled from their homes, taking up what meager weapons they had crafted from their plowshares as the trampling thunder of hoofs thundered from the north. Mothers and their children took refuge where they could, hoping they could find some alcove or haven that the vandals would not find them in. As the town square
become a flurry of men and steel trying to ready themselves for the onslaught, cries of bloodlust and malice rang about.

Within moments, the armored riders called the Reapers of Sylephur descended on Karrah from all sides. Their blue-steeled scimitars screamed down upon any man who tried strike at his attacker, and the paltry weapons of the defenders bent and shattered in their efforts to repel. Nary a rider fell from his horse, and when the last defending man was slain, torches were lit and put to the thatched roofs of houses and shops. When a townswoman or child
would run screaming from their burning home, the raiders would make a marksmanship contest out of felling them with crossbows.
Thus, Karrah was reduced to an ashen smear along the coastline.

[DoS Archive]

Date: 10/19/97 2:57 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: Perrinis


::a letter hastily sent to the Garrison offices from the coast west of Eldicor::

Esteemed General Alabaster:
Word of your stellar work in RhyDin City has reached us even here. This letter is the unanimous decision of a delegation of seventeen townships and city-states, which have been under the murderous yoke of raiding and murdering barbarians. Enclosed is the extent of our knowledge of them.
It has come to our attention that not only is your contract with RhyDin's municipality coming due, but that you and your offices are unsure as to whether or not you will renew the Garrison's contract.
As seventeen unanimous representatives of our families and people, we beseech that you bring your facilities here. The people of our townships are fully behind uniting into a common government, provided that this government can provide our nation defense.
Signed,
The Congress of White Shires.
::seventeen names follow below::

[DoS Archive]

Date: 10/19/97 10:26 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: Jon Lost


General PerrinisAs Mayor of Temerlain City, I do hereby add my name to the list of seventeen. Be it known that you will be most welcome in Temerlain City.::Knowing full well that there are at least five other cities that the raiders must pass through before they ever even pose a threat to Temerlain, the mayor begins counciling his peers to move slower, and negotiate for a lower rate of pay as well.::


Mayor Jonathan Losterman

[DoS Archive]

Date: 10/20/97 10:33 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: Perrinis


::again, Monday afternoon in the Garrison offices::
Perri had looked over the further misconfusions on the board with what was becoming a trademark frown. Things were beginning to become a problem over, of all things, names. Though citizens with no tie to the Red Dragon Inn had contracted him to enforce law and safety in their district, more and more citizens in unaffected areas, such as the Inn, were balking at the concept of organized government and law in -any- section of the RhyDin city-state.
His frown deepened at this, having seen many of the violent, horrid acts inflicted on citizens, both innocent and.. less-than-innocent, in RhyDin, and with impunity! A person was slain and their blood sloshed across the message board, yet by the "law-of-no-laws" that the Red Dragon Inn claims, that murder will go unpunished.
He could do nothing within the Inn; even if it was not sovereign in and of itself, the foolishly anarchist patrons would have no part in seeing that people are properly dealt with for harming others. However, the RhyDin city-state had far outgrown the Red Dragon Inn. Indeed, the RDI was not even visible in many parts of what was called Garrison Territory. But people insisted on carrying out lawlessness over normal, innocent people, people who
deserved to walk the streets safely.
More papers that came across his desk caused him to raise a thoughtful brow. In reaction to cries that the Garrison was unjust under the old reasonings of the RhyDin city-state, a growing faction called for, in one way or another, removing Garrison territory from the murderous anarchy of the City-state.
There were a great many cries for outright secession, no matter the cost, to form a sovereign state where they stood and made their homes. Others had heard of the plea from that faraway coast and wished to see the Garrison send it resources there, and settle that land alongisde. This idea was already quite unpopular with Perrinis' personal interests. He had no wish to move across the realm, neither did his family.
Still more missives found their way to the General's desk, with opinions quite varied. Some even wished to request or even conquer land from a nearby realm such as Questrion to forge a new land in.
Before Perri had finished the batch of missives, the sun and set, and more had come in. Exhausted, he left for home.

[DoS Archive]

Date: 10/22/97 7:23 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: Drakewyn x


Drake sat upon the casement of her bedroom window, watching the drizzling rain pour down over the estate and the city below. Though it happened only rarely, she still worried when Perri stayed at the Garrison so late. As the gloom of the evening slowly increased, she thought about the current problems and the few solutions that had so far presented themselves. No matter what happened or what Perri decided, she would support him... but she would miss this house, should they move to the coast as some had suggested. Things were going to be hard, these next few days, she knew. Then, hearing a cheery gurgle from behind, she turned to see to Delilah, putting off her worries for another time.