On a dark-blossoming sea Boreas rends men's hearts with the billows, coming face to face with them as night rises up, but ceases on the arrival of Eos who gives light to mortals and a gentle breeze levels the sea, and they belly out their sail before Notus' breath.
~Bacchylides

Alain DeMuer stood alone on the final rock that would someday become the Westlight, the craggy line north of the port town of Xhastil in the Barony of Saint Aldwin, a great black protective arm guarding the harbor from the chilly wind and water beyond her. Whatever messenger gods were harbingers of the summer solstice, warmer weather and a plentiful harvest in the months to come, they had gone no further than this point. The air stung on the wrong side of the rocks where the Baron held his stubborn vigil, the sea roiling before him. Bright, silvered blue eyes scanned the choppy horizon as if he had sighted El Dorado out at sea; already his back was turned on Xhastil, content that the skilled Aurkindri, provided with the vast resources at his disposal and the aid of innumerable foreign workers, would take care of themselves.

The town had grown rapidly, many of the temporary bunkhouses giving way to prosperous homes for large families. The streets were paved with enhanced stone, formed by magick and marked every few blocks or so with the runes of the geomancers and others who had willed them out of the earth, and while the sounds of construction had hardly abated at all, the first shops of the hardy green-skinned race that now called this town home had opened yesterday: two taverns, a tailor's, a smithy and a bank.

By Saturday the community leaders planned to rely no more on the donations of the generous towns and villages away to the east in the Barony, buying and selling their own food, and making a living as tradesmen. Even now the new docks of Xhastil were cluttered with wooden sailing ships, and the Aurks were all too eager to finish their construction projects and engage with the merchants in business.

Enough questions about the young Baron who had, from the background, subtly motivated the entire project, led up the rough dirt path to the end of the Westlight. He was huddled in a thick wool pea-coat and grey scarf, his cigarette miraculously alight (or perhaps due in part to the runes inscribed in light grey ink on the rolling paper), his mind hard at work on the northern frontier and the next big project.

The few who supposed that with Xhastil, the Baron's work in this land was done, did not know him very well, and were already learning this - even that afternoon, trucks rolled along the newly built mountain roads and down their still unpaved stretches, unloading skilled workers and equipment to turn the Barony-side of the Citadel into a fully functional Carolus-dynamo electric power plant. Supervisors muttered their dissent but did as they were told as they laid foundations elsewhere still, on the north coast of this strange island rifted on the south end, in anticipation of some new settlement that most others could not foresee.

The jury was out on whether the ambitious young Baron was subtle and brilliant, or had simply gone mad.

The nimble Aurkindri who swarmed over the docks as the Barrister's ship came in were no novices -- they were born on the waterfront, and their fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers taught them all they needed to know about living off of the docks. A song rose up among them as they worked, the words as old as the Scattering of their race.

Xhastil teemed with all the life and energy of a growing market, and once their work was done, the men and women on the docks scrambled off to their next task. A half-elf (half-something else that gave him soft blue skin) remained, leaned heavily on a wooden staff, and his left leg ended at the knee where his pants were knotted. An old wound, if the deep wrinkles in his face and the scars on his arms were any indication. He grinned warmly, crinkling the mottled skin around his bright and alert eyes, and cupped his hands and called,

"Barrister Mallorek, sir!" Then he pointed out towards the long line of rocks that protected the harbor to the north. "The Baron's out on the point waitin' for ya!" He waved, then, and turned to limp off of the docks with more vigor than a man of his years ought to be allowed.

Alain heard Lucien's approach on the rocks, and once he opened his mouth, he recognized the Barrister's voice. He was not ready to end his meditation on the angry waters in front of him, not completely - his thoughts were on God, and on his destiny beyond the waves. "I credit the Aurkindri," he called out in answer, lowering his tone only once the Barrister was very close. "These families have always been industrious and ingenious... They've faced more persecution, more threat of genocide than any I've ever heard of. And yet, here they are."

Then the Baron turned a smile on Lucien, small and at the same time deep, complicated. "They've decided to call this island Aldwin, after the Barony, and by summer's end it'll be home to ten thousand souls, maybe more. We have established trade agreements with six neighboring realms, excluding the business we do with RhyDin, and there's more rifts out there. Bretland's another big island like this one, across the sea a ways - looks promising, maybe as much as this place, maybe more. All we need is the souls to fill it, and so long as there's people in need, people driven from their homes... we'll be in the business of delivering hope."

He moved to shake Lucien's hand and turn him back towards Xhastil, to walk with him. "But I didn't bring you here for the cause, or for the view... I want you to build ships here, do business, and flourish, because I know we'll flourish with you. I can't say there's many men I can trust to be as sensible or shrewd as yourself."

So far, in Xhastil, there wasn't much to show, or at least to explicitly describe. Alain walked with the Barrister along the busy streets, and the bustle explained itself -- the foundations of a Gallican Catholic chapel competing with a traditional Aurk ancestral shrine not too far away; the skeleton of a garage, for now little more than a glorified carport where nimble and keen-eyed mechanics worked on cargo trucks, one of the new town's lifelines; all this and more, all promises of just how healthy and even profitable this settlement could be.

"Many, many ships, eh... Maybe I'll have to show you Teobern next, then Sainte-Ouen, and there's another we're building up north, near the power plant." The Baron considered the prospects, the calculation showing in every line in his face. He would pay for that, maybe, as the years wore on. For now, he could still depend on his physical youth. "As far as foremen go..."

He pointed out the blue half-elf from earlier, still limping around as quickly as he could, shouting when he needed to, and confiding quietly as needed also, adapting rapidly to the changing factors around him. "Zhoder Atren. Comes from an ancient family - sharp old son of a bitch..." Sharp of hearing, too; a pointy ear twitched, and Zhoder was looking right at them, so the Baron called to him. "Oi, Zhod!"

Which brought him limping over with a grin curling its way across his face, stretching and filling all the deep lines.

Alain DeMuer was many things, among them a very skilled man at accomplishing just about anything he set his mind to seeing done; however, even as the 'architect' behind Xhastil and other new settlements in the Barony of Saint Aldwin, he could not know the lay of the land as well as Zhoder Atren.

The ancient blue half-elf wasn't the easiest man to understand sometimes, but he made it clear he knew the 'sweet spot,' the best lot for the Barrister to build his shipyard. He pointed out the coastline, the location of other docks and warehouses (finished, half-built, and those he reckoned would come sooner or later), even stooped down to run his fingers through the muddy earth and talk about dirt and sand. At the moment it was not the most aesthetically pleasing spot, but a lifetime of experience had lent old Zhod a farsighted perspective.

The Baron's eyes were on the Barrister himself, seeing how he reacted to the so-called 'sweet spot.' So far he'd been reading good vibes off of Lucien, maybe the best he'd ever seen. He didn't want to push too much on the man all on his own, and soon enough, Zhod spoke for him:

"Wha' say ye, lad? I' thissun tha spo'?"