Chapter Text
25. Free Day - Sporadic
Unexpectedly to many non-Eorzean legal scholars, the most intricate and complex portion of the Eorzean’ Alliance joint legal code is the series of statutes governing income tax. Some might assume this to be a function of Uld’ah’s commerce center, but the dominating factor is the prevalence of Adventuring as a registered occupation and the sporadic nature of fluxional income as a result. While issues of primacy are determined by the locale of the adventurer’s enrolled guild headquarters, the largest subset of statutes dominates the setting of reward rates and the categorization of specific tasks for the determination of taxable percentile.
26. Break A Leg
An excerpt from The Bloodsands: Pageantry and Predation
…match-fixing remains a forbidden practice, with incurred penalties ranging from the disqualification of the fighter in question to full bans of lanista and their sponsors. However, the large percentage of the Bloodsands’ entertainment is far more spectacle than brawl. Colorful characters make their appearance in the ring as fighters, with elaborate narratives and personas suited to storybooks. While the most famed gladiators are renowned for genuine battle prowess, the coliseum’s bread and butter remains the matches that have far more in common with a theatrical performance than a competition of martial skill…
27. Hail
It had been five long years, and Edmont was not sure he would ever be accustomed to the new Coerthan winters. The Calamity had left the region strongly ice-aspected, and thus drowned in heaping snowdrifts. But the people of Ishgard had adapted, taking on their winter woolens as the mainstays of spring and fall, adding extra lining to fur coats and tighter, thicker weaves for undergarments. The temperature was trivial; it was the sleeting hail, pelting down like stones, that left him awake at night as the sounds and images of long-past battles flew through his mind, stealing his rest.
28. Vainglory
It took a certain sort of man—they thought, the corner of their lips curling upwards—to brazenly commission a statue of himself for the central square. It was fitting, at least, given that Lolorito Nanarito owned the port of Vesper Bay in all ways excepting title. There was a question to be asked about the wisdom of such a location for a secret society, especially one claiming to be an independent faction, though the accessibility to Vylbrand and Uld’ah made it an understandable choice. They merely hoped they would not forget whose eyes, of both stone and not, lay upon them.
29. Fuse
Nero cursed, yanking his hand back with a firm shake before resting his singed fingertips against the cool metal of his breastplate. The wiring on this mechanical board was giving him trouble. Current magitek largely relied on knobs, dials, and switches for control situations. Purely utilitarian, and limited to a binary response, or a servo-mechanical gradation not unlike gear switching on a cycle. An unwieldy limitation, especially compared with the Allagan technology available at the fingertips, utilizing projections that responded to tactile stimuli while executing complex responses. If he could just develop a way to register a series of keys…
30. Sojourn
Their pack was heavy across their shoulders, leather straps slipping past joints of plated steel to dig into flesh. At last, they reached the edge of the high cliffs. Bending legs settled them down into a squat, shifting back tumbled them lightly into an uneasy sit. They leaned back against the rough-jutting stone and looked out over the horizon. Eulmore shone like a beacon up the coast, the only bright spot in the otherwise cloud-ink black. Shut eyes replaced the night with a sky filled with burning meteors. Their weary body settled into a smile, drifting off to find rest.