The Celestial Bureaucracy

Great update!

DGRB: We are joined here today in a special interview with Azuma Hiroyuki,
the grandson of famed linguist, Azuma Seimei & the first Meizhou native to set foot on Imperial soil, Vermillion Waters.
This interview will coincide with our coverage of the 50th Anniversary of the Imperial circumnavigation of the world.
Di Guo Ri Bao (Empire Daily) would like to thank you for your continued patronage.

DGRB: Welcome! I understand that you came a long way from Shanghai to be here. I trust your voyage was smooth?

AH: "Oh, absolutely. Sea travel is very swift and reliable now.
Ever since the maiden voyage of the Lan Ye Hua, ship-building techniques have massively improved.
You know what they say; 'Necessity is the mother of invention.'"



DGRB: Have any words for our readers about what you think of the 50th Anniversary of the circumnavigation of the world?

AH: First off, if my grandfather hadn't been part of the initial expedition that discovered Meizhou, I obviously wouldn't be here as a result.
Secondly, what can I say? It was a great achievement and it opened a lot of doors in my grandfather's Caste.
I hear they are planning two more expeditions for the North and South Poles and I wish them luck,"

DGRB: "You're quite the distinguished Li Caste officer yourself, Azuma.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about your career?"

AH: "Hardly. I'm a Rear-Admiral of the naval unit stationed in the Sea of Corea.
The Manchus have not developed very advanced naval capabilities, so the situation is rather quiet on the high seas. However, piracy remains a problem that we have remained committed to fighting,"

DGRB: "Your sister is actually royalty now, after being married into the Miwa family.
By extension, that makes you part of the extended royal family of the House of Miwa and the House of Xia as well,"

AH: "Ha ha, well, that wasn't exactly secret now, was it?
I'm glad to have Prince Miwa Shinichi for a brother-in-law.
He's a reserved, but ultimately good guy I can trust with my sister,
and I'm not just saying that for the papers, I mean it.
She had a long list of suitors going out the door, and I was quite protective of her,
trying to make sure that shady guys who were only interested in her "exotic looks"
didn't get anywhere near her,"



DGRB: "Speaking of "exotic looks", all the members of your family, yourself included,
(save for your paternal grandfather and those who have married in) are quite famous for your rare violet eyes.
Do you care to talk about those?"

AH: "Oh, people are always asking about those.
I had always just assumed that it just came from being Hapa,
but after meeting other Hapas across the Empire,
I understood that it's not really the case with us,"

DGRB: "Do you believe in magic?
They say that the violet comes from a streak of
magic inherited from your grandmother,"

AH: *Laughs* "I don't really know about that. We're both adults, now, aren't we?
Seriously though, I don't believe in magic. I'm a healthy, sensible adult who's rooted in reality.
But I know what you're thinking; 'It would make for a great story now, wouldn't it?'"



"Amazing. Simply amazing," a wizened old man exclaimed as he finished reading the manuscript in his hands. "How did this come under our possession?"

"Several days ago, some of our scouts chanced upon the location of one of their mobile compounds near Varanasi.
Naturally, the local Elders struck, seizing this rare opportunity. You know how elusive the serpentspawn are.
They strike seemingly from out of nowhere and then retreat back into the Solar Arcology before we have a chance to retaliate.
We sustained quite a few casualties, but every last serpent was slaughtered to the man.
Aside from the OOPARTs that we found on their persons, the only other item of significance was the book you just read," the Archive Director said.



"It feels a little incomplete though, was that intentional?" the Elder opposite to the old man and the Archive Director asked; having just finished reading his copy of the book.

"A few weeks ago, the contents of the original book would automatically update itself in real-time.
It wasn't long before they realized that the book fell into our hands though.
So it began to erase its own contents," He held up the original book and flipped through the pages, revealing over a thousand blank pages, defiant in the face of its improper owner.
"The manuscript the both of you had just read was but a small portion of the original collection of serpentspawn reports; in short, it was all that we could recover.
Still, we've managed to learn a lot more about their agenda in a few days than in the past millenium alone thanks to this incredible stroke of luck,"
The Archive Director took a swig of blood from his goblet.

"Frightening when you think about it. It seems like they've been quite busy for the past five thousand years while we've been twiddling our thumbs,"
the old man mumbled as he sipped some blood from his own goblet.
He left his copy on the table and as the moonlight seeped into the room through the curtain,
it illuminated the bright red characters that adorned the cover of the book.

聊齋誌異.

Strange Tales From Liaozhai.


A Zealot insurgent attack destroyed a string of iron mines near Tokyo.
It would seem as if they've stolen the formula for gunpowder from the mortals.
This is a major setback but I have some good news to report as well.
We've been able to restore one Legacy Site in Kamchatka to its original functionality.
Mass production of the K***s*****v *i**es and other technologies is now well within our means.
Our reliance on salvaging OOPARTs has come to an end.

Yay! Update!

the cause is not as unknown as it may seem

K***s*****v= Kalashnikov?

K***s*****v
Kalashnikov
possible

Yes! Update. And great quality too.

Interesting....

Awesome as usual

Great update Dawn!

That was a little too easy (then again, I did use a picture of the rifle itself).
The human brain after all, only needs to read the first and the last letter of a word most of the time to figure out what it is.
For those of you that don't know what OOPARTs are, it's actual terminology for some very specific objects.
Looking up just any term that I bring up in the story will really help clue you into a lot of the things going on behind the scenes as well.
Also, Strange Tales from Liaozhai (Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio) is a real book.
I suggest looking it up to get a better idea of what's going on.

Nice update TD!

Hello readers. I'm just keeping you posted that I've encountered some writer's block and while I have several future updates fleshed out, it's this one update that comes beforehand that I'm having trouble filling out. School also just started for me last week, so I've been hard-pressed to find time to write... As well as the fact that DoC 1.8 was released and I hadn't been playing SVN in a while (or any game that wasn't uMvC3 or Fruit Ninja) so I just needed a little breather.

Also it appears that someone rated this story 1 Star. Goodbye perfect fives.
I kind of expected it to happen eventually though; a lot of the things/topics I've written and touched on go against the sensibilities of several certain groups predominant in the mainstream which I think I can leave up to inference. Most of this story after all, thematically tries to get the reader to put themselves in the point of view of someone who exists outside of a certain group (Kohaku: Social outcast, Adeline: Barbarian in civilization, Mohammed: ethnic minority in heterogeneous society, Azuma: intelligentsia in chauvinistic environment). Not even counting my pony avatar here too, which was already likely to draw anti-brony ire. Anyway, the streak was fun while it lasted.

But whatev's, everyone's entitled to their own opinion;
under most circumstances anyway.

Also, I wanted to announce that there is something very special in the works, I'll reveal it when it comes time,
but it's going to be a first in the history of S&T (no, not accompanying music or video; that's already been done)
and hopefully it might inspire others to think a little bit more outside the box too.

Or, it could probably be just a troll. You're a good writer, TD, don't let it get you down.

I would say that its either some person with no literary taste, or a troll. Honestly it is inconcievable that anyone in their right mind would give this series a one, it is a most excellent story deserving of five stars, even if your avatar possibly offends thine senses .

I dub that troll Gilda, taking into account your avatar and all...

Good story! This is an enormous map...

Aww, Azuma and Vermillion had a happy ending!

Writer's Aside: This chapter will be a little short, but this was the only transitioning scene I could accept without chucking it into the trash can.
I hope it's serviceable enough. Thank you for the votes of confidence by the way.



Occupied Vajra.

My brown skin glistened as I emerged from the bath, droplets of water still clinging to my dark hair.
Nagina, who was previously standing guard while I bathed, retrieved my good clothes and returned to both dry off and dress my body.
After midnight, the unveiling ceremony was to occur and my presence was required.
All those attending were to groom as best as possible.

"You asked me that day. Why I became a Zealot," she suddenly said as she dried off my right arm with a towel.
"That's right, I did," I had completely forgotten about it until now.
"I was surprised you wanted to know something so personal about me.
I wasn't able to answer you then, but I can tell you now.
Do you still want to hear it?" the Zealot asked.
"Sure," I humored her as she dressed me.

She told me about her early childhood.
How her parents were compulsive gamblers and the logical next step to that story;
her inevitable entry into slavery. Her parents had debts to pay off after all.
Traded from one master to another, her duties ranged from mundane household tasks
to her required presence in the bedchambers.
It wasn't until the last master she had served was poisoned by a
fellow member of the household staff that she found escape.
And as the slave hunt bells rang through the streets,
the Synagogue was the only place that received her.
She had stopped believing in God long ago.
But Rabbi Singh charted her back on the course.
And when he felt she was ready, opened her eyes to the veiled war
being waged away from the eyes of mortal men.
She could avert her gaze no longer when he revealed to her all of his angelic splendor
and finally, she had cast aside her doubt.
He asked her if she would be willing to offer blood in the service of the angels.

And she said yes.



The Pashtun Army retreats after the inconclusive Siege of Dhaka.
Casualties remained even on both sides but the applicability
of defense trumps offense in a city siege. Lacking the manpower
to take the city, the Pashtuns retreat to lick their wounds behind the border.

I half-cared.
I know I actually cared a couple nights ago-
But that same kind of feeling was elusive to me now.

Nagina told me I was just about ready just as she finished her story.
She buttoned together my sherwani garb and made sure everything was in order
as I averted my gaze from her.

I kept quiet.
It was likely that we were already responsible for the conditions
that had resulted in her material and spiritual poverty in the first place.
I wasn't just keeping it from her to keep her blissful in ignorance.
I was withholding it against her in self-preservation.

At the same time,
I also wondered just how easily Rabbi Singh could lie to me.
Or keep things from me.
I wondered just how much of the dogma was true.

No use thinking about it now.
It was time to go.



Commonwealth forces emerged seemingly from out of nowhere,
within a days march from the Tartar city of New Sarai.
The governor of New Sarai would hastily dispatch messengers to the rest of the
Khanate but they knew it would be too late.
Thousands of herdsmen and their families fled the city into the
Chinese Empire and upon crossing into Imperial borders,
found themselves squatting in refugee camps outside Ying while the local bureaucrats
waited for Empress Xia Song Rui to decide what would be done with the Tartars.
Word would not return in a while, despite Ying's proximity to the capital;
the Empress was much too immersed in the status of the
ongoing wars against the Punjabs and the Manchus.

My coterie was sitting in the lounge of the penthouse as I made my entrance,
each immersed in their own final preparations.
Manju had adorned herself in the finest jewels she had owned when she had still
drawn breath as a mortal and Sarala was currently being dressed in
an azure blue sari by her Zealot armsmen.
Mandeep approached me and brought me into a warm embrace as did Sukrit.
"Many thanks, Rajat. We wouldn't have the honor of attending had you not put in a good word for us," Mandeep grinned.
"All thanks to me you mean," Sukrit boasted haughtily. "You know it's really just me that holds this all together,"
I left them to their subsequent dispute as I confirmed with Manju that I was ready.
Spirits in high cheer, we were escorted out to the gates where a
caravan of palanquins rested on the boulevard; attended by our respective retainers.
As the journey commenced, I started to hear it again.
It started out very faintly but grew stronger and more beautiful the closer we approached to the citadel
on the hilltop where the angels of Vajra were to congregate. I could hear the singing again.



Lijiang was settled as an extension of the Filipino fishing grounds.
As the population on the former Kampuchean colony grew at a steady rate,
the Filipino fishermen ventured east in search of abundant waters.
Although Lijiang waters were somewhat serviceable for fishing needs,
it's true purpose was to host a safe haven for fishermen to return to as they continued searching for suitable fisheries.

Once again, amazing writing that makes it hard to believe anyone could give this one star.

Nice update Dawn, doesn't matter how short it is.

Personally I could only call it short in comparison to Tycho's story