Chapter 223: Chapter 205 – Torrential Rains

"The town of Saelostov in Central Elmaiya is an odd case of a city that prospered, fell into destitution, then prospered once more. During the reign of the first empire, it was a prosperous mining town, with the iron ore deposits from the mines the town was built around as the source of that prosperity.

 

This prosperity of theirs vanished around the middle second empire's reign as the ore veins were depleted, and for many centuries afterwards, Saelostov became a destitute town, one that barely grasped and clung on to existence desperately.

 

The popularity of performance arts in the reign of the fifth empire was what prompted the city's revival, and subsequent rise to prosperity. The city lord of the time had been a visionary, and chose to rebrand his city as a new "center" for the arts.

 

Buildings that had been uninhabited and damaged by centuries of decay were torn down or refurbished, into theaters and stadiums or other venues of performance. This risky approach paid dividends, as many fledgling artists were attracted to the nascent city. By the time the mayor passed away, Saelostov had changed from a decrepit old city into an art city that had just started to bloom." - Excerpt from "History of the Elmaiyan Empires" by Detlev Fedorovich.

From Deliverance, Cal had taken her students on a trajectory to the northwest. Deliverance itself was still in the southeastern part of Elmaiya, and their next destination, Saelostov, was south of Sabaya, which was located in the center of the country.

 

The Elmaiya Empire was a vast swathe of land, as it occupied roughly the western half of Ur-Teros, not counting the western isles further west. Even with the party's high travel speed - Cal kept up the training for her students all the way - it would take them months to traverse the distance from Deliverance to Sabaya. Even so, Cal was confident that they could reach Sabaya early in the second month of autumn.

 

From the southern shores, the terrain and vegetation visibly changed a lot. Mangrove trees gave way to dense tropical jungles, as much of the empire was uninhabited, untamed land still. Cal's chosen route crossed straight through many of these lands, rather than take the more circuitous approach of the cleared pathways between towns and villages.

 

As the equator ran across Elmaiya as a whole, the central and eastern regions of the empire were more tropical in nature, as they were closest to the equatorial line. The western regions and Ptolodecca to its east were more temperate as they were further away.

 

As it was late in spring by then, the temperature had grown to be uncomfortably hot during the daytime hours. Every evening when they stopped to rest, the party made good use of Cal's portable bath, or a river if they happened to run across one.

 

Torrential rains also often assailed the party in their travels, as the weather was rather unpredictable. It was not rare for the sun to shine harshly on them one moment, only for dark clouds to cover it and rain down on them the next. At times it even rained while the sun still shines in the sky.

 

That evening, two weeks after they had departed from Deliverance, happened to be one such evening. The party had just stopped for the night and set up their tents, and Cal had just set up her portable bath in her tent as they waited for the water to heat up.

 

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"Is the weather around here always like this?" asked Cal as she wrung the water from her utterly soaked clothes. It had rained hard all day that day, from before noon until now. They could still hear the raindrops as it dripped down from the canopies to the roof of their tent.

 

"This? This is a pretty light shower for these regions," replied Kino, who was also mostly undressed as she tried to squeeze out the water from her equally drenched clothes across from Cal. They shared the tent with Elaina and Sidonie, who were doing the same while they kept an ear to the conversation.

 

"This is a light one? What do the people here even consider heavy rains then?" asked Cal with some incredulity in her voice. Her trip to the similarly tropical Goblin lands were nowhere near this waterlogged, because the topography of the region had made that area less rain-drenched by nature.

 

"In Elmaiya, they have a saying, that it's not heavy rains until the rivers flood and the dams burst," replied Kino. "You might have noticed already, but most settlements around here were built at relatively higher ground compared to the rivers and lakes nearby. Flooding is a common occurrence here during the rainy seasons."

 

"That's a common thing here?" said Cal with some bafflement. In Al-Shan where she was born and raised, floods were rare, as the land was prepared to handle them. Dikes and dams were built where it was needed, and it was rare to hear news of flooding at all, maybe once or twice in a decade.

 

"It's one reason why so much of the land here remains untamed and uninhabited," answered Kino with a nod after she wiped the worst of the rainwater off her body and stepped into the hot waters of the bath. "The land is just too vast, and clearing the jungle to reinforce the rivers with dikes is just too heavy an expense to consider when there are easier lands to settle in."

 

"In a way, most of the lands here were just too much effort for the people to claim, which is why you see so much wilderness between the cities," she explained further as she sighed with contentment in the hot baths. Cal and her nieces joined her there soon after. "We have to deal with more wildlife issues in general, and those same jungles also made good hiding places for criminals and fugitives, but it's what we have in these lands."

 

Cal nodded to her words as she soaked in the hot waters. Kino had rarely spoken much about her past, but has alluded a few times that she originally was born in the Elmaiya Empire. It made sense for her to be familiar with the region in particular.

 

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