Locales: Acidavia

 Dear Reader,

Acidavia is a city-state in the Dacian empire. It is located in the mountainous region simply known as the North. Home of the second largest library of religious and legal texts, Acidavia is well suited to its role as the remote city of scholars. It's climate is generally dry and cool during the warmer months and bitterly cold and snowy during winter. The people of Acidavia are of mixed heritage.

Acidavia is a remnant of the pre-Dacian empire peoples who lived in that region as part of another empire that has been forgotten as of the time of the current story (Dacia's War). The building style is blockier and heavier than what is found in Dacia city or in the lowlands. Acidavia is one of the largest cities of the North. The city is supported by the hilly farming lands about the mountain it sits on. Acidavia has long been a stronghold against the nomadic people who live in the higher mountains farther north.

The people of Acidavia are complex. There is a thriving art and cultural community that is focused upon the cultus of Julara primarily. The cultus of Ashur is strong in Acidavia but it is not represented as much in iconography unless Ashur is paired with Julara. These paired icons are most commonly seen at intersections of roads through out the empire. Acidavia is famed for the manufacture of these icons and is known as 'the city of the stone lovers' because of it.

The governor of Acidavia and his wife are the heads of the body of worship for Ashur and Julara respectively. The governor of Acidavia is responsible for the defense of the region and the rule of law. His wife is responsible for overseeing civil disputes and enacting the will of the Empress. In a twist upon typical Dacian politics, the governor of Acidavia and his wife are equal in power where as in most Dacian city-states, the wife is head of the region just as the Empress is head of the empire.

Dacia's War: Part 32 - Sunrise

 The dead of night gave way to false dawn. Outside the tent, Lady Al-Uzza could hear people stirring. Althos regarded her solemnly. Iona awoke to begin fixing food for the three of them. Al-Uzza was too troubled by her dream from the night before and Althos's interpretation to have an appetite. It didn't help that it was traveler's bread, jerky, and tea. As the large woman eyed the small trencher with her breakfast on it, she frowned and her gaze went distant. "My Lady," said Iona, "You must eat to keep your strength as we travel." Al-Uzza waved a dismissive hand at the comment and began to pace around the tent.

The younger woman looked over at Althos. He shrugged and began eating. "If they have laid a siege upon the city, how are we to break it? We haven't an army," the priestess said. The warrior monk looked up from his trencher. "If a storm came that drove them away, it would help," she mused.

"Julara's daughters have the ability to summon storms," Althos said, "The severity of the storm depends upon their wrath at the target." Al-Uzza looked over at Iona, who nodded in agreement. "I do not know the ritual. It is a secret kept by your order, my Lady. Perhaps the librarian would have passing knowledge of such a ritual and that it why they were sent north."

Al-Uzza sat on the edge of her cot and meditatively nibbled on her traveler's bread. It was dry and tasteless. Fit for little more than keeping body bound together with soul, the priestess disliked it immensely. But, eating was a mechanical action at the time and she barely noticed it as she mentally walked through the stacks of the library. With her prolific gift for memorization, Al-Uzza had memorized most of the books of the library. As head librarian, she had a great deal of idle time that she spent reading texts. In her memory, she could see a picture of the Accounting of the Daughters of Julara.

Al-Uzza closed her eyes to concentrate more fully. In her mind's eye, she took the book from the shelf and began turning pages. Soon, she came to one titled 'Summoning Mother's Wrath.' She 'read' the page before opening her eyes. The world outside of the tent was bright with the colors of dawn. Dimly, they penetrated the canvas of the tent. Althos watched Al-Uzza's expression move from eerie stillness to something grim that he had never seen before. "Get me to where I can see Acidavia and the army surrounding it. I know what must be done," Al-Uzza said, setting aside her trencher.

"My Lady, you must eat," Iona said. Al-Uzza shook her head.

"No, my discomfort will feed the storm. Take my portion, Silent Sister, you will need it when they turn to face us," Al-Uzza said, "We should be upon them soon if the gods allow it. If not, I fast until we reach them." There was a tapping at the pavillion's door flap. Althos stood and looked out. One of his men muttered something about it was time to take down the tent and make preparations to move onward. Althos turned to say something to Al-Uzza who was already wrapping her leg warming wraps as Iona had done the day before and preparing to shove her heavily stockinged feet into her furred boots.

Flora & Fauna: The Herbal is stalled for want of better sketches.

 Dear Reader,

I have been attempting to draw plants and it's just ugly. I am not going to share the pics of the disaster with you, let it be enough to say that I did not inherit my botanist grandmother's eye or skill for drawing plants. I have been having difficulty drawing realistic root systems. I also have had this small problem of being too busy to spend time practicing/drawing. The kids have been on break for a little bit and keeping them active draws my focus away from my activities. And before that was the chaos of the end of school.

Summer school should be starting soon. I'm hoping that by then, I'll have at least one decent sketch to share. I picked up a set of water color pencils and the color saturation is amazing. I may attempt to do something of a painting based upon the use of those pencils. If I do so, I will post the results. I also now have a new set of oil pastel crayons so I can resume things like color studies and drawings based in that medium. Those won't go into the herbal but if I can draw something pretty cool with the oil pastel crayons, I totally am going to share it. Y'all have gone too long with out content.

I forgot about the Poisoner's Book project. Amusingly, what reminded me that I was going to do that was researching how safe my houseplants are. They're not. Except for the spider plant, they're all super toxic. And all but a few of the plants in my garden are edible. I feel like I got this backwards some how. But as I read and learn more about these plants, I am taking notes and will start posting on the Poisoner's Book project next month.

This month is the second Camp NaNoWriMo of the year, I will attempt to write this non-fiction book that completely stalled out during the last Camp NaNoWriMo in April due to my mental illness acting up. My goal is to get that completed so that I can finish the next book in the Umbrel Chronicles during NaNoWriMo in November. I will also be attempting to blog every day. Because why not be a little crazy and blog every day across multiple blogs as you're trying to write a book and watch after two pre-teens? Everybody needs a challenge, right? (Pray for me. LOL)

Book Recommendation: Zero Saints by Gabino Inglesias

 Dear Reader,

I don't know where to begin. This was a wild ride of a book. The action starts at page one and doesn't let up until the final page's resolution. Mr. Inglesias's expert use of dramatic tension keeps you on your toes the whole time. His gritty style of exposition lends an extra bit of darkness to an already dark topic that gives you the old school film noir chills. The main character's openness as presented in the narrative style makes you feel sympathetic emotions of vulnerability, grief, and terror. The relief that comes in the closing scene is a mixed thing, as messy and complicated as real life.

10/10

Here's the Amazon link if you want to pick up a copy. 

https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Saints-Gabino-Iglesias/dp/1940885337

Book Status Update.

Dear Reader,

Since the debacle of my ancient laptop dying, I'm going through my thumb drive where I backed everything up to and trying to find things. It is a disorganized mess. I really need to label things better. Manuscripts is too vague, if you know what I mean. I have found half started short stories, random rants about my complicated history, and some stuff that I honestly can't make heads or tails of where I was going with it from blogs that I was attempting to run about ten years ago. 

As I chew my way through all of this, I think I'll find the short stories that I drafted for my science fiction thing and the continuation of both serial stories that I have going on here. It's a lot of stuff to go through. I didn't realize how much stuff I had on that old machine until now. I think I may need to get thumb drives dedicated to topics or something. Fortunately, they are not super expensive and they're pretty reliable. (knocks wood) But, this is a bigger mess than my project room which we keep the door closed so that stuff doesn't fall out and kill us. (Ok, it's not quite that bad but it makes my kids' room look spotless.)

When you have no inspiration.

 Dear Reader,

I have been struggling for the past year, roughly, to stay on top of my writing. I started out with great plans which then got eaten by homeschooling and then distance learning last year. We're a few months past the one year mark of when New York state (my home state) shut down due to COVID-19. Last week, we passed some threshold criteria for reopening the state. Events are still not happening in many cases because practical people are cautious. What does this have to do with my inspirational block in my writing?

That's a great question and I honestly am not sure what is a good answer to it. I have two boys that are unvaccinated. One is about a month shy of turning 12 and the other is two months shy of turning 14. We want to get them vaccinated at the same time. The problem is both of them are terrified of needles. We literally have to hold them down so they don't flail. The last time that my eldest got the flu shot, the doctor's office had this spray that numbed the area where the injection went in. He handled the business of getting vaccinated a lot better with that. But, we can't get the vaccines at our doctor's office. We have to go to a mass vaccination site. Gods only know how that is going to go for two young men on the Autism spectrum who haven't ever really had to handle a crowd before in their lives. (We live in a small town in the boonies. The closest we get to a crowd is when the folks from out of town show up to visit their lakefront properties. Even then, it's not that big or busy.)

Since the mask mandate has been dropped, virtually everyone is going around maskless. This is terrifying to me. Because we don't have a 100% adult vaccination rate. Some of these people who are wandering around without masks are carriers. I don't want my boys getting sick. And with this new delta-mutation from India showing up here in the USA, I don't know if my vaccination is enough. So, my family continues to wear masks. As of right now, the schools are still practicing the COVID-19 safety protocols. So, when summer school comes along, the kids will be wearing masks at school as will the teachers and staff. Again, gods only know how that's going to be handled in autumn when school is back in session. The uncertainty is awful and makes my brain go blank when the thing directly confronts me.

I have a bad feeling that there's going to be a third wave of deaths due to the country opening up before herd immunity via vaccination is achieved. And I fear that it will cost us a generation who simply are not old enough to get vaccinated. My sons may be vaccinated in time, but my grandniece is barely a month old. And there are countless other children who are not old enough to get vaccinated against this plague. That doesn't even take into account folks like some of my friends who are either to immunocompromised to get the vaccination or who are allergic to components in it. I am legitimately afraid for these people.

It is hard to write as a coping mechanism in the face of this horror that's been unfolding for over a year. There's so many lives that have been lost. There was so much political bullshit games being played that directly caused many of those deaths. The country is on a perilous ground. The January insurrection made very clear the threat embodied by Donald Trump. There is rumblings of another attempted coup in August. It is deeply disturbing. I have a good number of neighbors in the area who would support such a thing.

I feel like I am living in the Weimar Republic shortly before the Nazis came to power. Everyone is hastening to be back to 'normal' and ignoring the danger of the pandemic, the deep seated racist problems, and the economic disparity happening in real time. My side of the family left Germany during that period. They came here looking for better lives. When WWII broke out, they joined the military to go free their kinsmen from the hold that the Nazis had over their country. I now have relatives who I am estranged from for various reasons, among them is their overt support of white supremacy ideology. I have a brother who says that Hitler's only problem was he had bad advisors and that Hitler was attempting to do a good thing and unify Europe (completely dismissing the holocaust and the concentration camps). This brother proudly supports Donald Trump and the white supremacists that have flocked to his banner. He's claimed that they're "good Americans". To say that I was repulsed by that choice of phrase is an understatement.

Come what may, I won't be a "good American" and if the republic survives this bullshit, I'll be pleasantly surprised. But, first, we have to manage not to die in great numbers. 

Well, this has been eventful.

 Dear Reader,

Since my last post my life has been topsy-turvy. First there was the major problems sleeping. Then there was the major depressive episode. These were followed my a significant medication change. That kicked my butt for about a month. Through the course of that month, we had school meetings and family drama. Now we're coming up on the end of the school year (literally within 2 days) and I am scrambling for ways to keep my kids out of trouble. Did I mention that we're preparing for two young men having a meltdown because the school is reclaiming the chromebooks that they've been using for the last year so that they can be prepped for next year? Yeah, that's going to be about as fun as my computer dying and having to find a replacement (which took 2 weeks to get sorted out).

I am going to attempt to get back into blogging on here again. I'm still working out my schedule which has been complete chaos because of all the stuff going on with the kids. To those of you who have waited patiently for new content, I thank you for your patience. To those of you who are new to the blog, I promise I will do my best not to be utterly boring and get those serial stories kick started into motion again.

Also, I will be rebooting my critical analysis of The Artist's Way. I will start by posting links to what I've completed thus far. Look for that in a near to immediate future post.