Arriving at Frimbolve Olvi

Today, we finally arrived in Frimbolve Olvi, the port city on southern Saphyna. No one can feel anything but good feelings towards this place. The soil of the Frimbolve Plains is so fertile that the locals mix it with flour during bad harvest years to make a nourishing and tasty bread, I'm told. During summers, the farmers mix their produce with black beat syrup and then brew to an excellent ale which they invite arriving farsailed people to drink on the Frimbolve Olvi pier. I cherish the memory of its taste.

I arrived here together with the Melukhian merchant Baldyr the Brummer, who often saved me from falling over the railing on the tumultuous passing to this island. One evening I pointed him towards a high, round silhouette floating on the ocean. I asked him if it was a sleeping whale, but he said that it was a cluster of raugons. "You seldom see them this close to shore, but along the Lasemosi coasts they are known as 'sea spiders' or 'murder crabs'. Had we met them a few weeks ago, we'd all be dead". He explained that the cold weather made these raugons slow of mind, and that is why I can scratch down these notes on parchment today.

Now, Baldyr is prone to some extravagant embroidery in his storytelling, so when I arrived at the academy in Tricilve, I decided to peruse the library to see what truly learned people had set down about these creatures. This time, however, Baldyr had not exaggerated. All accounts I read about raugon depredations were terrifying.

Frimbolve Olvi is a very friendly city. It has been conquered repeatedly by strangers throughout history without ever putting up any resistance. The soil is so fertile that not even the most ferocious plundering can create famine here. The locals still tale the tale of Hiatus Neffro, the conqueror known as 'the crazy Milack'. After marching into the city unopposed in 288 A.O., he wanted to punish the locals for their cowardice. His advisers spoke against repressions and were hanged from their tongues for mawkish speech. He then ordered his soldiers to bring one third of all useful objects within three days march. Since no one dared refuse, the order was carried out precisely, whereupon the entire Milacki trade fleet was overloaded and sunk within a few hours. Neffro was listening to music at the time and could not be disturbed.

When he saw the masts poke out from the waves, he became so furious that he rode around the fields and torched the crops. This failed, too. The dry wheat burned quickly, and the ensuing firestorm consumed the invading army in its camp not far away. The wind then carried the burning cloth to the war ships off shore, and they, in turn, burned.

They say that Hiatus Heffro, a notorious gambler, threw his best ivory dice into the river, called Rubakin, when he saw this, mumbled something about weighed tables, and then lived the rest of his life as a hermit in the Matagde Mountains.