The city called Nowhere
In the Kingdom of Not there is a city called Nowhere, and it is in the City Called Nowhere that Sister Eye-Tooth, Exemplar of the City, hosts the Seven Lances Feast. The feast is a weeklong festival held once every seven years, a festival celebrating the Seven Lances of the Kingdom of Not: Quality, Remuneration, Sensation, Trade, Utility, Value, and Worth. The folk of the Kingdom of Not are not as you or I; they walk on six legs and spin from their own selves the silk of the clothes they wear (the quality of which varies tremendously with the individual), and their eyes are spider eyes. Here, the helt found by Al-Ashandoriliash is its most valuable, for the drug affects silk people strongly and most folk not at all. Here, likewise, a great profit in the finest silk can be made, for it may be found very cheaply in Kingdom of Not (especially during the Feast of Seven Lances) and sold dear in the Great Market of Humane Misery, in the City of Brass. The Lord of All Djinn, master of the City of Brass, has forbidden the importation of silk to all save his cronies the Brass Silk Importation Company; this state-sponsored monopoly has created a thriving black market.
The City Called Nowhere hangs suspended over a vast chasm, supported by an elaborate network of threads. Transport within the City Called Nowhere is accomplished via train: wooden cages hung from cables that slide along other cables. Mighty winches and counterweights power them, taking advantage of the cables’ incredible tensile strength.
The City Called Nowhere strums with hymns to Sister Eye-Tooth, the majestic spider who pulses in the center of the web. In fact it strums with a +3 to everything all the time for Sister Eye-Tooth and her personal guard, who double as the police force within the city. The silk people all sway in time with this almost-subsonic music, making the experience an eerie dance.
The City of Brass is not Duke Stands-on-the-Mountain’s territory within the QAM; it is controlled by Duchess Sympathy, a fire giant. The Mob will therefore sell its silk directly to an agent of Duchess Sympathy, whom they will meet in the neutral territory of the City of Glass. This is Countess Woldo’s territory (an ally of the Duke). Duchess Sympathy’s agent will pay with Glacial Finance Company bonds, which are as good as cash or better.
During the Feast of Seven Lances, the finest cheesemakers in the Kingdom of Not assemble in the City Called Nowhere to compare their wares and find the best possible prices for their goods. Great wheels of cheese are pressed in casks of scented wood and aged for many years before they are sold. In a vault in the city’s center, the Chamber of Secured Delights, a Exemplar’s ransom in cheeses have been stored in preparation for the grand auction at the end of the festival. The Chamber is warded with alarm spells and wards and suchlike, but the canny thieves who carry off a wheel of cheese will find a treasure worth twice its weight in precious metals: a hundred-pound wheel of Golden Succulence of the Valley of Tears (the most expensive type of cheese) is worth fifty thousand jink, and this at least one, probably two, possibly three or four, such wheels in the vault. Even a one-pound wedge of Golden Succulence is worth five hundred jink to the right buyer.
The “right buyer” in this case would be quite easy to locate: Filo, the Gourmet Gourmand, God of Cuisine (a demigod, actually), whose sanctum sanctorum is also in the Outlands, has long been known to pay cash for the finest ingredients.
As we open, the Mob has lately arrived in the City Called Nowhere, on the second day of the Seven Lances Feast. In medias res, a modron captured and turned by the Yellow Bells has stolen the helt — this modron is a master of disguise, and appeared to be a simple packing crate — and is fleeing through the city as we open. It is in fact sliding directly away from the Great Gate to the Outlands (the Kingdom of Not is located somewhere on the Prime) and deep into the webbing.