Snake, Road, Basilisk

Another entry in the great and terrible dungeon duel with Loch of Nothic's Eye. Shout out also to beloved Bamzo who once mentioned that she liked an old post of mine that didn't get so much play in the run of things. ROPE 23Imperial cities do not have names - the army and the pragmatists give them working names when they need to, but otherwise, officially, they are all 'Iron City' or 'Drug City' or 'Training City', etc. Most people use a vernacular of numerical designations to distinguish between them day-to-day. Rope 23 is a white-stone city in the Northern hinterlands, bisected by a broad, slow-flowing river, and surrounded by fields of hemp crops that feed its main industrial function. The climate is hot year-round. In the wet season sheets of lashing rain sweep over the low, red-earth plains, and swell the river, and in the dry season the earth is baked hard and the vast horizons sing in the heat. The city was walled once, but the Imperial armies breached and then systematically…