EP 6 // The Shackles of Ignorance

Saloondrian Short Stories, by Blake Propach

Hatbrim Council Meeting by Licheng Mai

So begins the partial transcription of the two thousand, four hundred, seventy-seventh congress of the Principality of Saloondria held in the council chambers of Hatbrim. Transcribed by Sir Michael of Kurodia.

HM (Headmaster) Johannes Killwhales: Order please. Settle into your seats. We have multiple points of discussion scheduled for this meeting. Grievances brought forth by Cantsee the Eyeless are up first. Councilman Cantsee, you have the floor.
CM (Council Member) Cantsee: Thank you, Headmaster. My grievances have until this moment been widely ignored by this chamber. I appreciate those among you who have fought for me to gain us this precious time upon the floor.
HM: Read out your grievances, please, Councilman.
CM Cantsee: I cannot, sir. I am blind.
HM: Of course, my apologies. Can an aide approach the stand and read out Councilman Cantsee’s grievances?
Aide: For too long have conspiracies been allowed to propagate this nation. Wild, unverifiable accounts of colossal, impossible machines. The dangers of such conspiracies are obvious. Should men be allowed to speak lies no different than they would truth, freely spreading them, our civilization would devolve into chaos. We have heard already of the horrors of Barrelmouth, of Trickdraw Junction and of the border cities, consuming and spreading these lies even as they infect and destroy their very ways of life, hurting the innocent for no reason apart from collective madness. I speak of course of the accounts of these so-called airships, ships that fly through the air as if it were water, propelled by wind, or sunlight, or whatever the newest claim may be. Ships as big as mansions, as big as castles, blocking out the sun as they pass over the Plague Lands in the east to do trade with us here in Saloondria. Let these lies propagate no longer, let they end here and let verifiable evidence dictate our decisions. Thank you.
HM: I am at somewhat a loss of words, Councilman. Are you suggesting airships do not exist?
CM Cantsee: I am suggesting we produce policy based off of verifiable sources, not hearsay and fantastical accounts of the childish.
HM: I think most members of this council would agree that the existence of airships has been verified. For most of us, by our own eyes.
CM Cantsee: I am not alone in the opposition. We believe our voice and our opinion on the matter is equal to yours for the sake of this discussion, even if at present we are of a minority. I myself have never verified the existence of these fantastical airships.
HM: With all due respect, Councilman, you are blind, as you yourself have stated.
CM Cantsee: I believe that is irrelevant both to the quality of my opinion, and to the importance of this issue that would continue to plague us if not for my intervention.
CM Seesalot: Permission to interject on behalf of those who disagree with the Councilman’s remarks.
HM: Permission granted to Councilwoman Seesalot Verywell. Approach the stand.
CM Seesalot: Thank you, Headmaster. I would pose a question to Councilman Cantsee. If your inability to see the airships has led you to believe they do not exist, should not this lead you to believe I do not exist, the council does not exist? After all, you cannot see us. Do horses exist? You cannot see horses.
CM Cantsee: Funding should be allocated toward such questions, on this point we are in agreement, Councilwoman. However, for the sake of starting the greater discussion, my compatriots and I have limited our denials to the more fantastical elements of the narrative, namely airships. Once disproven, we aim to discredit those spreading these lies and begin dismantling the societally accepted account of reality. Horses would fall into this category.
CM Seesalot: Your terminology is problematic, Councilman, in that it is not precise. You have used the word fantastical numerous times. What definition do you follow? Are not the beasts which inhabit our borderlands, the monsters resurrected in our swamps, the deep-sea crabs which terrorize our fisheries, are these not fantastical? Are not the Plague Lands fantastical, the very barrier between our nation and the outside world? Do you believe in those?
CM Cantsee: I do not, Councilwoman. And I am tired of pretending otherwise.

So ends the partial transcript. It is noted by stenographer Sir Michael of Kurodia that no further progress toward any council goals were made throughout the remainder of this meeting. It devolved into further chaos, wherein CM Cantsee was forcibly removed, but was later reported to have not believed he had exited the council chambers, as he did not witness the act. Instead, he continued his debate with local fishermen that evening and into the night, before dying of exhaustion the following morning. It was discovered in autopsy that he had not consumed a single drop of water over the course of his final week, presumably no longer believing such a thing existed.

---

Episode 5:
​Death at the Hands of an Enemy Unseen

Episode 7:
Flood, Massacre, the Fall of an Empire