MARKET OF THE VANITIES
Revisiting Purgatory
January 17 - February 26The Market of Tech Duinn sits on a hill just above the banks of the river Styx, on the edge of the Asphodel Meadows. Oaths sworn over the black water of the Styx cannot be broken, making the Market a favored location for Heaven & Hell to bargain with one another, although few angels and demons reside there. Sithen, the half-fallen angels whose only crime was to refuse to fight demons, consider it a center of culture, and often use it to trade Demesnes (feudal land grants among the Sithen which comes with supernatural powers, like an angelic Grace or demonic Dignity, but with added real estate). But that is not why it is there. Dhuosnos, the Old Man of the Market, a powerful Sithen who claims the hill as his Demesnes, first weighed and codified Virtues and Vices as tradable commodities 1,800 years (or 140 Eschatons) ago.
Strange as it may seem in these latter days, he conceived of the trade as a mercy to the Peregrines - lost souls caught in Purgatory - because they entered the afterlife with no wealth to match the Immortali (humans who have achieved undeath or eternal life, and thus keep their souls forever), and no station like those Angels, Demons, and Sithen use to measure their relative worth. The Market has always been a friendly place for Peregrines, and since the beginning of the Asaph Eschaton (which started with the speaking of the Name in Melasurei), it has been a place Peregrines rallied. In times of old, Dhuosnos sold four Princedoms to the Market - one to the Angels, one to the Demons, one to the Sithen, and one to the Immortali.
Now he has sold a fifth, to the Peregrines - and they pass and trade it between them, rather than appointing a single spokesperson. But six positions on the Market Council means votes may be deadlocked (for of course, Dhuosnos keeps a vote for himself), and so he is considering the sale of a seventh Princedom… and Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory have all noticed.
The growing Peregrine presence at the Market could nearly be considered an army. The Demons would pay almost anything for the power to bind it to their service; the Angels, to redeem these lost souls and bring them to Heaven - whether they wish it or no. The Sithen fear a third front in the war waged across their homeland; the Immortali fear being outnumbered by a group who no longer needs them for survival & who may grow wealth to threaten theirs. And the Peregrines - they seem to wish something different with every passing day, every new argument.
All creation is sending their subtlest diplomats and agents, their most coveted treasures, to this place on the banks of the Styx, where everything is for sale, all contracts are binding, and all sales are final. Who will gain a second seat on the Market Council - and what other bargains, trades, and sales may be made in the shadow of that distraction?
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amadine![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
quantumvelvet, and I'm sporadically on Discord at Quantumvelvet#3429.
