New Etruscan Mile High Hall of Fame
"Hey, wait up Clara!"
"Keep up Levi!"
"Oh for element's sakes!" Interjected Mariwolfe as she flew behind the two in her flying armoured suit.
"You're seriously cramping our style Mari!"
"Yeah, Mari, that's cheating."
"Look, you two, I know you love climbing rocks, but if one of them falls on you, you'll be glad I can get you out of the way. I'm not climbing, I don't count as part of the expedition, I'm just a security feature, I want you both to come back alive from this."
"Hmm, well I don't know... Most who climbed this didn't have a skycutter or anything flying to help them, I hope you don't disqualify us."
"They wouldn't dare! I'm not even pointing out the best spots for you to shoot your lines, or helping you set your pitons. I'm just here in case something falls on you, or some equipment fails. Or you need to cancel like the snowstorm they announced which you chose to ignore does show up!"
"I didn't choose to ignore it..."
"You did! They're announcing 1.4m of snow!"
"Come on, Levikins, this ain't no normal storm. Even I can see that."
"I'm just not sure if it's as bad as they say."
"I'm not sure it's 1.4m of snow, but it's been falling for like three hours, and heavily enough you need to clear snow before you set a piton, otherwise you don't see the angle right!"
"Sheesh, ok, ok it's snowing and a lot, I admit that. But we can still see how far up the mountain we can go before we give up, instead of giving up at the base like a bunch of chumps."
"Wait, what's that?"
"What?"
"I saw a glitter of sapphire."
"I see a sheen of ruby, over that ridge." Mariwolfe pointed to the next ridge in their ascension.
"Ruby? But that's not even a local stone!"
"Nor is sapphire, they have lots of zircon around here, some blue, some red, but rarely the genuine corundum."
"You two are hiding something from me." Clara said, from where she was restoring circulation on her fingers.
"What?"
"Levikins and Wolfikins, you two never fight, not this long, and Levikins never would let you tag along with your armour if she thought it'd meant we'd not get credit for this climb. What should be obvious, but I don't know?"
"New Etrusca sealed this area to all climbers for a long time, they didn't check the provisions of the treaty of Lai Dang, or they'd have asked for an exception, I think, and kept this climb locked up. It's the only 'professional-only' class in their borders, and they're very serious about it."
"It's also a monument, according to my scope. Come on, I'll grab you and pull you two over, and bring you back here once we've had a look..."
"What's that?" Asked Levi, whose unaugmented sight couldn't tell details yet. "There's four statues, in a kind of loose group. Three local, one Benevent, going by the clothes." "The clothes?" "It's a statue of the Phoenician." "Oh, glorp. So this is is the Mile High Hall of Fame, it's guarded!" "What are you doing?" "Bringing you back to where we were, I got target lock warnings." "How rude of you Clara Xanda, not wanting to chat?" "Mephit Langstrom as I live and breathe!" "The same, who are your friends?" "Oh, an engineer colleague and her ...wife." She hesitantly translated to Etruscan, she'd been spending months talking only Kagomine. Mariwolfe's pilder landed back on the prior ridge, the newcomer, in his own shadowsuit pilder, helm opened, asked: "You're not building a bridge here, are you?" "No, where did you get that?" She pointed to the pilder. "New Etruscan Shadow Division of course. And yours?" "I invented this. And if you got yours from the treaty, I invented the one you're wearing too." "Why, yes, we got these from Lai Dang, Shadowstride mark VII suit, Kagomine manufacture, I guess?" "No, you'd get yours from Marquarry, I just designed the plans." "You... designed this?" "And a few other things released through the treaty. How do you like your slingshot ordnance?" "There's some..." "In your pilder suit, yes, I know, but only in the mark VII, the mark V didn't have the power budget." "That's extremely specific information, I'm afraid I cannot comment." "Oh come on, you know who I work for, Mephit." "And her? She looks civilian." "Levikins is a commissioned Kagomine officer, and a test pilot in the pilder programme." "And you're a treaty inspector, kinda suspicious coincidence, don't you think?" "Even treaty inspectorate issues day passes from time to time." "So I'm to believe you came here on your day off, just like that?" "Well, depends on your value of here..." "The Mile High Hall of Fame..." "No, not our intent, not at all..." "Then why?" Clara handed him an official document, bearing the official seal of Lai Dang Treaty Authority and said: "Read." "Finding of incompatibility with cultural restrictions on freedom of movement in New Etrusca... That's a court document." "Yes, I asked a Tribunal in Treaty Authority for a finding." Clara interjected. "What for?" "J3 Mountain's only been climbed four times, and not in the last 20 years." "Of course, climbing it is..." "Was." "What?" "That's what the finding is about. I asked a Tribunal in Treaty Authority to clarify what the provisions meant on freedom of travel." "Irrelevant, doesn't let... a civilian and a frigging military engineer from a foreign country..." "Oh, you mean they can't come with me? That'd be a dangerous precedent Mephit." "What, why?" "I am a Treaty Inspector, you signed an amendment to your constituion guaranteeting me the privilege to inspect any cubic centimeter of your lands, just to join Lai Dang, and I intend to benefit." "That only applies to Inspectors on duty." "No, Treaty Inspectors are never not on duty, we can choose not to report things, but we always have the protection of being on duty." "Protection?" "Article 86, treaty of Lai Dang." "Eighty-six? Which one's that?" "Inspectors assigned to the respect of the clauses of the treaty shall be construed as enjoying diplomatic equivalent to the cumulative sum of all ambassadors to the inspected country, and any hostile act against them shall be construed as an act of war against all the member countries. Any unauthorized hostile act will constitute treason in countries on this list: Moniq, Brescia, New Etrusca, Nuova Firenze, and carry the penalty for that charge to be carried out by the military of that country." "Wait, and just what constitutes a hostile act?" "Well, Mephit dearie, it does include weapon lock, so did you get authorization to target lock us?" "Ah, err, no." "I'd hate my ex-boyfriend to get attained with treason, Mephit, so why don't you forget you saw us?"
"What's a boyfriend?" "Grib, it's the word used outside of Kagomei." "Oh, you and him?" "Before I realized I preferred girls, yes. I'm still fond of him, he's not entirely dumb nor uninteresting. He is very by the book though, and when I realized he expected me to have his children and had a schedule for them, a schedule I was to have no input over, I realized it wasn't going to work out." "What was his grief with letting us walk away?" "Any New Etruscan or foreigner without diplomatic immunity would have been detained, indefinitely. There's been informal talks, at the higher levels of Spy... of the Treaty Authority Headquarters, that this area is used by their military for things they deemed sensitive, hidden under 'culturally sensitive location not to be shared with outsiders.'" "Will you get in trouble?" "No, not with the clout you have. The Telbun of Kagomei? They'd get laughed at for suggesting you'd do something against the treaty, considering Meihomei herself is its architect." "Well, Nameihomei was its architect, Meihomei was the major sponsor." "Technicalities, especially since about the only person in all of Kagomei that could get a Telbun to 'not enforce' the rules is Nameihomei, and since they're in agreement over this." "You really heard of the Telbun post all the way over there?" "Military academy, at least, there's a mandatory class that explains all the levels, and compares and contrasts with equivalent ranks in other countries. Telbun is one of the exemplars for comparison to the Command Master Warrant of the New Etruscan Forces, with the Enlisted Executive Advisor of the NuovaFirenzane Armed Forces." "Whew, so Mari here is famous?" "No, but those who've heard of what a Telbun is, which is most military, would love to buy her a beer for some stories. Anyone with a command or intelligence billet probably heard stories, the kind that inevitably get: 'that can't possibly be true' responses, about the Telbun." "I blame Tadros, he got the shoes so big." "And Marhamat didn't?" "Both got a Dawn standard-bearer award, so it's not like the shoes get any smaller." "What's that, Marikins?" "The highest Moniqan award..." "Actually, people get that wrong. It's the highest Moniqan and Nisei award, Marhamat got the Nisei one, Tadros got the Moniqan one." "How do you know so much?" "I worked intelligence, before I got picked for treaty duty, evaluating weapon systems and specific army engineering targets. And of course, I got a file on anyone interesting in Kagomei, before I got posted to treaty HQ." "How many files?" "Embarassingly many, seven OR-09 non-coms or higher. More than twenty commissioned, every senior minister of course." "Anyone we know?" "Tadros, Marhamat, Marhamat's daughter, Tadros' main squeeze, Maelle, Amarat, Flora, Marikins..." "Haha, Clara, that's so funny. Wait, who's Tadros' miptun? I thought the man a monk..." "You sure it's a miptun?" "He's a gentleman, but... Well, he happened to notice I wasn't like the boys, you know?" "Oh, wait, yeah, you've actually not just met him, but served with him?" "When I was with Meihomei's Own, yes, and he was keeping an eye on us for his Nessun..." "..." "What?" "You still haven't figured it out?" "No, who?" "The Nessun..." "..." "The Nessun is his Miptun, although, if my file is correct, it's more, he's the grib and boytoy." "What? Tadros, the hulking pile of muscle..." Mariwolfe's jaw had dropped. "And he is well put together, for anyone pushing sixty..." Levi added. "Yeah, well, Valias Herringbone's muscle tone isn't too far off his." "And she's got what I got... only better..." Mariwolfe sounded bitter. "I'm not ready to say she's better." Clara grinned wolfishly. "Not better than me anyways, better than you? No, she's probably a match though..." "Oh, you!" Mariwolfe grit her teeth. "Lighten up you two. We are on our way to the top, the first team to make this climb in two decades!" "We'll have to honour the elements if we make it..." "I'll leave you two to it then..." Clara said, looking uncertain for the first time since the climb started. "Actually..." Mariwolfe started, and got interrupted. "Nobody said anything about you leaving, we are kinda counting on you joining us..." "What, really?" "Listen, your quick talking saved us a whole bunch of trouble back there..." "So did Mari's 10mm guns..." "True, but I'm willing to be properly grateful to you both, provided there's some mutual recognition here..." "Just how grateful?" "Hmm, you can't find out..." "Why not?" "I'm only letting this secret out when we're all naked in the snow." "No, and that's not negotiable, I'm making an Icedome first, naked at that summit we'll be 40 below if we're lucky!" "Hmm, well, I'm trucking in some snow from outside, don't want my naked butt sliding on any hard ice..." "You two are serious?" "What, no one ever invited you to a three-girl threesome before?" "Err, no, I don't get out enough for that, apparently." "Hmm, well, we'll keep an open mind, but nothing says you have to get out after, either, we're kinda ok with keeping this between us, you know..."
After a few hours where... much heat was exchanged in the icedome, the three women, putting on their winter coats back on, gathered to watch the sunrise as it rose over the side of the mountain. "Hey, look down..." "What?" "The monument. The four statues..." The four statues... composed of pink-quartz sandstone, shone eerily in the rising sun, the white snow surrounding a black marble floor making a stark contrast. While The Phoenician in his Eurani clothes, The Patrician wearing the New Etruscan Northern Style, with fringes, The Procurator wearing the New Etruscan Western Style, with feathers and The Plenipotentiary, wearing New Etruscan Eastern Style, in silks each occupied a space. The stark contrast and angle of the statues making them see the optical illusion that all four statues were moving together to clasp their hands in a sign of peace. "Aw, this is quite a display, why do the doodoo heads of your people keep people away, Clara?" "Because maybe one person in ten thousand could make the climb we did, unaided. Encouraging those who can't climb is just murder." "Oh, yeah. It's a beautiful, alluring danger, isn't it?" "I think I discovered nice alluring things not quite so dangerous too... Are we trading Jade Codes, or is this... a one off?" "I'm ok with trading Jade Codes, what do you think Levikins?" "Jade Codes, hmm, I'm still tingly..."
"What's that?" Asked Levi, whose unaugmented sight couldn't tell details yet. "There's four statues, in a kind of loose group. Three local, one Benevent, going by the clothes." "The clothes?" "It's a statue of the Phoenician." "Oh, glorp. So this is is the Mile High Hall of Fame, it's guarded!" "What are you doing?" "Bringing you back to where we were, I got target lock warnings." "How rude of you Clara Xanda, not wanting to chat?" "Mephit Langstrom as I live and breathe!" "The same, who are your friends?" "Oh, an engineer colleague and her ...wife." She hesitantly translated to Etruscan, she'd been spending months talking only Kagomine. Mariwolfe's pilder landed back on the prior ridge, the newcomer, in his own shadowsuit pilder, helm opened, asked: "You're not building a bridge here, are you?" "No, where did you get that?" She pointed to the pilder. "New Etruscan Shadow Division of course. And yours?" "I invented this. And if you got yours from the treaty, I invented the one you're wearing too." "Why, yes, we got these from Lai Dang, Shadowstride mark VII suit, Kagomine manufacture, I guess?" "No, you'd get yours from Marquarry, I just designed the plans." "You... designed this?" "And a few other things released through the treaty. How do you like your slingshot ordnance?" "There's some..." "In your pilder suit, yes, I know, but only in the mark VII, the mark V didn't have the power budget." "That's extremely specific information, I'm afraid I cannot comment." "Oh come on, you know who I work for, Mephit." "And her? She looks civilian." "Levikins is a commissioned Kagomine officer, and a test pilot in the pilder programme." "And you're a treaty inspector, kinda suspicious coincidence, don't you think?" "Even treaty inspectorate issues day passes from time to time." "So I'm to believe you came here on your day off, just like that?" "Well, depends on your value of here..." "The Mile High Hall of Fame..." "No, not our intent, not at all..." "Then why?" Clara handed him an official document, bearing the official seal of Lai Dang Treaty Authority and said: "Read." "Finding of incompatibility with cultural restrictions on freedom of movement in New Etrusca... That's a court document." "Yes, I asked a Tribunal in Treaty Authority for a finding." Clara interjected. "What for?" "J3 Mountain's only been climbed four times, and not in the last 20 years." "Of course, climbing it is..." "Was." "What?" "That's what the finding is about. I asked a Tribunal in Treaty Authority to clarify what the provisions meant on freedom of travel." "Irrelevant, doesn't let... a civilian and a frigging military engineer from a foreign country..." "Oh, you mean they can't come with me? That'd be a dangerous precedent Mephit." "What, why?" "I am a Treaty Inspector, you signed an amendment to your constituion guaranteeting me the privilege to inspect any cubic centimeter of your lands, just to join Lai Dang, and I intend to benefit." "That only applies to Inspectors on duty." "No, Treaty Inspectors are never not on duty, we can choose not to report things, but we always have the protection of being on duty." "Protection?" "Article 86, treaty of Lai Dang." "Eighty-six? Which one's that?" "Inspectors assigned to the respect of the clauses of the treaty shall be construed as enjoying diplomatic equivalent to the cumulative sum of all ambassadors to the inspected country, and any hostile act against them shall be construed as an act of war against all the member countries. Any unauthorized hostile act will constitute treason in countries on this list: Moniq, Brescia, New Etrusca, Nuova Firenze, and carry the penalty for that charge to be carried out by the military of that country." "Wait, and just what constitutes a hostile act?" "Well, Mephit dearie, it does include weapon lock, so did you get authorization to target lock us?" "Ah, err, no." "I'd hate my ex-boyfriend to get attained with treason, Mephit, so why don't you forget you saw us?"
"What's a boyfriend?" "Grib, it's the word used outside of Kagomei." "Oh, you and him?" "Before I realized I preferred girls, yes. I'm still fond of him, he's not entirely dumb nor uninteresting. He is very by the book though, and when I realized he expected me to have his children and had a schedule for them, a schedule I was to have no input over, I realized it wasn't going to work out." "What was his grief with letting us walk away?" "Any New Etruscan or foreigner without diplomatic immunity would have been detained, indefinitely. There's been informal talks, at the higher levels of Spy... of the Treaty Authority Headquarters, that this area is used by their military for things they deemed sensitive, hidden under 'culturally sensitive location not to be shared with outsiders.'" "Will you get in trouble?" "No, not with the clout you have. The Telbun of Kagomei? They'd get laughed at for suggesting you'd do something against the treaty, considering Meihomei herself is its architect." "Well, Nameihomei was its architect, Meihomei was the major sponsor." "Technicalities, especially since about the only person in all of Kagomei that could get a Telbun to 'not enforce' the rules is Nameihomei, and since they're in agreement over this." "You really heard of the Telbun post all the way over there?" "Military academy, at least, there's a mandatory class that explains all the levels, and compares and contrasts with equivalent ranks in other countries. Telbun is one of the exemplars for comparison to the Command Master Warrant of the New Etruscan Forces, with the Enlisted Executive Advisor of the NuovaFirenzane Armed Forces." "Whew, so Mari here is famous?" "No, but those who've heard of what a Telbun is, which is most military, would love to buy her a beer for some stories. Anyone with a command or intelligence billet probably heard stories, the kind that inevitably get: 'that can't possibly be true' responses, about the Telbun." "I blame Tadros, he got the shoes so big." "And Marhamat didn't?" "Both got a Dawn standard-bearer award, so it's not like the shoes get any smaller." "What's that, Marikins?" "The highest Moniqan award..." "Actually, people get that wrong. It's the highest Moniqan and Nisei award, Marhamat got the Nisei one, Tadros got the Moniqan one." "How do you know so much?" "I worked intelligence, before I got picked for treaty duty, evaluating weapon systems and specific army engineering targets. And of course, I got a file on anyone interesting in Kagomei, before I got posted to treaty HQ." "How many files?" "Embarassingly many, seven OR-09 non-coms or higher. More than twenty commissioned, every senior minister of course." "Anyone we know?" "Tadros, Marhamat, Marhamat's daughter, Tadros' main squeeze, Maelle, Amarat, Flora, Marikins..." "Haha, Clara, that's so funny. Wait, who's Tadros' miptun? I thought the man a monk..." "You sure it's a miptun?" "He's a gentleman, but... Well, he happened to notice I wasn't like the boys, you know?" "Oh, wait, yeah, you've actually not just met him, but served with him?" "When I was with Meihomei's Own, yes, and he was keeping an eye on us for his Nessun..." "..." "What?" "You still haven't figured it out?" "No, who?" "The Nessun..." "..." "The Nessun is his Miptun, although, if my file is correct, it's more, he's the grib and boytoy." "What? Tadros, the hulking pile of muscle..." Mariwolfe's jaw had dropped. "And he is well put together, for anyone pushing sixty..." Levi added. "Yeah, well, Valias Herringbone's muscle tone isn't too far off his." "And she's got what I got... only better..." Mariwolfe sounded bitter. "I'm not ready to say she's better." Clara grinned wolfishly. "Not better than me anyways, better than you? No, she's probably a match though..." "Oh, you!" Mariwolfe grit her teeth. "Lighten up you two. We are on our way to the top, the first team to make this climb in two decades!" "We'll have to honour the elements if we make it..." "I'll leave you two to it then..." Clara said, looking uncertain for the first time since the climb started. "Actually..." Mariwolfe started, and got interrupted. "Nobody said anything about you leaving, we are kinda counting on you joining us..." "What, really?" "Listen, your quick talking saved us a whole bunch of trouble back there..." "So did Mari's 10mm guns..." "True, but I'm willing to be properly grateful to you both, provided there's some mutual recognition here..." "Just how grateful?" "Hmm, you can't find out..." "Why not?" "I'm only letting this secret out when we're all naked in the snow." "No, and that's not negotiable, I'm making an Icedome first, naked at that summit we'll be 40 below if we're lucky!" "Hmm, well, I'm trucking in some snow from outside, don't want my naked butt sliding on any hard ice..." "You two are serious?" "What, no one ever invited you to a three-girl threesome before?" "Err, no, I don't get out enough for that, apparently." "Hmm, well, we'll keep an open mind, but nothing says you have to get out after, either, we're kinda ok with keeping this between us, you know..."
After a few hours where... much heat was exchanged in the icedome, the three women, putting on their winter coats back on, gathered to watch the sunrise as it rose over the side of the mountain. "Hey, look down..." "What?" "The monument. The four statues..." The four statues... composed of pink-quartz sandstone, shone eerily in the rising sun, the white snow surrounding a black marble floor making a stark contrast. While The Phoenician in his Eurani clothes, The Patrician wearing the New Etruscan Northern Style, with fringes, The Procurator wearing the New Etruscan Western Style, with feathers and The Plenipotentiary, wearing New Etruscan Eastern Style, in silks each occupied a space. The stark contrast and angle of the statues making them see the optical illusion that all four statues were moving together to clasp their hands in a sign of peace. "Aw, this is quite a display, why do the doodoo heads of your people keep people away, Clara?" "Because maybe one person in ten thousand could make the climb we did, unaided. Encouraging those who can't climb is just murder." "Oh, yeah. It's a beautiful, alluring danger, isn't it?" "I think I discovered nice alluring things not quite so dangerous too... Are we trading Jade Codes, or is this... a one off?" "I'm ok with trading Jade Codes, what do you think Levikins?" "Jade Codes, hmm, I'm still tingly..."
Purpose / Function
As a hall of honour as the ancient native people of New Etrusca knew them, it's purpose is to be visible to the Elements, to thank them for the guidance and vision of the people honoured therein.
Alterations
Originally built with just the The Patrician's statue, the other three were added, approximately one every century.
Architecture
Built on a terrace about one third of the way up the second tallest, steepest mountain in Arnd.
History
Built to be the highest place of worship of the Kayinka, as they federated and conquered the other nations,
Tourism
One of the prime tourist and even pilgrim spots for the Kayinka, the place was forbidden except for miltary personnel in 460AK
Type
Monument / Statue, Large
Owning Organization
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