1. Early in Adisaat's history, delegates established what was to become the Porcelain Boulevard in an attempt to cordon off a city's worth of debauchery along a single street.
2. Later, the paving-stones were replaced by ceramic tile, lending the boulevard its name and facilitating easy mop-up after an evening of vomitous indulgence.
3. Coffeehouses came to dominate the Porcelain Boulevard when opium was outlawed a decade ago, and the dozens of poppy-den proprietors were forced to diversify.
4. The term "coffee" in Adisaat is gestural, used to describe any cured and crushed matter that is then steeped in hot water for consumption.
5. The Green Gland's menu boasts coffees of charred lotus root, sumac and eggshell, black sesame, and the eponymous Gland, harvested from a clutch of slime jackalopes kept in a pond out back.
6. Slow days, coffeeman Qadrel patiently eradicates the choking kudzu vines perpetually pushing up through the floorboards.
7. It's sandstorm season when the place really gets hopping; locals find respite from the torrent in tall foaming mugs, or at backgammon tables of ash and burled walnut.
8. One such local is Lashma, puppeteer and dilettante, who often swings by after delivering another of his bawdy, risqué performances.
9. Subaltern clergy-informants of the Church of Shothah seek a scapegoat whose disgrace might elevate them in the eyes of the Reverend; the puppeteer seems like a natural fit.
10. Shamed and destitute, his puppets incinerated, Lashma seeks another line of work; big-hearted Qadrel will pitch a few silvers for pulling up the kudzu.
11. Late one evening, the cut vines spring to life beneath the puppeteer's hand, gyrating in strange sensual manners not unlike his previous work.
12. This goes on for some time, Lashma quietly building a repertoire of puppets from various clippings, running them through a calisthenic regimen, voice lessons and solfège; indeed, he gestates an altogether new art form wherein the puppeteer steps aside, allowing the puppets to speak and act for themselves; scriptwriting and directorial lessons soon follow, and the kudzu begins working into the morning hours, furtively rehearsing a magnum opus.
13. When the time is right, Lashma brings his ensemble to The Green Gland for a magnificent comeback; a crowd of mildly intoxicated patrons stare agape as the bits of kudzu incarnate with terrific shrieking; on a nearby bookshelf the holy scripture of Shothah bursts into flames; the puppets gather and turn demented gazes upon Lashma, over whose features an expression of abject horror slowly unfolds; suddenly the puppeteer goes down as the weird minions climb his body, rip open his soul by way of his abdomen; a silence coldly falls over the appalled crowd and from the sundered intestines a hollow voice observes: I CARVE VEINS INTO REALMS OF DESIRE
Administered for March's RPG Blog Carnival.
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