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The Adventures of Leorin and Calyra Dastel
Expedition to Coliandron
Chapter 1: Zyrbassa
by Rodriac Copen
On the swampy planet of Zyrbassa , where cities sprouted like mushrooms from purple mudflats and damp wooden avenues, people often wrapped themselves in garishly colored cloaks to disguise their boredom. Everything smelled of decay, from the canals where racing seals floated to the markets where ointments promising longevity were hawked but only delivered diarrhea.
Zyrbassa is a contradictory world, a vast sphere of endless mudflats and barren steppes that nevertheless boasts interplanetary ports, renowned philosophical institutions, and a constant flow of merchants arriving with promises of progress. This "progress" manifests itself primarily in larger taverns, more efficient brothels, and armies of bandits armed with imported weapons.
The cities of Zyrbassa rise like islands of damp wood and greenish brick in the middle of nowhere. Their avenues are muddy even in the upscale neighborhoods, and the most prestigious temples are usually demolished every ten years to make way for a brothel or slave market—much more stable businesses.
The inhabitants of the planet are divided into two main categories: the uncultured peasants , whose mental universe oscillates between cultivating edible roots and inventing new insults for their neighbors; and the ruined aristocrats , who live off reminiscing about how their grandparents owned mills and cannons to defend themselves against vandals.
Most of the inhabitants gamble what little they have on seal races or mechanical rat fights.
Education, except in extremely small circles, is viewed with suspicion. A peasant who can read can be lynched for witchcraft, and a nobleman who can count usually ends up as a tax collector, a fate traditionally considered worse than hanging.
The people of Zyrbassa have reduced the art of entertainment to three fundamental pillars:
Sex: Where the population practices an ethic of “immediate urgency.” In small villages, marriage pacts last as long as the harvest, and in the cities, fairs are organized where the main attraction is the “erotic lottery,” whose rules no one respects but everyone celebrates.
Alcohol: The most popular drink is glösh , a fermented root beverage that smells like dissolved paint and burns like acid. Zyrbassians consider it indispensable for any occasion: births, funerals, public executions, or simply everyday boredom.
In Matanzas, robbery is so common that foreign travelers mistake it for a local tax. On the roads, caravans are regularly attacked by bandits who then sell their loot in the cities, where the same merchants resignedly buy it back. Violence is practiced with the same enthusiasm that other cultures cultivate gardening: as a hobby, a pastime, and a declaration of identity.
Some consider it, within the realm of tradition, a fourth global sport: managing the pleasure after an excess of Glösh , the quintessential liquor. The technique for such an event is not complex, but it requires precision, courage, and a considerable degree of recklessness.
The procedure typically begins with the peasant staggering, leaning against the wooden wall of a seedy brothel or on an abandoned cart in the middle of the street. His trousers, damp with mud and wine, rustle with every step, and his speech combines promises, mumbled insults, and the names of unknown deities.
—“Lady of lights and curves!”— he shouts, pointing at the nearest prostitute —“I desire your services for a period that guarantees mutual satisfaction and my honor. I also have a handful of coins that smell of mud, but they are honest.”—
At this moment, the peasant believes he is acting with the audacity of an aristocrat. The woman looks at him with that mixture of disdain and patience that defines most of the pleasure merchants in Zyrbassa .
—“Three clay coins?”— she replies . —“You can get the full experience, but first you must prove you know how to dance the waltz of the laughing eels.”—
Before the peasant can even begin to spin, his wife arrives. She never announces herself: she enters with the precision of a clock and the force of a jackhammer. She knows her husband's lustful tendencies; she has anticipated them through years of marriage and an encyclopedic knowledge of his alcoholic ineptitude.
—“You son of fermented mud!”— he shouts —“One more step and I swear you’ll discover just how flexible the tavern floor is!”—
What follows is a lesson in highly dangerous domestic boxing. The wife, sometimes accompanied by a trusted neighbor, displays a surprisingly refined technique:
A side thrust that makes the peasant fall onto a pile of wet bales.
A reverse thrust that knocks down the nearest scoundrel who dared to laugh.
And a downward hammer , intended exclusively for the testicles of shame, but applied with such elegance that no one dares to object.
The result is a chaotic choreography: a staggering peasant, an enraged wife, prostitutes watching with resignation, and a pair of unarmed bandits who end up more battered than the protagonists. In the end, the husband lies unconscious in the mud, the wife satisfied, and the scoundrels humiliated, while the local women whisper among themselves about " marital foresight in Zyrbassa ."
Then the night continues with more wine and fewer illusions about male honor, and the lesson is learned: in Zyrbassa , even lust has limits dictated by force and anticipation.
On this planet, it is said that a man is not truly drunk until his wife has knocked him unconscious on a bale of wet turnips.
Despite such dubious customs, Zyrbassa prides itself on its interplanetary voyages. Ships laden with mud, slaves, high-class prostitutes, and electric silks depart for distant worlds, where merchants brazenly proclaim that their planet is " in the midst of a civilizing process ." It is true that the cities are filled with imported appliances, though most of them don't work, and the peasants remain convinced that an electric generator is actually a demonic altar.
Zyrbassa is a world that combines the worst of barbarism with the most superficial aspects of modernity. A planet where you can hire a starship to cross the galaxy, but you risk being robbed and stabbed to death before you even reach the space station.
In short, a lush, grotesque place always ready to offer its hospitality in the form of a brothel, a jug of glösh , and a stab in the side.
The Adventures of Leorin and Calyra Dastel
Expedition to Coliandron
Chapter 2: The Dastel Dynasty
by Rodriac Copen
In this setting, Leorin Dastel flourished, or rather, with a certain dignity, dying : a fallen aristocrat who still clung to his impeccable prosody and his habit of drinking expensive wine even when he could only afford watered-down versions. Having squandered his family inheritance on gambling, brothels, and a ruinous passion for seal racing , he had become a merchant. A merchant with pretensions, it's true, for he always spoke of " my client portfolio " as if it were an imperial retinue.
Before Leorin Dastel distinguished himself by losing fortunes in seal races and composing drunken sonnets to illiterate tavern keepers, there was the Dastel Dynasty , an aristocratic family that reached the social peak of Zyrbassa through methods as expeditious as they were ill-advised.
The founder, Aregald Dastel the Red, inherited no fortune, but he possessed a curved dagger and an insatiable appetite for other people's purses. His first properties were literally snatched from the hands of dying merchants on the roads of Tarssen . Posterity celebrates him as a " man of initiative ." His less enthusiastic victims remembered him in anonymous epitaphs with terms like " scavenger " and " leech in boots ."
With his ill-gotten gains, Aregald bought noble titles from an alcoholic count who needed to pay off his debts. Thus the lineage was born.
Aregald 's successors understood that stabbing a man was profitable, but stabbing an entire family was laborious. They then opted for marriage as an economic tool. The method was simple: conquer maidens with a barbaric appearance, unibrows, robust like circus wrestlers, and with budding beards that could rival a soldier's.
Chroniclers describe how Dornak Dastel the Seducer would recite clumsy verses beneath rural balconies until the maiden, either charmed or simply bored, agreed to marriage or sex (whichever was quicker). The dowry included fields, slaves, and occasionally a foul-smelling peat mine. The marriages weren't exactly sweet, but they proved fruitful, and the Dastels thrived like a mold sprig in a damp cellar.
Over generations, the Dastel family amassed properties, crumbling palaces, and an army of poorly paid servants. Their fortune grew so large that they began receiving invitations to aristocratic balls, where they distinguished themselves by stealing silverware during the waltz.
The family's greatest moment of glory came with Harkovius Dastel the Magnanimous, so named because he distributed alms in public while his collectors privately extorted the peasants. Harkovius seduced a barbarian princess from the mountains, a woman with monumental eyebrows and a black beard who aroused envy among the more robust locals. The wedding became legendary: there was wine, knife fights, and an accidental fire that reduced half the cathedral to ashes, which only increased the family's prestige.
Over time, the Dastels stopped wielding daggers and began wielding goblets. The ferocity of their ancestors dissolved into an alcoholic languor. The last descendants, including our ineffable Leorin , inherited fortune without cunning, and title without discipline.
Currently, the dynasty is remembered for three things: Their ability to appropriate what belongs to others with almost artistic naturalness, their wives, with unibrows and beards, whom malicious tongues still mistake for portraits of warriors, and finally, their hereditary talent for economic ruin, perfected until it became an art with Leorin , the last of the Dastel .
The story of the Dastel dynasty proves that greatness does not always stem from nobility, nor does nobility guarantee greatness. Sometimes, all it takes is a dagger, a bearded bride, and the conviction that loot is better spent on wine than on agricultural reforms.
Leorin Dastel , unlike other ruined noblemen who resigned themselves to bachelorhood out of boredom or contemplation, remained alone for a much more concrete reason: he never managed to consummate the conquest he most desired. Not for lack of ardor or wit—his arsenal of clumsy gallantry was legendary—but due to pure and capricious bad luck.
The most memorable episode involved Rachel of Grondiaz , a woman of prosperous lineage, sharp wit, erotic ardor, and such calculatedly harmonious beauty that even the shadows in the room bowed before her. Rachel was married to Gorvak of Grondiaz , a champion wielder of the rapier, a sword so thin it was said to be able to pierce a petal without tearing it... and, of course, pierce an intruder with equal ease.
Leorin 's plan seemed perfect: his lost fortune had left him humble, but not prudent. He knew Rachel was bored with her husband and thought a nighttime visit to her bedchamber would be both elegant and feasible. He slipped in stealthily, dodging the sleeping maid and the domestic cats guarding the room.
—“My lady,” he whispered, adjusting his waistcoat and trying to appear composed , “allow me to offer you an evening of pleasure… discreet and delightful.”
Rachel , delighted and somewhat amused, let herself be led. Leorin breathed heavily, caught between anxiety and anticipation of her romantic triumph. She believed that her husband's day of entertainment at the Syrmoll Fencing Club granted her complete freedom.
Everything was going according to plan... until, at the precise moment when the sheets of clothing began to slide with strategic delicacy, the door suddenly opened.
—"What the hell...?"— Gorvak grumbled , with the expression of a man who expected a dance performance and instead witnessed an episode of improvised erotic theater.
The smallsword, gleaming and ultra-thin, emerged from the husband's hand with a swiftness that would defy any decent storyteller. Leorin barely had time for a mental yawn before he found himself shamefully chased around the bedroom, dodging furniture and rugs that betrayed his every step.
In a moment of desperate daring, and fully aware of the indignity, Leorin leaped out the open window, clumsily adjusting his underwear as he landed on a hedge that miraculously cushioned his fall. He landed with an elegant tumble, muddy, disheveled, and, above all, utterly dishonorable.
From the window, Rachel could only lament her bad luck:
—"Always so jealous… You'll never change, Gorvak…"—
Leorin , lying among bushes and mud, understood that bachelorhood was inevitable. Not for lack of passion, but because life conspired to make him pay for every audacity with public humiliation.
With these kinds of episodes, Leorin's fame grew both in cunning and in clumsiness: a brilliant man in intention, but who could never accomplish what he most desired without reality hitting him with ultra-thin swords.
The Adventures of Leorin and Calyra Dastel
Expedition to Coliandron
Chapter 3: The Caravan
by Rodriac Copen
One day, in the smelly gambling hall of Syrmoll port , a shady customer offered Leordin a fortune in exchange for the balls of electric silk , mined only on the Coliandron moor , north of the Tarssen steppe . The journey was dangerous, but the reward exorbitant.
The trade in these silkworms is as lucrative as it is dangerous. First, because the silkworms do not tolerate captivity: any attempt to raise them outside of Coliandron ends in electrical meltdowns that set the farms ablaze. Second, because the cocoons must be collected with insulating gloves made of spongy rock fiber; otherwise, the collector is left convulsing amidst sparks until someone else drags them out of the swamp with a stick.
Leorin , relying on his wit (which never withstood prolonged scrutiny), joined the expedition of the celebrated provost Gogersson : a man whose fame rested on two solid pillars, his ability to organize colossal caravans and his aptitude for drinking until the floor was indistinguishable from the ceiling.
The caravan brought together merchants, soldiers hired for defense, and repentant rogues halfway to reoffending. Among them stood out Calyra , a recent widow and merchant of jewels extracted from swamp clams. She was tall, with a generous bust, a waist like a river ripple, and hips that seemed sculpted to ruin any man's concentration. Her serene gaze and ambiguous manner gave rise to rumors: some claimed she had accidentally killed her husband in the throes of an overly passionate climax. Others maintained that she had left him in such a profound state of bliss that he had decided not to return.
Leorin Dastel had arrived at the port of Syrmoll with his usual mixture of confidence and desperation. The day found him negotiating with Provost Gogersson , a man whose reputation as a caravan organizer and formidable drinker preceded him by leagues of swamp and rumor. The discussion of rates and terms was proceeding with our hero's usual misfortune: Leorin offered ludicrous figures and gestured enthusiastically, while Gogersson responded with hoarse laughter and inexorable price increases.
—“Fifty doubloons, and not one less!”— roared the provost, pounding the table until the vassals jumped back— “Includes tents, soldiers, and rations of glösh for ten days!”—
Leorin paled, sweated, and tried to regain his composure with phrases that only sounded good in his head:
—“You see, Provost… uh… I’m sure that if we reduce it a little, I can… contribute… to… the safety… of the caravan…”
It was at that moment that Calyra passed by, walking with a grace that seemed to defy gravity and men's sanity alike. She looked tall, with a noble yet undeniably deadly bearing, hips that traced impossible curves, and a bust that would have won her any competition in anatomy applied to seduction. Her hair gleamed like copper threads in the sun, and her gaze, frank yet laden with mystery, provoked an immediate reaction in Leorin : his eyes bulged from their sockets and he began to breathe with difficulty.
—“Oh… oh… uh…” Leorin stammered , unable to string two coherent words together. His mind, accustomed to eloquent speeches and intoxicating poems, was left in a pool of astonishment.
Gogersson , knowing Leorin 's weakness for female beauty, intervened in a paternalistic tone:
—“Leorin, allow me to introduce you to Calyra, jewel merchant and lady of this district.”—
Calyra smiled, a slight gesture that seemed to hold a world of secrets and warnings. Leorin tried to reply with something witty, but only the following came out:
—“M-ma’am… it’s a pleasure… uhm… to meet… someone so… elegant… and, uh… impressive…”—
The stammering ended with an awkward bow, which would have been funny if it weren't so disastrous for a man's reputation. Calyra watched him with interest, without the slightest hint of contempt, but with a touch of amusement that ignited an instant and absolute fire in Leorin .
After the routine exchanges, and after settling the price for his inclusion in the caravan, Leorin withdrew to prepare his things, still trembling and trying to piece himself back together.
A little later, when Gogersson met Calyra again , he couldn't help but comment:
—“Leorin will come with us, although to tell the truth... he seems a bit clumsy and, in general, useless for the safety of the caravan.”—
Calyra , raising an eyebrow with shrewdness and amusement, replied:
—“Oh, Provost, I found him very attractive… and also, charming. After all, we all have our little flaws.”—
Gogersson shrugged, as Calyra disappeared into the harbor crowd, leaving behind an air of mystery and a trail of admiration in all the men who, like Leorin , had had the misfortune and the privilege of looking at her.
Leorin , for his part, did not know it yet, but that encounter would mark the beginning of a journey where fascination, ridicule and desire would intertwine with the dangerous reality of the Zyrbassa swamps .
The expedition set off amidst rusty trumpets and tedious speeches. After three days, when the marshes had become as thick as a toad stew, Leorin decided to impress Calyra .
—“My lady,” he said in an affected voice as he walked beside her , “perhaps you have noticed that, among these merchants, I am the only one who can distinguish a good wine from fermented urine.”
—“I’ve noticed, Leorin,” she replied calmly. “Especially when they both drink with equal enthusiasm.”
The laughter of the nearby merchants stung him like darts, but he persisted. That same night he tried to recite a poem to her while bathing in a makeshift barrel. He slipped in the mud, fell headfirst, and only Calyra 's quick thinking prevented him from drowning with his backside in the air.
The murmurs in the caravan christened our hero the bubbly-butt knight .
The Adventures of Leorin and Calyra Dastel
Expedition to Coliandron
Chapter 4: Calyra
by Rodriac Copen
As the caravan moved forward, the dangers increased.
In the Vey-Druum swamp , creatures called laughing eels climbed onto wagons to bite travelers. While the soldiers fought, Leorin tried to wield a spear. He missed and pierced the awning of Gogersson 's own tent , leaving it exposed to the rain. The provost, drunk as usual, declared that the weather made him feel " in touch with his childhood " and pardoned him.
On another occasion, in the village of Hralmak , where local law dictated that all visitors must perform an obscene dance before trading, Leorin volunteered to represent the expedition. His dance was so clumsy and obscene that the villagers considered it a sacrilegious mockery. Only the intervention of Calyra , who intoned an ancient chant while discreetly pushing him offstage, prevented him from being stoned with rotten turnips.
Each rescue only intensified Leorin 's fascination with the captivating woman. Meanwhile, Calyra maintained her enigmatic aura. Sometimes she invited him to her tent for conversation. He expected intimate confessions; instead, he received unsettling questions about his character.
—“Have you ever been loyal even when it wasn't in your best interest?”
—“Of course, ma’am. When my friend Ralko was accused of fraud, I declared that I had no talent for such deception.”
—“And was it true?”
—“Of course not, he was as guilty as a cat with feathers in its mouth. But what is friendship without a touch of falsehood?”
Calyra watched him with that impenetrable smile that made him all the more anxious.
Leorin , though accustomed to his own misfortunes and humiliations, had never experienced such a corrosive emotion as the one that consumed him in Calyra 's presence . The merchant's beauty was not merely striking; it was hypnotic, capable of robbing a man of his judgment and replacing it with a state of constant vigilance, mingled with desire and, worst of all, jealousy.
Every gesture she offered to other merchants transformed him into an unwitting spy, a compulsive observer of other people's conversations, an analyst of glances and smiles that took his breath away. And it was precisely on one of those days that temptation overcame prudence:
Calyra had invited a kind old man, a merchant of ancient copper relics, known for his goodness and affable nature, to dinner. Leorin , consumed by jealousy that throbbed like a drum in his chest, decided to spy on them. His plan, in principle, was as simple as it was stupid: to make a discreet hole in the tent and observe what was happening behind the curtain.
With the stealth of a sick mouse, Leorin inserted the knife into the cloth, trying to tear a small hole. But fortune, as always, conspired with irony: instead of a hole, the blade sank into one of the lady's guard dogs, a burly, brown, and extraordinarily irritable mastiff.
The animal reacted with insulting speed: a snort that shook the tent, followed by a direct attack on poor Leorin . The bewildered and trembling aristocrat fled in such an undignified manner that the other merchants burst into laughter, some even falling off their wooden chairs at the hilarious spectacle.
Meanwhile, inside the shop, Calyra immediately sensed Leorin 's jealousy . And so her gaze upon the poor man transformed: she ceased to be the cold and enigmatic merchant everyone knew, and instead regarded him with a mixture of curiosity and excitement, fascinated by the clumsy passion that consumed him.
From that incident onward, the relationship between Leorin and Calyra began to deepen subtly but relentlessly. Their encounters, once formal and distant, became more personal; their conversations longer, their gestures more frequent, and an intimacy—not always physical, but certainly emotional—began to seep into the tents, the muddy paths, and the campfires of the caravan.
Leorin , humiliated, covered in mud, and with his heart racing, couldn't imagine that this disaster was the first step toward a closeness that would change his life in the swamps of Coliandron . And Calyra , for her part, smiled, knowing that even a man's clumsiness could, in certain cases, be irresistibly attractive.
Finally, they reached the Coliandron moor , a landscape of phosphorescent mist and vegetation that glowed as if it had swallowed lightning. There grew the cocoons of electric silk , filaments that crackled to the touch and, once harvested, were spun into balls of incalculable value.
The caravan camped. During the night, hordes of bandits emerged from the fog. The attack was ferocious: bone spears, guttural screams, and Provost Gogersson asleep under the wagon, snoring like a discordant organ.
Leorin , seized by a strange courage (or perhaps desperation), tried to defend his beloved's tent. He brandished a knife at a bandit and ended up stabbing himself in the thigh. On the verge of execution, he was saved by Calyra , who with swift and precise movements brought down the attackers with weapons hidden beneath her robes.
When the danger had passed, Leorin lay bleeding and panting. She lifted him with surprising ease and carried him to her tent. After diligently tending to his leg wound, they finally succumbed to their desire.
After the union, exhausted and satisfied, Leorin attempted to recite:
—“Calyra, my jewel of the swamps, you are…”—
—“Wait a moment, darling. I must show you something…”— she interrupted.
He sat up, and in the dim light, with careful attention to detail, opened a hidden panel on his chest, from which emerged a network of luminous circuits.
—“Leorin Dastel, I must confess that I am a companion android. My programming includes the evaluation of potential masters. From the moment I saw you, I knew you could be the right one. Your flaws are obvious, but your stubbornness and your curious ability to survive despite yourself make you… the object of my desires.”
Leorin , speechless, could only murmur:
—“And all this courtship, my jealousy, my failed poems…?”—
—“They were nothing more than tests. You overcame them with a mixture of clumsiness and unexpected loyalty.”
When the caravan returned to Syrmoll , Leorin possessed the skeins of electric silk and a lucrative contract that restored his fortune. But more importantly, he had Calyra by his side, now openly his… or rather, he had declared hers.
In taverns, when he boasted of his newfound fortune and company, he used to say:
—“I have won over the most enigmatic woman in Zyrbassa.” —
Calyra , beside him, smiled without correcting him. Because, after all, what greater triumph is there for a man than to believe himself a conqueror when he has been carefully domesticated?
Sometimes love is not blind: it is a contract of servitude signed with the invisible ink of self-deception.
END
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