Chikurry: The Mushroom Palace of Porra, gem of the Belle Empire

Transit

Porra is the largest province in Chikurry, dominating the eastern portion of the country. If you’re lucky you’ll be able to find a flight from a major airline hub, but the more reliable method to reach Porra is to take a long-ferry to the Shoreden town docks in Lush, and take a buss to Porra from there. You can make the whole trip for less than 200 stone during the busy season.

Once you reach Porra, it’s almost impossible to not visit the Mushroom Palace. Roads, bus services, caravans, and even the gentle slope of the hills and valleys all seemed designed to guide you to the palace and its surrounding town, Stone’s Throw; some historians assert the topography was altered to make this happen. The nearby towns of Longfoot, Quillden, and Valleybottom all have easy roads and regular bus services to Stone’s Throw, though if you have the time, I heartily recommend taking a longwalk from Quillden. This road has some of the most beautiful sights in all of Porra, with pastoral fields and gentle hills giving you regularly amazing vistas. All told, the walk should only take you two days.

If you longwalk, try to make it to the Moonlit Rest, a rest station run by a lovely pair of fen-folk, on your first day. According to their tales, they have a good relationship with the local spirits, and have made several pacts that ensure their meals are hearty and delicious, and their patrons have a restful sleep. Whether this is true or not, the Moonlit Rest is still an excellent rest station for any longwalker, and worth a visit.

The Place

Without delving too deeply into a history lesson, the Belle Empire was Chikurry’s one experiment with a unified sovereign state, and it fell apart quite quickly, lasting only twenty years.

The Belle Empire was formally created in 1103, when the Golden Empri, Rodan Belle, claimed ownership of the entirety of Chikurry.¹ Accounts differ as to his intent: according to letters written by the Golden Empri to the mayor of Longfoot, he believed that the town model of governance — a group of people banding together to improve their lot in life, with leaders being chosen or naturally arising from asked-for advice and clear results — could be scaled. The Golden Empri saw the provinces of Chikurry as citizens of a town, and believed himself to be best suited to be their mayor.

However, in his letters to the different headmin of Dorno province, he stated that his goal was primarily to bring an end to the turmoil and hardships suffered by the northernmost provinces due to an unseasonable heat and poor harvests, while also providing suitable protection for all vassal states from outside influence and incursion.

Whatever his true reasons, he attempted to support his claim to the Empire with the Belle Army — one of the largest at the time — which was dispatched to multiple towns across Chikurry to enforce “the Golden Law;” his imperial edicts of taxation and export.

The Belle Empire collapsed after the Golden Empri died eighteen years later, and the crown was passed to his daughter. Her attempts to maintain the Empire quickly ended when it became clear that none of the provinces outside Porra had stopped abiding by the Golden Law for the past decade, and the Belle Army was fabricating reports to suggest compliance and placate the Empri. Chikurry, as a country, had decided the whims of a leader who lived many miles away weren’t worth tolerating; and the Army, being well treated by the locals — sometimes even better fed and better paid — hadn’t found reason to disagree.²

The Mushroom Palace, built during the first five years of the Belle Empire, is the one remaining artifact of this period in history, as the reported construction of statuary and imperial strongholds throughout Chikurry were all fabrications. Stone’s Throw has kept the palace as a historical landmark, and the locals are proud of their heritage as a people willing to experiment for the betterment of people they have never met.

Made out of an ancient ring of Agaricus henrius, the Mountain Mushroom, the central keep’s stem is only 15 meters (49 feet) in diameter, with the surrounding smaller mushrooms spanning a 30 meter (98.5 feet) circle. The keep measures 25.5 meters (83.5 feet) tall from ground to cap-top, with the cap spreading outward to a 21.5 meter (70.5) diameter. Each of the smaller mushroom stems are between 10 to 13 meters (33 to 42.5 feet) in diameter, from 17 to 19 meters (56 to 62 feet) tall, and house only one or two rooms apiece.

As one of the largest structures ever made out of a mountain mushroom, it’s remarkable that the methods used to keep mushrooms stable in smaller constructions function equally well. The Mushroom Palace was kept sturdy as it aged through two large mineral-water pools in the palace’s courtyard, called the Regian and Luciern Fountains. These pools were refilled filled daily, and when the keep finally died its structure remained sturdy. Now, filling is only required once a month as the outer mushrooms begin to die off and their fibers lose tensile strength.

The inner rooms of the Mushroom Palace are lavishly decorated, though only the servants quarters are still in operation as a quality bed and breakfast. The other rooms are maintained as a historical museum, beautifully furnished and curated for visitors to enjoy.

There are three different tours of the Mushroom Palace, each held twice daily in the mornings and afternoons. The first is the Royal Chambers tour which encompasses all the upper rooms in the central keep and the surrounding towers. Tourists are invited to see the lovingly furnished and decorated rooms of the Golden Empri, who lived up to his title by covering almost everything in his rooms with golden trim. Depending on your tastes, this could be either elegant or gauche. The tour will show you the royal bedroom, the music hall, the grand dining room, the royal bathroom, and many other rooms besides; while the guides explain the history of the Golden Empri and his twenty-year empire.

The second tour is the Story of Porra tour. The walls of the Mushroom Palace are, naturally, aged Mountain Mushroom, with the faint smell of dust and rich cream mingling in an oddly alluring perfume. The walls are not painted or ornamented except with thin silk tapestries depicting Porran history. The Golden Empri, however, had an inflated sense of what his actions meant for Porra and Chikurry, and so he commissioned not only historical tapestries, but depictions of the future he expected to create. This tour will take you through every hallway in the palace, from the beginning of Porran history to its supposed terminus, detailing both the historical incurabilities and the Golden Empri’s ambitions.

The third tour is the Stone’s Throw tour, which takes you through the city, visiting all buildings that existed during the Belle Empire, detailing the owners, their businesses, and their surprisingly intriguing histories. This tour also includes several bars and taverns, with the opportunity to sample the local beer, ale, and cuisine, so if you plan on taking this tour, be prepared to eat and drink.

Tourists should take note: if you should ever see someone with a rock-boar skin draped over their shoulders, treat them with the utmost respect: These are wandering spiritual leaders and sorcerers.

Children of the local rock-boar tribe play at the art of hunting on each other, and the child who most often dons the rock-boar skin to play the beast is generally thought to be the weakest and/or cleverest; the better to portray the animal’s cunning. The child is eventually considered chosen, and is brought up in the ways of the tribe’s magic. They are generally considered fair-minded people, but can be quick to anger if insulted.

Accommodations

As mentioned above, the Mushroom Palace itself has a bed and breakfast in its old servants quarters, and if you can afford the price it’s well worth making a reservation, though you may have to book well in advance. While they don’t offer much in the way of hot breakfast, since the kitchens have been shut down for safety reasons,³ they have a wide variety of spreads, cereals, and fruits for the hungry tourist.

For the tourists who are on a budget or can’t get a reservation, the White-Lace Hotel is the best local place to stay. Their rooms are impressive for the price, and they offer hearty meals for only a minor additional fee. While they don’t offer laundry service, they do have an outdoor natural pool that is fed from an artesian well, and a poolside bar that has some of the tastiest cocktails I’ve ever had.

If this doesn’t suit your taste, the surrounding towns have several small inns and motels with rooms for a cheap price, and easy travel to Stone’s Throw by bus.

Things to Do

Stone’s Throw’s imperial history has resulted in the town becoming one of the most metropolitan in Chikurry, and the only one that could reasonably be called a city. As such, even outside the Mushroom Palace, there are several places that are well worth a visit.

Half university, half museum, the Ministry of Mechanism houses over a thousand blueprints, patents, and prototypes from all across the globe. Administered by the Brass Ministers, the researches and machinations of hundreds of scholars and engineers blossom behind its topaz walls.

Travelers are welcome to explore the lower three levels of the Ministry, where many inventions and diagrams — both successful and unsuccessful — are put on display. These Inspiration Rooms are designed for scientists, engineers, and layfolk alike to see how curiosity and experimentation results in success and failure, and perhaps inspire others in their own creativity.

An architectural marvel, the Chapel of the Sun is one of the oldest shrines in existence. Over the years, religious rebellion, schisms, and shifts in majority faiths have turned the Chapel into a hodgepodge of religious iconography, as well as collecting a collage of holy graffiti on its walls. The Chapel of the Sun is a great place to take your time, indulge in a tour, and see how time has evolved the chapel into art.

The Glorio Topturm is one of the greatest art museums in the country, boasting a huge collection of paintings both modern and classic. The building itself was a joint effort by several artists who were each given a wing of the building to design and paint as they saw fit. While the result is universally described as “incongruous,” there is no denying the skill and beauty present in the architecture.

Several masterworks adorn the Topturm’s walls, including The Night of Apology, by Hothwait, and Mother’s Tears, by Allison.

In spite of its name, there are no trees, flowers, or grasses in the Starlight Garden. Instead, the garden is made up of several shallow pools of clear water. At night, the pools provide a dazzling mirror of the stars above, turning the smooth stone paths into a walk lined with glowing starlight flowers. Get yourself a cup of tea from a nearby cart and spend your evening enjoying the ethereal atmosphere.

As for the local food, the only place to visit is Kennig’s Bistro, a large restaurant in the center of Stone’s Throw. Here you can sample the best of Porran cuisine from masters of the craft, using only locally harvested fresh ingredients.

Meals in Porra largely consist of small plates of individual ingredients, ranging from small snacks to larger fare. Plates can be shared, mixed, or eaten separately as you wish. The one exception to this is the midday meal, when noon plates are served. Ordering a noon plate is similar to ordering at any other meal, but instead of being served separately, the dishes you order will be combined in one large bowl or plate. Traditionally, these dishes were as flexible and varied as you wish, but many restaurants these days have added single-menu items like casseroles, stews, and other similarly mixed dishes.

Porran cuisine is famed for its strong and salty flavors. Having access to large amounts of salt from the nearby salt-water lakes, rock mushrooms, and rayberry weed, chefs have made salt an important part of their recipes for generations. Alongside this only a few harvestable plants survive in the high-salt environment, and the only animals native to the region were notoriously undomesticatable. As a result, most of Porran cuisine involves mushrooms, sea beans, insects, tubers and hearty root vegetables, and imported fruits and dairy from nearby provinces. Noodles made from ground rayberry seeds are common, and riced salt-tuber is a common base.

Recent increases in tourism has resulted in Porra adjusting its presentation when cooking insects. While insects used to be cooked whole or eaten raw, Duba Paste — mashed or powdered insects — has become the more common ingredient. If you have religious or health concerns about eating insects, you can ask your waiter for suggestions; but I urge any tourist to at least sample the cuisine before rejecting insects outright. Porran cuisine is deliciously unique in our fantastical world.

Krawd is ideal for those tourists who are eager to sample the best of insect dishes. Krawd is a kind of stew made from tree-beetle grubs, whipgrass crickets, and wide-worms cooked in a thin citrus sauce. The different insects each provide a different quality to the food when cooked: the acidic nature of the sauce dissolves the wide-worm skin, thickening the sauce into a paste. The crickets’ shell cracks and caramelizes, releasing a butter-like oil and providing texture, and the tree-beetle grubs expand into soft bean-like dumplings with a savory nutty flavor. The resulting thick stew is served over noodles (krawd-mi) or on slices of sturdy bread (krawd-rish).

Once a delicacy, Sea bean noodles are both an ingredient and a dish. Dried and powdered sea beans are made into noodles and then stewed in a thick mushroom broth until the liquid is absorbed. Topped with fried potato or other vegetables, the result is a savory delight that has become Porra’s regional specialty.

Your first meal should probably be makavoo, one of the milder dishes. Makavoo is a riced salt-tuber dish with a tomato paste sauce and fried onion, often topped with fried slices of Rhinehorn beetle.

Of all the things to eat and drink in Porra, the one that is the most acquired taste is shroml. Fermented and then aged in smoked barrels, shroml is strong, bitter, and possesses a low alcohol content when compared to other ales and liquors. Sometimes described as having “the flavor of an old bathroom floor” and “the smell of rotten fish and desperation,” it is an alcoholic beverage that is abhorred by many, but beloved by a few. If you enjoy unique experiences whether they are pleasant or not, shroml might be worth a taste.