"Sulport" by Arealius the Sailor

  This manuscript was developed by the author with the assistance of AI tools. Google Gemini and Claude were used for grammar, spelling, readability, and research. All intellectual contributions such as characters, setting, and plot decisions, and final edits are the sole work of the author. AI was employed strictly as a tool, not as a co‑author, and its role is disclosed here in accordance with publishing integrity standards.

 Customs, and values may not align with modern societal standards or moral principles.

Please note that the Gorean Saga is a fictional series, and its world,

Gor is Copyrighted by John Norman

Sulport

By Arealius the Sailor of Port Olni,

Raw river mud and rotting fish created a strong odor along the western slips, the docking area for independent captains and their privately owned draft-barges. Here, the city's official Caste of Scribes rarely walked. High port tariffs, burdensome paperwork, and captains who favored physical altercations made things difficult.

Arealius drifted along the creaking boardwalk, his gaze sweeping over the flat-bottomed craft tied up to the slimy oak pilings. He wasn't looking at the ships; he was looking at the men standing on the cargo hatches.

By the third slip, he found his mark—a powerfully built man with a beard braided in the lower Vosk fashion, shouting at three sweaty laborers hauling sacks of dried rep peas out of the ship. The captain sat near a wooden tally-board, its smeared chalk and disorganized tally-marks visibly giving him a headache.

Arealius paused at the edge of the gangplank, his shoulders hunched, hands empty and out of his pockets.

"Your count is off by four sacks, Captain," Arealius said softly, his voice barely carrying over the creak of the hemp lines.

The captain spun his head, his small, dark eyes squinting under thick eyebrows. "Who asked you, drifter? Get clear of my line before I have my boys toss you in the silt."

"The third hoist returned two sacks to the hold," Arealius said evenly, without moving. "And your tally-man counted the draft-mule's fodder twice on the left column. You're paying port tax on forty sacks of grain you don't have, and your crew is pocketing the difference on the cargo manifest."

The captain blinked, his eyes flicking from the smeared slate to the sweating laborers on deck. He growled something under his breath, stepped over the gunwale, and snatched up the slate, squinting at the illegible scrawl.

"You read slate?" the captain demanded, eyeing Arealius's threadbare tunic and salt-crusted sandals. "You don't look like any scribe."

"I look like a man who knows numbers and hasn't eaten since yesterday," Arealius said. "Give me the chalk. I'll clear your cargo manifest, balance your grain tallies against the port inspector's receipts, and make sure you don't pay a single copper bowl more in tariffs than the law strictly demands. In exchange: two copper tars, a loaf of black bread, and no questions."

The captain stared at him for a long moment, the heavy silence broken only by the lap of river water against the hull. He spat into the slip, wiped the chalky slate against his thigh, and shoved the stone into Arealius's hand.

"Work," the captain grunted. "Make a mistake, and you go over the side."

Arealius took the chalk, stepped onto the deck, and went to work.

The chalk felt familiar in his fingers, a crisp, grounding weight despite the grime on the timber deck. He worked with practiced swiftness, wiping away the captain's erratic scrawl with the edge of his sleeve and replacing it with clean, compact columns of trade-script.

He was halfway through reconciling the third grain ledger when the sharp, rhythmic clatter of iron-shod boots echoed off the boardwalk.

"Hold up there, Varga!"

It was a thin, nasal voice that carried a cheap sense of authority. Down the gangplank strode a low-level port inspector, his blue-and-silver tabard faded from the sun and stained around the collar with grease. A thick leather ledger was tucked under one arm, and a short, brass-pommeled truncheon rested at his hip. Behind him shuffled a lone guard in a dented iron cap, leaning lazily on a short spear.

Captain Varga's jaw tightened, his hand instinctively dropping toward his belt before he caught himself. "Inspector Sorn," the captain grunted, stepping up to the gunwale to block the officer's view of the main hatch. "You're early. Cargo's still coming out."

"It appears when I decree it appears, Varga," Sorn said, his manner radiating a cultivated arrogance. His narrow eyes scanned the deck, skipping past the sweating laborers and landing squarely on Arealius—holding the chalk and the slate.

Sorn stopped. His eyes narrowed as he took in Arealius's salt-crusted sandals, threadbare tunic, and the crisp, unmistakable precision of the characters written on the slate.

"What's this?" Sorn asked, pointing an ink-stained finger at Arealius. "That's Scribe-script. You're not wearing the blue cloth, drifter. Who authorized you to touch a manifest slate on the Sulport wharves?"

The guard behind Sorn shifted his weight, the butt of his spear scraping against the deck planks.

Varga stepped in, his chest rising. "He's just an old deckhand who knows his sums, Inspector. Helps keep the boys honest."

"The Caste of Scribes doesn't care about your 'deckhands,' Varga," Sorn snapped, though his gaze lingered greedily on the slate. "Unlicensed tallying in the lower slips is a five-silver fine for the captain, and three days in the harbor stocks for the vagrant."

Arealius didn't flinch. He didn't drop the slate, and he didn't meet the inspector's eye—that was the mistake of a desperate man. Instead, he kept his head bowed just enough to play the part of a cowed, weary laborer, while his mind quietly worked out the inspector's actual intent.

A true high-caste inspector would have called the harbor watch immediately. A corrupt, low-level clerk in a grease-stained tabard was simply fishing for a cut.

"The inspector speaks truly, Captain," Arealius said, his voice raspy and low, stripping every trace of formal diction from his accent. "I'm just a dry-land fool who reads a bit of trade tallies. But—I was just showing Captain Varga where the port office made an error on his morning entry slip."

Sorn paused, his hand halting near his belt. "An error?"

Arealius held up the slate, pointing a dirty fingernail at a column he had just rewritten. "The morning gate clerk logged Varga's barge as a three-draft timber keel instead of a shallow flat-bottom. That carries a higher harbor-dockage fee on your official ledger, sir. If the chief collector sees that mistake on your evening audit, he'll think someone on the wharf was pocketing the difference in the dockage tariff."

Sorn blinked. He snatched the slate from Arealius's hand, his eyes scanning the numbers. Arealius had deliberately framed the math so the "error" looked like a clerical slip that would make Sorn's own department look bad to his superiors—while quietly leaving room for a small "correction" fee.

The silence on the deck stretched taut. The river water lapped rhythmically against the hull.

Sorn cleared his throat, adjusting the leather ledger under his arm. He looked at Varga, then down at Arealius, his lip curling slightly.

"You've got a sloppy deck, Varga," Sorn muttered, sliding the slate under his own arm. "I'm confiscating this slate for... official audit at the gatehouse. A two-copper inspection clearance fee is owed. Right now."

Varga spat over the side, grumbled a curse, and dug two heavy copper coins from his pouch, shoving them into the inspector's palm. Sorn pocketed the copper without counting it, turned on his heel, and marched back up the gangplank, the spearman trailing sleepily behind him.

Once the sound of iron boots faded into the harbor noise, Varga turned to Arealius. The big captain stared at him for a long moment, a grim, admiring smirk breaking through his dark beard.

"You've got a slippery tongue for a man in rags, drifter," Varga said, reaching into his belt.

He pulled out two copper tarsks and a crust of stale black bread, holding them out to Arealius. "A deal's a deal. You saved me a five-silver headache and kept that leech Sorn off my deck."

Arealius looked at the coins, then up at the captain. He didn't reach for the money.

"Keep the copper, Captain," Arealius said softly, his voice low enough that it didn't carry past the gunwale. "I'll take the bread, but trade the coin for deck space."

Varga paused, his hand hovering in midair. His bushy eyebrows pulled together in a sharp scowl. "Deck space? I'm a draft-barge, drifter, not a passenger galley. We're casting off as soon as these last sacks are cleared, riding the midday current downriver."

"I know," Arealius replied, taking the bread and tucking it into his belt. "You're heading down the Vosk, toward the lower reaches. That's where I need to be."

"I don't carry freeloaders," Varga grunted, though his posture had lost its earlier edge. "And I don't need a scribe on open water."

"You need a man who can handle a sweep-oar, watch a shoreline in the fog, and keep your cargo manifests clean when the port guards stop you at the lower toll-gates," Arealius countered evenly. "I'll sleep on the raw timber, eat whatever scraps your crew leaves behind, and work every shift. You get a literate deckhand who just proved he can talk you out of a shakedown, and it won't cost you a single copper coin."

Varga studied him, his dark eyes taking in the lean, weathered frame beneath Arealius's threadbare tunic. He saw no soft, pampered city scribe before him; he saw a man whose hands were calloused, whose shoulders were accustomed to heavy timber, and whose eyes held the quiet, dangerous calm of someone who had survived far worse than a river voyage.

The captain spat into the muddy water between the hull and the wharf, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"We run straight through to the lower bends near Port Kar," Varga said, his voice a low rumble. "You step out of line, you miss a watch, or you bring port guards down on my stern, and I'll drop you on a mud bank and leave you for the river-sleen. Understand?"

"Understood, Captain," Arealius said.

"Then grab a hook and get back to the hold," Varga grunted, tossing the two copper tars back into his pouch. "Those pea sacks won't stack themselves."

With a nod, Arealius moved to the cargo and took his position with the crew. The scent of delta swamps on the morning breeze felt a fraction stronger now. He had only a crust of bread left, but he had secured the most important thing: passage downriver to the Thassa.

The deck of Varga's draft-barge offered no comforts, only raw pine and the constant, cold spray of the lower Vosk. For three days, they rode the current westward. Arealius worked the sweep-oar through the grueling dawn shifts, his muscles aching with the familiar, rhythmic burn of heavy water work. His silence earned him grudging respect among the rough-handed crew.

By night, the barge anchored near the reedy banks, and the crew huddled around a low fire in an iron brazier on the deck. It was here, amid the smell of roasting fish and cheap river-grog, that Arealius listened.

He didn't interrogate them; a man asking too many pointed questions on a Gorean barge usually ended up swimming with a rock tied to his ankles. Instead, he mended ropes, tended the fire, and let the men talk.

On the second night, a grizzled deckhand named Rulf, his face a map of old knife scars, spat a mouthful of fish bones over the side and began complaining about the congestion at Port Kar.

"You can't even find an empty berth at the southern wharves these days," Rulf grumbled, passing a skin of grog to a younger crewmate. "Half the deep-water fleet from Brundisium is stacked up, waiting on cargo. Salt-captains demanding double tariffs just to cast off."

"Why the bottleneck?" Arealius asked quietly, not looking up from the heavy hemp line he was splicing.

Rulf snorted. "Because the sea-lanes past the World's End are getting dangerous again. The galleys coming back from the Thassa coast say the southern storms have been brutal this season, but that's not what's keeping the round ships moored. It's the blockades. The big Cosian war galleys are clamping down on the shipping lanes, looking for unregistered traffic."

The younger crewman leaned in, wiping his mouth. "I heard it's worse than that. I heard a salt-merchant in the Red Tavern swear he saw a Pani war-junk sweeping the waters past the island of Tyros. Huge thing—sails like folded dragon wings."

Rulf cuffed the younger man on the side of the head, a sharp thwack that made the boy wince. "Don't talk stupid, lad. The Pani don't cross the Thassa. They stay on their islands, sharpening those curved swords of theirs and worshipping their sea-demons."

The boy mumbled defensively, "I'm only repeating what the merchant said. He claims a full fleet of deep-water galleys from Brundisium is fitting out a massive armed convoy for a direct run to the Pani coastal trading posts. They're looking for men bold enough to sign on."

Arealius's hands went still on the rope.

He knew the Pani were isolationists. They rarely permitted foreign vessels near their shores, let alone allowed massive merchant convoys to land. If a convoy out of Brundisium was actively recruiting for a voyage to the Pani Islands, it meant one of two things: a rare, highly lucrative trade agreement had been struck, or they were planning a heavily armed, unsanctioned incursion. Either way, it was a direct route to the Thassa coast and beyond.

"Brundisium, you say?" Arealius asked mildly, drawing the hemp tight and tying off the splice.

"Aye," Rulf said, settling back against a crate. "The salt-captains there are paying heavily for deckhands, navigators, and anyone who can hold a spear when a storm hits or a pirate galley boards. But a man's a fool to sign that crew list. Half those ships won't return."

Arealius said nothing. He handed the mended line back to Rulf and stared out into the dark, rushing water of the Vosk. The river was widening now, the current slowing as it neared the immense delta. The air tasted heavy with salt.

Brundisium. A major coastal port, teeming with deep-water ships, mercenary companies, and enough chaos to hide a man with no house and a price on his head.

He had his heading.

The Vosk broadened until its southern bank dissolved into a vast, drowned wilderness—a dense labyrinth of cypress-like trees, Spanish-moss analogs trailing from tangled canopies, and murky bayous where the brown river water met the slow, brackish seepage of the lower delta. Birds with impossibly long bills stood like statues in the shallows, and the humid, heavy air tasted of wet earth and salt.

Rising like a titan of dark stone above these endless green marshes stood Turmus, a massive, fortified city built where the fertile valley abruptly surrendered to the delta swamps. Its soaring stone wharves were anchored deep into the riverbed, flanked by stone archways, heavy timber stockades, and a pair of grand, twin-spired stone cylinders overlooking the water. It was a sprawling, prosperous hub of river trade, ringing with the din of coopers, ironmongers, and creaking wooden cranes on the city's piers.

As Varga's draft-barge glided toward the lower customs quay of Turmus, three long rowing barges painted in the official deep blue of the local Scribe's Hall shot out from the piers to intercept them.

The Gorean port inspection at a major river city was a rigid, lethal dance of bureaucracy. Before a single rope could be made fast to a bollard, the inspecting scribes—cloaked in formal blue robes, copper ink-horns swinging at their belts—boarded the vessel. By port law, every crate, barrel, and sack had to be tallied, measured, and matched against the master manifest. Tariffs were calculated based on hull-draft, cargo weight, and point of origin. A single undeclared cask or a mathematical discrepancy was treated as intent to defraud the city, resulting in immediate impoundment of the vessel, heavy fines, or enslavement of the crew.

The chief inspecting scribe stepped onto Varga's deck with two junior clerks and four armed harbor guards behind him. He held an official clay tablet pre-marked with the city's standard tariff schedules.

"Barge out of Sais," the senior scribe declared, his voice cold and precise. "Timber, draft, and grain cargo. Declare your weight and pay the river-entry tax."

Varga looked ready to sweat blood. He had filled his lower hold with extra sacks of dried beans bought on the cheap, hoping to slip them past the inspectors for a thin profit in Turmus.

Arealius stepped forward quietly, his head bowed in a posture of humble deference, holding the wooden slate he had redrawn for Varga.

"If the master-scribe permits," Arealius said softly, using the exact formal cadence of the Scribe Caste's lower secretarial ranks, "the barge carries draft-timber and legumes, but three-tenths of the hull volume is dead-space occupied by water-ballast necessary to navigate the shallow, mud-choked sandbars of the upper delta."

The inspecting scribe paused, his narrow eyes flashing with sudden suspicion. "Who speaks for the ship?"

"A humble clerk, master," Arealius replied smoothly. "If the city taxes the gross displacement of the hull without deducting the water-ballast allowance established under Article IV of the Lower River Transit Customs, the captain is overpaying by twelve percent. Furthermore, the grain sacks in the lower hold were laden at the high-valley moisture line; under port standard, a three percent deduction for water-weight evaporation during transit applies to all legumes originating above Sais."

The inspecting scribe blinked. He looked down at his clay tablet, then back at Arealius, clearly taken aback that an unrobed vagrant could quote hyper-specific, archaic river-transit tax law with such flawless technical precision.

Arealius held out the slate. He had structured the numbers so that deducting the legal ballast and evaporation allowances significantly lowered Varga's taxable weight, while giving the inspector a clean, fully documented, legal exemption he could sign off on without risking an audit from his superiors.

The scribe studied the numbers, searching for a flaw. Finding none—and realizing that arguing the point would mean two hours of tedious re-measurement in the sweltering heat—he grunted, pressed his signet ring into the wet seal of the release scroll, and handed it to Varga.

"Pay the reduced tariff at the harbor gate," the scribe muttered, turning back toward his blue boat. "Cleared for berth."

Once the blue robes had rowed out of earshot, Varga let out a breath that sounded like bellows. He looked at Arealius with raw, disbelieving gratitude.

"You just saved me eight silver tarsk, scribe," Varga said, pulling three bright silver pieces from his pouch—a small fortune for a penniless man—and pressing them into Arealius's hand along with a fresh loaf of white bread and a strip of dried meat. "You're a wizard with a slate."

"Just a man who knows the rules of the river," Arealius said, closing his hand around the silver.

With his meager belongings packed, Arealius bade Varga farewell and stepped onto the massive stone quays of Turmus.

Despite his perilous situation, Arealius felt a surge of quiet appreciation for the city. Turmus was alive, grand, and vibrant. The air smelled of wet cypress, roasting river-fowl, rich dark earth, and exotic spices brought up from the sea. High stone arches bridged narrow cobblestone streets where merchants, mercenaries, and rivermen rubbed shoulders. It was a city of power and beauty, sitting proudly at the edge of the wild delta.

He walked into the bustling harbor market, three silver coins in his pocket, his belly full, and the ocean breeze of the Thassa pulling at his senses from just beyond the horizon.

Editor's Notes: 

The Geography of the Pani Islands

The Pani reside on a massive archipelago located far beyond the known western bounds of the World's End: 

• The Location: Situated across the vast, terrifying expanses of the deep Thassa ocean. They are deeply separated from the Gorean mainland by distances most mainland ships cannot survive navigating. 
• The Environment: The islands feature a mix of mountainous volcanic terrain, pristine bamboo forests, and heavily cultivated terraced rice paddies. The surrounding waters are treacherous, plagued by sudden typhoons and predatory marine life.
• The Cities: Their settlements are built with traditional timber, sliding screens, and grand stone castles (shiro) designed to withstand both regional earthquakes and siege warfare.

The Culture and Society of the Pani

The Pani are an Earth-transplanted population modeled directly on feudal, Shogunate-era Japan, but they have evolved to fit the brutal realities of Gor: 

• The Political Structure: Society is strictly stratified and ruled by a military dictator, the Shogun. Powerful regional warlords (daimyos) command personal factions and control local territories.
• The Military Caste: The elite fighting class consists of samurai-like warriors. They reject typical Gorean weapons in favor of the katanas (long swords) and wakizashis (short swords) they forge with secretive, masterful craftsmanship.
• Code of Honor: Life is governed entirely by giri (social obligation and duty) and an uncompromising code of honor. Losing one's honor results in total societal exile or ritual suicide.
• Rejection of Mainland Norms: Because they completely rejected the Gorean caste system and the religious authority of the Priest-Kings centuries ago, they do not speak the Common Gorean tongue. Instead, they maintain their own ancestral language. 

Sources:

 

https://www.scribd.com/document/736733258/World-of-Gor-Gorean-Roleplaying-World-Encyclopaedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gor