Charactor of Colour

Flatlanders

The Flatlanders who inhabit the Flatlands are are famously colourful people.

The sunlight across the Flatlands highlights the bright colours of their buildings, and brings out their erratic, confrontational and disturbing behaviour.

Colour defines the status of a Flatlander, and obtaining new colour that befits their status - and status that befits their colour - is central to the culture of the Flatlander.

The Cabinet Makers of Wetledale

With its rules at last agreed, the valley of Wetledale, with its unsurpassed ability to grow trees, with its streams and rivers that drive its watermills and joineries, became the valley of the cabinet markers. The exquisite cabinets made in Wetledale are highly priced and highly prized.

'Cabinet making is well-suited to Wetledale,' stated the Chair of the Cabinet Makers' Fraternity. 'The cabinet can be made in the depths of a Wetledale warehouse, and perfected through the long, dark days of a northern winter. And a cabinet will never perish. When the winter storms have subsided, a cabinet can be taken down the Wetledale sea canal, and along the coast to our valuable merchants in the Great Southern City.'

An Examiner to Call

Each Conformance Council in each of the seven valleys enacted many rules with the aim of increasing the value of their favoured industries. It was inevitable that amidst effective rules, unworkable and conflicting rules were also to be found.

The solution enacted by the Hall of Science was the creation of the role of 'Examiner'. Examiners, dispatched from Great Southern City, have become an expensive and unwelcome strain on the valley conformance councils.

The cabinet makers of Wetledale valley have been advised by their Informer on the Ruling Council that, as soon as the Winter is over, an Examiner will arrive in Wetledale along the sea canal.

The Value of Wetledale

The only other way into Wetledale is across the Last Mountains, and even the Transporters who carry cargo between the seven valleys, are loath to cross the Last Mountains into Wetledale through the fierce storms of winter.

Because of its situation, its demanding terrain and cruel weather, Wetledale had a reputation for producing little of any value. It is therefore a long time since Wetledale was last examined.

The cabinet makers have changed all this, and the Hall of Science of the Great Southern City has been contemplating sending an Examiner into Wetledale for some time.

Persuasion

With the Ruling Council now seeking value to defend the southern borders of the Seven Valleys, the Hall of Scientists has become convinced that an Examination of Wetledale will unearth considerable squandered (and therefore taxable) value.

The cabinet makers of Wetledale have worked hard - and spent heavily on the best value Persuaders available - in order to ensure that the rules of Wetledale place the cabinet at the heart of Wetledalian industry and the good attitude of the people of Wetledale.

The Fraternity of Cabinet Makers is not disposed to allow a provoking Examiner, sent to their wet and rugged valley, to make changes to the Wetledale Conformance Council rules: rules that have been shown to be the most valuable of all of the Seven Valleys.

Distracting Colour

The success of Wetledale has not been without sacrifice - and nobody has made more sacrifices for the common good of the Wetledalians, than the Decorators' Fraternity.

'Colour is a distraction,' announced the Cabinet Makers to the Wetledale Conformance Council. 'In a grey, white, and brown world the eye focuses on the essential detail. When you create the exquisite and valuable cabinets of Wetledale, detail matters. Fill this valley with uncontrolled colour and this work of the decorators will steal our attention and divide our community.'

Without approval for the use of the bright colours made by the nation of the Fishwicks to the far North, the Decorators Fraternity is declining and fracturing.

Decorators Opposed

The newly elected Chair of the Decorators has done everything she can to persuade the Conformance Council to make changes to the rules to help the decorators of Wetledale.

Although she has secured some small concessions from the Council, The Chair of the Wetledale Fraternity of Decorators has come to despair of ever making the progress needed to provide a valuable future for the youngest of her brother decorators.

By means of the Records now held by her fraternity, the Chair of the Decorators has good reason to believe that an Examiner, given the chance to properly examine the rules of Wetledale, would be sure to demand changes to these rules - which would greatly help her brother decorators.

A Transporter's Promise

But an Examiner arriving along the Wetledale Sea Canal in the spring, and welcomed by the Chair of the Cabinet Makers Fraternity, would never get the chance properly to examine Wetledale and its rules.

It is with considerable interest that the Chair of the Decorators is introduced to a Transporter, who has spend a lifetime crossing the mountains between the seven valleys, and who claims to be able to carry an Examiner across the Last Mountains - through the middle of the winter storms - and into the very heart of the conflicted rules of Wetledale.

All the Transporter requires is a contract, and perhaps some help in showing the Examiner the best places to look for these conflicting and unworkable rules.