&zeter

&zeter (pronounced "Et-z'ter") is a city in the Gubernatorial Governorate of Upper Lywall, straddling the River & (pronunciation unknown) which rises in Eastern Kalgachia and flows into the Cosimo Sea just east of Šlomxala. &zeter was established by the Empire of Minarboria as the seat of an autonomous Marquessate and became, through its university, the principal hub of the Minarborian academic community. It is best known as the location of the failed Harvestfall Revolution during Minarboria's last days in which the local undead population rose up and seized control of the city, identifying the administrative architecture of the Minarborian state as overly geared toward the time-limited pace of the empire's living subjects and actively blocking chthonic currents of a slower vibration which were required to keep Minarboria's failing undead ruling class in a state of animation. The &zeter rebels' demands for a managed withering of Minarborian institutions to conserve the failing energies of the undead population (an ideal known as Argophylacterism) were ultimately unsuccessful, on account of the city's siege by forces loyal to the State Arbors of Sansabury and the denunciation of the uprising by the leadership of the Minarborian church - upto and including entities considered to be minor deities - as 'un-Shrubly', an accusation of profound social gravity which caused popular support for the uprising to collapse instantly. The failure of the uprising, in tandem with the ill-timed outbreak of a sono-memetic virus known as 'Disco' among senior clergy in Sansabury, assured Minarboria's final collapse.

Subsequent to this, &zeter was reoccupied by the Imperial Forces of Shireroth in the aftermath of Operation Bait Harvest and is now home to an appreciable garrison of auxiliaries, their families, and camp-followers. In the process it became the second city of the Lywall Protectorate which survived various short-lived Shirerithian colonial administrations up to the Kalirion Fracture of 1671.

&zeter remained in the front-line of Tee-al containment and is being heavily fortified in consequence. It was the first location in the entire Imperial Republic where Shrapnel Lilies, a particularly hazardous specimen of genetically modified flora, had been planted in a controlled environment as part of the defensive works. Naturally, during the period of disorder following the Fracture, these planned defensive beds have grown into a full infestation, rendering the western portions of the city unsuitable for human habitation and drawing in a considerable level of investment of time, effort, and lives, on the part of the Biological Containment Service to remediate the contaminated zones.

A number of abandoned properties on the eastern outskirts of the ruined city underwent restoration work during the period of Shirerithian and had been converted into facilities for imperial agencies such as the Chamber of the Crypteia, S.W.O.R.D., the Decimæ, the Vigiles Arcani and the Steward's Honour Guard. Many of these were treated by the ladies and gentlemen of the officer corps as little more than glorified country retreats, but their rural isolation and distance from Shirekeep also rendered them appealing for other more specific purposes. These have, since 1672, become grace and favour apartments, made available at the discretion of the Command Executive as a reward for officers as well as for individuals from other favoured organisations.