[Neos Megalis] The Main

[Wynd]

In contrast to the rich tradition and values of Secyclionian society was the Main, a major street that wound from the waterfront of Neos Megalis to Nephele Beach. Nephele Beach and the Main were -the- tourist hotspots in Secyclion. At any one time there would be three thousand mainlanders on the tropic island, a combination of low-brow sailors and wealthy, pleasure-seeking tourists, and they met on the same long waterfront street to fill their selves, rotted through by the cavities of anomie, with the honeys of decadence.

In Neos Megalis the Main was on a wood dock, and its posts came out of the water during the floods or not. Salt-stained stone buildings lined one side, while the other stayed open to the sea. Here there were expensive restaurants, Mainlander taverns, rows of inns, and on the seamier side a handful of qaifa dens, keif cafes, and watering holes for sailors and fishermen. On a sunny day there would be a few street vendors selling fish sandwiches and other Eunesian low cuisine. A few prostitutes, those not quite pretty enough to make it into the Scarlet Bath, walked up and down the street late at night, as sailors and tourists stumbled around drunk.

Between Neos Megalis and Nephele Beach was a desolate mile-long stretch of the Main along the rocky shore that eventually gave out to the snowy sands. Only a few wooden shacks littered the top of the seacliff, but the stretch was well-trafficked during the day and into the evening, with Mainlanders and islanders walking between Neos and the Beach. At night it was lit with lanterns hanging from strings tied around the trees.

But the real heartbeat of the Main was the palm-lined and sandy boulevard behind the huge beach, at the base of the caldera. This was where the Mainlanders came into their hedonistic own. The buildings here were wooden and ramshackle. More taverns, these with large patios and outdoor bars to keep swimmers and sun-tanners from getting thirsty. Party central in town was The Palm, a cabaret beside the beach, where young Mainlanders went to dance for a night. The hundreds of beach people kept the pubs, cafes, and little shops busy night and day.

The Main continued on as an unpaved footpath going up the caldera toward Toichos Kikkimos.

It wasn't so much these physical aspects of the Main that gave it its reputation as a debauched hive as the people who made the scene. These were the richest of the rich, the fattest of the fat from the Empire. These people were prodigal sons of the bourgeoisie, these were nobles who'd left their estates back home to laugh it up in paradise, these were Imperial bureaucrats getting loose on vacation. They came to Secyclion and became hipsters, beach-bunnies, Q-junkies, keif-heads, drunks, and perverts. Men and women would lie around naked on the beach all day attended to by personal servants and slaves they'd brought from home. They indulged themselves in every excess available, gorged on food, sex, liquor, and sun.

A small hipster sub-culture had developed among the younger Mainlanders of slumming around Nephele Beach and the Main wearing gaudy Carnival masks, silks and beads, turning on with keif and kratom, chain-smoking Eunesian cigars, and going to bed with anybody who had a cute face. They spent their nights at the Palm or their almost official hang-out, the Mouse and the Mask, a cafe with a dance floor and musicians. The culture had come from the sons and daughters of another, less gaudy sub-culture, but one of nobles and merchants who'd left home to live more or less permanently in Secyclion, as resident tourists. Hipsters accepted everybody but squares.

This was the Main, so named because the street was the heart of all the action (as far as the Mainlanders cared), and where they made liquorice out of sunshine and sea breeze.