Greyhouse
On a hill in the interior fringe of the Druidsden District in Halamahi, just before the city starts to break into agricultural communities and suburbs, there is a large grey building that with enormous grey chimneys that never stop smoking. This hill is walled off from the rest of the district by an ancient cobblestone wall covered in hundreds of paper prayerslips, and the Greyhouse at the top is the only building on it. The iron gate to the hill is almost always open and the road slowly corkscrews up and around to the hilltop past flowers and grass and many many graves. Carts carrying the dead arrive every day and there are often mourners there along the way. One last gate stands before a visitor reaches the Greyhouse, painted white to mark the boundary between the living and the dead. Near that gate is a plain stone plaza, a place for funerary rites of many kinds. In ancient times, only ghosts and those who were ritually ordained to handle the dead could walk to the top of this hill without facing legal punishment. Nowadays you only need official permission to enter, but the Oldpelts still maintain the boundary as a sacred one and teach that entering without proper preparation can leave a person haunted.
This large structure is the Greyhouse: a crematorium, funerary complex, and hub for the Keepers of the Dead and The Exorcist's Guild in Halamahi. Here, people who die from across Halamahi can receive free cremation and funerary rites as well as access to other forms of care for the dead (such as burial arrangements). Mortificians from around the city also meet here for licensing, petitions, and pelt exchanges. In short, this is the central hub for matters of death in the great khilaian port.
The Greyhouse is also an administrative center for common Keeper acolytes. Most of the Hebamosi, or Pelt-Finders, operate out of their own office in Allseas Port that they share with the local Keeper officers. While the glamorous work happens in the port, the Greyhouse handles all the important day-to-day grind that makes the Keepers valuable to everyday people.
Any Ghosts in the city of Halamahi are expected to report here to the Greyhouse for registration and settlement. Most ghosts are sent to a specific resting ground - usually Pawapua - but sometimes deals can be arranged.
Somewhere in the Greyhouse is a storage site for Selkie Pelts taken from the city's dead, to be sent to Pawapua for longer term care. The location of this storage venue is kept secret and out of sight. Any armed conflict or burglary in the Greyhouse is taken very seriously by the Selkie Sacred Guard as a potential risk to the spiritual integrity of the dead and the political integrity of the city because of its role in pelt storage and traffic.
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