Members of the Bene Gesserit faith across Mundus have today been celebrating as the official Spice Harvest has taken place in Seitch. The event is one of the most significant for the faith and this year the Reverend Mother has stated that she believes it has been "the largest harvest in living memory, perhaps since the 20th Century." The event began today when the Harvester General, a member of the Missionara Protectiva, found that the sandworms kept in the courtyard of their library had shed their skin. While the creatures are referred to as sandworms they are infact a species of centipede found only in Kaitaine natively. These creatures are effectively farmed by being placed in giant stone tanks with plugs in the bottom. Once a year they shed their skin and these maltings are collected and ground up to make the spice melange. Members of the Bene Gesserit faith believe that it gives some individuals the ability to commune with the divine or even see the future, others meanwhile say it has tremendous healing properties. The spice for the majority however seems to be little more than an ingredient in festive treats. Once the Harvester General declares the Missionara's harvest has begun traditionally others within the city may too. While the centipede is native in the wild to Kaitaine it has since been taken since the liberation of Western Kaitaine to form the Theocracy to all the Chapterhouse schools and embassies across the globe. In addition the stability of the city of Seitch has seen even greater numbers of people maintaining their own "spice tanks." When the harvest began members of the Missionara remove the plug and gather all the Sandworms from within. The previous years sand is sifted and the sheddings found and taken away to first be washed and then ground up. While this is happening the Sandworms are placed in a "Transit Cask" and carried around the streets of the Seitch by a procession that was this year led by the Reverend Mother, Erin McGregor. She was followed by 20 members of the Missionara carrying the Transit Casks which were escorted by members of the Truthsayers. Bringing up the rear singing folk songs were members of the Honored Matres.

Once the spice had been processed it was placed in specially made wooden boxes sealed with wax and sent across the world for various members of the faith to use. Some of these have been sent to head-mistresses of the Chapterhouses and enough for them to give as prizes to their top students. In addition some was sent to Darina  Klymenko-McCann who is competing in the competition to find a new Empress for Neu Urburzis. While the "official" spice is limited in quantity there are hundreds of people who have made businesses harvesting all year round meaning the spice is now never in short supply. This however has lead to a newly created function of the Truthsayers who have been instructed to carry out random checks of those farming, harvesting or selling the spice. Erin McGregor explained, "This is no different to nations maintaining systems to ensure Halal food is Halal or Kosher food is Kosher. We are ensuring that a key part of our faith is kept pure and so giving ourselves the best chance of communing with the divine. Its my intention to eventually have a system of licencing that will give people even more confidence that what we are consuming is the genuine stuff. We have sadly found people simply buying cheap cinnamon, emptying the packets and putting it in their own bottles and selling it. To me that's fraud and we will try and stop it." 

People within the city of Seitch partied into the early morning with many enjoying traditional dishes such as Spice Cake washed down with Spice Beer.

Elena, or Lara as she would be for the next few hours, was used to skulduggery of the kind they were up to however she'd have prepared to not have some wheelchair bound royal with her just in case things went a little sideways. It did however seem that at least the guy was mentally switched on as he pointed at the painting which appeared, at least at a glance, to be one of the missing ones. It could of course just be a reproduction or a print, there were many of those doing the rounds but generally they were more likely to be posters on walls of the girls who admired Stasya or silly boys who lusted over her. She turned so the camera in the handle of her briefcase pointed that way and hoped the IT boffins watching the stream would snap off a couple of useful shots. She though was keen to get a look at the back of the operation because after all that would be where the "juicy" stuff would be kept. "You've a wonderful place here" she complemented their host. She made a play of admiring the statues and art works while not looking clearly at the painting they'd been keeping an eye out for. "Now if I can say we've had a lot of guests getting involved in our wine tasting events at our resorts, its becoming one of our most popular evenings. Now the problem is people don't want to turn up and just try the same four or five wines every time, what I could really do with is something a little less common, something that our guests are not going to see that often. I'm aware of your usual catalogue of goods but I don't suppose you have something a little more, how shall we say......exotic stashed away somewhere"

Gusano likewise supports this motion, however believes we should also prepare to put in place measures to aid the transition and put ourselves in a position to provide economic aid to help the city but only in return for something that will benefit our own economies too.

Altona fully supports the proposal put forward.

Abertone is supportive of this approach