Red Moon Post

My name is Nader. I’m an outsider who was hit by a ghost ship and ended up in the New World.

While looking for work, I found a recruitment notice:

"Sierra Empire Postal Worker Regulations", revised edition, 1791

For internal circulation only. Strictly confidential. Anyone who leaks this information will be considered an accomplice of the revolutionaries and hanged!

1. New employees must take out a loan to buy a precision pistol from the Royal Bank. You must be able to hit a spinning coin from sixty meters away. Shadows in the rainforest are smaller than coins, and they can turn corners. (Note: This office is not responsible for interest payments. Compensation for death will go toward repaying the bank loan first.)

2. Do not listen to voices along the road. The monkeys of the New World are clever and speak six different languages. Seventeen postal workers have already mated with monkeys and now live in the treetops.

3. If you encounter bandits, shoot if they are outnumbered; flee if they outnumber you. If you die, make sure your letters are left at the designated location. Delays will result in a thirty percent deduction from your compensation.

…

6. If the recipient is illiterate and asks you to read the letter aloud, adjust the wording as appropriate. Do not tell a woman who has just lost her husband that her son died in the mines. If you are delivering a conscription notice, disregard the above.

7. There are no wizards or ghosts. The corn cakes in your bag are food, not the flesh of savage gods. Eat them, and may the Red Moon protect you!

8. If you encounter a thunderstorm, put the letter in your mouth to keep the ink from running. If the letter is already wet, recite chapter seven, verse fourteen of the "Red Moon Prayer". God's grace will dry the paper.

9. If you discover revolutionaries, immediately abandon your work and provide information!

**. Reading the contents of letters is strictly forbidden. If you peek, you do so at your own risk: you may go insane, fall in love with the recipient, or try to write a letter to yourself!

(19th-century Latin America, fantastical world setting)