You decide to name the town
Sundown for now.
*
D. You'll organize an expedition back, to recover what stragglers remain from the journey.It may be late, but your people are not forgotten. You gather who you can afford to send. Your sharpest scouts, your fiercest warriors. Bags are filled with dried grubs and squirrel skins with water. You organize a core to stay at the village under the care of your second. When at last your preparations are made you set off at dusk, traveling in the cool of the night.
The first days out are a stark reminder of the brutality of this world. There is often nowhere to hide in the heat of the day, and the blasted soil wont support a burrow. When you are lucky, you shelter in the huge fissures that sometimes cross the landscape. A single corpse is found two days out. He is unknown to your people, and though he seems to have been dead for some time, even the rot struggles to take hold here. He appears mummified and desiccated, grinning into the dirt. You leave a piled stone marker as best you can, no time to dig a proper grave.
As you continue outwards, the land begins to soften though. Its almost imperceptible at first, a stray weed pushing through the soil. Then when night falls, the sound of crickets. Sparse, and often far away, but noticeable in the stillness you have become accustomed to.
4*
As you travel on the fifth night, you finally see it; A flicker of light on the horizon. Dawn breaks to reveal a whisper of smoke smeared across the sky.
In another day of travel you've reached it.
The smell hits you before you see it. Rot has not struggled here.
Its a grim scene, a survivors camp grown up around a tiny freshwater spring. Half starved skeletons raise their eyes as you enter. A pile of bodies overflows a trench. There is almost more people here than in your village, thought they are in a sorry state.
Rations are distributed as you can spare, the more alive stagger to their feet. The rest is a flurry of work and heartbreak. It is few who can make the first journey back with you, but when your group returns it is almost double its size.
The next week is a whirlwind. Runners bring rations to the camp, leaving in small groups as they try to nurse the people there to health enough to travel. An endless trickle of refugee return with them and you work day and night expanding the village and gathering food. It seems endless, but at last things begin to calm down. The village has grown considerably, pushing in through the barrier of trees now, and spilling out around the fence that held you before. Your settlement has certainly increased in
[Size].
Your second finds you helping strip bark from from a pile of freshly cut poles. These have been in high demand as you struggle to house all your new citizens. A rather interesting report has accompanied one of the latest groups arriving. A dust storm forced them off the usual course quite a ways on their return. They came across the ruin of some huge magical construct collapsed in the wasteland. One of the younger lads climbed onto the thing and was killed by a spell when he carelessly stepped on a rune. Word of this incident is spreading quickly and you'll need to take action of some sort before long. The construct is about three days travel out from the village in a dry riverbed. You sigh, dropping your tools to the ground. So much for the simple life today.
On the topic of the ruined construct:
A. Declare the site off limits, with punishment of Exile. (You can revisit this issue at another time)
B. Organize a more proper research expedition. Rune magic could be useful if you could understand it.
C. This place is dangerous. Organize an expedition to properly demolish it, so that it can pose no risk to you.As for your next actions:
A. A celebration! A new home! You'll organize a grand hunt for bigger game, and a feast to mark this occasion!
B. Mud huts and a well are nothing to be proud of. You'll organize a more serious (and permanent) building effort.
C. You'll have your people make a more deliberate and detailed exploration of your surroundings.
D. With the settlement so much bigger now, you'll need to reorganize your approach to industry. Warehouses and workstations could go a long way.
E. The world just ended. You'll let them rest for more than a few days. A lifetime might not be enough to feel at peace again.
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Topic: The Shattered Update 4: Against all odds (Read 1687 times)