I'm gonna dispel a few rumors here:
First, 80 CON is hardly necessary. Nil's gotten across several rivers with about 50 CON with no trouble whatsoever. I've yet to touch the god-forsaken water of death myself, but I'm fairly confident in a non-lagging scenario I'd be fine. Still, you'd be well advised to avoid the skill if your CON is low, your connection is bad, or you have extreme paranoia.
Second, rustroot is found
everywhere, at least around the forests - it's just a fairly difficult Exploration check. Not only that, we've already got a mine set up and metal flowing freely. They seem to be sufficiently rare to be a bit of a headache to find, too.
Third, Hamel and Niltrias are the ones with inviting powers, and unfortunately neither seems to be around at this exact moment, though that's subject to change.
Fourth,
IRC IRC IRC! Especially people looking for invites since they'll probably be more timely that way.
Fifth, we're fairly certain we're going to set up on the island a bit north of Swampcrazed if we set up anywhere new, and we're likely going to wait for the next supergrid to the east to be manually created before we pull up roots and completely abandon our current position.
Sixth, we really don't need to worry about boats or bridges - we've got plenty of swimmers to create an idol and abuse teleportation if we want to set up somewhere not very accessible.
Oh and finally, our
forums are another place to check if you have no idea what's going on, though we haven't got a whole ton on them yet.