CHAPTER 1: Blood Red and the Seven Cats
From the diary of "Frogwarrior" Plaitedmelted, Trader
Late Obsidian, 300.
Well, we've finally almost made it to Screampacks. I can hardly wait - my tail's getting cramped with all the not enough room in this stupid wagon. The muzzles on the stupid dogs has kept them from that infernal barking, but they can still whine and Loek help me, they can still stink. I can't imagine why we needed to take no less than three of the ugly beasts with us. Even with the pittance we've been feeding them, they're still a drain on our less-than-ample provisions. I fear we'll run out before we ever make it to Screampacks.
Maybe if we fed them more, they'd whine less? I'll have to consider that if the noise drives me to the point of suicidal insanity. I'd be better off sticking the food in my ears than risking starvation by feeding a dog. Hopefully, we'll get there well before I'm driven to such extremes.
Thankfully, most of the other passengers seem tolerable enough, at the moment. The "Torture" guy is pretty unusual - he doesn't talk to anyone if he can avoid it, preferring to sit by himself (as much as is possible in this stupid wagon!) and mumble occasionally. Not that anyone can tell what he's saying, since he always has a fragment of bone in his mouth. But Amalgam asked him about it, and he said it's a dog bone, from the first dog he ever killed. So, not a bad sort. Touched by the gods, perhaps.
Bengali, though, is somewhat... unnerving. He sits with the cargo, and I don't think he's said a word this whole trip. I thought about asking who the idiot in charge of planning the trip was - we do NOT have enough food, and do we REALLY need so many metal bars? And 3 DOGS?? - but I'm terrified that it's probably him. He's not even particularly tough-looking... he just has the aura of "don't mess with me or I'll make you yelp like a puppy." Or maybe he'd just make me sit with the dogs.
Journal Entry Ends
1st Granite
FINALLY we're here. Good grief, my legs are killing me. And now, at last, I can get away from those stupid mutts.
We're going to hold a meeting before we go into town. Probably a briefing, since Bengali's the only one who seems to know anything. He'll take command, tell us what to do, blah blah. I'll probably be given the important job of carrying a bunch of stuff from one place to another place. I still wonder why they wanted to have me along; I'm the only one here with no actually skill at building anything. Though in retrospect, they probably need me to sell their valuable goods. Yeah, that's it.
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Well, meeting's over. And... Apparently, they chose me to be the leader. What the heck.
Of course, I should have known. With all my training at judging intent, I at least figured out that whatever we're supposed to do here is mroe important than Bengali is letting on... but I couldn't figure out that I was supposed to be their fall guy. Stupid.
And of course, I got handed a trowel and told to dig. Well, fine, I guess there's always time to learn a useful skill.
What a bunch of loonies. I'll probably just hole myself up somewhere and count, that'll show them.
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Well... On the plus side, Screampacks is very well stocked. Everything is neatly in order, every house has a barrel of (still edible!) food. On the weird side, nothing is out of place. Looks like everything is exactly as it was left 50 years ago. I suppose that may be normal for ghost towns, but, it's weird seeing a town that nobody's lived in for generations, and it looks like any other.
The strangest thing, though, is that when we set out towards our new home... I smelled sulfur. I thought at first it was one of those dogs again, but I was soon proven wrong.
Screampacks was built right next to a magma vent.
A bleeding magma vent! Who builds a town right next to an open pool of magma?
End Journal Entry
Embark items:
One [1] copper trowel
One [1] copper hatchet
One [1] copper anvil
One [1] rope reed rope
Seven [7] copper bars
Four [4] tin bars
Three [3] bismuth bars
Three [3] dogs
One [1] cat
DFMA map of the area, at embark:
http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7597-screampacksAnd, just for fun, a little
light reading.