Quoted By:
Rolled 19 (1d20)
For the past moon’s turn, the settlers have bent their backs to the work carving narrow furrows into the thin strip of damp black soil along Emberlake’s steaming edge. Space is scarce here; the lake’s warmth keeps the earth fertile, but only in a thin band before the land rises into dry, rocky plateau.
The crops, planted late in the season, have taken root surprisingly well in the warm ground, fed by the lake’s heat and the volcanic minerals in the soil. Still, every foot of tilled shore feels like treasure, and arguments have already sparked over whose fields get closest to the water’s edge. You're using all the fertile soil around the lake.
A debate over if we should keep the red bamboo or just harvest it all for more prime soil.
>Keep the red bamboo.
>Harvest all the bamboo for more soil.
>Write in
The air has grown crisper, leaves turned bronze and crimson, but each morning the same veil of silver steam drapes over the settlement. It clings to hair, to clothes, to skin. Some laugh about it, calling it “the hollow’s blanket”. Others mutter that it hides things best left unseen.
What will you do for this month. It's early winter. (Early winter is dangerous with our level of cold protection without the lake)
>Focus on fishing the lake.
>Focus on finding more food sources like herd animals. (Requires leaving lake)
>Focus on make bamboo/stone/obsidian tools and weapons
>Focus on shelter
>Focus on scouting (Requires leaving lake)
Food - Medium/Low
Labor: ~165 people 40 Farmers
Tools: Some basic primitive survival stone tools
Morale: High (hopeful, united, found new home)
Health: Moderate long journey left some weakened (Bonus from Hot Springs)
Knowledge: Average crafting skill base, Low magic skill, 2 skilled specialists
“I saw him. My father. Standing on the water.”
She describes him dead since the great crossing his eyes molten gold, his voice bubbling like boiling water:
“The Hollow’s heart waits. Come below, and the land will feed you through the cold.”
But the strangest part is not the voice it’s the pull she felt in her chest, like a rope tied around her heart, dragging her toward a patch of steaming water far from shore. Even now, she says, she can still feel it.
The chieftain orders a guarded expedition a handful of the strongest settlers, each carrying little more than sharpened bamboo and stone knives. They push a bamboo raft into the mist, following Tahlra’s quiet pointing hand.
The lake grows hotter as they row. The mist thickens until the shore is gone. Then the water begins to glow from below a red, pulsing light rising from a jagged volcanic vent. Strange, crimson bamboo sways around it, its stalks glistening as if wet with blood.
Tahlra doesn’t hesitate. She pulls off her heavy furs and slips into the steaming water. The guards shout, but the mist muffles everything. All they can see are the widening ripples… and that faint golden light sinking deeper toward the vent.
