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The sun had baked the travelers for days, turning lips to cracked parchment and tongues to leather. Winds swept across the endless plateau, carrying only the dust of their own weary march.
Then, as the horizon shimmered, the ground ahead dropped away into a vast crater. The air grew heavy with the tang of minerals and a faint heat that rose from fissures in the earth. At the crater’s heart lay a perfect circle of water deep blue, still as glass its edges steaming where molten veins below kissed the surface.
Shouts rose from the caravan as the first of the scouts broke into a run, stumbling down the rocky slope. They knelt at the edge, scooping up handfuls of the warm, metallic-tasting water. It wasn’t sweet, but it was life.
Around the rim, the settlers could see flat stretches of land perfect for building, protected by the crater walls on one side and the plateau’s sweeping openness on the other. In the mist rising from the water, strange shapes seemed to flicker perhaps tricks of the heat, perhaps something more.
Here, on this wind-swept height, your people knew they had found their new home.
Exploring the lake, you find that many grasses grow around the a few edible ones that help you fight off starvation. Fish jump occasionally from the water disturbing the stillness of the lake. The warmth of the lake stops the cold nights from draining your endurance. No trees can be found by the lake, but we do find a red bamboo coming out form the top of the plant.
What do you focus on for the first month? It's late autumn.
>Focus on finding more food sources like herd animals.
>Focus on fishing the lake.
>Focus farming on the lake shores.
Food - Low
Labor: ~165 people
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
One morning, Tahlra, a young fisher newly learning the lake’s ways, returns early from casting her lines. She looks pale and shaken. She claims the mist itself took form a man’s outline, standing far out on the steaming waters. She swears it was her father, who died weeks ago during the journey. His voice, muffled and echoing, called her name and urged her to “seek the Hollow’s heart.”
Word spreads quickly among the settlers. Some whisper that the lake has chosen her. Others mutter that it’s a warning. The mist lingers longer that morning than ever before.
>Permit Tahlra to follow the vision
>Forbid her
>Send a guarded expedition
