lostdelights

The newcomers healed Danny but Grady was still weak and needed to be left with the people of the Daughter’s Still.

At Riverfort, Phil traded his gear and clothing for local clothing. Danny was more reluctant and traded some of his material for summer clothing only. Weryk purchased two dugouts with his gold but had to leave them behind. When they heard an approaching motor boat, they delayed in confusion but finally ran north into the swamp.

They ran the day but at evening they turned and hoped to ambush the pursuers. But there were none. When they returned and spied on Riverfort, the agents of the Dark were gone and so were their dugouts. After the four were discovered by a local boy who ran back to the settlement, they turned and headed back to the north once more.

After four days in the swamp, they arrived at the town of Hospitality Inn. Danny’s saved gear was noticed, and noted by some of the townspeople, and they realized that they were not safe here either. The Dark had never come as far north as Riverfort. They would not stop looking for them, and so they accepted an offer from the leader of the Sirilan clan of the Bear People to head west and winter with them.

Three Assault Rifles leveled themselves at Suzy and Jenkers, even as Suzy began to have second thoughts. They were ordered to drop their weapons (they did) and lay on the ground (they did). Their arms and legs were bound and they were interrogated. The answers they gave were unsatisfactory; something about a camp upriver where only the two of them lived and grew up. The Captain escalated the interrogation to torture. Suzy had value as a comfort woman for the troops, but Jenkers had no such value and suffered for it. He told them everything they wanted to know, except about Charlie and the Refuge.

The Chief returned to his house and to Phil. He knew now that the strangers were not with the Dark. He left Phil’s arms and legs tied but untied him from the pole. He tried to learn more from Phil, but Phil said little. “If I let you go, the village will suffer,” said the Chief. “If I hide you, the village will suffer. All I can do is turn you in and hope that will be enough.” With that, the Chief left with his people to talk to the Dark Captain. Jenkers’ screams could be heard down on the causeway. But as they left, Phil noticed that one of them had forgotten his knife. He freed himself quickly and fled back to the raft. He loaded Grady and Danny and pulled the raft down to the river, then drifted downriver.

The Chief told the Captain they had captured Phil and the Captain and his Lieutenant came to see. But Phil was gone, and so was the raft that Jenkers had told them about. “Fool!” said the Captain to the Chief. “You can’t even keep a child captive!”

Meanwhile, Wyrik the Skald and Freda the Hunter were trailing Phil, on their Chief’s orders. They would join them, protect them, and learn from them.

Grady and Danny were sick, badly sick, and nearly unconscious. Phil had done what he could, but he couldn’t figure out the illness. Without Grady to guide them, they wouldn’t make it back in time to the Refuge, so Phil, Jenkers, and Suzy decided to try for aid at the nearby settlement.

Jenkers scouted the place from the marshy island where they hid. There was the remnants of a four story building on a quay, but no signs of life in it. It was open to the sky, its girders rusted, with some of the riverfront protected by a wooden wall. Fishermen came out of a protected bay each day in wooden dugouts that were 2-3 m. long. No one went to the building, but there was a trail leading into the woods that people went back and forth on. Suzy and Phil hid from a dugout coming from the east. Two men were aboard, one rowing and the other with some type of rifle across his knees. They looked like the villagers who had shot at them a couple of days ago, and since they were dress in furs and feathers like the ones to the west, they were assumed to be connected. This proved true as the new arrivals entered the bay to shouts that sounded welcoming. Great. Now the settlement was warned against them.

That night they loaded Grady and Danny into the boat and rowed to a spot just north of the settlement where a small creek offered a way into the western woods. There were three areas of flickering lights in the trees to their south. The creek quickly became shallow and though they jumped out and pulled the boat further, they ended up camped about 50 m. from the closest light. They dug a fire pit to boil some water and hid until the next night to scout further.

On the second night, Jenkers explored as best he could. The closest light turned out to be a statue of a man with moustache and beautiful flowing hair that had been curled like Suzy curled her hair when she was younger. He was holding a stick and dressed in plate mail. There was a large man outside between the statue and the next light, which came from a one-story building with two towers. He heard a stone that Jenkers had thrown and asked some questions that Jenkers did not understand. Not seeing Jenkers, the man returned to the building.

The last of the three lights was a two story log building with a tower and a two story attachment. Jenkers peeked in one of the windows and came face to face with the large man carrying a candle. Jenkers ran and the man shouted after him.

Jenkers continued to explore. He slid down one of the creeks to explore the bay area and found about 10 dugouts along the causeway. On the artificial island with the large building, he found a statue of a fisherman holding a large sturgeon. There was writing underneath, but he couldn’t read it.

In the building he heard voices, so he investigated and was sorry he did. Two creatures with ovoid heads and four clawed arms were talking. They sensed him somehow and stopped talking, looking directly at him. Jenkers took off running.

After he had calmed down, he explored where the southern trail led, and found a long extended settlement with 28 log cabins on the east side and 10 tipis on the west. They were obviously inhabited. Just north of the settlement he found an empty wooden building. Peeking in he determined it was largely empty, perhaps a meeting hall of some type. Just north of that was two large statues. One was of a rusty frog about 10 m. long and the other was of a small rusty plane.

The next day, they were awoken by the sound of bells from the building with the second light. Jenkers stripped and covered himself with mud to avoid revealing their origins. Taking a knife and his bow, he was followed by Phil, who took no such precautions. Suzy watched the invalids.

Jenkers and Phil snuck up on the settlement, hoping to find some washing on the line or some to steal. Instead they found the village quite busy, with women and children very active. Unfortunately, Phil was spotted and a woman called, “The Dark! The Dark Ones are here!” causing great panic. A few of the stronger women chased poor Phil, who failed his Run roll and gave up when they caught him. When the fishermen arrived, he was beaten and taken to the two story log building. Jenkers slid back into one of the creeks until it became too cold, and then he moved to the bank, wrapped himself in loam and vegetation and slumbered through the rest of the day. Suzy heard a great commotion, but stayed to guard the two sick men.

Phil was questioned at length by a large man about forty years of age. The man, Hreooryd by name, seemed to be the leader and spoke the High Tongue, though with an odd accent. Phil told Hreooryd that he and his friends [and here a search party was sent out to look for the friends] were from a small village nine days south, and they were not of the Dark but escaping from it to the Light. The people knew not of such a village upriver, but when Phil mentioned it was very small with one elder, and Hreooryd told the others, one of the older women screamed that Phil was one of the children of the Devil, and that he and his comrades came from Devil’s Hill. No one was pleased by this.

Suddenly there was the sound of a motor to the southeast. Phil was left tied up to a post and guarded by two men with instructions to kill him if he made a sound. The bells were rung. Back at the village, Jenkers hoped again for a distraction, but the women and children were running into cabins and tents. Eventually Jenkers made it back to Suzy and the two of them went to investigate.

They found a motorboat and five well-equipped people in black combat gear. Three had assault rifles, one had a flamethrower, and the last had a clipboard where he was making notes as villagers brought supplies for them (fish, produce). One of the fishermen chose this moment to approach holding a large sturgeon of which he was very proud. He refused to give it up and when the man in black insisted, he dropped it and stood over it with a knife. One of the men in black shot him. Jenkers and Suzy, who had been approaching the people in black, halted. They assumed that these people were the Dark and though they were oppressing the locals, they were obviously civilized and should welcome them. They resolved not to mention Charlie or the Refuge.

And there we stopped for the night. By now Phil knows the village is called Birch and the place where they were shot at was Sandy Island.

The old veteran Charlie raised five orphans in a base known as The Refuge, keeping them safe from Raiders and other threats. When they reached eighteen, Uncle Charlie sent them downstream to explore and report back, and hopefully find some supplies or ancient artifacts. A ridge of low mountains lays to the west and a river known only as “The River” flows downstream to the northwest. Grady listened to the river and said it was called, “Alexia’s Drift.”

Charlie’s kids set out from the Refuge on June 19. The river was still cold, but it was ice free and spawning season was just ending. Jenkers drank too much the night before, and had to be carried to the boat, where he slept until the afternoon. Grady did double duty as pilot and lookout as the rest paddled the inflatable boat. At one point he was sure that something man-sized and yellow was stalking them on the north bank, but no-one else could see it.

Phil’s hawk flew along above them as they took various twists and turns, travelling deeper into the maze of waterways that cover the northwestern plain. Whenever they stopped, Grady began fishing. On the first day he was nearly pulled in by an enormous sturgeon and had to cut bait, but on other days he caught a delicious turbout, several tiny dace, a carp, some perch, and a good sized peled. The team did not yet have to resort much to the dried rations that Charlie had supplied.

On the second day they saw a collection of rusted ruins on the south bank and were about to investigate until a metallic creature hoisted itself from the weeds. Walking along on two legs, it turned a long mosquito-like nose towards them. Jenkers was now awake and waved at it, only to receive a slight wound to the groin as it fired at the boat. Suzy tried to shoot it but even with a critical hit and double damage, she did nothing to it. Everyone paddled further and faster.

On the fourth day, they suddenly came upon a settlement of log shacks on the south bank. The people were dressed in skins decorated with brightly colored streamers of cloth and elaborately beaded chestpieces. The residents began firing arrows at the boat while Jenkers tried to communicate with them. The group paddled faster, but Suzy took a wound to the abdomen and Grady took one to the left arm. The raft took three direct shots and began rapidly losing air, which Danny tried to prevent using his hands and mouth. Nevertheless, the boat continued slowly sinking and by the time they had made it to safety a few kms away, it was underwater and so was the party. Suzy’s and Jenkers’ wounds were bathed in the green river water and began to fester that evening. Danny searched for pine pitch and sealed the tears using fabric from his tarpaulin shelter.

They got the boat afloat once more by taking turns blowing it up in the night but did not find dry land to camp at until the evening of the sixth night. They were at this point travelling upstream, based on Jenkers’ advice.

Phil cleansed their wounds and put them on antibiotics, but that night Suzy and Danny became aware of a mountain lion in the underbrush near the camp. Danny shot it in a rear leg with an arrow, which had the unhappy result of causing it to attack. Suzy placed herself in front of Danny and killed it with a blow to the head with her katana, but took another minor wound from its claws, which Phil then tiredly treated as well.

The next day, they decided to head downstream again, hoping to get out of the marsh as soon as possible. In the later afternoon, they spotted ancient structures to the north. A boggy island separated them from it, so they beached and made a fireless camp. Phil reconnoitered across the bog to examine the structures, which proved to be an ancient city. An ancient crane and dock are visible, as well some taller metal structures inland. The city is inhabited by people in the same costumes as those who attacked them a few days before. Phil returned to the group and they began to plan. Here’s the map so far: