1629, Earth Season, Illusion Week, Fireday
Context
In Prax, after leaving New Pavis. On the hunt for the Straw Weaver Clan. Follows after session 6-9, Mud, Glorious Mud, Thin Air, The Dark Details, Don’t Doubt Humakt, “No, you shut up!”, Praxian Flat Lands, and Courting Chaos? The party camps out to rest on a small hill and decides to stay the night.
Events
A little later, having found a small hill, Berra watches glumly as the ground a hundred paces away turns into soup. “So, we’re not *caught out*, but I think we could maybe have an early lunch? Or try to build a boat out of the scenery?”
Xenofos looks at the thorny bushes and single acacia on the crest of the hill. “I am not a boatwright, but it seems like early lunch is more likely to succeed. Bisons might be able to ford that now, but if there is more water upstream that may change rather dramatically.”
“There isn’t an *upstream* is there? It’s all just water. And yeah, we ain’t going into it.” Berra wrinkles her nose.
A deeper area that might be a wadi or might just be a trap for the unwary looks smoother than the rest. The acacia adds nothing to the conversation.
“Any land higher than that place is potential upstream, if it rains there.” Xenofos dismounts from his bison.
Berra thinks about that for a while. “Anyway, we’re here. And if we can’t travel, neither can anyone else, and we’re not running out of water. I could check the news from Boldhome, but if anyone’s got better ideas, let me know?”
“That sounds like the only idea that’s going to do any good,” Maalira says, looking sourly at the surrounding land.
“Well, that and find what fuel we’ve got and get a tent or two up. Varanis’s is big enough for that.” Berra makes no move to help put up Varanis’ large sail-tent. The Vingan has one big enough for them all, if necessary, and definitely big enough for cooking. Instead, she tilts her head slightly, listening to her sword, or to something far away.1Feel free to roll Survival or Homeland Lore (Prax). Xenofos, Survival would be at half for you.
The water here is moving, which means it is draining, which means that it is going to be wet but passable, probably by tomorrow morning. It is Fireday, and fire is strong in the heat of Prax, even in this damp season, and so more rain is possible but not likely.
Maalira gives the water a good look, turning slowly to look at what it’s doing. “I think we’ll be alright by tomorrow, as long as we don’t get much more rain,” she says. “It’ll drain off enough that we can get through, anyway.”
Berra nose-wrinkles. “Well, we might as well get cooking. And maybe think of stories to tell. When the rivers invaded the land and the sky that time, it was probably wetter, and people just got on with things.”
Maalira nods. “Hot food will help.”
Now there is no possible urgency, Berra helps to get a shelter up. The ground is half wet and half dry, for water has been running off it as much as soaking in, and under the damp surface, it is still almost solid. It is as she is partway through stamping a peg into the ground that she pauses. “White Bear’s leaving Boldhome. He’s watching it now.”
Maalira raises her eyebrows. “Headed where? Does he know?”
“It’s likely to be back to his ships. They’re drawn up, but nobody’s told me where. I’m not sure the High Sword knows, and if he knows he doesn’t care enough to let Lord Raven know. But it’s probably out of Sartar, although he might raid on the way.”
Maalira pulls a face. “Can’t he just go without raiding? He’s done enough damage.”
Berra sighs. “I don’t know. He… wait, yeah?” She looks down to the iron sword on her right hip, where her thumb curls over the cross-piece. “Probably not. They already got a lot, and losses were high enough they likely don’t have to share it out much. Or something. I’m getting a report from someone who’s listening in because he’s being allowed to, but nobody’s explaining anything to anyone except if we ask questions at a really good time.”
Maalira scowls. “They should be better at giving reports,” she grumbles gracelessly.
A sputter of water squelches out of the peg-hole as Berra stamps it in, and then with a couple of tugs on one last rope, there is a cover big enough for a fire and a circle of people. Maalira’s robe has an indecorous muddy hem. “My Lord is currently thinking quite a lot about other things, like whether this is a feint, I guess. What if they come back? Will the gate hold again? Which it won’t, but if the city’s trying to get back to normal…” Berra shrugs it off. “We can ask for more, but not yet. He’s working. But the Berserker’s leaving and he thinks it’s real.”
Maalira nods. “I hope he’s right.”
“There wasn’t much burning, so our house should be alright. A day’s warning isn’t a lot, though.”2Insight: Berra is trying not to think about it. She’s thinking about it.
Maalira walks over and gives Berra’s upper arm a light squeeze. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
Berra tenses instantly, and she looks at Maalira with a bit too much intensity. “Yeah. It’s gotta be. Or we make it be again, right?” She has not convinced herself.
“Absolutely. The physical house itself isn’t as important as all of us belonging to it, and we can do that no matter whether it’s the original or something we’ve rebuilt.”
Berra sighs and goes to start moving packs into the dry area. “We should be able to meet up … do Bison float? I suddenly had this idea to make a raft out of lots of bison and sail it across Prax.”
Maalira snorts then dissolves into giggles. When she recovers, she shakes her head. “They do not.”
“Alright. But if they did, would you move by having them paddle, or go with the wind?”
“Oh definitely the wind,” Maalira says, gesturing at the shelter. “We have a sail all ready to go, after all.”
“Oh, yes.” Berra looks and then peers at the small group of bison. “We probably have too much sail. Alright. Do impalas bounce across the top of the water, or do they have little boats?”
Maalira tries to speak with a straight face and is not entirely successful. “I think they just head for high ground too.”
“So I guess High Llamas just get wet and walk.” Berra then looks puzzled. Perhaps she has forgotten the other two Great Tribes, the Sables and the Morokanth.
“I guess so,” Maalira agrees. “Or they just don’t travel when it’s like this.”
“It’s probably really hard to wring out the woolly bits.” Berra dumps down the last of the packs. “The zebras probably need blankets but they’ve got riders for that.” Which is to say, she is done walking out into the damp for a while. “Did I mention I don’t like waiting, sometimes?”
“I have noticed that, occasionally.” Maalira smiles affectionately.
“I’m going to have to meditate, I think. My Sword says I should, and right now I think that’s a good idea.” Berra casts around for somewhere to sit. It’s a pack, or nothing.
“I’ll tell you when the food is ready?” Maalira offers.
Berra gives Maalira a grateful look, and goes to be out of the way, where the luggage is. There, she signally fails to settle to meditation. Still, she keeps trying.
Through all of this, Varanis has been stoically setting up the tent, once again lost to silence. When Berra mentions events in Boldhome, she listens, but whatever is going through her head, she doesn’t seem inclined to discuss.
Kolyey’s been keeping watch for crocodiles and anyone else willing to attack in these conditions. When the tent finally goes up, she will tend to her zebra and come in.
Xenofos wanders restlessly on the top of the hill looking at flowing waters. When he returns, he has a small bundle of twigs and small dead branches with him. “Water settles all the dust so you don’t see the herd before it is quite close. No looking at rising dust right now. And the rain cuts the visibility further.”
Berra nods. “But if anything’s travelling in this, it’s swimming. I don’t think we’re missing much.”
“They are probably staying put in high ground too. I think at least someone of them could see this coming” Xenofos tries to shake his cloak out of the door to get rid some of the excess water. Succes is partial, but he is not dripping as much when he returns back to the tent.
“If they’re where we think, it’s maybe higher than here anyhow?” Berra has at best a shaky notion of geography, but in this case may be correct. “Because we’re closer to the river.”
“That may very well be so.” Xenofos looks to general direction ahead “I know I may have been somewhere there when riding with the tribe, but those changes are quite subtle. Before the lower reaches of the mountain range and Tada’s tumulus at least.”
“But this is Prax. It floods here a lot, dunnit?” Berra presumably means in the wet seasons.
“Along the rivers, yes,” Varanis replies from where she’s sat, wrapped in her cloak and staring towards the water. “We’ll need to watch for crocodiles tonight. The zebras will be especially tempting targets.”
“I guess there are some rivers still in there somewhere. Maalira says it’ll be dry enough to ride tomorrow, as long as it doesn’t rain more.” Berra shrugs.
- 1Feel free to roll Survival or Homeland Lore (Prax). Xenofos, Survival would be at half for you.
- 2Insight: Berra is trying not to think about it. She’s thinking about it.
