Week 01

Era beginning/end

Spring 2: “There’s a giant, man-made structure on the map. Where is it? Why is it abandoned?” A giant metallic crater/bowl on the side of the mountains.   Start a Project: gather lumber, 4 weeks

In a small mountain town, early spring rises on a new year. The sleepy town stretches its collective, and metaphorical. legs from a long and cold winter to a new beginning. As the sun shines on the side of the far mountain range a shimmer catches the eye of a few of the more observant villagers. It is only for a moment, and it happens only in the early morning. The farmers and their farmhands are the first to catch sight of it, the baker has seen it in their early mornings as they set out to get a batch of bread proofing so it is ready to sell when the community awakens. Once Clarence declared that it was a signal, indicating a pleased blessing from their deity who resides in the mountain range. For most though, it wasn’t meant for them.   At first it seemed little more than a curiosity, a piece of parlor talk that is mentioned and passed over frequently but inconsequentially enough. It is harmless, if not vexing, to those who see it. Occasionally young children who have heard about the shimmering “star” on the mountain wake up before the sun to try and make a wish on it. Usually after hearing of it in conversation from the adults in their life in passing . It was far enough away to be a novelty, but nothing more. They will peek their heads out of windows, and sporadically climb on roofs, all hoping to catch a glimpse. Excitable and distractible as children are though, most find themselves distracted by the birds flying overhead or the cats sleeping under baskets and in crates left out overnight. Occasionally though you hear the shrill shriek of sheer excitement and wonder as one catches, through the corner of their eye, the slightest glimpse of the mountain star.   One day early in the spring, a more tenacious group of teenagers who fancied themselves adventurers took it upon themselves to go and look at what is causing this quiet commotion. The whispered questions that are asked and just as quickly dismissed as whimsy. The three boys wait until the danger of frost has passed for the year. They know that it may be more than a single day to venture through the steep mountain paths that have existed for centuries but have been neglected and allowed to fall into disrepair over the last decade. They pilfer the cabinets of their homes for food; breads and cheeses fill their packs as they venture off in the morning Avalon, a twin son of the town's fletcher and archery instructor, found some jam stashed away in a cabinet and brought it along as well. Their parents would believe them off for school and the fields for the day but really they would be trekking across their small corner of the world, trying to find out the truth of the mountain star.   Bartholomew, the son of the black smith is the oldest of the boys. 15 and not far from taking on his apprenticeship with his father (a fact that he was, at best, ambivalent about) he is the most responsible of the older youth within the town. No one would ever think twice about his leaving the home at any time of day or night. But something that no one knows is he doesn’t wish to be a blacksmith, and he wants to make his own mark on the world. He hates the isolation of this small town, its small people, with their small ambitions. He doesn’t want to conquer the world, but he also doesn’t want to leave it without making his mark.   On a late night at the river a week prior he and his two cohorts hatched the plan. Idri and Avalon, the mischievous twins that really constituted about 80% of constable Bob's work, were pontificating about what could possibly be up in the mountains. As Bartholomew listened to them, they postulated that it could be recently exposed veins of metal ore, uncovered by the melting snow and thawing of the mountain. Erosion works that way, especially after hard winters or particularly violent rainstorms. This theory made their investigation something that, even though he wasn’t excited about the prospect of taking on the mantle of blacksmith, felt like his responsibility to partake in. The mountains were safe. They knew this, they had spent many of their days as young boys galavanting through the lower peaks. Nothing lived up there (that they knew of at least), and it had not for quite some time. Still, he quietly took a pair of knives from his fathers workshop. Unfinished, with rough handles hewn from fir wood, sharpened enough to be a deterrent, but not enough that Idri and and Avalon could accidentally cause lasting damage to anything, they would be enough of a defense for what the boys planned on doing.   It seemed impulsive, perilous, and out of character for the older boy, and maybe it was, but it was one of the last foolish boyhood mistakes he felt he was allowed to make, even if the intent was out of obligation and duty.   The sun crested the horizon, and the three boys were off. On their first, and honestly likely last, adventure together. As they approached the foot of the mountains they took one last look at their map to verify where they were to go. It was a rudimentary piece of parchment with rough indications of landmarks, but the closest thing to a map that the boys could find without tipping off the more observant adults in town. They were simple people, but not all of them were simple minded, the boys wouldn’t be able to pull the wool over every set of eyes indefinitely.   It takes a little more than an hour for the boys to get ready to start the climb through the central ridge of the mountains. They stopped to rest for a bit in a small creek that flows down the mountain and to the south, where it eventually meets a river. Fresh water is a dwindling resource in these parts of the world. Ever since the covenant of mann had isolated their little sanctuary town from the rest of the world. Trade was limited, isolated nomadic peoples would occasionally stop for food, but outside of that new-comers were almost entirely non-existent, as were new resources. Having this small little fresh water oasis almost made the trip worth it in its own right.   The walking, the walking felt like it took forever. Even for hearty and active young men it was difficult to estimate how much walking would drain their stamina. It wasn’t just the walking though, it was the fact that most of the walking took place on old wooden outcroppings that had fallen into disrepair. Each step they took was a gamble, the boards cracked and creaked under their feet threatening to break and have them plummet to an untimely demise with every inch they spent slowly encroaching forward towards their destination. Avalon eased the journey singing lightly under his breath with each step. Familiar songs that had been passed down to them from their community. Some were comforting, others invigorating, all of them well performed until his brother lobbed a rock at his side and told him to shut up.   On the third day they awoke to the shimmering in the distance being within reach. As they emerged from the last curve they saw something on the side of the mountain. It wasn’t a metal vein or a magical deity, it was just a crater unlike anything they had ever seen before. It was almost like something had taken a bite out of the side of the mountain and littered it with metal flakes that caught the early morning suns and refracted the light into the world in every direction. It was alien to them, metal in such a staggering amount had never been witnessed by the adolescents in their short lives. There were chunks of it the size of a barn, refined, smooth, and mirror finished.   This was a discovery worthy of telling the elders of. As they neared the crater, intent on grabbing a piece of the debris, they heard a low growling from the tree line on the other side of the mountain. It was faint, and could almost be mistaken for the wind, until they saw them. A group of lumbering beasts moving through the trees. They were too far to see what they were, but their movement shifted the trees, and the forest seemed to respond simply to their presence. It was time to leave and go home, they grabbed a singular chunk of debris from the crater and ran down the mountain. The journey home was more panicked, though less physically draining then their way there.   Upon their return the reaction started as relief. The town had been concerned about their whereabouts, worried something had happened to them, or worse that they had been abducted and conscripted into the armies of the Covenant of Mann. They were of age for that, and it was not entirely unheard of. It soon morphed into anger at the reckless decisions they made and how they left everyone to worry about them without so much as a word about where they were going.   Bartholomew recounted what they found. The crater filled with large chunks of forged metal, the missing piece of mountain that seemed to have exploded around a central nucleus. The large creatures meandering at the treeline near the far foot of the mountains. He pulled the chunk of metal out of his satchel and handed it to his father. He told him that there were cart loads of these things, some the size of their own home. His father took the metal, exclaimed that nothing lives past those mountains, and slammed it into their trade stand in anger, leaving it slightly wedged into the oaken stands top.   And there it stayed, forgotten…     Project: Gather Lumber   After the long unforgiving winter, the stockpiles of wood that are usually plentiful for the town had started to run low. Both personal and communal wood stores had been all but depleted just to keep hearths warm and food cooked. Fortunately this is not a new problem, and every spring an early order of business is to cut, store, and cure wood for the next year. There was a forest not far from the town that was used for this express purpose. The people were careful to not harvest to much, and never from the same area of forest two years in a row. Customarily in the fall, part of the festivities included children going into the harvested area of wood and planting new seeds to hopefully grow into trees to replenish what had been used.