"What would we do without you Jeeves? You're one in a million!"
"Thank you, Jeeves.”
Jeeves nods his head. “One endeavors to provide satisfaction.”
Kallina is pleased to find that she is feeling recovered from the new planet flu as she examines the gourds and Skur Vonn feeds one to the younger baby. She finds that they are too tough and fibrous to be easily eaten by themselves. Under their skins, they are full of tiny round nodules.
Bertie grimaces as she examines the sensorpak. It was knocked around pretty badly, somewhere between the sand shark attack and the sprint through the storm. It has not recorded any information, and will need repairs before it is fully operational.
The party fills the remaining space in their carryalls with gourds and smoked meat, not yet sure if either is safely consumable. Hoping the babies will follow, they prepare to head south.
Jeeves says, “Mr. Goran remains insensate, and will need to be carried. If we could find two sticks of adequate length and solidity, we could fashion a travois, but our current situation offers little in the way of trees.”
Taking turns carrying Goran, the party is slowed, losing the advantage gained by the newly-smoothed landscape. Additionally, while the babies continue to follow, the need naps often, and the party must either stop or carry them.
As the sun rises, the white glow on the southern horizon seems brighter and nearer than it was yesterday.
:: Current Time: 11:30:00, Serena Dawn Ship Time, March 28 ::
:: Day 004 since planetfall. ::
:: Location : Coordinates 94.5:04:00, the Planet Volturnus ::
By the time the party stops for their mid-day rest, they are exhausted. The air somehow seems even drier than the already arid atmosphere they experienced yesterday. Their lips are chapped, and they are developing blisters in all sorts of inconvenient places. Muscles are sore and cramped from carrying Goran and trudging through sand. Skur Vonn has had a particularly hard time of it, having slept poorly the night before, and even with his sungoggles cranked to maximum polarity, the unremitting light has given him a splitting headache.
Jeeves sets up the pop tents, and you gratefully crawl into the shaded interior and fall quickly asleep.
Too soon, you wake up to the afternoon leg of your journey. Your bodies protest against heading out again into the awful heat, but you carry on. The white glow is brighter, almost blinding. You can almost make out features in the distance—if only you had taken the macrobinoculars from camp! Ah, well. You’ll reach it, eventually.
:: Current Time: 16:30:00, Serena Dawn Ship Time, March 28 ::
:: Day 004 since planetfall. ::
:: Location : Coordinates 94.5:07:00, the Planet Volturnus ::
After hours more difficult slog, you see that there is some sort of shining white plain stretching out ahead of you. It takes Bertie some time to recognize what she is looking at—salt flats. The brilliant white glow is from a crust of salt covering the ground.
Formed by drainage from large saline bodies, salt flats can stretch for hundreds of miles, and are typically too harsh an environment to support any plant or animal life. There is almost certainly an ocean on the other side of this expanse of white, but you do not know if you will survive the journey to it.
- Salt Flats.png (1.92 MiB) Viewed 656 times
As this terrible thought is sinking in, Kallina’s alert ears pick up a sound. It is very faint, and she needs a period of intense silence from the party for her to be sure that she is hearing anything, but… yes! Its is! Somewhere, off to the north, she hears the regular thrum of an engine, already fading into the distance.
Feel free to roll various knowledge checks to gain more information (can the meat be eaten? Can you identify the type of engine?) and to suggest better logistics for things like carrying Goran.
PCs
Kallina: 2 of 5 Hits.
Bertie: 3 of 4 Hits.
Skur Vonn: 2 of 4 Hits.
Goran: 1 of 4 Hits. (stable but unconscious)
NPCs
Jeeves: 2 of 2 Hits.
What do you do?!
Next Update: Monday
