Breaker's Log - Day Eleven
I had slept on the Scrounger, partly for my own sense of security and partly for Fran's. Ogre seemed very friendly and welcoming, but as he had pointed out, a drilling rig is not a safe place. As the fiery orb of Kitalpha rose over the watery horizon, I lifted off to search for the floating home of the people who were attacking the rig.
[Gather Information: +Wits, 6+4 vs 2/6. Strong Hit.]
I flew in a spiral search pattern, centered on the rig, and about two hours later, I found it. Ogre's description failed to really capture the spectacle. Below me was a massive floating city, cobbled together from several repurposed ships and bits of wreckage. Most would consider it ugly, but to me (and to Fran, whose face was pressed against the canopy) it looked an awful lot like home, except on the seas instead of the sands.
I hailed the settlement for permission to land and was cautiously given clearance. When I touched down on the floating pad, a group of people were awaiting us. "Stay in the ship and seal the lock until I get back," I told JONES and Fran.
I walked down the ramp to meet the people who called this place home. The leader of the group stepped forward to greet me. She was a tall, slender woman, and her striking features had a fey quality about them. She regarded me suspiciously before she spoke, her contralto voice lending a serious quality to her beauty.
"My name is Blake, known to my people as Breaker. I am an engineer, from a colony called Ramshackle on the desert world of Mirage. I came to this world on a trade mission, and have been sent here to negotiate a peace between you and the crew of the Abyssal Frontier."
At the mention of the rig, her expression darkened and several of the party raised their weapons. She held up a hand and they relaxed again. "Why should we entreat with one who represents those who soil Mother Ocean?" she asked me.
"I do not represent them, Farseer," I told her. "My interest is only in the preservation of my own colony - a place much like this, in fact. In order to obtain the things we need to survive - food, materials for clothing and shelter, clean water - I was sent to trade with others who do business with them. I am not here to defend or condone whatever actions give you cause for grievance."
[Compel: +Heart, 3+2 vs 2/8. Weak Hit.]
"If peace is what you seek, Breaker," she said to me, "then I invite you to come with me and see why we have cause for war."
[Gather Information: +Wits, 2+4 vs 6/6. Burn Momentum (reset to 2). Strong Hit with Match. +2 Momentum (4)]
Althea took me on a tour of the upper decks of Argosy. She was clearly regarded as some kind of spiritual leader by her people, and she seemed to know each of them by name. Many people in the community looked underfed or unhealthy, but the elderly more so than the others. I saw people with lesions and growths, others clad in clothing stained by bloody spittle, coughing as we passed. I saw mothers holding infants with visible deformities and disfigurements.
Althea greeted each of them, soothing the infirm and speaking compassionately with the mothers. My stomach sank. I began to understand her anger. We stopped beneath a canvas canopy, under which was a rug woven from a material that appeared to be rope or twine. Something like incense burned in a brazier nearby. She sat on a cushion that may have once been the seat of a small watercraft and gestured for me to sit upon the rug.
"Now, Blake, do you see why we make war upon these people? You seek clean water for your colony, yet here on a world of endless ocean, there is none to be had for us. You seek to feed your people, yet here among the vast floating kelp forests and schools of fish, the very food we need to sustain us, also poisons our bodies."
She gestured broadly to the waters before us, a vast expanse of blue and green all the way to the orange horizon. "Once, these waters were clean. The fish were healthy and the kelp forests were abundant. Then these prospectors came. They sought the riches beneath the sea floor, but cared not for the life above it. They spilled their poisons into the seas, and now our people are neither healthy, nor abundant. How can there be peace?"
[Make a Connection (Althea Hunter, Dangerous): +Heart, 1+2 vs 2/8. Weak Hit.]
"I understand, Farseer," I told her. "I truly do. I have seen what this pollution has done to your people, how it harms young and old alike. I believe that it is possible for the off-worlders to work in such a way that your seas and your people are no longer being poisoned. But is there anything that can be done to help heal those who are already afflicted?"
Althea hung her head sadly. "The pollution that harms my people also befouls the very thing that could heal us. There are plants that grow among the kelp forests, plants that have medicinal properties. Before the interlopers arrived, we were in the best of health. But the chemicals that they spill into our waters kill those healing plants. Unless we can put an end to this, our people, the kelp forests, the oceans and the fish that live in them... this very world will die. If you truly seek peace, you must find a way to end this. To restore our world. If they do not stop poisoning our home waters, there will be no peace."
[Secure an Advantage: +Wits, 4+4 vs 1/4. +1 Forward, +2 Momentum (6)]
It came to me, in a flash of inspiration. The solution to the problems of Silvana and Abyssal Frontier were one and the same. The bounty of Petrichor could sustain more than just one oil rig on an ocean world. It would all depend on something the Project might know.
"Farseer Althea, I believe I may have an answer. A solution that can benefit you both. I know what I can do to stop this pollution, and I think I know how to heal your people as well. If I can do these things, is there a way you can live peaceably with the off-worlders?"
I held my wrench before me in both hands, as if to offer it to her. "Farseer Althea, I swear upon my grandfather's wrench, that I will do what must be done to heal the people of Argosy."
[Swear an Iron Vow "Heal the people of Argosy" (Dangerous): +Heart, 5+4 vs 7/10. Weak Hit. +1 Momentum (7)]
[Develop Your Relationship (Althea Hunter) +2 boxes (2)]
"I have had visions of such a world before, of things that might come to be," Althea said. "It was foretold that one would come down from among the stars, to build a bridge between us and the off-worlders. Now I understand the true meaning of these visions. That bridge is not a thing, it is a person. If you can do these things, you will not be the Breaker of our peoples, you will be the Bridger."
[End a Session: Can Breaker find a way to end the pollution of the Abyssal Frontier? Will the Project help Breaker and the people of Argosy? Is harmony between their peoples even possible? +1 Momentum (8)]
