Scene 12: The First Breach

There's a low hum of activity in the settlement (it should be called as such, really) when you come to again. You see conversations happening with slow, calm signing and hear the low burble of scavengers chattering at each other. A few glance your way as you get to your feet, hefting your lance up, but then go back to ignoring you and resume their business. It's more than a bit odd to have their trust, but you're grateful for it. You'd rather not overstay your welcome though.

Prior to that... you glance around the settlement, trying to spot any semblance of a medic's area. You don't see any, but you do notice a scavenger scampering past with a bundle of leaves tucked firmly under its arm, clearly on a direct path to something. Carefully picking your way through the scavengers around you, you follow it to its destination.

You're led to a small nest on the edge of the settlement, one that's currently occupied by a heavily bandaged scavenger. It glances up at you wearily as you approach, but doesn't move away as you crouch down next to it, being careful to stay out of the way of the other scavenger as it busies itself with changing the dressings. You're glad to see that the injured scavenger from the previous cycle survived the lizard's attack, though you wince as the medic scavenger peels back the old bandages, revealing the deep, jagged gash underneath. It'll heal, but... not easily. But there's not much you can do but hope for a better outcome.

The injured scavenger blinks at you a few times, then gains a hint of recognition to its gaze. It lifts a dark grey arm and points at you with a drowsy chatter, an action that draws a few quick, sharp signs from the other scavenger. It lowers its arm, huffing, but scratches at the ground listlessly. You creep a little closer, and it scrabbles for you, patting the ground aggressively for any part of you that it can reach, then grabbing onto your wrist as its hand lands on yours. The action draws a sharp bark out of the medic scavenger, and the dark grey scavenger stills, opting to stare at you instead.

You meet its gaze uncertainly. You don't know enough of their language to inquire about its condition. It seems to have a general understanding of why you're here, though, and it clenches its hand around yours as the medic scavenger ties fresh bandages—the leaves you saw earlier, you note—around its wound. Not once does it stop staring at you.

With a few more firm signs directed at the dark grey scavenger, the medic scavenger scampers away, leaving the two of you alone. The dark grey scavenger—it has a reddish tint to its fur, actually. Some sort of erythrism?—lets go of your hand and starts signing at you. Or rather, repeating a sign over and over again. "Thank you," you can only guess it's saying, but it repeats the word. "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

You can't respond. You don't have the vocabulary for it, nor do you know what you actually want to say regardless. But you gently grasp the scavenger's hands and lower them, in a silent plea to get it to stop moving and aggravating its wounds. It blinks at you questioningly, and all you can muster is a gentle squeeze of its hands.

You decide to try saying something anyways, with what little you know. "No... thank you," you say clumsily. "Yes friend." You gesture at its wounds. "Dangerous?"

It blinks a few times, evidently processing your response to it. "Yes," it eventually responds. Then it signs a few more words, ones you can't decipher. Could be... "But don't worry"? "It is fine?" Or maybe it's not even a positive sentence. You really don't know.

With a quiet puff of air, it grabs your hand again, carefully stroking at the sleeves of your cloak. Some attempt at... grooming you, you presume? You don't attempt to stop it, and it brushes at you for a few moments before pulling back and simply saying again, "Thank you."

You should really get going now. You carefully extract yourself from conversation with the dark grey scavenger, and head towards the exit of the settlement. To your surprise, there's a party of scavengers waiting there for you; the scavenger kit is perched on its parent's back, and it waves at you as you approach. The brown scavenger from last cycle is here as well, and it chirps in greeting as you approach.

They seem to be here to... escort you out? As far as you can tell anyways. The leader scavenger has its gaze fixed on you, its eyes betraying neither fondness nor distrust. Its child is far more eager to have you here, though.

>I guess the only thing you can do now is have them escort you for now.

You don't object as the scavengers lead you out of their home, stepping across the still wet soil-mud mixture and climbing up out of the burrow. You sigh, but resolve yourself to getting muddy again. At least—at least—you won't get as coated as before, since there is less rain here.

The escort party does not make any particular comment about your presence as you all walk towards Five Pebbles' facility grounds proper. The brown scavenger does stick rather close to you, glancing at you every so often, but it does not say anything, hand clenched firmly around its spear as it scampers along. You can't really decipher the glances it gives you, but you decide not to ask. You'd rather get to Five Pebbles' part of the farm sector sooner rather than later.

The growing towers slowly give way to flat growing plots arranged in terraces, creating a considerably steep staircase upwards towards the east. You climb the steps easily, but turn and lend a hand to the scavengers as they scrabble at the eroding stone and metal. You swipe your fingers through a nearby plot as you pass it, testing the soil quality. Aside from being more waterlogged than is ideal, the soil still retains most of the nutrient mix that was present when these plots were fully functional. Much like your side of the farm sector, then, things haven't eroded here as much, but that can't be guaranteed as you move farther east.

The scavengers stop and gather in a cluster as you reach the first flat part of the farm terrace. The scavenger kit takes the opportunity to scramble off its parent's back, skittering up to you with wide eyes. "Glow?" it asks, reaching up at you. It adds an extra tilt of its head that you have to assume is an addition of "please." "Glow, please?"

You crouch in front of it, pulling the pearl out as requested. The kit's eyes immediately light up, and it bounces in place excitedly as you read the pearl once again, causing light to dance across the surface of the crystalline structure. Despite everything, a little flicker of warmth flashes through you as the kit giggles, reaching for the pearl.

You don't stop it as it closes its hands around the pearl and begins lifting it out of your hands, but you do reach out and catch the pearl as it slides out of the scavenger kit's grasp. More carefully this time, you gently close the kit's hands around the pearl, ensuring it has a firm grip before letting go of it. It stares down at the diamond sphere, seeming a little startled about possessing it, and then glances up at you questioningly.

Folding your arms around yourself, you sigh. It's... really not like you need the pearl. You have the consultation log read into your memory, after all. It's just a physical keepsake. And this would mean more to the scavenger kit anyways, even if you're not going to be here to make the pearl glow for it anymore.

The brown scavenger walks up, gently taking the clearly-too-heavy pearl out of the kit's hands and handing it to its parent, who cautiously accepts the gift. Then, after giving you a few quick blinks, it drops its weapons on the spot, taking off its weapon harness and holding it out to you. As you stare dumbfounded at it, it chitters in frustration and shoves the harness into your hands, forcibly closing your fingers around it. It concludes the interaction with a rapid fire barrage of signs, and though you don't understand its full rant, you do catch the signs "friend" and "thank you."

You slowly fold the harness up and tuck it into your pockets. You're sure the brown scavenger would refuse to leave until you accepted the gift. "Thank you," you say, once again cursing your limited vocabulary. If you had the words for it, you would have so much more to tell them. (-1 pearl; +1 weapon harness)

The kit, now perched on its parent's back again, waves at you as the escort party leaves the way it came. You sit and watch them go, adjusting your visual focal length to keep track of them until they're fully out of your visual range. When you look down at your hands, you find that your fingers are tangled in the harness the brown scavenger gave you; you've been playing with it without thinking.

This is more than you ever expected from interacting with scavengers. Far, far more. You... understand why Silver loved them so much now. The more you see of them, the more you understand.

After a few more moments of staring at the now bare horizon, you don the harness. It's made of some sort of rope, made of... dried and cured plant matter, as far as you can tell. You have to unravel it a little, since it was clearly woven for a scavenger and not something your size, but you manage to rewind it appropriately and get it to sit rather snugly across your chest. You then carefully slot your lance in, waiting for it to slide out or fall over, but it doesn't. This actually works really well to free up your hands while still keeping your lance close.

You walk around for a bit to get used to the feeling of having your lance on your back, then look towards the east, trying to gain your bearings. To the far east is Five Pebbles' superstructure; even from here, you can see his can looming. It's a good distance away, at minimum a few cycles worth of travel. You'd best get going, especially since you don't know anything about Five Pebbles' facility grounds beyond his part of the farm sector.

>Finally, some noticeable progress. No time to be dawdling, let’s a go!

You quickly dust yourself off before continuing onward. The sky is clear above you as you make your way up the next set of terraces, and you scowl up at the clouds. What in the world is he doing? The better the weather is, the more suspicious you get. There's no way he knows you're coming yet.

It does remind you to keep an eye out for Five Pebbles' overseers. Yours didn't often go to the edge of your facility grounds, mostly because you never needed them to go there. You don't know whether he sends his out, though based on what you know of him, you'd be surprised if he did deliberately order them to come here. You hold no hopes about whether he even listens to his own overseers.

So far, though, none of his overseers are here to greet you. What you do find is worm grass, growing in big, broad swathes across the abandoned growing plots. Hardly an issue for you at this point, but the more intriguing aspect is the lone tuber that is also growing here. You wouldn't expect the plots here to have deep enough soil to support the growth of something as large as these tubers, so it must have spread from its natural range.

>You could probably reach that tuber and take it. Be careful though, don't wanna fall in some worm grass.

The grass is easy to deal with now that you have your lance. Making wide sweeping cuts with your lance as you walk, you cleave a safe path through to the tuber. The neighboring worm grass hungrily devours the severed strands, all but ignoring your footfalls as you walk past, and you sweep the remainder of the cut worm grass to either side to dispose of it. These crops were definitely not this eager to consume everything in its vicinity when your creators were still here. A strange adaptation to these harsh climates, but a necessary one, you suppose. This form of cannibalism is merely a means of recycling nutrients.

The tuber is much less remarkable in comparison, though there are still several points of interest to it. It's smaller than average, and the shoot sprouting from the top of the tuber takes up most of the plant, bearing more violet leaves than is typical for this species. The tuber itself is thin, coiling up on itself instead of widening in girth. You're not clear on the exact growth cycle of these tubers, but you have to assume that this tuber's abnormal growth is a result of it adapting to the harsh conditions it has to survive in.

More strangely, though, is that this tuber is out here alone. You gaze off farther east; there's a cluster of tubers a ways out, but still a substantial distance away from this one. It's also partially growing into the plot instead of inside of it. You walk around to the other side of it, flicking aside the shards of broken stone around the base of the tuber with your lance. Clearly it propagated here by accident, though why, you couldn't say.

The tuber curls in on itself in a manner that it creates a small cavity within itself. You bend down to peer inside out of some semblance of curiosity, just in case there might be something inside. The waxy skin of the tuber provides some decent shielding from the rain, after all.

Instead of a critter, a blue overseer pops out as you get close to the entrance of the cavity. You stare at it, a little dumbfounded. Why was it... inside the tuber?

>GET IT! BEGIN THE DOGPILE!

Several of your overseers immediately swarm the tuber, surrounding Five Pebbles' overseer. It spins in place, looking around at your overseers, all of which are larger than it. It then looks up at you, twirling its tendrils almost pleadingly. You slot your lance back into your weapon harness, crossing your arms and glaring down at it. You're not doing this thing any favors. You're not killing it either, because that would only alert him faster.

It seems to understand despite you not saying anything, and it turns back to your closest overseer, reaching out one tendril to connect with your overseer. As their tendrils brush against each other, you get a brief message:

"Hello :("

You repress a snort.

>Ask it why it was inside the tuber. Does it know the secrets of the tuber? Does it speak the language of the tuber? Can we get a pass into the tuber secret society? Why is this tuber alone? Does it have no friends? Does—

You opt to lean against the tuber, but continue staring down at Five Pebbles' overseer as your own overseers interact with it. You have nothing to say to it, nothing that you specifically want to tell Five Pebbles. He will know you're coming, and there is nothing he can do about it but sit and rot in his chamber. You hope he seethes.

Your overseers clearly have a lot to say though, as one eagerly whips its tendrils around and latches onto the smaller blue overseer. The blue overseer twirls its tendrils, pulling your overseer's with it, and it responds:

"Tuber language? Don't know any. Just out here scouting alone. Others nearby."

>Loom menacingly and demand to know what the heck is up with Pebbles.

Another of your overseers pops up next to the first, bumping it out of the way. It towers over the smaller blue overseer, tendrils spinning menacingly before grabbing onto it. There's a clear note of fear in the resulting message:

"No hurt please :( he doesn't listen to us anymore. Don't know what to do. Left on our own now."

>Hewwo? Mr. Five Pebbles awe you there UwU

Your second overseer lets go, and a third one sidles up, wiggling early before it touches tendrils with the blue overseer. You huff briefly at the message it sends, but you make no move to stop it. The blue overseer hesitates briefly before responding:

"He's not listening :( may listen because you're here though."

>Fastest/easiest way to five pebbles? Preferably without too much worm grass or large carnivores thank you.

A fourth overseer, cautiously sliding over to the blue overseer, before warily touching tendrils with it. It pauses, glancing off to the east, and then points with its tendrils:

"There. Go east. Go up."

You glance that way yourself, tracing the distant outlines of Five Pebbles' factory sector. Straight east would mean directly cutting through the smokestacks, which... You glance down at your feet, which very much lack articulation, unlike your hands. Realistically, you'll need to skirt around and stick to the ground. Ideally you would limit the climbing to the walls of his superstructure, where the ample scaffolding should make it easier for you to ascend.

You shuffle your feet against the dusty floor. Hopefully, anyways.

>Maybe we can get it to tell us about the area? It’s bound to have plenty of information on this place. Maybe it’s got information on Moon’s Overseers as well, if any are left.

And one more, taking the place of the last and deftly touching tendrils with the blue overseer. It wiggles a little before responding:

"Don't know. Don't really see them around now. Not sure where they went. Others might know more."

>Can we keep it? Or at least have it tag along for a cycle?

Your overseers abruptly clump together, aggressively discussing amongst themselves. One reacts angrily, waving its tendrils furiously in the air even as the rest plead and beg, but eventually it concedes. All five turn to look at you questioningly.

You hiss in disgust at the question they proceed to ask. “No. Absolutely not.” Keep it? It’s not a pet, and it’s definitely not something you want hanging around you. It will only attract attention from Five Pebbles’ other overseers, and you’d rather not deal with them at all.

One of them turns and clasps tendrils with the blue overseer again, who spins its own tendrils thoughtfully, responding:

“He won’t notice. Not paying attention. Too busy with his own thoughts.”

“That doesn’t make it better,” you mutter, scowling at the blue overseer. “You’re still affiliated with him, and at any moment you can leave and—”

“You can’t stop me either.”

You draw your lance, and the overseers scatter. Distantly, you receive another message:

“I will stay out of your way. Will point out threats for you?”

You glare around. You don’t know where the blue overseer went, nor your own. Killing it would still be a bad idea too, even if it’s tempting right now. And having a longer ranged overseer around would be useful…

“Fine.” You keep your lance in your hands, but lower it. “But if you get too close, you’re asking for it.” You glare around again, trying to look for the blue overseer to no avail. “And it is on sight next cycle.”

>Ok, we’re making no progress by talking. Let’s just get a move on, or am I being too hasty?

You grunt, tucking your lance under your arm. At least one of your overseers have sense. You’ve stood around for long enough.

And so onwards you go. The grass is relentless, progressively dominating more and more of the ground the further east you go, forcing you to cleave a safe path through with your lance. There are more of the tubers as you go too, though—you briefly glance over each one you pass—they’re all like the first one you saw. Some dimple when you touch them, indicating that the soil they’re growing on is too waterlogged for ideal growth. Yet, they are here regardless. To be expected, really, with the lack of management.

In the distance, you see more rain deer ambling past, moving mostly in pairs, or, occasionally, threes. The foals are harder to spot among their older brethren, most looking to be about the same age as the one you encountered a few cycles ago. They bend down a few times, pausing briefly, before resuming. Presumably they’re grazing, considering they seemed rather eager to eat the grass you’d offered.

Distracted by the deer, you completely forget about the blue overseer being part of your entourage until it beams you a message through your overseers:

“Above you. Hide.”

As if on cue, a shadow sweeps over you. You stiffen, instantly dropping into a crouch. The nearest tuber is a short distance away, and you scramble over to it, pressing yourself up against its waxy surface. It’s far too short to be a good hiding spot, but it’s better than nothing.

You hear a thump, then gas being expelled noisily, gushing out of not-quite-metallic thrusters. Then, an eerie silence, broken only by a quiet grunt. The grass around you writhes, fumbling for any available part of you, but you don’t dare swing your lance in case you accidentally make a noise.

You recognize this beast. A vulture—or as Wind would put it, gas birds. You weren’t expecting one to come this far north though, since they don’t normally visit your half of the farm sector, but—you risk a peek around the tuber, catching a glimpse of a wing dragging across the ground—this one evidently had other plans.

>As much as we all marvel at your athletic superiority, I highly doubt you’d be able to take beakface out there on in a fair fight. We’ve still got those flashbangs, maybe one of those will stun it long enough for you to clip its wings?

If you weren’t in active danger, you would have snapped at the overseer. Regrettably, it is right, and has a good suggestion. Carefully tucking your lance under one arm, you reach into your pockets for one of your flashbangs, turning it over in your hands. It’s been a while since you harvested this, but it still glows faintly when you shake the seed pod. Hopefully this will be enough to produce a bright enough flash for your purposes.

You peer around the tuber again. The vulture is closer to you now, dragging itself slowly through the swathes of worm grass with its massive wings, slender head sweeping from side to side for any sight of you. You… don’t remember how good their vision is. Good enough to have noticed you, at least, but you don’t know more beyond that. If you could ask Wind—

Maybe you breathed wrong, or maybe the tuber creaked, but the vulture’s gaze suddenly snaps to where you are. And then it gallops towards you, at a speed you weren’t aware was even possible for something of its size, let alone through worm grass. In the fraction of a heartbeat it’s already closed half the distance between the two of you, grunting and groaning at you as it approaches. You stand, stepping to the side to be clear of the tuber, and you fling the flarebomb at its face. (-1 Flashbang)

Fortunately for you, the flarebomb connects, exploding on impact with the vulture’s strange mask; you hear it whistle in pain. Unfortunately for you, however, you’re close enough to the flarebomb that the flash partially blinds you as well, the sudden influx of light searing through your visual faculties in a dazzling, dizzying burst of white and blue. Swearing to yourself, you reconfigure your visual settings as fast as you can just so you can see something. Your vision will recover, but it’ll take time.

The vulture is faring no better, and it staggers across the ground—as much as you can tell anyway, while it’s currently just a dark blur moving across your vision. You run towards it, trying to spot where its wings are in its flailing. You can feel the gusts of air buffeting you as it flaps its wings, and though its wings are currently just dashes of black, you take the chance and swing as widely and wildly as you can.

It works out in your favor, and you feel flesh tearing as your lance continues through your arced swing. The vulture groans in pain, twitching away from you. You backpedal, holding your lance out in front of you as you reconfigure your vision again, shaking your head. You got its wing, you think? You can’t properly tell, but you only see one thin, flapping thing attached to the vulture now.

>STAB IT STAB IT STAB IT STAB IT STAB IT STAB IT

Good thing your lance has range, because now more than ever, you do not want to be right next to the mandibles of a very angry creature. You can’t make out any details still, but you’re able to identify the flailing of the vulture’s head and neck, and you approach, lance at the ready. It doesn’t seem to have recovered yet either, so you should have a clean shot at its neck, and you ready a swing to…

… why are you killing it, again? You’ve already mortally wounded it, do you need to do more? If you were to run now, you doubt it could chase you. Of course that is assuming you cut its wing off, but—

The vulture roars, head snapping towards you, and instinctively you thrust your lance forward. The bladed tip sinks into the vulture’s flesh with a squelch, and a gush of blood, a dark, flickering liquid, spews out from around your lance. Straining briefly, you yank your weapon out, staggering back a few steps as the vulture gurgles and slumps over. Blood sprays out of its neck where you punctured it, and it weakly flails its remaining wing.

You quickly glance away from the dying beast. Why did you do that? It was about to attack you, but…

A distant chirp sounds, the sound of a scavenger. Despite the soon-to-be corpse, you repair your vision, resetting the color balancing and light sensitivity settings of your visual faculties. There’s a group of three approaching, carefully picking their way through the swathes of worm grass. The clouds above them are a dull grey already; you must have spent more time out here than you realized. Still avoiding looking at the remains of the vulture, you swipe your lance through the nearby grass, trying not to notice how it stains what it touches black. This is what the lance is for, after all, but even still…

>We should see what we can get from the vulture. Best not to let all the effort go to waste eh?

You'd... really rather not, but you agree. Besides, you've seen scavengers carry around the bone masks that vultures grow on their faces. You could probably remove this one's mask before the grass claims its body.

You slowly approach said body, trying your hardest not to look at your own handiwork. It's dead now, lying still on the ground without so much as a twitch, and its head is stretched out over the ground. The grass is already making quick work of the corpse, clumps of strands hungrily attaching to the available flesh and beginning the absorption process. You cut away the strands closest to the face, freeing up space for you to slide the tip of your lance under the mask, and you twist it down to pop the mask off.

The vulture's tissues audibly tear as the mask comes free, and you cringe as you bend down to retrieve the mask. It is not bone, as you had assumed prior, but rather some sort of composite material that is partially ossified. The remnants of the blood vessels still attached to the mask coat your fingers with a light purple as you turn it over, taking in the underside of the mask. It seems to be a highly modified operculum, one that has grown to fit the face of the vulture. Not particularly useful for its original purpose these days, you imagine, though it's strong and durable enough that you can envision the mask withstanding a few projectiles.

You glance over at the rest of the vulture. You... can't use the rest of this, really. And you'd much rather not even try. The scavengers, which have stopped at the edge of the thickest swathes of worm grass, don't seem particularly interested in the remains of the vulture either, though all three are eyeing your mask with a definite degree of interest.

>Uh oh. The sky is grey. That’s probably bad. Maybe follow the scavengers? They might be heading towards shelter.

You wanted to converse (or… try to converse?) with them regardless, so you begin making your way over to them. One holds up a spear cautiously as you approach, but you show the mask to them, following it with a hasty signing of, “Me friend. Not dangerous.”

All three scavengers stop and blink at you as you sign at them, clearly baffled that you know their language. One of them, a light grey scavenger with soft yellow-green eyes, does a flurry of signs at you, but the only thing you understand is that it’s asking you something. You try to piece together your limited vocabulary to come up with some semblance of a response, but nothing usable comes to mind. Defeated, you offer the mask to the scavengers instead.

One of the other scavengers reaches for the mask, but hesitates, rustling its jet black spines nervously. It does the sign for ‘friend,’ then flicks its hand, cocking its head cautiously at you. Is it… asking about trading? “Yes trade,” you respond, extending the mask to the black scavenger.

It accepts the gift, clutching the mask in both hands as it blinks uncertainly at you. The third scavenger, sporting dark grey fur with reddish tips, offers a spear to you, but you gently push its hand away. “No,” you say, and gesture to your lance. You don’t really need their weapons anymore.

The three scavengers share a glance, then blink up at you, equal parts confused, curious, and afraid. You glance up at the sky briefly, noting the still darkening clouds. You could try to ask them about this, but… You point up at the sky, then mime the falling of rain, and… how do you imitate shelter? You try to shield your head, but you’re painfully aware that you’re severely lacking the vocabulary necessary for this conversation.

Dumbfounded, the scavengers stare at you. You try again, miming the rain. "Dangerous," you assert, emphasizing the notion with several jabs of your hand. Then you cover your head, crouching slightly. "Not dangerous?" you finish hesitantly. You really don't know how to ask this.

The light grey scavenger blinks rapidly. It sweeps its hands down like you did, but then swings them out to the side, and then cocks its head questioningly. If this isn't the sign for rain, you don't know what else they could possibly use.

Can’t hurt to try at this point. You all need shelter. “Yes, rain,” you say, repeating its sign. “Rain dangerous.”

The scavengers share a look again, and then engage in a quick conversation. You recognize the look of some of the signs; the group of seven scavengers last cycle used some of the same words, so they’re probably discussing how much of a threat you are. You can’t blame them, especially when your vocabulary is too limited for you to be able to communicate with them better. The gift of the vulture mask probably helped gain you some favor, at least?

They seem to come to an agreement after a few moments, as they stop conversing and turn to blink at you again. The dark grey scavenger then makes a beckoning motion at you, and the three turn and begin scampering back the way they came. It’s fairly obvious that they’re asking you to follow.

>Keep following them! And don’t feel bad for killing the vulture, it was gonna do the same thing to you anyway! Good thing you had your trusty LANCE OF DOOM to keep it at bay, eh?

Well, yes, it was a matter of self-defense, but… You stare at the vulture’s mask, clasped firmly under the black scavenger’s arm as the scavengers skitter ahead of you, swerving around the patches of worm grass. You just have to question whether that was necessary.

Heading further east, both the grass and the tubers begin to thin out in density. A second layer of terraces begins, with larger plots and bits and pieces of ruined machinery sticking out from between the panels, but it’s easy to look away from, easy to side step as you’re climbing after the scavengers. They don’t flinch at the sight either, and you wouldn’t expect them to, given how they likely grew up amidst the ruin. You don’t know if it even registers as ruin to them, even.

But it certainly does to you, because you stop in your tracks as the remains of this next part of the farm sector come into view. Steel beams and scattered shards of delicate machinery decorate the dusty floor, lying around chunks of bent, twisted metal, their original form and function unrecognizable. This—you search around in your memory—is the nectar subsector. Used to be the nectar subsector, for growing nectar lilies and collecting their sweet liquid. You never had your own nectar subsector, though you and Five Pebbles had dual control over this back in the day. You’d stopped paying attention to it though, and clearly, so has he.

The scavengers have halted next to the largest hunk of the wreckage, waiting with expectant, confused gazes. You approach, trying and failing to take the extent of the damage in. The nectar sector was always the most elaborately constructed of the three subsectors, housing the most intricate machinery to gently harvest the coveted nectar from the delicate flowers. It was all automated, of course, and self-repairing. The constructions here should have held up under the unyielding rains in most situations, but there’s nothing left here. If any of the nectar lilies survived the collapse of the nectar sector, it would be a miracle.

You lift one of the metal shards nearest to you, looking for any evidence of the work of the self-repairing mechanisms. And you find some, you see the micro-sutures of the metal stitching itself together. And yet…

You toss the metal aside with a sigh. And yet, everything decays. It’s still astonishing to see the rate at which it occurs.

Dusting your hands off, you finally approach the scavengers, who all blink up curiously at you. The black scavenger signs something at you, sweeping one of its hands in a circle while pointing at you with its other hand and cocking its head. You stare down at it, trying to parse what it could be asking. Pointing at you obviously means it’s referring to you, but then…?

The light grey scavenger breaks off from the rest of the group, scurrying underneath one of the metal beams and into the belly of the wreckage. The dark grey scavenger crawls up to you, craning back to look at your lance. It points at the lance, then curls its hand into a fist, miming a stabbing motion, then sweeps its hands outwards in a wide arc, cocking its head as it does so. You slowly reach for the lance, pulling it out of your harness, but the scavenger backs away in alarm.

The black scavenger reaches over and pulls one of the spears out of the dark grey scavenger’s weapon harness, pointing to it and then repeating the stabbing—oh. Spear. Big spear? “Yes,” you try. You point to your lance. “Big spear.” Close enough to one anyways.

The dark grey scavenger blinks rapidly at you. Then it points at your lance again and scratches at the ground eagerly. You’ve seen them do that in the past when they’re clearly interested in something another scavenger is holding, which… does this scavenger want your lance?

Before you get to test your theory, the light grey scavenger returns, bringing with it a cluster of other scavengers, all of which blink at you with equal amounts of curiosity and fear. The light grey scavenger signs something you can’t see, but it seems to calm the other scavengers somewhat, and they duck back into the underbelly of the broken nectar harvester. The dark grey scavenger casts a longing glance at your lance, but follows the rest of its brethren in, as does the black scavenger. The light grey scavenger stares up at you, taking you in, and makes a beckoning gesture before crawling under the twisted metal itself. Seeing no reason not to follow the scavengers in, you oblige.

[Proceed to Status Update 12 | Return to Status Update 11]