Mealtime, for the most part, was a dull affair.
The children sit at long tables and are made to say a unified word of thanks (which generally tends to end up sounding like a dull droning chant most times), before the older children would cart out bowls filled with the dubiously-coloured gruel of the day. Then they would dig in, chatter aimlessly among themselves, and when the meal was done, the younger children would stack the bowls and cart them back to the kitchens. Another word of thanks would be said, then the head matron would release everyone back to being rascals.
Today, in spite of the curiously stale air, everything seemed par for the course.
“…ight be too risky, Mother Emelda?” despite the din of the lunching crowd, snippets of an odd conversation reach the ears of two orphan boys.
The great hulking figure of Mother Emelda seems to fold in on itself as she sighs, “it’s all we have, Lou. What would you suggest?”
Lou, the mousy young caretaker with a curious problem pronouncing his ‘r’s, wrings his hands, “but that backup might work for two months, three, at best! What will we do after that?”
“The Generator is as old as the foundations of this refuge, in which it resides, said to have been built by the High Ones themselves in the Time of the Old Sea. Not even the Old Supply Man could hope to understand its workings. Only a miracle, Highnesses granting, could restore the artifact.”
“We could move!” Lou tithers desperately, following the head matron out of the room, “surely the subterraneans…”
The rest of the conversation is lost to you.
[Text in square brackets, like these, will be our form of OOC communication.
As you did not assign yourselves names in the previous comments you can pick from these (or come up with something that sounds similarly lore-appropriate): Yun, Aysac, Aylon, Vorn, Vanya, Ektor, Evka]
Given his curious nature, Ektor ( the name i went with ) couldn’t help but to find out more about the generator and the high ones, which all seem foreign to him. Ektor decided to follow them out of the room, discretely.
Ektor:
“-raneans would never house us, and Porvist will never take us. For Tod’s sake, Lou, let it go. There is nothing we can do.”
By the time you manage to catch up to them, Mother Emelda has swept down the left corridor, and Lou alone remains. He seems to be seething, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“You may have given up on hope, Mother,” Lou mutters, “but I refuse to accept such an end.”
He sucks in a shuddering breath, squaring his shoulders.
“High Ones be my witness, I will find a way to repair the Generator… for all the children… I must find a way.”
He stalks down the right corridor.
Ektor is very much confused at this point, and couldn’t decide what to do. But He knew that the orphanage was in some sort of problem.
He decided to take left corridor to seek Mother Emelda for explanation ( Lou was less of an approachable person to him )
“Ektor!” the Mother cries in surprise, “what are you doing here? Why are you not taking your lunch with the others?”
You explain to her that you overheard the earlier conversation between her and Lou, and how it had worried and confused you.
“O child,” she sighs, “I’m sorry you had to hear that. The truth is, I had hoped to keep the news from all of you until we managed to find a solution because we didn’t want anyone to panic. But you can feel it, can’t you? The way the heat presses in like it never has before, the way the air is still.”
Taking note of your surroundings, you discover that indeed, despite your lack of activity, sweat is beginning to dampen your tunic and matt your hair to your forehead. Even in this sheltered corner of the orphanage, you can see the slightest ripple of heat in the air. When did it get so hot? You express alarm at the revelation.
“Indeed, and it will only get worse. For you see child, the Generator is what has kept us cool and sheltered all these years, and now it is broken.”
You ask her if she can’t just fix it.
“I’m afraid not, my child. The Generator is an ancient construct, built so long ago its origins and workings have passed into lore and myth. Not even the oldest or wisest of us has a clue as to how to get it working again.”
You relate that you heard Lou saying that he wanted to find a way to repair the Generator.
“He is foolish. Good-hearted, but foolish. Doubtless he has gone down underground, to where the Generator is kept, to attempt to puzzle out its workings. I wish him the best, though I expect nothing but the worst.”
You ask if there aren’t any other solutions. Porvist, the subterraneans?
“The subterraneans, the people that live under the earth of Korvar and sheltered from the heat of the sun, are already suffering from over-crowding and lawless violence. Although Porvist is usually accepting of immigrants, I fear the wholesale relocation of an entire orphanage of children is not something they will permit. No, it seems we are stuck here.”
You ask her what there is to be done.
“For now, we have built some back up generators. But as you have already seen, they are nowhere nearly as effective as the Generator, and they consume fuel at an alarming rate. These back ups may last us a few months, but no more. Beyond that, we must adapt to this heat, or perish.”
A heavy sense of despair and fear settles over you, for you know that there are many younger ones in the orphanage who could not hope to survive the full onslaught of Korvarrin heat, and just as many who would freeze to death without the cooling systems’ insulating functions when night falls. Perhaps Lou was right, it would be folly to give up hope so quickly without at least seeing for yourself if there was something, anything at all, in your power to do.
Beneath your feet, underground, the ever-present hum of the Generator is conspicuously absent.
[OOC: Wow it’s really long, sorry. Hope this clears things up a little.]
Aylon (Thats me) follows Ektor behind him, in hope that he could be of some help if there is ever a need for brute force to get things going.
Hi guys, sorry but due to the weird way that this chapter ‘ended’, I have temporarily hijacked your characters to the ‘true end’ of the first chapter. I tried to keep it as true to what your provided characterizations in Lore 1 said so hopefully I didn’t make your characters do anything too weird. I will post it under the name “Chapter 1: Interlude”, so you might wanna read that to get caught up on events before you start playing Chapter 2.