[For clarification, your characters are very young: roughly 13-16 years old.]

The scorching heat tingles on your skin even through your robes, and your wide hoods can scarcely keep out the glare of the sun. Behind your scarves, the air has become damp and hot, but to remove the scarves would be to expose yourself to the billowing clouds of salt in the wind.

It’s been a day since you left the orphanage in search of a means to repair the Generator, and the journey has not been easy, though not treacherous. As you left you’d heard the panicked sounds of the caretakers discovering your absence, but no one came running after you. It is disheartening, in a way, but one less mouth to feed is one less mouth to feed. And as your throats run dry and scratchy, you think you can understand that sentiment, at least a little.

Still though, the dryness of your throats is beginning to prove concerning. Dehydration and heat strokes are very real concerns out here on the vast sun-mirror of the salt flats. You do have several full water bladders, but it would be best if you didn’t exhaust it all so quickly. After all, who knows how long your journey might be? And then there is the matter of not actually knowing where you’re going…

And what luck! In the distance, you espy a trundling caravan surrounded by people, walking slowly. What will you do?

Previously…

“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.

---

Aylon turned to look down the right-hand corridor where he had seen Lou go, and his face hardens.

“Well if we have to stay here, then we have to fix the Generator don’t we? C’mon Ek!” the bigger boy beams at the other, grabbing his hand and pulling him down the corridor.

They followed the long corridor as it winds down underground, the lamps lining the walls flickering weakly as the Generator’s power failed. Soon, they were feeling their way along the walls in the dark, taking care not to step and stumble on each other’s cloaks. So accustomed to the dark of the corridor they became, that when it at last widened into the chamber housing the Generator, they both cried out in surprise and pain at the dim light.

Blinking the stars from their eyes, Aylon recovered first, and noticed a motionless dark lump on the ground.

“It’s Lou!” He cried, rushing forward to check on the man.

Ektor on the other hand, was distracted by a large imposing structure. It pulsed with a weak, red glow, a muted hum vibrating the ground beneath his feet. There it was. The Generator.

“He’s alive,” Aylon concluded with some relief, “but I think he’s burnt? See the marks on his hands.”

Ektor inspected the scene, and discovered an open panel in the Generator. Within, he could see a strange red crystal, larger than he was tall. As he approached, he could feel the heat radiating from it, but occasionally it would fade to a duller red, and then the air would feel cold in the absence of its pulsing heat.

“This must be what powers the Generator,” said Ektor, “And Lou must have touched it, thinking to inspect or replace it somehow, and it burned him.”

“Then it is dangerous!” cried Aylon

“It’s just out of power,” is Ektor’s ponderous response, “If we found a new one, we’d be fine.”

Mind made up, Ektor returns to his rooms and begins gathering his things. Aylon chased after him, hovering worriedly at his elbow and attempting to dissuade him.

“Hey, we’re just kids! Did you see what it did to Lou? We’ve never even left this place before!”

“Aylon, someone has to do something,” Ektor sighed, pack full and heart set, “Besides… No one needs me here. You can stay here, Aylon. You have friends here.”

Aylon blinked, startled by the sadness and loneliness in Ektor’s voice. All at once, his hesitance was banished.

“I’m coming with you.”

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]