There was an explosion, just now. Or was that the sound of collapse?
[[Destruction only sings one song.]]
Your feet carry you to the [[Elbow Room]] - or what remains the three story structure.
[[See what has become if it.]]The Elbow Room; a shiny, brassy building that looks like the walls of a train car welded together and polished to a dangerous shine. Possessing three stories, this bar is the premier drinking location in Essex. The Elbow Room is known for serving the Amberdraught’s own beer and, to smaller circles, its famous Brew - which has never really been the same since the Hiway Conflict nearly four years ago. You’ve heard the proprietor of the bar, Rose Rivershack had to fold her dynasty in with Amberdraught after their easy supply of ingredients dried up following the war.
It's gone. What was once a three story building, complete with stone foundation, gilded siding and a generous front porch is now a gaping wound in the skin of the earth. What was once the kitchen hangs crazily by a few swollen beams of wood, suspended over a darkness that seems to go on forever.
Think, white flakes rise up and out of the hole, perhaps a hundred feet in diamter, as if on an updraft. Black, bulbous veins of slime mold creeps up and out and twine greedily around what remains of copper-bottomed stills and black-bottomed kettles.
Rose Rivershack, unharmed but besides herself, claws at the dirt on the side of the sinkhole, peering down into the terrible nothing that took her livlihood - or worse.
[[Walk the peremeter.]] Ruin, for blocks. You hear the keening of women nearby - and the shouts of survivors who move rubble as quickly as they can. The air is thick with dust and you smell something metallic despite the overwhelming smell of rot and woodsmoke.
[[How could this have happened?]]"Gas explosion?" You hear a Texican man suggest from his front porch - which overlooks the sinkhole as if it were his view.
"Terraforming." The woman, who you assume is his wife, next to him asserts with dead eyes.
[[LORE WASTELAND SCIENCE: Take a closer look at the sinkhole]]
[[Help evacuate the injured.]]You peer into it. Without specialized equipment there isn't much you can take away from the gaping maw - besides its obvious depth.
You kneel down and trace one finger over the veinlike tendrils, black and turgid things that seem to pulse with their own terrible life.
This isn't what you asked for. This isn't what any of you asked for.
[[You hope.]] There are plenty. Pinned beneath rubble, bleeding from shrapnal, keening lovers who have not yet risen from their knees to attend the morgue.
You ferry person after person to the Amberdraught's surgery tent. Protectorate Surgeons take whoever you bring - though they quickly run out of room.
It is on your fourth trip that [[you notice something strange.]]But this...life. This is definitely plantlife, newly manifested by the efforts of some terrible engine far below. This must be the Fountainhead.
You cough, the flakes of white sticking like dandruff in your lungs.
Goddammit. This isn't what they promised at all.
[[Something is terribly wrong.]]FIN
Thanks for reading this update! Whoa! Spooky!
Sorry about the ol' Elbow Room, ding-dangit.
<3
Shan & Aesa
&The DRTX Team There was a young woman here - before. You picked her up, she wore a green linen dress.
But there she is. *Again*. In the same exhausted pose as you found her. For a moment you worry you're in a Toybox - for another you worry you've gone mad.
Eventually you decide that rather than ponder your madness, better to confront it.
[[Walk to the fetal figure in green.]] You place a hand on her shoulder, surprised she looks up at you.
This is not her. The creature has no face.
[[Something is terribly wrong.]]