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The scouts wiped their sweat-soaked brows and looked around, satisfied at the place. Maerinum scouts had been journeying out in a mass exodus, the worst the war at home got, the more and more streamed away, desperately looking for a fresh start for the peoples. This island they had found, the mainland was in sight, the towering peak of the tallest mountain they had ever seen hovering off in the distance, clouds almost obscuring it. Across the narrow strait, a forest stood, and to the south of the forest stretched hills and plains. They would do well here, the Maerinum. They would do more than well.

Refugees they were, thought Maxim. There was a few soldiers here and there, but this was not a fighting force. Carpenters, blacksmiths, farmers, fishers, tinkers, tailors, sailors, rich men, poor men, beggars... There was a slice of society within each of these boats, and whilst not all of them would make it to the new world, most would, and that was all that mattered. The last of them was waiting for him to step on, and step on he did, steeling himself and his stomach for the new world that would await them.

~~~

Their boats landed, people taking unsteady steps out. They had sailed across the sea to the west, then when the island had been there just as the scouts said, wheeled north to tuck into the strait. They had arrived late in the day, just as the sun was setting down, and tents needed to be placed down fast. Already men and women were streaming out, as well as sheep, cows, bundles of food being tossed down as they used the last of the rations on this new day in a new world. The thudding of pegs and the first few billowings of canvas echoed throughout the area they had camped in, and Maxim watched. There were not many of them, perhaps twenty-two score, and some of those would not be capable of working, but nonetheless it was enough. The Maerium had survived worse, and here, in their [b][color=92278f]New Matem[/color][/b], they would thrive once more.

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