Location:
North of 2Fort / Tselinoyarsk
Mentions:
John let a long whistle escape his lips upon inspecting his catch. The cowboy had caught some sizable catfish in the rivers back home, but he had never seen such a huge specimen before, much less be lucky enough to have one for a meal. He wasn’t feeling particularly peckish at the moment, instead opting to store the fish in his dry bag. It wouldn’t last forever, but at least he could save it for a more appropriate time. He stepped out of the pond and made his way back to the bridge to find all the volunteers gathered near the entrance. Now that all of them were here, the absurdity of the ensemble really started to shine through.
After a short discussion, it seemed that everyone agreed on heading north.
“Well, I certainly didn’t expect to get my way so easily, but if that’s the way we all want to play it, let’s head out.”
As the party traversed the twisted landscape, John lamented the absence of a good mare to ride on. The trek was at least bearable, but the sudden shifts in landscape certainly didn’t sit well with the cowboy. The trek between Nuevo Paraiso and West Elizabeth was at best a couple days’ ride, but this strange new world offered the shift within few hours by foot. John’s outfit made the volatile weather survivable, but hardly comfortable.
After a while, with 2Fort a distant dot on the horizon, John noted the landscape changing into lush and dense foliage, but accompanied by unfamiliar humidity. John had never seen the likes of a jungle anywhere in New Austin. John removed his hat and fanned himself briefly with it, wiping the building, burdening sweat as the group descended deeper into Tselinoyarsk.
The group had soon stopped in the midst of a large clearing, some noticeable paths heading north. Hunger had crept up on John until it was firmly unignorable, etching itself as a loud growling in his stomach and exhaustion in his legs. The arowana swam through John’s mind.
John looked around at the group to assess where the others stood on the ability to continue. All of the volunteers that looked like they came off a film set looked okay; everyone else, however, looked much worse for wear. In particular, Cedar and the new president of Mexico looked on the verge of dropping.
"T-there's probably a lot of things here if we look. Maybe you can get what you need here? Foraging in a place like this might be worth wild. Though there's no telling what's ahead..."
“The little lady’s got a point. Should probably take a look around, fix up anything we find out here.”The arowana could be eaten tonight if the foraging didn’t turn up anything useful. Hopefully with everyone involved, a search would yield something of value. He saw Ms. Shen approach the fallen tree with Julian close by.
“I’m no wilderness expert, but taking a look around while there’s no apparent danger does seem like a good idea. One of you knows the difference between the edible mushrooms and the poisonous ones, right?”
“I think I know my way around some plants. Just warning you though, can’t say I’ve ever seen any forest like this before. It won’t take long for me to figure out what’s food from what’s foul.”He watched as Lily commanded her automaton to form a staircase to climb the fallen tree.
“Wouldn’t have laughed at Fordham’s automobile if I had known this was the next step”, John thought to himself.
John looked back at the group in the clearing, wondering if another group was going to investigate to other path to the north. The clearing looked like a good place to set up a small camp. John turned to address everyone.
“I reckon here would be a good place as any to meet back up with everyone once we’re all done looking around these parts. Can make a straight line back to 2Fort if we need to head back.”As Lily climbed up, followed by Mr. Payne, John followed their lead. He took the steps up the metal man with some trepidation, a hint of fear at some malfunction in Julian.
“Count me as a third. Couldn’t hurt to have another body on board?”As John mounted over the trunk, he wondered just what felled the massive tree. He hoped that a bad storm must have toppled the tree, but the memories of bears bringing down pines in Tall Trees brought a slight shudder to the cowboy.
