"You're on", Steve grinned with another hug, "What did you have in mind?"
If he isn't the most handsome thing I've seen in a very long time...
"Come on," she prompted, breaking from their embrace but taking his hand in hers, leading them back down the way they came. They crossed the cobbles to enter what had been Allen Lee's gun shop. "The original proprietor of this shop was killed a little while ago," she began. "He was as loud and stubborn as any harborfolk, but he let me lock my tools up here and use his workbench anytime." Corrine smiled. "I'm sure the fact I voluntarily scrapped any weapon he wanted done helped to pay my 'rent.'"
She knelt and pulled a key out from a pant pocket to unlock the metal case and open the lid. An array of tools sat neatly arranged by type, from pliers, to screwdrivers, wrenches, and more. The majority were small and meant for fine components, but she had other, general use sized items as well. They were aged and carried a patina of usage and time, but not a single speck of rust. Her composure softened at the sight of them. It was like coming home.
"Now, where was that..." she murmured to herself, standing on her tip-toes and picking through a veritable shelf of junk, her back to Steve and the rest of the room. "Ah, there we are!" Corrine reached up with both hands and pulled down a small crate full of screws, circuitry, and plastic housing. "Took this one apart a week ago or so. All the pieces are still there, I think," she trailed off, swirling the contents with her finger. "Hm. Looks like it. Anyway, for yer first challenge I'll even give you a hint: it was some sort of pre-war kitchen doodad with a motor." She smiled and held the crate out to him. "Have at it, sailor."
A tribe called the Enclave. Another one called the Brotherhood of Steel. Giant robots. If not for his mention of caravans, Corrine would have started to deeply regret acting so impulsively on her infatuation with the younger man, thinking he were describing a completely other planet.
There was a war on the mainland? Wonder how news of that never got up here.
Eh. Everywhere's got problems, I suppose.
She listened politely, even intently, as he described his entire life's story. It hit her quite solidly, then, that he was quite a bit younger than she -- but if he wasn't bothered, then she sure as hell was fine with it, too. She was particularly interested once he began describing his post in the engine room and his mechanical know-how. Perhaps they had more in common than she had thought.
"What about you, Corrine?", Steve asked. "What's your story?"
"Mm. Well," she began, leaning her head against his chest, watching a rabbit scurry out from beneath some rubble, across the road, and disappear into a blanket of fog, "originally, me an' my family had a homestead much farther east of here. It'd been in the family for a long time, either my mom's dad's grandpa's uncle's, or..." She blushed, realizing how much of a bumpkin it must have made her sound. "At any rate, there was me, and then my brother. Mom and dad set up a great little business, scrapping all sorts of things they'd pull out of ruins, or cars, or what have you. I've been dismantling tech since I could hold a screwdriver. I had a real knack for it, for some reason. I could get all the small, fragile parts out, and when my dad figured out that's what always took me so long, he brought me on to help him full time and my mom worked the business full time."
Corrine paused, lost in thought and nostalgia. "Things were working out pretty well for us. Word got out, people started coming to us to certain parts or to make requests. Commissioned scavengers, can you believe it? We traded with anyone who had caps and needed parts. I started even doing my own freelance, though I still helped the business, an' had my own place, too. But about ten years ago, when the fog was startin' to get bad, dad got torn apart by an angler. Mom couldn't stand the idea of keeping the business, and my brother went and found himself some work as a fisherman. A year or so after that, mom tossed herself into the sea." She shrugged, sadly.
Waves broke along the shore, far below.
"But, I missed my manners. I'm sorry for your loss, of yer dad, and yer ship, both." In what she would have considered a bold move at other times of her life, she reached her arms around his waist and hugged him.
"A mechanic is more than handy to have around. I bet you'd find a lot of work in these parts, helpin' to repair boats and generators and the like. Hell," she winked, in a very rusty attempt to flirt, "if you wanted a challenge, I'd let ya try and put something back together after I've taken it apart. See how good ya really are. I'd even let you borrow my tools."
Corrine had hoped he would take her invitation to sit with her at the rail, but didn't expect him to make such a sweet, tender gesture, like put his arm around her. ...well, she'd hoped, but it'd been months...decades...since she'd engaged in something like a proper date. It wasn't like the island was at all densely populated, and it only took her a matter of weeks in Far Harbor proper before she felt like everyone was more like a member of her extended family.
Fine. You've been lonely. But it doesn't make this less...nice.
Naturally, she nestled up to him a little closer. His body felt warm against hers, even through her multiple layers. "So, if you're from the mainland -- like a desert, you said? How did you ever end up as a sailor?"
"Sounds like a great idea," Steve replied. "I'm ready to go when you are."
Corrine had never felt in such a hurry to take off from the Plank. Steve had wedged himself between her and the door, holding it open for her. She hardly acknowledged it in her haste to get away from the stares and chortles behind her.
The outside air hit her like a salty and refreshing, cool caress. Maybe I did hit the whiskey a bit too hard, but I didn't exactly expect to be on a date.
Steve drew up beside her. "Downside of small towns", he said as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the bar behind him, "folks like to get into everyone else's business." He shrugged. "Just like my old home in Rivet City."
"Yeah. Not much a person can hide in this place," she shrugged back, though she appreciated his sympathetic tone.
"Anyhow, you mentioned something called "The Hull", what's that?"
"This way," she smiled, heading towards the gate, but instead, ducking into the old souvenir shop and going up the stairs and out the second floor door to the upper gangway of the Hull. She chose the southernmost spot, just past the gate, but far enough and quiet enough from the main town. "The Hull is the wall with the main gate that protects the town from the rest of the island, but it's also the best spot in town to get a quiet moment and a...view."
Corrine gestured southwest. The sun was starting to contemplate setting on the day, filtering through thinner patches of the fog and looking hauntingly beautiful. The rocky cliffs of the northeastern edge of the island were highlighted and the sound of the water breaking on the shore was just slightly louder than the din of the town behind them. "I'm really not a tour guide," she explained. "You seemed to be askin' about the island and I thought I should just...show it to you."
She sighed, happily. "I ain't been anywhere else, I'm sure you figured that out. I don't know what the mainland looks like, let alone any of the places you've talked about, like where you're from. But the island...it's a part of me, as I'm a part of it. I don't know any other life than to live every day lookin' at that." She gestured at the nearby ruins of gift shops and bait and tackle stores. The sunlight, combined with the fog, blanketed the sight in a beautiful mist that almost looked serene. A breeze picked up once more. Instinctively, she pulled her coat tighter around her body, taking a moment to just enjoy the relative peace and pleasant company.
"So, that's why I ain't takin' off, even if it seems like the wrong choice. I don't want to live anywhere else." Corrine leaned forward and looked out into the fog. "If you've got some ideas on how we can defend it, or die trying, then I'll gladly hear 'em. But..." she pat the rail next to her, encouraging him to come closer, "maybe later?"
Flag: Solid dark green with a white painted outline of a tree growing out of water.
Territory and Geography: Located in former Lake Ontario, in what had been Canada. Xenophobic while highly self-reliant and sustainable, in other circumstances may appear to simply be a large settlement, Ronto was withstood the test of time as other, smaller, ground-up settlements have come and gone within the former city, itself. There is no access to or from the massive steel island on the outside, with the exception of a few drawbridges that can be lowered to passing ships. Rontonians trading with mainlanders take rowboats to the shore.
There are unassuming steel walls all around the perimeter, making it relatively impossible for passers-by to see any goings-on within the place. Ugly, repurposed and refit turrets claimed from old warships are installed in various places on the walls that shoot shrapnel coated in their homemade poisons. They serve the dual purpose of ripping enough holes in hulls to cause problems, and holes in people that allow the powerful mixtures to cause fatalities.
History: Ronto did not rebuild on the ruins of its city but instead on the very water of the Great Lake. The original founders crawled out of a Vault, its number and location long forgotten, when they came upon the decrepit mess of the former capitol of Ontario. Horrified by the mangled debris and fallen buildings, along with the dangerous, and hideous, irradiated creatures it hid, the founders fled to the docks. What had started off as a few boats crudely tied together, floating off shore, eventually, through time and necessity, became a veritable metropolis of ships, cargo containers, and war machines, repurposed into a large and thriving off shore colony-state.
Population: 5000
Government/Domestic Politics: A co-operative government of seven elected officials but no single overruling mayor or higher power. Each official has a single vote on all governmental operations. Political discord is rare, as a result of the deeply rooted and reiterated culture of xenophobia. Typical discussions revolve around growth planning and execution. They do not engage in the outside world and do not allow outsiders to come in.
Notable People:
Glenda Doren – 23 year old member of security and surveillance detail, daughter of one of the longest running members of the governmental council. She finds herself gazing out into the waters of the lake, or onto the ruined mainland of the former city, itching to leave Ronto and explore. When not manning one of their refurbished turrets on the perimeter wall, she prefers one of their native galvanized steel weapons, featuring several nasty looking serrated blades coated in a deadly poison that causes cardiac arrest in human victims within seconds of contact.
Wendy Doren – 48 year old full time botanist and biochemist. Major claim to Ronto infamy was having formulated the single most deadly poison ever seen on the colony, the major turning point of the near-invasion of 2258 at the young age of 16. Her personality combined the balance of intelligence, ingenuity, and grace, making her an excellent candidate for the government by the time she was 20. She has been voted back on to council consistently ever since.
Kenneth Morrison - 26 year old biochemist and botanist, Wendy’s best apprentice. Responsible for formulating the drug “Slick” permeating through the colony. Also the chief agitator for a new form of government that would give one person absolute power over an advisory council.
Military: Less than 1000 dedicated security/soldier types. Most of these people man the walls and watch those who pass by on land or by water. Very rarely they make up the shore parties to scavenge for junk materials needed on the colony.
Outside of their refurbished, or repurposed, turret systems, they have manufactured melee-style weapons of galvanized steel scraps. No two are alike; some appear to have a single blade while others are “spiky,” etc. Many elect to carry poison treated metal, as well.
Economy: Ronto is a closed system, for the most part. They raise their consumables and occasionally send shore parties to the mainland for scrap materials and textiles, though much of their clothing items are woven from hairs and hides of the beasts they raise for food and other such resources. Now and then they engage in trade for fine electronic parts in exchange for their food and medicines in barter, only. They have no currency, nor any use for such. If a person does not have an item for barter, they will offer labour or some refined skill or service.
Culture and Technology: Rontonians are racially diverse, for the most part – or, at least, their founders had been. They started off as a few dozen former Vault dwellers, so as much as they tried to keep inbreeding to a minimum, there are some distant cousins and the majority of the population are related to someone else, at least in some way. Most of their “culture” revolves around shunning the old world and its technology and horrors, as well as keeping out most of its results (settlers, traders, frontierfolk, hunters, and so on) with a focus on being able to rely on themselves and their own ingenuity. Years of cultivating crops and farm fishing also resulted in a focus on creating powerful, unique medicines derived from plants and marine life, which has led to better quality of life and lifespans.
Essentially, they are a tribal colony, completely self-governing and shunning any and all outside interaction. They maintain high levels of literacy and productivity throughout their generations. By 2290, all of the crops are hydroponically grown using filtration technology ripped out of old warships, submarines, and the like. Not only do they grow food for themselves and for fodder, they also raise various plants for medicinal use. Many folk find a natural place within the state in the care and maintenance of the colony. Either they find themselves fishing, farming, crop development, or straight labour maintaining walls and infrastructure.
For the better part of the century, quite a bit of development has been towards creating poisons and other types of deadly modified weapons. These items tend to be the most valuable trade barter the colony use in the rare instances that they do engage in import/export.
Strictly xenophobic, Ronto does not actively act as an aggressor. They survey every person and ship that passes by, but they don’t shoot unless they’re shot at, first. If fatalities occur, on either side, the bodies are collected and turned into fertilizer for the crops and plants.
Another result of being so xenophobic is their total lack of knowledge on anything in the ‘real world.’ They have no formal intelligence and therefore absolutely no idea of the scale of generally known entities such as the Brotherhood or the Enclave, let alone cults or religious sects otherwise well established on the eastern seaboard and beyond. The general belief is there is no need to learn about the outside world, when the only thing that matters is the colony. Anything other entities know about them they would have garnered through direct trade or surveillance, but no outsider has ever been within the walls of Ronto and has no idea of what it looks like or how they develop the weapons and poisons they barter to the outside.
Minutely, there are waves of substance problems when a handful of folks will try to turn the poisons into recreational drugs. Typically, overdoses result in the users having extremely intense visions and/or “trips” that either kill the user from the inside, or find them dying by their own hands when they manage to escape the walls and drown in the lake. This has traditionally caused the interest to die off, as it were. In 2290, one particular powder called Slick has taken hold by being non-addictive, non-lethal, and popular amongst the younger generations. Those folks find themselves wanting to get high and check out, rather than work, making the older generations fear for the ultimate future of the colony.
Religion: They have no formal religion or deity, focussing only on their own people’s sustainability and the technology they have created.
Brief physical description or picture: A woman of average height (5’ 7”), shoulder length dark blonde hair streaked with greys. Slight of frame in all aspects, not busty, not curvy. She has brown eyes, and her face features signs of premature aging (fine lines around her eyes, laugh lines).
Clothing/Armor/Weapons: unremarkable/basic clothing as expected of a harbour dweller. She tends to wear multiple layers and suffers from chills, and feels this more acutely as her life revolves more around being drunk at The Plank instead of on the Island gathering tech. Typically carries a handful of basic tools for lockpicking and/or dismantling items. Armed with a grossly undermaintained 10mm pistol as a side arm, prefers to use a modified fishing spear featuring three serrated heads.
Brief Background:
Corrine Doolak (“DuLac” being the correct form of the name, due to her French-Canadian ancestry, but this has been long forgotten over the centuries) a born and raised islander, spent her life trawling ruins with her junk-trading parents. If you asked her profession, she would huff and call herself a “scavenger,” but truly she was a junk dealer. Corrine always had a knack for a delicate touch and could turn a single pre-war radio into at least a dozen useable, saleable parts. The family abandoned the stand when the fog began its slow creep to take over the island, after her father was mauled to death by an angler that had made its nest next to the road the Doolaks had considered safe for decades. Her brother took up fishing, and her mother committed suicide by drowning herself a year or so after her father’s death. Corrine’s ability to retrieve delicate components made for a lucrative livelihood, often finding herself contracting out to traders and villagers alike for elusive parts and for a high price.
Corrine found herself needing to slow her pace by her mid-thirties, the joints in her fingers having taken on the fog into her bones (or what would otherwise be termed as, early onset arthritis). She still managed to get by well enough, having settled near Far Harbor for the good part of fifteen years, but the fog eventually forced her to Far Harbor proper with its condensers. Occasionally, she would pick up some piecemeal work by dismantling junk for Brooks for him to sell, but as the fog grew worse, so did her arthritis, to the point where she could hardly manipulate the tiny screws and gears as she did when she was younger. Unfortunately for her, between the pain in her hands, and the elevated danger associated with journeying into the fog, she found herself in her early forties with little to do but drink away her days at The Plank.
