We arrive back at the settlement a little after dark and head straight to The Dune, which is our local watering hole. I’ve spent more than enough time here during the past five years; it’s a civilized place, but a little bit mysterious at the same time. It’s run by Luna, a slight woman with a swagger, and it’s pretty much the only place in town to get a good drink.
Most of the drinks she serves are homemade. They’re OK… a little stiff for my liking, but spacers can’t always be choosers. Occasionally she’ll get stuff from off-world, and it’s always a special occasion when that happens. Excitement spreads like magnesium fire through the settlement when shipments come in, so those end up being busy nights at The Dune. Consequently, whatever above-average product Luna does manage to get her hands on ends up disappearing quickly down our throats.
Sitting down with Fletcher and the other guys, I realize that this is the most social I’ve been during my entire time here. Like I said, I usually keep my head down and avoid deep conversations. Normally, I’d avoid this kind of gathering, but after today, I figured what the hell. I deserve a good drink with the locals after what we just went though. I’m usually really careful, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit tired of all the hiding.
I end up talking quite a bit with Fletcher as we pound glass after glass of that burning homemade hooch. After all, he’s my neighbor; I guess it’s time to get to know him a little bit better.
[Make a Connection] – Weak Hit
He seems a bit guarded. He doesn’t tell me how he got his prosthetic foot, which I’d managed to get a glimpse of when we were getting off the bikes. Od course, I’m not being 100% honest with him about me and my background, though. I don’t even tell him my real name. Everyone here knows me as Dash.
Whatever he’s trying to hide about his own past, he’s actually quite friendly, and obviously brave as hell, from what I saw earlier today. We continue to share highly embellished tales through the evening, and then I stagger through the sand back to my little hut to sleep off both the hooch and the adrenaline from the day’s events.
—————
I don’t see Fletcher at all during the next week or so. I go about my own business working on one of the moisture mines, not thinking much about our conversation, and then one afternoon, he comes by my hut to talk.
“Dash, you were a big help last week with the sand spiders. You had the bright idea to try and draw ‘em away, which was the right call. If we had started firing at them from the watchtower, they might have come over the wall, and that would have put a lot of folks in danger.”
“Truth be told, I still don’t know you very well, but you’ve proved your worth, and you’re clearly capable out there. So, with that in mind, I’ve got a task I’d like you to do.”
“I’ve been looking at some old maps we’ve got of this part of the planet, and I found some anomalies; things that don’t match up between different charts of the same area. One of them shows some kind of marked symbol near a series of huge sandstone towers that lie a few days to the northwest, but no details about what it might be, or if it even exists. We’ve explored a lot of the surrounding regions, but we haven’t been very far south. It’s pretty desolate, and often with extreme winds.”
“Dash, I’d like to know for sure what’s out there, so I want you to go do some recon in this area,” he says, pointing at the map.
“If you find something that could be of use to the settlement, then it would be good to know if it’s worth our time and resources to send a bigger crew out. And if it’s something potentially dangerous… well, that’s something we’d also want to know, so either way, this could end up being a pretty important mission. At the very l least, it’s good to know what’s out there.”
“Sounds like you’re sending me on a big lonely trip out into the middle of nowhere,” I say with light sarcasm in my voice.
Listening to his proposal, though I can’t help but be intrigued. I’ve been here for five years, but I haven’t seen much of this planet beyond the areas directly around the settlement. Furthest I’ve gone is one full day out on salvage missions, but no further. The idea of exploring a new area actually has me pretty excited.
“Yea, I’ll do that, Fletcher. I know I haven’t really stuck my head up much around here, but I can definitely see the value for this community to know what’s out there beyond our little wall. As someone who has indeed called this place home for the past five years, I will step up and see this done,” I vow to him, holding my hand to my iron star pendant.
[Swear an Iron Vow] – Weak Hit
“However, I’m gonna need supplies for at least a week, I add, “if not more, plus some suitable weapons. After yesterday, I want to be prepared. And I’ll also need to spend some time going over the map with you and plotting a course.”
“Of course,” he says. I’ll get you the map and we can do a couple of session with it. I’ll also have a supply kit for the trip put together for you, including suitable arms. And given yesterday’s events, I’ll make sure to include a decent bike repair kit as well.”
Over the next few days I spend time with Fletcher poring over his maps, notating distances, directions and landmarks. I’m familiar with some of the waypoints I’ll use, but most of this expedition is going to be a total adventure through unexplored territory. Although I’m a little nervous, simply because it’s been awhile since I’ve done anything like this, I’m pretty amped. This will be a good chance for me to clear my head, check out some new scenery, and spend time thinking about my future.
Of course, I can’t get ahead of myself, I gotta get this task done first, and judging by what I see on the map, it won’t be an easy trip. There’s quite a bit of difficult, and quite possibly perilous terrain between here and those towers that I’m supposed to find, and who knows what other kinds of dangers lurk out there in the sand.
Considering my end goal, I find that it helps to narrow it down to specific objectives:
- Study the map and plot a course.
- Navigate the three known terrain sections, including a huge dry seabed, an enormous canyon, and a narrow, but supposedly treacherous band of mountains.
- Search for this supposed waypoint that’s marked on one of the maps, and see if there’s really something out there.
- Bring back any valuable information or items that I find.
- Try not to get killed.
- Return safely.
Break it up like that and it sounds…. well, it actually sounds more dangerous. That’s generally why I don’t like to make lists. I’m much better at reading maps and navigating on the fly, but in this case, the map isn’t very detailed. Again, not necessarily a bad thing in my mind, it actually makes it feel more like an adventure and less like a task.
[Gather Information] – Miss
What worries me the most is that canyon. It looks enormous big on the map, which means it’s gonna be REALLY big in when I get there. I consider taking my starship, but it would be way too fast to see anything. I’d likely miss a lot of details, which is why I’m heading out there in the first place.
Honestly, just thinking about the canyon stresses me out a little bit. What if I can’t find a way across? I have no idea how wide or deep it is, but I guess I’ll deal with that when… if I get there. I don’t like to begin a trip like this, but there’s not much I can do except make sure I’ve got everything I think I’ll need, then get a good night’s sleep before I depart.
With final preparations made, I get an early start the next morning. I load up my gear and depart the settlement on the hover bike just after sunup. Unfortunately, the wind is blowing pretty hard this morning; not exactly what I wanted on my first morning out. I pull down and lock the face shield on my helmet and buckle my thick duster up as tight as I can manage and press on as the gusts pelt me with endless waves of coarse dust.
According to the my course, I should be able to make the edge of the dry sea bed before nightfall.
[Undertake an Expedition] – Miss
The first few hours are pretty monotonous, with little change in scenery. I cruise along the relatively flat terrain at a good clip until noon, when the dunes begin to undulate with more height and variation. I don’t get much long range visibility in this section, because I’m down in a wide depression in the landscape. Even with my adequate clothing buckled tight, the driving sand somehow still finds its way beneath my layers.
By mid-afternoon, the wind starts picking up even more. It begins blowing at dangerously high speeds, which slows me down to a crawl. Eventually, it gets to the point where I just can’t ride anymore, and then I see it – a massive rolling brown cloud off in the distance headed my way. A sandstorm, and fucking big one at that.
I’ve seen plenty of big storms down here on Helios before, but I’ve always been in or near the settlement, so I’ve always been able to get to shelter. Out here with nothing around I’m totally unprotected. If I don’t figure out something really fast, I’m gonna be in deep shit.
I brought a shelter with me, but I’ve never tested it in these kinds of conditions. Frantically pulling my gear off the bike I set it up as fast as I can, do my best to secure the bike, and then crawl inside the tent.
[Check your Gear] – Weak hit
The blast of wind hits the tent like a freight hauler that’s pulling 100 cars full of solid tirinium. The roar is deafening and it goes on relentlessly for what seems like hours, with absolutely no letup. It’s all I can do to try to hold tent up and keep the walls from collapsing around me. My hands and arms tire just holding the braces against the powerful force of Mother Helios.
Then it suddenly stops. Just like that. I let go of the braces and slump to the floor of the tent, feeling stressed and completely spent. Checking my chronograph, I’m surprised to find out that it lasted for less than two hours; it seems like all night. Funny how your perception gets skewed like that.
I pull myself out of the tent and check the bike. Not only is it still there, when I dig it out, I see that it’s perfectly intact and everything is still fastened tightly, just how I left it. What a relief. I envisioned coming out and seeing nothing but an endless sea of sand and no bike anywhere.
I remind myself that this is only the middle of the first day.
By the time I extracate the bike and pack everything up, it’s obvious that I won’t make it to the edge of the seabed before dark. I’ll have to look for a place to camp somewhere before then; hopefully one that offers more options for shelter, or at least some sort of seclusion.
I get back on and keep riding, thanking my iron stars that the bike suffered no damage in the storm. I manage to ride for another hour or so before the monotony of the dunes ends and I hit a wide basin full of strange holes in the rocky ground. I recognize them as gas geysers; natural openings that vent various gasses from inside the planet’s layers.
They’re often poisonous, spewing out a deadly cocktail of sulfur, chlorine ammonia or nitrogen dioxide. There’s no way I can stop here. A couple hours of exposure and I’d die. I do have an emergency O2 ventilator with me, but it’s not meant for long exposure like overnight. It’s too bad, because there would probably be no creatures showing up in the middle of the night. Then again, with my luck, this would be the exact place where the nocturnal chlorine breathing desert monsters hang out at night.
I keep moving through the eerie desertscape for another hour until I come across a small bluff. This look’s perfect. After a quick inspection, I even find a small grotto that’s sheltered by a small mound of rock. Finally, something went right today!
I unpack my gear set up my campsite and collapse into a well-deserved, and much needed night of quiet, restful sleep.
STARFORGED ADVENTURES 
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