Prologue
On a green hill overlooking a vast wilderness sat a small machine waiting for a big man. Nearby, Captain Phineas T. Emrys was collecting samples and drinking in the view. The sun was setting, heavy and orange, over an open sky studded with red flecks of cloud and the shadow of Mount Raineah fell across half the wild. Some of the ruins of the old world popped up between the encroaching trees here and there, not uncommon and mostly explored. The first touch of autumn colors dotted the landscape.
Phineas was crouched over a robust fern with thick reddish shoots while running samples through a small device in his hands. He was an aging man, but not frail by any means. He had broad shoulders and thick arms, covered by a customized and sophisticated armor, and bore the many scars and marks of an experienced man. His beard and full head of hair were thick and nearly white and his eyes, though weathered and creased, were sharp, clear and alert.
The sun at his back beyond the hill, he gazed out to the east where the treacherous Crimson Desert lay sprawled out as far as the eye could see. He was one of the few who knew just how 'treacherous' it could be. Eventually, he thought, he was going to have to take measurements to figure out if the desert was spreading, or if the forest here was slowly pushing it back. He thought about the last time he had traveled deep into its desolate belly (and why he did it) and it made him shudder involuntarily at the thought. He shook it that bad memory off and focused in on the task at hand.
Phineas stood to his feet and poked the device he was handling into a thick-walled bag slung over one shoulder made from some sort of hide. He made the short trek up the hill to the peak where the Scrambler was waiting for him, all covered in white, cyan and silver. The vehicle was a mid-sized, one-person land craft with three wheels, one in front and two smaller ones in the rear, capable of traversing almost any terrain at high speed (but Phineas always thought it looked more like a simple molecule, bulbous and compact).
He straddled the bike and swung it around to face the west, marveling at the road ahead that spread out between him and the distant horizon. He could only think of it as a “road” because it was his destination and not because it was paved, cleared, safe or easy. To the north of Mount Raineah, which had recently erupted again, he could barely make out the colossal ruins of Old Seetle, now utterly uninhabitable (by humans), deep inside the Red Zone and partially submerged into the Ocean of Peace. It'll be days before he'd lay eyes on it again... and it'll be much bigger.
He cleared his head, lifted his feet, pulled the throttle and shot out over the top of the hill, zooming down the other side. Warm, radiation-free fresh air blew through his hair and whipped his beard to one side. The Scrambler dodged and darted and swerved through the trees, down into a gulch, over a narrow creek and up another rise onto a leveled out plain covered in short, wild grasses. In the distance, and closing fast, loomed an enormous multi-wheeled vehicle painted like the Scrambler, but much more heavily fortified.
Phineas was already laying out his order of actions upon returning to the Argonaut, his home. The XS720 Continental Explorer was one of a small armada of exploratory vehicles built by the Ronan magistrate for just this sort of use. The Argonaut herself was one of a kind, after years and years of field testing and numerous modification by Phineas himself. She was home. She was also a mobile laboratory, an observatory, a botanical preserve and a fortress outpost capable of sustaining her crew through some of the harshest territories available for months without restocking.
Phineas slowed the Scramblers approach and glided into position on the port side stern of the giant lumbering land craft while it tore across the plain at full cruising speed. He carefully aligned the bike, matching the behemoths speed, as a pair of mechanical arms slid out from the Argonauts side and seized it by its loading ports. Phineas hopped off the small vehicle, grabbing onto a handle up high and swinging himself to a small ledge as the arms lifted the Scrambler off the ground and drew it into a perfectly fitted compartment into the Argonauts side. He hit a button twelve feet off the ground as it sped by underneath him, pulling the sack off his shoulder. An access hatch just off the ledge slid open and he slipped inside as the hatch, and the compartment beneath, slid shut and sealed tight.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:17, Tue 12 Mar 2019.