There were eminent, practical reasons no one had yet settled the peninsula. Very practical ones, actually.

For one, the area tended towards three types - low lying salty tidal flats where nothing grew (thanks to the salt content of the ocean) and it was impossible to get a boat, rocky beaches that were picturesque but prone to massive storms, and high stony cliffs that provided spectacular views but were not a place you'd land a boat or do any reasonable fishing (but were at least going to protect you from storms). In any event, being close to pirate filled waters, raiders, slavers from the city, and the occasional howler raid were also major concerns.

Even from the cliffs, it felt like a war between the shifting deserts and the pounding tides

Still, if it was a really good spot, there'd already be a city on it. And of course, it was possible that, with their powers, that a marginal spot might be made quite habitable, or even truly spectacular.

The place was not without a few advantages, at least, and some of those had drawn small settlements, everything from refugees to hermits to raiders dotted the vast coastline. There may not be a lot of fresh water, but a few underground streams trickled down cliff faces, and if you had salt water, you could conceivably have fresh water with some patience and ingenuity.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:36, Fri 04 Jan 2019.

Claire smirked at herself. All she needed was the raw materials to build an Etheric Energy Node and this location's problems would be readily solved. All she needed. Putting aside such dreams, she turned to analysis of the location's problems. It all came back to needing Gaja and Increase; to irrigate the desert inland from the sea or build a levee to reclaim some land from the flats, to help defend against and negotiate with the potential raiders, to construct a good harbor for ships to dock at. The storms...well, Claire figured that she'd probably be the one best-suited to rework the local weather. Maybe just keep the storms out of the Yawn?

On the plus side, if she could get that basic engineering done, the location had the potential to make an economically-prosperous village that might grow into a city. The fishing ought to be good (if the Leviathan didn't start paying a visit), there was the possibility for enough farmland to supplement the fishing, and Claire actually liked the saltpans - a saltworks would provide a trade good that was as good as hard cash. Idly, Claire spot-checked the Pinnacle commodities market back in the Republic to confirm her suspicions.

Having completed her initial survey and picked out a couple of possible areas for initial settlement, Claire then flew near one of the largest settlements and landed just out of sight, retracting her mechanical wing-blades. Her mechanical ears, unusually-dressed body and the burning record symbol on her forehead would be conspicuous enough without blazing energy wings. The robot figured that any community that could survive here and even coax out a vegetable garden from the soil of this land was worth talking to, and might have people who knew the land better than Claire could learn from a high-altitude survey.

Claire began to walk toward the village.

In reply to Claire Durand (msg # 2):

[OOC - Sorry for the delay on this, just rolling up the village and figuring out how it will interact with the plot]

The town is difficult to spot, but you do so eventually. It's essentially built into caves on top of the cliffs, which is not an easy climb, but there are ropes here and there that allow the villagers access to the beaches below or the flat land above. The village is not visible at all from the peninsula (though there are a few inhabitants keeping watch). Without her enhanced optics/auditory systems, it's likely she'd have missed it entirely.

The inhabitants are scavenging the beach, looking for driftwood and the like. They also have a few makeshift rafts and are gather sea life from the tidal flats.

Claire was used to the bright republic, where even the poorest fellow was clothed. The poverty she'd seen in the poorer sections of Vissio had been rather distressing: but this was so much worse. Whatever was worn by the inhabitants were essentially rags, if that, and the dental and hygene situation was.. unpleasant. Many had some nasty scars from a tough life. It was hard to place their nationality, they seemed to be from all over.

When she is first spotted, the guards on the cliffs do not immediately freak out, but they do notice her. Once she's closed enough that they can see a young woman (Claire's markings and inhuman nature were hard to spot in the day at this distance) wearing an idol dress, they knew this was an odd situation.

By the time she gets close, a young ren man wearing patched but functional dublinai style armor has made it to the top of the cliff. He has a spear with a metal tip. There are also a number of the villager's healthy residents capable of fighting, though there is no malice at their faces.

In fact, the ren is smiling. He is in significantly better than most of the other villagers, even the healthier ones here. His language is a little difficult to make out. It's primarily vissian, but with a number of word and weird cadences from Plagic and Trade Cant.

"Ah! Greetings to be making to the strange visitor. Alone and atired thusly! Expecting not so many, expecting not so close to tithing.

Dwellers in dark, you are not, clearly. Be thee mortal or something else?"

He adds in a far less broken tongue "I don't suppose you speak modern ren?"

(OOC - Int 19? Of course you do.)

Claire quickly restrained herself from showing pity to these people. It was terribly distressing, but something deeper than her programming told her that they would have what pride they could hold onto and wouldn't appreciate being reminded of their poverty. After a moment, a certain admiration for their endurance replaced the pity. They did much with little.

As the final words reached Claire's mechanical brain, there was a microsecond's delay before her systems registered the language and activated a Modern Ren dictionary, along with a brief crossreference to the wiki pages on Dulimbaian and Toban cultures. Mortal or not? Well, that was a question. She answered in Modern Ren.

"I do. My name is Claire, originally from the Republic - as are my clothes." That was the advantage of being a Republican - just about any weirdness could be excused. "I am a robot," the word said in Pelagic as Claire tapped her ear for emphasis, "a free-willed creation of their factories. I come scouting this area for friends of mine who seek to settle nearby, if we can find somewhere that'll make for good farming or fishing." She gave a little grin. "I see that you and yours have made it work, but it can't have been easy. And that you've had to defend yourselves."

The man carefully considers what she said, taking in her appearance and clothes.

"Oh, you poor girl!" He says in Ren, he says sympathetically, looking pained. "You are so fortunate to have found us! Truly both of our ancestors are clearly watching over us today." He said a quiet prayer.

His speech is a bit sloppy, like he hasn't spoke it in a few years, but it is far more grammatically coherent, and he seems happy to be speaking it with you. The other villagers seem unable to tell what is being said.

He returns to his odd language.

"Clothes fool not, this girl is being the *robot* too, like most of us!" There are a few gasps of disbelief in the crowd, but they do not openly question him.


He switched back to Ren. "My name is Deng of the Bai Family. My father is the chief of this village. You should speak with him. Do you think your group of robots are still being pursued?"

Claire thought a moment. "My people are not being pursued, no. Their former owner fears my power and will not seek to threaten those under my protection. Please take me to Chief Bai."

Mistranslation or not, if the word was used to mean slave, it was close enough to the truth. The whole distinction between human and machine could come later.

You are taken down to the village after a simple climb down a knotted rope. It consists of a number of natural caves which seem to dot the cliffs. There are pathways between the caves that can be walked, though sometimes they are very narrow. In other areas sections of rock have been carved out, or ropes and pitons placed here and there.

"You have to be careful. Some of these are inhabited by mukkers. They are extremely territorial and very hard to kill, though they aren't very fast."

For normal humans, falling would have been Clarie's first concern. There were no railings, and the beach was a long distance below. There were a number of places with good natural handholds, and ropes here and there.

He points at a cave with a few crude markings. "Some of the caves connect to the tunnels where the Dwellers in Darkness live. We try to mark those. Avoid." He was quite serious about this, and he swallowed bitterly.

Eventually, you come to a well concealed cave that has it's own guard, and some hastily constructed wooden shutters, likely very useful against a storm. A few ren are here and there, wearing actual clothes.

Soon, you find yourself inside, being served tea and rice. A middle aged ren couple sit at the table, with the cheif at it's head. Deng and his wife ( a non-ren villager) are also present.

The chief bows. "Welcome to Shoal. I am chief Zou Bai. I see you have met my son, Deng. Please, enjoy yourself. It has been many years since I've been able to speak to anyone in ren outside my family."

Claire easily walked down the appropriate ledge with the ease of a trained acrobat. Once across from Chief Bai, she took a polite sip of the tea but commented on the rice, "I am on a fast and may not eat solid food at the moment." Actually, it was just that it would be easier to clean out the tea out of sight.

"Chief Bai, forgive me for getting straight to the point, but I heard that your people are menaced by creatures alternately called mukkers, or Dwellers in Darkness, and that your people do not have the weapons to deal with these creatures." She smiled. "I may not look it, but I am extremely heavily armed with Republican weaponry. Would you tell me what you know about the creatures in question?"

"Oh! Really?" He blinked.

"Well, the mukkers aren't too dangerous. They are armored and their claws can snip metal, but they are very slow and generally don't attack anyone who stays out of their way.

They are not too dangerous if one keeps one's wits about them and is not unlucky."

He put his tea cup down and looked at the table.

"The dwellers though.. they are some kind of demon or spirit that lives in the cave.

My family were marooned here eight years ago. We had some fine dublinai weaponry with us, and we were able to take down a number of mukkers, and have fought off small groups of slavers and bandits. We have been somewhat successful in improving the villagers lot here, but against the Dwellers... "

He shook his head, and looked pain at the memory.

"All who venture too deeply into the caves are killed, and while we live here, we are expected to offer up a tribute every two years. This has been the way of things since time immemorial.

Once, when we'd just arrived, we thought of defying them. My oldest child explored their cave."

He shuddered.

"They showed themselves to us, publicly. They look human, but are as black as pitch, with shock white hair. They have the look of demons. I struck one with my cho-nu-ku, but it was as though I was shooting at a shadow.

They crippled and... pacified our guards. I was fortunate.. they spared me and my family, said that the meal we'd provided had been delicious."

He continued to stare at his tea cup.

"We must chose a tribute within three months. I will not lie to you - if you approach them, it is your death, and it will not be pleasant. They will take it as their sacrafice, so it will do us a service but.. I would not have someone do this who was mentally-...

I would not have you do this."

He was sweating slightly.

Claire thought for a moment. "...I'm going to need to gather my allies for this, but as you said, we have three months to deal with the problem. By the Throne, I will do what I can to aid you." She touched her cross pendant. "I am a strong fighter, and I have allies who are great sorcerers."

"Enough unpleasantry, though. I'd actually come here because you and your people had managed to make a living here, and you're not all starving - though you could be doing better. If I'm not intruding, how are you managing to provide food for your community? Your people's knowledge will be invaluable when our village-ship finally makes landfall."

He pauses and considers what she's saying carefully. He has to change gears and he stops looking at his tea cup. He takes a slow careful drink before replying.

"Well, the rice helps. It's got an odd taste, but it grows in salt water. EVERYTHING tastes like salt here, it seems.

I picked it up from a trader who passed through the oasis states, and picked some up on a hunch. I'm glad I did when we were shipwrecked. We set up some terraces in the lower beach level caves after we wrecked here.

We lose all them in the flooding season, and sometimes the mukkers decide for some emperor-blasted reason to take back a cave and ruin it, but it's easy to harvest."

"There's some tubers and roots that grow near the cliffs, that are technically edible, but they must be prepared carefully, and must not be overly consumed, or they poison one's red chi. Many villagers have difficulty speaking."

Deng, who had been quietly flirting with his wife across the table, finaly spoke up, smiling. "Far better since we've gotten here though! Rice, ropes for nets, and a couple spear and axe heads helped improve the diet with hunting.

Smiles all round. No wonder he'd been made the chief of the village.

"Of course, most of our food comes from the sea." He picks up some seafood with a chopstick. "It's quite fresh, and though it is monotonous. It's also poisonous during the mukker's mating season." Everyone at the table suppresses a shudder.

Claire nodded. "I must commend you on your ingenuity and success in surviving here, even in such an inhospitable land."

After an amount of small talk that Claire knew was perfunctory, she rose to her feet. "Thank you for the information," she said. "I must return home with my findings and speak with my friends, and then we can start mucking out this place."

Claire's remaining slave processors complained at the pun. She gave a quick salute in the Republican style, then marched to the edge of the cave. When she reached it, her wings deployed and her jets fired, launching her into the air and sending her southward.

<TO: Tavern>
This message was last edited by the player at 15:51, Wed 09 Jan 2019.

Gasps went up throughout the village as she flew up into the air. The Chief's mouth went agape.

"I thought she was some utterly mad woman." He whispered.