Step 31

Glint is amused by Prota's exaggeration, but stays out of the conversation. Corun will feel scared at first by the suggestion that Prota might die, then he will pick up on the teasing and respond in mock outrage. This will not completely succeed in distracting him from Prota's suggestion that he wait a few years.

Corun is irritated by having to wait, and by the opposition he's facing. His thoughts run something like: Why, just last week he killed a wild dog that was threatening the flock, by himself! He can handle himself. And six-headed monsters aren't real anyway...right? [Corun's family are shepherds.] 

Shepherding and other herding professions are useful to migratory populations, who often cannot rely on farming one location for extended periods. Greefolk sometimes leave behind useful land, but herds are more mobile and reliable, provided they can be moved swiftly enough and find good pasture that hasn't already been stripped. [Herding and fishing are common sources of food in this world, as are fast and sometimes destructive methods of farming or clearing land.] 

Corun disengages the hug as you speak, and gasps at "certain death". Then he squints at you as you continue. "You're making fun of me!" he accuses, giving you a good-natured punch to the shoulder. "I'll have you know I can handle myself! Last week I killed a wild dog that was threating the flock, all by myself!" He mimes slinging a stone with deadly accuracy. "Pow!"

Glint snorts in wry amusement. 

Corun looks at the ground. "It's not fair! You've been planning for years now, but Mom and Dad get mad if I even talk about going." 

None. 

"Well, they can't get mad at you if you just think about it, and eventually work your way up from dogs with one head to dogs with six," I reply. "But at least wait for me to come back, all right? Maybe I will come back with six heads of my own and protect you all the way there."

Prota asks Corun to wait, trying to soften the blow. 

"Well, they can't get mad at you if you just think about it, and eventually work your way up from dogs with one head to dogs with six," you reply. "But at least wait for me to come back, all right? Maybe I will come back with six heads of my own and protect you all the way there."

Step 32

Corun is amused by the thought of Prota with six heads, and will say so, adding some teasing of his own. More to the point, Prota is trying to support Corun without completely discouraging him. While a few words are rarely enough to sway a determined youth, Prota's words will leave a lasting impression on Corun. [Corun will wait for Prota to return before he tries to leave, but he will grow impatient if they take longer than expected.] 

The next step involves following a local trail to link up with the Utannic at a crossroads. [It is several days' journey to the Utannic. It is a week or more from there to the first major stop, the camp of Clan Pratchett.] There are some known campsites along the way, and some decent but not commonly used stopping points off the main trail. (Exact travel times would require extensive calculations to accurately align with the slow walking pace of the advancing Blue, so exact distances can be elided in the story. The journey should be long enough to feel like a major pilgrimage, but short enough to be plausible and worth the investment.) [The trip is expected to take several months one-way.] This world might not use weeks or months as familiar time intervals. Weeks are a historical artifact, and months are loosely based on phases of the moon. [This world has no moon.] (Introducing new units of measure should be done with care. Too many can be confusing and hard to track. Ideally the units should feel intuitive to the Player as well as plausible for a migratory, herding-based society.) Seasons are a familiar measure of time, albeit an inexact one. Based on the existing 360-day year, a season in this world would be 90 days. (Continuing the theme of mathematical symmetry, a word like "degrees" might be used for days, but such terms may not organically arise among the local population. However, it would be natural to divide a season into nine "tendays", and/or two 45-day half-seasons.) [Locals sometimes count time in "tendays" or "half-seasons". A season is 90 days long.] Prota would know the journey will take about two seasons in total. 

Prota's ability to reach the Blue in approximately 90 days of travel by foot implies that the Blue might arrive at Prota's camp in less than a year, and would be even closer to other towns. How close? Assume an average travel pace of 2 miles per hour bluse, to account for delays and nonlinear roads. Assume 8 hours of walking per day, also conservative. 16 miles per day over 90 days is 1440 miles. If the Blue travels at 1 mile per hour, assuming 24-hour days, this distance takes 60 days to cross. (Some amount of time pressure is desirable, but this is too fast. The advancement rate of the Blue has never been formally specified, and can be adjusted to meet the needs of the world and plot. A Blue that advances a tenth of a mile per hour will cross the gap to Prota's camp in 600 days, or just under two years. This is closer to the narratively desired pressure being placed on the towns and camps between Prota and the Blue.) [The Blue advances at approximately 0.1 miles per hour, in Earth units.] [Pastures and other resources get used up and detritus of civilization accumulates the farther behind one is. Competition, poverty, and desperation become fiercer near the edge of existence. Most groups don't want to live too close to the Blue. This desire is balanced by the desire for access to magics.] (Other implications of the slower advancing Blue on greefolk and others can be explored later in the story.)

The prompt will include Corun's response and an encouraging comment from Glint. It will remain open-ended in case there is something else the Player wants to do or say, then move on to the next step, the beginning of the journey. 

Corun snorts. "My cousin, the six-headed magic monster." He pauses to ponder this for a moment. "So, pretty much the same as usual, then." Corun grins at you, but you can tell he's still thinking about what you said. "Okay, cos, I'll wait." 

"And practice that sling arm," Glint adds, winking. "Never know when you might need it." 

None. 

I hug Corun goodbye, and hug everyone else goodbye, and set out.

Prota is saying their goodbyes. (The Player ready to move on to the next stage of the narrative.)

You say your final farewells, hug your family one last time, and nudge Beldry into a modest but steady walk. And you take your first deliberate step in a long journey toward the Edge of the World, the wall that eats all things. 

Step 33

[The Blue is sometimes called the Edge of the World, or the wall that eats all things.] 

The journey will start off relatively uneventful. The trail that connects with Utannic is relatively less traveled. The initial journey may be somewhat familiar to Prota, since their clan will have passed through this area while migrating gree. [Clan Pratchett is camped in a region that Prota's clan formerly used, the grass having regrown enough for pasturage.] As they get farther bluse, only major landmarks will remain unchanged, and they will pass through wholly unfamiliar territory, since Prota's clan tended to avoid camping too close to large groups. [Places like Adwell and the twin towns have been occupied for several years, and were passed by Prota's clan years before.] 

Emphasize the familiar at first. Known campgrounds and landmarks. The terrain here is hilly since they are near mountains, but not impassably so; it is ground chosen to be suitable for shepherds and for easy passage gree. Glint will scout as a bird or wolf. When he isn't scouting, he will teach some advanced survival skills. The prompt will also note one way that following after greefolk makes life harder for middlefolk. They sometimes have to contend with overgrazed areas. 

At camp, Prota can still just barely see Balding Hill in the distance; their family's camp is just on the other side. (It is a bit too soon to end the first day on the road. This can be mentioned in a later post. First, allow the player a chance to react to the description of the routine and Glint's tutoring.)

At first, your path takes you through familiar territory, only recently traversed by your clan in the last migration gree. You know where to find decent campgrounds. The terrain hereabouts is rolling hills with a few streams and valleys. Decent pasture, though barely recovered from overgrazing by previous greefolk. 

Glint makes good use of the time. Periodically, he launches himself into the air as an agile mockingbird, shifting to a keen-eyed hawk mid-flight, and disappears for half an hour to scout the terrain. Sometimes, well away from Beldry, he shifts to the form of a shaggy, black-furred wolf and sniffs about. When he's not scouting, he tutors and tests you on your survival skills. 

"See that plume of smoke in the distance? Is that a campfire or wildfire?" (Campfire; it rained recently, and the smoke is too thin and white to be local brush). 

"If you were thirsty, could you drink the juice from this plant's stem? What would happen if you did?" (You would hallucinate and maybe die). 

"If you needed medicine, what could you get from this copse of trees?" (Quite a lot, it turns out, if you include the vines and fungi at the base of the trees). 

"Could you feed Beldry this grass variant in a pinch?" (You could try, but he wouldn't eat it; it's not good for him and he knows that instinctively). 

[Some grasses are not healthy for Beldry.]

I listen attentively to what Glint has to teach me, and when he's scouting I keep an eye out for things we might want to have for dinner and good places to stop for Beldry to graze. I ask if we should visit the campfire, but expect the answer is no.

Prota listens and practices noticing good forage for humans and for Beldry. 

You absorb Glint's tutelage, and while he's away, you keep an eye out for good spots to graze or forage. When Glint identifies the campfire, you ask if you should pay a visit. 

Step 34

[Prota is getting better at foraging and survival.] Prota should spot a few decent forage options and a few red herrings. (Establishing basic practices like forage now will let the story assume and elide over such details in future prompts, except when it is conducive to the plot to mention them again.) The prompt should also mention water. Fresh water can come from streams, springs, small lakes or ponds, or rainfall, but none of these are reliable or guaranteed sources, and some carry risk of disease. 

Glint recommends against visiting the campsite. There is no particular reason to seek other travelers at this point, and they might meet up anyway along the road if they are going in opposite directions. 

{The next steps at this point are underdetermined. More thought is needed to decide where to go from here.} Proceed quickly through the trail linking up with the Utannic, or stage an early encounter to challenge the Player? In-universe, the trail they are on is not well-traveled. There might be wild animals and there will be a handful of travelers moving gree. The occasional traveling merchant is not enough to sustain a bandit population, even one supplemented by hunting. Prota's clan stripped the immediate environs of forage when they passed through, but some new growth will be present. Chance encounters are possible but unlikely to pose a substantial threat. A Llerwood animal or small pack afflicted by Li Voita Nimue's magic might have made it this far gree, avoiding travelers on the Utannic. [Li Voita Nimue can animate dead organic matter and exert some amount of control over it. Their magic is harmful to living things and at least mildly contagious. Living things that near an afflicted plant or creature are slowly weakened in proportion to the amount and proximity of afflicted matter. A large enough density of afflicted plants or animals can kill a living thing and afflict it in turn.] (Encountering an afflicted Llerwood animal would foreshadow possible future encounters. Li Voita Nimue is a possible antagonist for the plot, though the Player may avoid engaging them directly.) 

The next prompt can cover the next few days. If the Player does not wish to engage with passerby or otherwise act during that time, the following prompt can introduce an afflicted animal. 

Your clan's recent passage through this area stripped it of most useful forage, but there is some new growth and well-camouflaged sustenance to be found, as long as you avoid eating the wrong thing. You notice some bushes bearing bright orange berries, but wonder why they haven't been picked yet. Later, Glint (giving you an approving nod) confirms that they are poisonous. He directs you to look for certain squat, broad-leafed plants with thorny stems, and after a few hours you spot one. You carefully dig it up and are rewarded with a thick, knotted tuber that Glint says can be boiled to make decent soup, or chopped and fed to Beldry. You spot a few more before making camp the first night. Between your efforts and Glint's experience, you are able to avoid drawing down your supplies for now. 

Clean water is something of a challenge, though you have enough in your containers to last a week or two. Travelers heading gree do not always take care to avoid polluting waterways in their path, and any stagnant water is suspect. You know how to collect rainwater and to filter and boil other sources. You know you'll pass a few small streams on the way to the Utannic, enough to keep your stores up - thankfully those don't run out as easily as forage does. The Utannic itself might be a bit more hit or miss before you reach the river. 

Glint doesn't seem interested in visiting campfires - the first one you notice at night is a considerable distance away. You meet its likely owner the next morning, a small caravan heading gree. You pass a handful more such travelers in the next few days, after turning towards the Utannic at the first crossroads. People are always migrating gree, but this is a few more than you expected before reaching the main road. 

[Prota, Glint, and Beldry are currently subsisting mostly on forage.] 

I ask Glint if we need to be especially wary due to the unexpected volume of travelers moving gree. Is this likely to mean that water is harder to come by than anticipated, maybe, as the blue absorbs water sources?

Prota has two concerns: the unusual number of travelers, and the availability of water. They are related but different questions. 

You ask Glint if the increased traffic is a concern, particularly for water sources. You mention the Blue's effect on the water supply. 

Step 35

If the Blue simply vanished all matter it came in contact with, there would be a huge suction and constant bluse wind from the destruction of air, and any body of water that touched the Blue would drain quickly. (This is not a desired feature of the world. A constant bluse wind might be an interesting feature, but it has not been established and should not be sprung upon the Player. Also, even an infinite plane world might need to get more air from somewhere. Water is different; rivers flowing into the Blue might plausibly dry up quickly without otherwise making drastic changes to the world.) Something else must be preventing the Blue from destroying air. That something is pressure. [The boundary of the Blue has a texture and surface tension akin to gelatin. It "pushes" against matter that contacts it. This tension-induced back-pressure is enough to prevent air from flowing freely past the boundary. Water does drain into it, but slowly.] If the surface tension increased with pressure applied, solid objects could not be pushed into the Blue, so it must be a constant value. [Deeper water has higher pressure and drains into the Blue faster than shallow water.] With these features, the Blue may push light objects ahead of itself, accumulating debris over time. (A theme of this world is that things get dirtier and more chaotic as one approaches the Blue, so a certain amount of debris is appropriate, but a giant wall of leaves and dust bunnies is not the desired imagery). A compromise runs as follows: [Parts of objects that penetrate the Blue do not immediately vanish. They remain attached to the main body. However, they cannot be drawn back out of the Blue. This means that objects that partially penetrate the boundary will "stick" to the Blue's surface. The Blue also exerts a weak bluse pull on objects inside it. Over time, objects in partial contact with the wall will either be pulled into the Blue, pushed in by more solid objects, or will break free, severing their connection with the part of the object that is already inside the Blue. This is a clue about the true nature of the Blue: it does not destroy, but preserves. People sacrifice body parts by pushing them into the Blue and then yanking free, severing the connection with the sacrificed part.] 

[Draining of deep waters into the Blue sometimes creates dry former oceans and lakebeds, turning them into swamps, valleys, and floodplains. Waterfalls are common near the Blue.] 

Glint has seen the Blue up close many times, and can describe its effects. The detail relevant to Prota's question is that shallow bodies of water will not drain quickly into the Blue, but deep ones might. Glint is mildly worried about the gree migration, but not extremely so. The total number of people along the path to the Blue hasn't changed, but their distribution will. There may be more competition for water sources whose headwaters are gree, and water sources whose headwaters are consumed by the Blue will dry up. However, the Blue moves slowly enough that travelers can estimate how much water will be available in a region over the course of their journey. [The gree migration may disrupt the economy in towns on the Utannic Road.]