11: The Colony

 

Wellentag 16^th Pflugzeit

Balden started to feel a bit faint, and it wasn’t long before he collapsed. His head was bleeding and you tried to wrap it up a bit, but none of you knew what you were doing. You decided that you should probably try to get to a village as soon as possible. Looking at the guide book, you could see that there was Klessen on the Gisoreux road, which looked sizeable but was probably more than a day’s travel away, and perhaps another village on the way to Klessen, but it was hard to tell with that map.

After about an hour of travel you came across a couple of locals driving a cart. And after you convinced them you didn’t want to rob them they explained that they had been to Klessen but the going there had been very slow because of the massive number of refugees making their way along the road, away from Marienburg. But the traffic had meant they got very high prices for their turnips, so they were pleased about that.

They said you could probably find a doctor or someone in Klessen, if Balden lived that long, but they also told you that there was supposedly a Shallyan hospice a few hour’s north of where you were. They said that they had never been there, and perhaps it was long abandoned, but it definitely used to exist. You decided Balden’s best chance was for you to make for the hospice.

On your way, there was some chat that Balden was probably better off unconscious, as he had a habit of putting his foot in it, when talking to strangers, and that he was probably a bit too honest for his own good. And he should probably be especially careful around Egg. You spoke to Egg about her knack of being extremely lucky, but she seemed oblivious to it. Egg said that Balden had annoyed Mr. Whiffle. You remarked that he had been very unlucky and probably fallen on the only rock for miles around.

After an hour or so’s travel, you came to a sort of bowl on the edge of the Sickly Marsh and you could see what looked like a man-made frame with a body laid out on it, and two or three skeletons alongside it. Kris volunteered to go down and investigate while the other two looked on, within handgun range.

He saw that it was the body of a recently deceased warrior, with armour, sword, and shield laid out, but it had the head of a snake and the other skeletons on the frame seemed similarly unnatural. Kris wondered whether the body was arranged in a funerary manner, or as a warning. And he noticed that the edge of the nearby wood was actually a man-made palisade, and he heard the odd strains of a Shallyan hymn, which made him feel a bit better about things.

So you decided to approach the gatehouse, and as you did you heard a dog barking, and the gate opened to reveal a middle-aged Shallyan priest. She introduced herself as Sister Astrid, and bid you welcome. You told her that you needed healing and she said you would be welcome to it. She said you should follow her into the colony, but you should forgive the conditions you would find there. You wondered what she meant, and it sounded a bit foreboding. And Mr. Whiffle said he didn’t like her.

As you went through the gates you noticed that the guard dog on the gate was actually a boy who had the head of a dog. And you saw that everybody except Astrid was mutated. There was an orange-coloured tanner who was cutting rapidly-growing flesh off the back of an ogre, a huge daemon-headed man pulling a plough, an antler headed man carrying some barrels, a metal-skinned woman, and many others. Egg seemed delighted with this, and she ran off to try to play with the mutated inhabitants.

A man called Bostrup introduced himself, and he had no head but his face was in his chest and he had eyes on stalks. Astrid told Bostrup to show you round while she dealt with Balden, but Max insisted on staying with Balden, as he wanted to get his leg seen to, too.

Kris was a bit freaked out by all the mutants and rummaged through Balden’s stuff to get his weirdroot and ate a load. And Heinrich wasn’t too pleased about the situation, telling you all it was ‘wrong.’ But Max was a bit more equanimous.

Astrid had a look at Balden’s wound and said it was infected and it was lucky you had got it seen to so quickly, or it could have been deadly. And she healed Max’s leg. He asked her about the warrior on the frame, and she explained that he had been a mercenary who became afflicted, and had found the colony. She had insisted he denounce violence, as all the inhabitants did. But when he died they had arranged his weapons and armour to honour his life, not to honour violence. And it was their tradition to leave the dead to rot in the field so that their bodies may feed the earth and their spirits become free.

Kris wondered if they had any alcohol and the antler-headed man told you that he had been working on this beer which was quite good. They didn’t have much but there would be a naming ceremony that evening for a new-born baby and there would be beer for everyone then.

Bostrup showed you round, but he was interrupted by another mutant called Willi who seemed to be two-people in one, one on top of the other, and they got into an argument about who was mayor of the settlement. And after he left, Bostrup explained that Astrid had made them both mayor, as a compromise.

He said the metal-skinned woman was his girlfriend. She used to work the Marienburg dockside until she woke up one morning like that. And he explained a bit of the history of the colony, where they had lived in secret in Marienburg and then escaped into the marsh. And a steady stream of mutants had found their way there. And you watched Egg play fetch with the dog boy who was called Klaus.

At the naming ceremony everyone sang Shallyan hymns, though some of the vocal performances were strange. And you saw the parents, a goat-headed father and a translucent-skinned mother present their baby. It looked perfectly normal and healthy. Heinrich whispered that the gods were very cruel to bring a new-born baby into such a place, and it wouldn’t be a healthy upbringing.

Astrid blessed the child in the name of Shallya and then Bostrup said a few words, and everyone lined up to confer their blessing upon him. So Kris and Max joined the queue but Heinrich refused. And when it was Kris’ turn, Egg got agitated and said that he shouldn’t touch him or the green man would come and banish him to the moon, or something, and she ran off to sulk. And Max only pretended to touch the baby.

Heinrich went off to find Egg and sat down next to her. Egg told him the baby was spoiling everything, and it was ugly, like him. And she said she wanted to stay in the colony forever. But as they were talking Heinrich noticed some movement beyond the palisade, and saw that Lufthanser and Balthasar had turned up with a mob of about twenty Wastelanders. He quickly picked Egg up and went to tell Max and Kris.

While you were talking, Klaus sounded the alarm and went running to Astrid and pretty soon everyone in the colony knew about the arrival of the strangers. And the mood became anxious.

Astrid made her way towards the gate and you went to tell her that you knew Lufthanser and that he was a witch hunter of Solkan. She told Bostrup to get out of sight, and she bravely went out to talk to Lufthanser, while you barred the gate behind her.

After about an hour of talks Astrid returned and she said that Lufthanser had promised everyone a fair trial if they surrendered peacefully. You told her not to believe him, and she said she would pray to Shallya about it. You wondered why Lufthanser had arrived at this moment, and whether it had anything to do with you being there.

And after about an hour of prayer Astrid told you that she would be surrendering to Lufthanser in the morning. You thought about defending the settlement and you reckoned you would be able to make a decent job of it with some of the mutants looking quite strong and fierce. But you knew that Astrid had made everyone forswear violence.

Then you thought about trying to get everyone to Egg’s old cottage on the hill, and start a new colony there. But in the end you decided to make a run for it. You thought about leaving through a gap in the palisade and fleeing on foot, but in the end you opted to charge out the front gate on horseback. Egg insisted she wanted to stay at the colony forever. And Max had to have a word with her, and he eventually got her to agree to leave by promising her she could have a dog and a cat when you got to Marienburg.

Aubentag 17^th Pflugzeit

So a couple of hours before dawn, you made your way to the gate and unbarred it, and slipped out. Heinrich had Egg on his horse, and Kris had Balden’s still unconscious body on his. There was a fire at a guard post in front of the gate, but luckily, whoever was on guard must have fallen asleep. And you could see the fires of other posts dotted around the settlement, so you decided to head for a gap between them.

As you left you saw Balthasar stir and he fired his blunderbuss after Heinrich but as luck would have it, it blew up in his hands. And riding hard through the unknown ground in the dark, you all did well to stay on your horses. It looked like Heinrich’s mount would fall, but it somehow stayed on its feet.

And so you escaped into the night, leaving who knows what fate to Sister Astrid and the mutants of the Colony. As you escaped, you felt that luck had been weirdly on your side and you wondered whether this was pure fortune or it had somehow been the influence of Egg.