The Path to Eden, episode 3: Go West

"Only time for a short one today," Chronicler Venno told the assembled crowd.  There was a faint murmur of disappointment, but not so much that he couldn't speak over it.  "Do you remember the day the ground shook?"  Enthusiastic nodding followed.  "And poor Rodney Rubble got killed by falling rocks while out clearing ground, and Boss Briktoria warned us that it was a punishment from the Seven Sisters for spending too much time working on the croplands and not working hard enough on the temple.  So once again, a group went to explore outside."

"There were rumours of a building to the west called the Alexandra Tower that surely had to contain many amazing things, perhaps even relics of the Seven Sisters.  So Lenny, Zippo and Katin set out to find a path to the tower.  They made sure to rest well beforehand.  Lenny had hurt his back clearing rubble for the croplands, Katin had got lost looking for good land for planting, and both Lenny and Zippo had attempted to read the journal they had found in the bird's nest, but found it made their brains hurt too much.

With Katin and the one-way-needle-pointing-device in the lead they left the safety of the Ark behind and ventured out west.  Soon they found the ground beneath their feet changing, becoming wetter and wetter until they were wading through marshland.  Katin warned everyone to watch out for evil fish in the water, but when they did see signs of life it was a woman emerging from the mouth of a dark tunnel.

Katin called out to her, but she answered in words that none of them could make out.  Was she a threat?  They weren't sure, but then she bent double, as if in serious pain, and lay face down in the water.  They decided they should try to rescue her.  Lenny fished her out of the water, and Zippo bandaged her wound.  Katin expected it to be a bite from a fish - after all, one of the sacred texts had an entire chapter on fish, so they were clearly important - but Zippo thought it was a cut, not a bite.

The mystery continued.  The woman wore strange purple coveralls, of a material none of them had seen before.  Her hair was neat and blonde, her skin was strangely smooth, and she showed no sign of any mutation.  She carried a bow, made of another strange material, which Zippo promptly handed over to Katin.

With the woman stabilised, they decided to do some further exploration, heading into the darkness of the tunnel.  Katin had had a good sniff of the woman, who had a weird chemical smell, and concluded that she had had come from the other side of the tunnel.  But beyond that, it was hard to say.

Fascinating as the mass of rusting vehicles leading out of the tunnel was, they finally decided they should go home.  Katin had identified a low level of rot, but not something they wanted to stay out in for long.  The strange woman was now awake, and after some more attempts at conversation they finally managed to make out enough words for a brief conversation.  She was very confused and seemed to have lost her memory, not even knowing her own name.

They checked her clothes, just in case her name was written on them, but unless her name was 'machine wash', which seemed unlikely, there was nothing of help there.  The final conclusion was that she was probably some kind of gift from the Seven Sisters, and that they should take her back to the Dawn Vault so that the chroniclers could talk to her.

There was some argument back at the Ark, when Boss Briktoria insisted that the strange woman should be brought to the shrine, not the Dawn Vault.  After all, who could she be but one of the Seven Sisters themselves?  Lenny was confused, because surely there were already seven sisters, with Briktoria being one of them, so did this mean there were now eight sisters?  But after some discussion of the sacred texts, things started to make sense.  This smooth skinned, blonde haired, bow carrying woman who spoke in a strange tongue could only be one thing.  An elf."