(5) Some Use

The Choked Crater, the site of a cataclysmic impact even almost five hundred years ago, known as the Skyfade. Perpetually covered by a thick smog of volcanic excretia, the sky is perpetually red, glowing and angry during the day, and dark like a cooling ember at night. The air in many regions of lower elevation will suffocate and render the average person unconscious in seconds, killing them in minutes.

The ground was violently unstable, with geysers of superheated water and steam erupting regularly, some predictably, others seemingly randomly. What little standing water existed was so hot and acidic that any animal foolish or unlucky enough to fall in would leave no carcass, its entire corpse dissolved in hours.

Mirroring the dangerous land itself, the creatures that dwelt within were equally hazardous. From ants the size of one’s foot to building-sized magma crabs, competition for real estate was intense in the Crater.

Far to the south, several hundred miles from where Nemesis sat in the direct center of the Choked Crater, lay a mountain range running east to west in an arc all the way across Ashreach. These are the Scoured Peaks, the southern arc of the gargantuan crater created by the Skyfade impact event.

The north face of this range features rock just as blasted and barren as the crater they tower above, like jagged gravestones marking the site of devastation. The southern face is covered by perpetual fog and rain. Moisture from the warm coast in the south builds and travels north, eventually reaching the Peaks, too tall for the clouds to climb. There they linger, dumping a perpetual torrent of rain.

This side of the Peaks is made of jagged bedrock, uplifted by the Skyfade impact and further exposed by torrential rain that scoured away any remaining dirt and stone over centuries. Though more hospitable than the Crater, the exposed bedrock makes building difficult, and the constant floods and landslides would obliterate any attempt. There are few plants and even fewer animals that dare to eke out an existence amidst the fog.

Between these two extremes exist small patches of green, hiding beneath the towering spires. Once or twice a year, a few clouds will weave their way between the lower Peaks, snaking along hidden paths until they reach valleys they can no longer pass. The water they dump there sustains these small, independent ecosystems.

Although not a paradise, these tiny green spaces are home to hardy plants like tubers, animals like rabbits and goats, and even hardier people. They have to be, for even the youngest of rabbits in these green patches feature a level above two hundred. It takes a high-level hunter to hunt even the smallest game.

And limited resources will inevitably lead to conflict.

Local warlords, descendants of the Vadenlaudian push into Ashreach almost two hundred years ago, fight constantly for territory within this narrow band of habitability. Each oversees a small community, and each constantly vie for power and territory.

And each of these warlords is receiving word of a world-shaking event in the Crater.

“Carga! Outta the way! I need to talk to Carga!” a wiry man shouted, sprinting through the camp like death itself was on his heels.

He crested the hill and pounded on a door. That this stone hut even had a door was symbolic enough of its owner’s position. Few trees grew in the Strip, the small habitable section within the Peaks.

“Boss! I got news you gotta—” he started, his pounding growing louder.

Suddenly, the blade of an ax smashed through the center of the door, its edge inches from the man’s face. He yipped, jumping back and staring at the gleaming ax blade as thunderous steps boomed from behind the door.

The ax disappeared, wrenched from where it was lodged, and the door opened to reveal a mountain of a man. He must be close to seven feet tall, and nearly as round. He resembled a pile of meat, only somewhat human. His arms were thick with muscle, his round gut somehow had distinct valleys between the abdominal muscles, and his bald head was crisscrossed with bulging veins that pulsed in time.

The wiry man gulped as the giant slowly approached, sheathing the equally enormous ax on his back.

“Better be good, Flint. I assume you ain’t abandon your post and run all the way back just to interrupt my evening activities for somethin’ trivial,” the mountain, Carga, grunted.

Flint did not need further details. He could tell from the stench wafting through the hut’s open door, and Carga himself, who wore only a thin blanket around his waist, caked in both blood and other fluids, what these ‘evening activities’ were.

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“Boss, you ain’t gonna believe it! I were watchin’ the ravine like you’s told me. I was real high up-like, you know, where the air gets cold, and yer nuts are stuck to the back of—” Flint began, interrupted by Carga reaching for his ax.

“Spit it out, godsdamn you!” he growled.

“The light, boss! The light ‘round Nemesis has disappeared!” he squeaked.

Carga paused, his hand halfway reached for his ax. He studied Flint with a gaze as firm as the mountains surrounding him and, after determining Flint was not exaggerating, strode forward. He stood just a foot before Flint and crouched down so that their eyes were locked.

“You sure ‘bout that?” he asked quietly, the gentleness more disconcerting than if he had yelled.