The Stolen Candle - Chapter 2

Ana has just been sleeping in the Echo, recent events having tired her out more than she expected.

The Coffin Nails agree to send a message by the most rapid donkey they have to Castle Refuge. The threat is dire and none take it less than deadly serious.

You rest in your hotel that night, and wake to a waffle heavy breakfast. Candle has to be cajoled from her bed, having slept mostly tied to things for the past few days.

You pack up Echo with food to spare for a couple days, Chay reviews what maps and folklore there is about heading to the town where the uncertain appears to have started, and you set off.

Chay is ready to head to town but is moving slowly. He ate way too many waffles and is now regretting his eyes being bigger than his stomach.

"As long as we've got our basic supplies, then let's go. I'll meet you all at Echo," says Ben to the others as they let their meal digest.

Tipolei will ask Chay if he can rig a secure seat on top of Echo. That way he can feel the wind on his face, smell the air and have a chance to shoot any enemies with his trusted juicer rifle...

Chay's eyes light up. Any chance to tinker with Echo is a good time. I'm sure I can dig up some parts in my bottomless tool box to make you something suitable Tip.

You cross the countryside, following ancient roads and fording small rivers where you have to. Candle sleeps as much as she can, her perpetual distrust easing and at one point is sleeping with her head on Ben's lap. When she wakes, her fiery temper years again, but it doesn't last long.

No one really knows these lands. The rifts have made strange what was once minutely mapped, and strange edifices rise, and deep chasms fall, as recent and ancient horrors reshaped the land. Candle, having fled this way, if any of her stories are true, does not know the ways that Echo might traverse, so you are left to B making it up.

Tipolei and Kai watch from above, the former scrapped to the roof like the crows nest of a sailing ship, the latest with periodic flights before his long naps in the cargo hold. No one, or nothing, gives you pause or hinders you.

After three days, you've been retracing your way along forested ravines, finding ways past undesirable terrain, when Candle let's you know she recognizes the area.

"There. That split hill top. The town is on the west side of that." She can tell you little about the hive itself, having fled before it was fully established.

Chay stops Echo and looks at his passengers. Well, looks like it's time for a plan. Candle, can you give us some more details about the place? He taps the roof to let the others know to come down and join the meeting.

"Also, how did you get to this place?" Ben asks, trying to look friendlier than he was earlier.

"Also could anyone else be alive or is everyone dead or eaten?"

Candle shrugs, her distress growing now that the hive is so close. "They destroy everything, kill everyone, even the plants. The very ground transforms around them. I don't know how much progress they've made, but the town is a circle in a small bowl in between three hills. The important people lived higher on the hill slopes. There are three main valleys in, two follow the Radiant River, and one had a logging road up through the woods."

She points to the south of the cleft-top hill. "The logging road would be on that side, and the woods will give us height and cover to get a better look."

"That sounds like some kind of terraforming operation," Ben says. "We'd have to assume that if they can transform the environment large scale then they're probably most sophisticated that the low-tech assailants that we left behind. We may need to start scouting around to get a better sense of what's out here."

Some of Chay's bluster dissipates on hearing Candle's description of the hive. He nervously pinches at his kerchief as he listens.

Scouting carefully, yep.

"Ok." Kai shambles out the back and takes to the skies to have a look around but stops and yells back in.

"Someone should make me a necklace with a camera to see what I'm seeing later." he states before closing the back exit with his tail and taking to the skies.

I guess I get wiser every week... he thinks to himself with a tooth grin.

Is Kai going to be loud and obvious, or sneaky and ninja dragon, or, you know, fly casual?

Maybe toss a roll in that makes sense.

The dragon doesn't have to fly to high manor he sees begging the hill to the town. The center had been cleared, a large misshapen termites mound formed in the center, constructed from material from the town.

On the mound, insects, scale making it difficult but Kai estimates them to be people sized, come in and out looking for all the word like a construction crew and assorted servants.

In the town, larger insects slowly tear down homes and buildings, breaking the material into a mulch like paste before smaller insects carry the goo to the mound.

A number of aerial scouts buzz about and they spot Kai. Three of them move to rapidly intercept.

Kai flies to the flying bugs and if they don't act polite he will try and find out if they taste good.

I hope Kai will be ok? These bugs make me nervous.

[I think he'll be okay]

Ana showed her device to Chay with a gentle smile