Ages of the Old Ones Quest (Civilization Building/Call of Cthulhu)

You shared your will of traversing deep into the Fangs of the Sky with other women training in a spear. Three of them volunteered to go with you. Dew, slightly older female who had her arm broken during one of the fights. She survived, but it did not heal properly and her abilities dropped considerably. Wintergreen, a young girl who looks up to you. She will probably do anything you propose. You told her to reconsider her decision, but she held it firmly. Tania, who you would write off as unremarkable if not for her beauty. A lot of men was rather not pleased that she was totally unwilling for their company. You could already hear them in your mind, cursing you for taking her along.

You set out tomorrow at dawn. There is no reason to wait.

***

You are in world forsaken by spirits of the land. You have left all what is alive down below you. Black rocks and blue ice are the only inhabitants of this barren mountain. When you turn back your head you can catch a glimpse of green trees and birds skimming over them. They look so petite that you are not sure whether they are really there or whether your tired eyes are playing trick on you. You would bet on the first one, but not much. Up until now you though that there should be no difference when looking at faraway object from below or from above, but your opinion changed over last few days. There is something otherworldly in looking at the world so small beneath your feet. The same birds appear somehow more alive, flying about their birdly things, when seen from up above than down below. Whole nature seem more colorful when your vision is able to grasp uncountable miles of land with a single glance. If not for exhaustion and hunger slowly overtaking your body you would have just sat back and enjoyed the view. In your present condition you have no time for such idleness.

Dew and Tania are dead. Dew was mangled by a bear. The beast charged at you, there was no way to escape. Four of you fought it and managed to kill it, but Dew got severely wounded in the process. She died soon after. Tania lacked in endurance. Day before yesterday she just refused to get up. You fed her and gave her melted snow to drink, but she fallen to sleep nevertheless. She stopped breathing in her sleep. Only you and Wintergreen are left now.

But you are close to your destination. And it is not only your feeling. Last night you have seen eerie, blue light illuminating rocks near the mountain peak. What you are looking for is there, you are sure. There were also strange signs along the way. Yesterday you have crossed a forest of stone trees. You touched them, they were as hard as any rock, but they had a texture of an old bark. They had no leaves, only stone branches with stone buds. You took a moment to break one of the thinnest branches. Red liquid seeped from the crack. You still have this branch with you. After you broke it off, it became a little warm in touch, so you keep it close. It will not matter much if you are going to freeze to death, but a least it is pleasant to hold.
You enjoy the meager warmness coming from the tepid branch. It helps you forget all the pain you are in. You are close. When you pass over the snowy slope you are traversing right now, you will be almost there. A short scream from behind you makes you stagger. Wintergreen stumbled on a sharp rock. You help her get up, but she falls down again and again. Finally, you ask - "What's the matter?"

"I can't see."

You look at her eyes. She keeps them closed. When you forcefully open them, she screams in pain. Her eyeballs are all red and wet from tears. You release her and she immediately brings her thumbs to wipe her eyes.

You try to hold her hand and lead her onward. You walk like this for a while, but she keeps stumbling. Your pace is too slow. You will not make if this goes on. You release her hand.

"What happened? Why did you let go? Are you all right?"

You take a deep breath. Cold air enters deep into your body. It helps you take a decision. You can answer calmly. – "Wait for me here Wintergreen. I will go where I have to and come back for you."

"Wait, what?"

You walk away, higher and higher, step after step. Her screams follows you.

"Willow, do not leave me here! Do no leave me alone! Willow! Willow!"

She tries to catch up to you using her hearing, but the ground is too uneven. There are too many rocks and she quickly stumble again. There is no way she can go as fast as you. You hurry onward, so her screams will blend with the noise of the wind. You have no much time. You have no food and you will not as long. Helping a disabled person would make you fail for sure. You have to reach the origin of your calling, no matter what. While you are close to the destination now, each step becomes harder and harder. But her wailing keeps haunting you despite your effort to leave it behind.

You no longer know how long you have traveled. You scale a wall, vertical monstrosity of ice and rock. Your fingers are bleeding, you no longer feel your feet. But you are almost there. It is middle of a night and you can see blue light somewhere above you, welcoming and warm. A little more effort and you will finish your task. Your life will be fulfilled. You are happy. Strangely happy in your debilitation.

You lose a grip on a dent in the icy wall you were holding. Your body bends back slowly and you are no longer holding anything. You have a lot of time to admire stars spinning across the sky and watch in horror the blue light diminishing farther and farther as you fall down.

***

Your family licked its wounds over long seasons. You did even more than that. You get used to staying in your uplands and your family has grown in numbers. It truth, it has grown so much that you have a problem with establishing specific family bounds that keeps you together. Abundance of distant cousins and their cousins causes a lot of confusion when it comes to telling who is whom to who. The fact that intermarrying become practiced more often now that you lack contact with other groups of hunter-gatherers do not help in clearing this situation.

Group of man and women who got bored of being sheltered in distant mountain territory and wish to leave searching for fortune elsewhere is rapidly growing. Additionally, you are currently able to sustain yourself with gathering and hunting in local area, but spots are becoming rather crowded. If your family grows any more, some people will need to leave anyway, as they will have no way to find food for themselves here.

Thanks to your more settled way of living your family members started to build long lasting huts. They are little more than contemporary shelters, but with some care they manage to last more than one season and are rather comfortable by your standards. Definitely helpful during cold winter months.



How do you address the issue of your growing family? Or maybe you deal with another problem. Possible community actions (choose one):

[] [Guided by the Herd Instinct] Debate and try to establish who is whose niece, aunt, cousin or any combination of these and other similar relations. Keep your family bounds strong and your group united.
[] Let more distant family members go away and keep the family pure.
[] [Hunting the Weak] Send people away, but as armed parties, not emigrants. They will to look for new targets to loot.
[] [Exhausted] Produce new tools en masse and end your centuries long lack of equipment (Exhausted -1)
[] Migrate, leaving some people behind.
- [] [They Can Be Beaten] Go into the high mountains. Harden your bodies and souls there.
- [] [Hunting the Weak] Just go until you find a new target to loot. Highlands were never a good place to live in.
[] Do nothing. Let the nature take its course.