[X] [Thieves] Kill Them
[X] [Wolf] Intelligence
[X] [Debt] Do nothing for now and let the situation develop.
The spirits had turned fully against the People, smiting them for their sins.
Over the course of a single night, enough snow fell from the skies that everything was utterly blanketed deeper than most of the People's arms were long. So much snow had fallen that many dwellings had outright collapsed; crushed under the sudden, massive weight. Many of the People died that night. Frozen or crushed while the spirits screamed their rage from all possible directions. Miri herself was brought low, crushed under the weight of her own home.
The People's eyes were filled with tears and their hearts with grief as they combed through the rubble, searching for survivors and supplies. Dozens were dead; men, women, children; none were spared the spirits' wrath and more bodies were recovered by the hour. Bitter recriminations quickly followed, some of which escalated quickly to violence. None, thankfully, were killed as the kith and kin fought. Once the tears and the fighting were spent, the People were simply left exhausted.
As the sun slowly descended, the People piled high the bodies of their dead. Simple burial was the normal custom amongst the People. Even in the winters when the ground beneath their feet was frozen, the People would attempt a shallow burial. Most of the time, graves were already dug the summer before. That was impossible now; far, far too many had died.. After the rescue efforts, no one had the will or the energy to dig the substantial number of graves necessary. Instead, they dragged the remains of those who had died out to their holy places and stacked them high atop broken timbers, spare wood and lots of kindling.
Cremation would have to serve for those who had lost their lives. It was a poor substitute for burial, but corpses that were left out would quickly draw the anger of the spirits. Curses would writhe from their flesh as their former kin bloated and rotted.
Several hours after the pyre was lit, the ritual drums fell silent. The screams started a moment later. The people on the pyre began to move; some drawing into a fighting stance, others sitting up, and even one that stood and walked out to collapse on the ground. Some realized that not only were the screams coming from the People, but also from the pyre. A hellish, high pitched whine, a piercing cry that cut through everything. Each time the cry died, it was picked up again and again. A chorus formed from the slain.
The People were horrified. What had they done for their own recently departed to curse them so? The hate visible on the faces of the People as their loved ones burned; it would haunt everyone until their final days. Many fled the scene, a few outright abandoning the People wholesale and all of the evils they'd wrought there.
When the next day dawned, whatever temporary unity that had been created in the aftermath of disaster, shattered. Recriminations were freely fired and blame was thick to lay. Everyone knew that the People had sinned in the eyes of the spirits, the question only remained: what was the cause?
Even now, when the Big Man assigned Debtors to a new area to harvest water-grass, the grass would grow back thicker and more plentiful. There was no explanation that the People could find. The spirits rewarded the act of fulfilling a Debt. The fact that the People had done nothing in order to acknowledge that simply meant they were being punished as they deserved.
The argument was persuasive to most, only a minority resisted the logic. They argued that the People erred not in ignoring the importance of debts, but in doing things for their own convenience. The pyre on which they had burned the dead was obviously a perversion of the natural order. They should have buried everyone, no matter how much it had cost the People in effort and precious food. Debtors were superior in growing plants because of the additional hours they worked as well as the thankless tasks they were assigned. The drudgery and difficulty that they encountered was then rewarded later on.
A third group, an extremely small one, put together an alternative hypothesis. The Debtors and the pyre were completely unrelated to what the spirits were actually doing; they were testing the People. For as long as anyone could remember, the spirits had abundantly blessed the People. Never did the snows linger too long. At least, never before this day. They argued that the Debtors and the pyre was completely irreverent. The spirits were not mad at the People, they were testing them. They had given great boons and allowed the People to grow strong. This was their way of determining if the People actually took advantage of what had been offered to them. Instead of appeasing the spirits, they should instead focus on giving their spite right them back. As long as the People passed the test, they would be rewarded.
In the end, what did the People decide they needed to do:
[ ] Honour Debts
[ ] Work Honestly
[ ] Persevere
AN: There will be one more phase to this turn. I've already rolled for it, it just didn't really fit into this part.
