From The Jackals To The Shepherds 26: 9 of Clubs

From The Jackals To The Shepherds

The Woods:

The Map:

Dave – Taylor

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Battlebards Tracks used:

Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet

Heavenly Plane – Crystal Arch – Score Music – Ian Fisher

Crypts of the Undead – Restless Souls – Score Music – Phil Archer

Transcription:

For a long time, we were at war with The Jackals. But now, we’ve driven them off, and we have this – a year of relative peace. In this moment, there is an opportunity to build something.

A week has passed.

Some moments in life sing with poetry, but others sit flat on the page. Not every week will show our lives bustling with rhythm or meter and the vivid images of a poet’s pen do not suffer any obligation to show themselves. This week we live our lives plainly.

That said, plainness comes with benefits. For this week we live our lives in this community, as we forage around our camp, fish from the rivers, till our fields, show love to family members, orient ourselves with Djuna’s family, chronicle our history in Clovis’s journal, marvel at the skyscraper model in the center of the town, play with dolls, or lay by the river.

Things don’t always have to do things, utility is not the pinnacle of purpose, and a life without flair can be just as valuable as a life oversaturated with sensation. The trick is to find the stillness in life’s still points and to hone in. We make the most of this warm autumn week, and relax amongst ourselves as life passes, nestled in craggy rocks.

Some of the foragers, bolstered by the still-warm sun of autumn, explore deeper into the sickly trees on our side of the river’s bank. Joking amongst themselves, Reese and their friends bustle through the undergrowth, laughing as they push through twisted trunks. Further than they’ve travelled before, emboldened by the happiness of the harvests, or just at peace in each others company, they reach back to the foots of the mountains. The mines would dig into the rocky bases here, and as the young adults skip pebbles off of the foothill’s cliffs, the stones clatter throughout the thin forest.

Sometimes you never notice something until it shows up after being gone for an extended time. We hadn’t made too much of a deal of the lack of wildlife in the mining camp, but every one of the boisterous explorers freeze as one unit as a timid marmot climbs out of a hole in the rocky landscape. A deer here or there we’ve seen in our community, or a rustling bird flying overhead, but no small ground mammals live in the hunting grounds of The Beast or The Creature. The marmot slowly waddles to a trio of dandelions and lazily munches on the leaves of the weeds.

The explorers watch the marmot for minutes, stretching the time out in wonder as they see a natural creature not bound by fear or scarred from an attack. After the marmot has filled his stomach for the time, it wanders back into its burrow, and Reese and their compatriots head back to camp, with wide eyes.

Underneath the rocks, the marmot trundles through dirty passageways, its eyes glazed over with a glowing blue film. As the passageway grows larger around it, the stones and roots begin to glow with a similar blue light. The marmot stops in front of a scaled Creature, whose warm breath mists up the glowing chamber. The furry mammal vomits the contents of its lunch on the earthen floor of the cavern, and rearranges the chewed leaves into a rudimentary map. The saliva coating the chewed leaves starts to glow with a blue tint, and a trail emerges in the sick slime. The creature grins a scaled mouth, and the marmot trundles back into the darkness.

Back in the community proper, we undertake a new project. A great mural begins on the largest shack in the camp. Soaring images of our once great city rise up on the wooden walls, painted by Eileen and the newcomers as a way to remember our past lives in the metropolises.

And a week passes.

Thank you for joining us for the twenty sixth episode of From The Jackals To The Shepherds. If you like this show please give us a rating on iTunes, tell a friend, or share us on social media. As always the intro for the show was read by Dave Lapru, who is also our mapkeeper. You can find Dave on twitter at plantbird, and I’m at leviathan files. Please consider visiting our website at Riverhouse Games dot com, or supporting this show and other Riverhouse Games work on Patreon at patreon dot com slash Riverhouse Games. Music for this episode was provided by Battlebards dot com. Until next week, I hope your week goes well.

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