Pelasgos Fact Box & flash fiction

Here's some flash fiction and the fact-box about Pelasgos (I'll be posting an updated map of Pelasgos next week). I will continue to post a little something with each region as it helps convey a bit more of the character of a region.  

Please let me know by liking or commenting below, thanks :)
__________________________________________________________________________________ 

A dim sun dipped slowly over the western sky, bleeding red light onto the undulating land beneath it. Rocky hills, rust-red, erupted from fields of dust, their sides coarse and sporting the skeletal remains of what once were trees. 

   A solitary figure marched almost knee-deep through the dust, its body encased in a leather softsuit, glass visor filtering the world without, rendering it in a dark shadow. In its wake the figure left a trail stretching back for miles before it was eaten up by a gentle wind that was constantly repainting the land in new layers of dust.

   The figure reached an outcrop of damp rocks, and clambered over them, its leather-encased fingers struggling to make the ascent. It finally managed, and sat down, removing its large travelling bag. It unfastened the clasps around its neck and removed its helmet.

   The man closed his eyes and looked to the sky, allowing what warmth remained in the sun to kiss his face. He cracked his neck and flexed his shoulders and settled down on the rock. He reached into his bag and produced a thin leather bundle from which he removed a hard biscuit. The food was tasteless, hard. It was more than what he needed.

   He bit down on it as he studied a vellum map.

   It showed the west of Pelasgos, his home. He filtered through the many labels and icons until he was focused on a region just north of the capital in Cypria - the Weeping Plains. He produced his compass and placed it on the sheet, looking up at the sky, and appraising the terrain around him. 

   “Tomorrow,” he muttered, his voice breaking. He coughed and spat black phlegm and returned to his biscuit. 

   He’d rest here before finding the main road that linked western Pelasgos to the east through the pass of Batha across the gap between the Buloparri massif and the Bathakol mountains. There, it would only be a few hours before he reached the manufactory-city of Hial. And his prize.

   He smiled, amused by his own optimism.

   He was so close. What harm was there in some hope?

   He signed, offered a short prayer to the Throne and returned the helmet to his shoulders and tried to settle down for the night. 

Lavrent woke to aching joints and a stiff neck. The softsuit did that to him when he slept. Its rigid leather skin and metal hems were far from comfortable. But they kept him safe from Elyden’s insidiousness, and for that he was grateful.

   He mad his offerings to the Throne, prayed and packed his things before the final stretch to the Hial.     

   He reached the highway, if such it could be called - for its was little more than a path where the repetitive footfalls of travellers had compacted the dust into something harder, more akin to the road that had once existed here, before the growing taint of the Weeping Plains had ended civilisation here.

   Covering over 3,000-square-miles of what had once been rolling hills, fields and farmland, the Weeping Plains’ coming hundreds of years ago had slowly forced people out. Lavrent had passed dozens of settlements and homesteads, each hollow and moldering beneath an uncaring sky, forgotten by Pelasgos and the empire alike. Most people had fled west to Cypria, Bassorah and Octira, where their descendants remained to this day, unaware of their families’ unfortunate roots. Those who had remained succumbed to the slow death that the Atramenta offered. Every harvest produced smaller and lesser yields, their tastes increasingly sour. Stillbirths and birth defects increased as lifespans dwindled. The young and old readily succumbed to Aramental diseases, and the strong grew slowly weak. 

   Those places that were of value to the empire were not allowed to become abandoned. 

   Hial was such a place - its foundries and manufactories were a great boon to the economy of the region, and it controlled dozens of mining settlements and other satellites. Siphon engines were installed to lessen the effects of the Atramenta and the city prospered, drawing refugees from the surrounding regions.

   Until disaster stuck.

   An earthquake in 3719 RM damaged the siphon engines beyond repair, allowing the Atramenta entry into the city. It did not take long for its effects to be felt after that. The city was abandoned after hundreds of deaths and the maintenance of the manufactories became untenable.

   Now, almost 300-years later, Lavrent was looking at the shell of that once-great city. A corpse emerging from the distant earth, its girders, twisted and rusting, reached for the sky like withered branches. Its buildings, weak from neglect and exposure to the Atramenta, had crumbled, though complete structures remained, in isolation. 

   And there, in the heart of what had once been the towering manufactory itself, was a shanty town. Rusted walls and corrugated roofs abutted haphazardly against one another. Smoke rose from chimneys made from old plumbing pipes. A series of large beams had become backbones to vertical structures that were crowned by a birds nest, on which were perched spotters and snipers.

So it’s true, he thought. The old city has been reclaimed. But by who, he wondered. 

   He lay prone and produced a pair of old binoculars, one of the lenses shattered. He looked through it at the guards atop the ramshackle tower. There were three of them, each wearing respirator masks. They appeared thin beneath coarse burlap clothing that had no discernible style and little colour to speak of. Their rifles were of old designs, and only seemed to be functioning following various makeshift repairs.

   Below them Lavrent could see people going about their daily life - hides were drying under the waning sun. Skeletal goats were being milked. Beyond the borders of the settlement were various small fields with emaciated crops. Beyond, industrial smoke belched in the air, lying heavily above the settlement.

   “Well, it’s now or never,” said Lavrent. 

   He produced a sigil from this bag and advanced, with one hand open, the other holding the symbol above his head. He breathed through his respirator, the sound artificial, and moved towards the town.

   After about ten minutes of walking he was convinced that he must have been spotted. If so, that was good, as it meant that the guards had chosen not to shoot him down, but there were many other fates that could await him, few of which he looked forward to.

   He saw three figure emerge from the ruins of the old city, two with rifles trained on him. 

   “Halt!” shouted the third, an arm raised.

   Lavrent stopped, waiting for the sally to approach.

   “What brings you to Hial, stranger?” the words were muffled beneath a respirator

   Lavrent evaluated the figures. Like the men in the tower, they were dressed in colourless scraps. One of them had a crooked back and walked with an odd gait. The one that had spoken, a woman, was of ashen skin and Lavrent could see bloodshot eyes beneath her visored breathing mask. 

   Lavrent carefully reached for his mask, and removed it. “I am a rustman, sent west from the Observatory of Lahmon to seek out the Steel Tablets of Viracochan.” He presented the sigil that he’d been holding. It was the mark of his order. 

   “I can assure you there is nothing of value to you here.”

   “If you would be so kind as to grant a weary traveller shelter for one day, I might be able to search your,” Lavrent paused before carrying on, “libraries.” He coughed.

   One of the man facing him laughed.
   “Does it look like we have a library?”

   “I have reason to believe that you have such a tablet in your possession. My order would pay a handsome sum for it.”

   The woman raised an eyebrow and gave a signal. The rifles shot. 

   Lavrent fell to his knees, holding his side. The two gunmen shouldered their weapons and rushed towards the visitor, searching his bag. 

   “You think I’m an idiot? I don’t walk around with that kind of money on me,” he managed between gasps. 

   The woman laughed. “Perhaps we can come to some kind of arrangement then,” then, turning to her men, “bring him to the hall and have a messenger prepare for a trip east to Lahmon.