2-17: Striving in Vain

Despite being half-sunken, this Post-Ancient Workshop has plenty of nice loot in fantastic shape. There's a bunch of Engineering Research (like other research items, a concern for much later but will be nice to have when it comes up), a couple nice weapons, a bunch of tech miscellany that'll sell well, and a pair of prosthetic legs!

Saying “a pair” is a bit misleading unless the person in need of them had two left feet, but left happens to be the leg Horse is missing and he's happy to have the new options. His current prosthetic is a Standard-grade scout leg, specialized for speed. The new ones are a Specialist-grade stealth leg and a Masterwork-grade skeleton leg, both slower than his current one but much, much tougher. For now, he puts off deciding between them. He'll upgrade to one of the new ones eventually but all he cares about at the moment is getting to shore, and both will hamper his swimming ability even more than the scout leg.

Horse isn't the only one eager to get back to shore. The gang makes short work of the workshop and dives into the last stretch of their aquatic journey. Burn speeds ahead of the rest, intending to scout the shore for beak things so the rest don't get stuck helplessly getting pecked to death in the shallows. You can't defend yourself while you're swimming.

Before they can make it to shore, though, Burn crosses paths with a wandering hive prince trader and their caravan. The caravan is swimming the other way, probably to the Western Hive. Not even really expecting the prince to notice them walking on the seafloor, Burn makes the mistake of giving them a little wave. The eagle-eyed prince spots them immediately despite Burn being underwater in the black of night and breast-strokes over with alacrity.

Burn has met the Queen. The Queen isn't enchanting jack shit.

The prince finally leaves Burn alone after this, swimming past the rest of the gang off into the distance. Thankfully they don't accost anyone else on the way. One by one, the gang hauls themselves ashore, glad to be on dry land again until they remember the whole reason they did the island circuit in the first place. Vain is lousy with gorillos and beak things. None have noticed them come ashore, at least, which is a welcome mercy.

From here, the gang presses eastward, looking to get through Vain as quick as they can. Jam takes the lead. They may not have been back for a while, but they were born on the Queen's island—they've spent enough of their life here to remember it well enough. Starting at the river mouth that empties into the ocean just south of where the gang came ashore, they follow the river valley east, instructing the rest of the gang to keep watch for wild beasts as they go. While beak things and gorillos come down into the valley just as readily as they stalk the hills, the valley is also home to the only beacons of safety Vain has to offer: Hive villages. There's a whole string of them straddling the river from west to east.

The gang reaches the first hive village at the same time as a pair of gorillos. They gladly join forces with the hivers to fight the beasts off but while their blades are still slick with blood, a trio of beak things comes running, drawn to the scent. Then another three after that.

Keys takes a skewering beak square to the chest and realizes she might be better off taking a step back from the ravenous beak things. What started as a convenient opportunity to score some animal skins with the gorillo attack has turned into the gang fighting for their lives and right now, the best thing they and the hive have going for them is the systematic way they're cutting each beak thing down before moving to the next. If some of the unconscious beak things start getting up, it'll throw the whole thing off. So Keys turns her attention to butchering beak things as they fall unconscious, taking as much meat and hide as she can carry and stuffing it in Pilaf's pack before moving to the next. When Pilaf falls unconscious from a gaping chest wound of her own, Keys rushes over, bandages her, then slings the bull over her shoulder and gets back to carving beak things.

When all finally lies still, Keys heads into the general store to sell the mountain of animal skins she just finished carving. While she's there, she decides to follow up on a sneaking suspicion. Burn filled the gang in on that hive caravan prince's outrageous sales pitch and she thought it sounded even fishier than, you know, the obviously fishy part about the magical enchantments. She spends a bit of time searching the shelves and sure enough:

A genuine Lantern of Radiance being sold here at the store for 90 Cats. Not 2500. Not even close. And that prince tried to pull that scam barely even an hour away from this very village. For shame.

Though Lanterns of Radiance can not in fact “clear the mists”, they do work just fine as perfectly respectable mundane lanterns. They can be worn at the hip, fitting into the humble little belt inventory slot that's been sitting empty on everyone this whole time. This isn't something the gang is often going to want—the cover of darkness is something they rely on to keep them safe, not something they're eager to dispel. It'd mainly be crossbow users who'd benefit; the dark doesn't hinder swordfighting but it does hinder aim. None of the gang have any interest in crossbows right now, though, so that'll just be something to keep in mind down the road.

While Keys barters, most of the gang stumbles off to find someplace to rest. Those beak things really gave them hell. A few of them set up sleeping bags as close as to the village as the hive will allow, but as the gang only has three sleeping bags, Riddly and Outlaw Farmer have to rent a couple at the robotics shop.

Just like when the gang rented sleeping bags in that very first hive village the they visited after Sho-Battai, the robotics shop prince does not let them have a moment's peace.

After long enough listening to this natter, Riddly's mind starts filtering it into white noise. She and Outlaw Farmer manage against all odds to get a restful sleep. The three sleeping outside miraculously manage not to attract any aggressive wildlife, too, so everyone gets all rested up and ready to walk the rest of Vain.

If you can look past the driving rain and the deadly fauna, the Vain river valley is quite beautiful. An impressive diversity of plant life has evolved to flourish in what I have to assume is a mild acid rain, making the region downright lush compared to the barren deserts that blanket much of the rest of the continent. If I may infer from the the hive shops' stock, the river teems with tasty fish, too, seemingly made no less delicious or nutritious by the acid waters in which they swim. It's a shame there's no fishing mechanic in Kenshi.

The game has to battle a couple more packs of beak things along the way, but as Jam promised, there are numerous hive villages to stop and rest at along the riverside. After a hard day's travel, the gang reaches Vain's eastern border.

To the east of Vain is a land called the Border Zone, a land defined by what it isn't. It isn't Western Hive territory. It isn't Holy Nation. It isn't Shek Kingdom. It's a lawless region but a pretty easygoing one by Kenshi standards. After their struggles with cannibals, fogmen, beak things, and acid seas, the gang really could do with a bit of easy going about now.

Just as they step out of the rain and into the Border Zone's arid clime, the gang spots a town called The Hub atop a nearby hill. Whatever could this promising-sounding place be?