2-5: Drift With the Flotsam

The gang finds themselves in Flotsam Village. As the guard implied, the Flotsam Ninjas are rebels fighting against the Holy Nation. An enemy of an enemy is a friend... probably. Jam signals to the rest of the gang that it's okay to come in and proceeds warily, staying ready for trouble.

Jam looks left and right for a skeleton before remembering the Holy Nation considers people with prosthetic limbs to be skeletons. If this is the nice, tolerant version of what people from the Holy Nation are like, they're absolutely not trying their luck with the actual Holy Nation anytime soon.

Not mad but disappointed, Jam walks into the village's one shop to see if they'll get any warmer a reception there.

Guess not. Thankfully this isn't the only shopkeeper. Jam can still shop here, though after browsing the weapons and armour on offer, there's nothing they want to buy right now.

The bar proves a bit of a friendlier atmosphere. The gang buys a couple rice bowls while Jam chats up a redheaded greenlander.

Across the bar, Outlaw Farmer has caught another woman's attention.

Jam spends most of the last of the gang's money before Outlaw Farmer can, much to her dismay. Perhaps she'll get to come back for Reva later.

In the meantime, the gang welcomes Knife!

10ish in all melee combat-related stats is a pretty standard start for a fresh recruit who's supposed to be a good fighter, about on par with where Riddly and Outlaw Farmer started. Starting with 11 Toughness is a nice treat, too—being able to stay conscious when you've taken some licks is pretty key if you want to work on your fighting ability.

The gang doesn't have any decent spare weapons on hand for Knife so she'll have to make do with the crappy longsword she has. They supply her with armour, at least—Ells has been carting around an extra set of ninja rags since the Hive Village that he's happy to give to a new friend.

From here, the gang has a mind to start finding small bands of cannibals to skirmish with, but something strange in the air catches their eye first.

There's a swarm of... something floating in the air over the hills to the west. Knife knows that that's about where the hills give way to a marshland called the Floodlands, a dangerous place few dare to go, but nobody really knows what's up with the floating things. The gang decides to approach and check them out, but carefully.

As they draw closer, it becomes clear the things in the sky are robots. The gang watches for a while as the robots trace circles in the sky over and over, looping back on themselves continuously. They don't seem to react to anyone's presence, so... maybe they're harmless?

Gazing out on the Floodlands, it's absolutely rife with ruins. Most of them aren't buildings the gang could realistically hope to find something inside like that lost library in Darkfinger, instead being the remnants of some kind of heavy industry. There are a couple watchtowers close enough not to be obscured behind the blanket of heavy rain—surprisingly modern and mundane-looking ones, but the fact that they're in this area at all makes them intriguing possibilities to explore.

In this case, "spiders" means iron spiders, ancient robots that patrol some areas where ruins are found.

Any treasure hunter could tell you that these things are supremely dangerous. Those funny little arms of theirs can punch right through a person's chest at incredible speed. Trying to fight one is entirely out of the question. The savvy treasure hunter knows to avoid them, counting on the spiders' relatively low walking speed and poor detection range to keep themselves alive.

The gang aren't exactly savvy treasure hunters just yet but they don't have a death wish. They're about to turn back when Jam offers to scout the nearest tower alone, promising to turn back the instant they run into any trouble.