2-6: Old Skeleton Steps Out

Jam ventures into the Floodlands alone, easily slipping past the iron spider the gang spotted from the shore. Soon, they find themself at the foot of a nearby watchtower, where a single skeleton stands vigil. They don't seem hostile. Jam says hi.

Weathering the driving rain, Jam speaks with Burn, a skeleton wearing rags, in front of the door to a stone watchtower.

Burn: Let me guess, another adventurer? You certainly don't look like the scavenger type, or the bandit type either for that matter...

Jam: That's right, I'm searching for treasures.

Burn: The Floodlands mostly attract the adventuring type, like you said, it's full of lost treasures, so why wouldn't it? Anybody else of sane mind wouldn't risk the spider bots, they keep most of the more hostile trespassers at bay at least...

Burn: But life holed up in this tower can get dull, so it's always good to share shelter and exchange stories with fellow adventurers.

Jam: Oh, so you're an adventurer too?

Burn: Used to be. Skeletons aren't as perishable as Hives like yourself, but we still have a limit to our existence. We start to seize up over time. Or we stop working suddenly, without warning. My time is near, my parts are wearing and I'm not as fit for exploration as I used to be. So, here I am, retired in the solitude of the Floodlands.

Jam: Do you miss travelling?

Burn: At times. I've travelled the Eastern Ashlands to the Southern Swamps. Recovering lost relics and lost pieces of history is something that's always satisfied me. And, of course, watching human behaviour as the world evolves and falls...

Jam: Tell me more about human evolution.

Burn: Nothing ever truly changes. Trends, cultures, rulers, languages... they come and go. But behaviour bred from greed and fear hold human evolution at a standstill. Any kind of progress made is usually destroyed... reset in one way or another. Like a wave, it evolves and it falls again...

Jam: Well, that's a depressing thought.

Burn: A skeleton has a lot of time for deep contemplation. Especially one that has lived alone with nothing but spider bots for company for the last three years...

Jam: Why not go on one last adventure with me?

Burn: If I have the company of a fellow adventurer I suppose that shouldn't be too much to handle, and I always enjoy the study of Hive companionship... I'd enjoy nothing more than a last adventure... Let's go.

The character creator screen for Burn. I haven't properly described skeletons yet, so here goes: Skeletons are robots with a very functional, industrial look. They have broad, flat torsos with a set of four protrusions on the chest I think might be vents of some sort; solid, boxy thighs; skinny arms and calves with exposed joints and hydraulics. They are not shiny and they do not have any sort of outer carapace. They can have a variety of heads but the one Burn has, and the only one available in the character creator if one was to start the game as a skeleton, has an elongated triangular shape that points downward, two cylindrical protrusions that point up and to the rear, and a hexagonal plate at the top of the face that features three round lenses in an upward-pointing triangular arrangement.

A skeleton joins the crew! Skeletons are easily the most durable "race" in Kenshi, though being unable to wear boots or helmets tempers that somewhat and they do need to take care not to be caught without a skeleton repair kit. Sensibly, they get an xp bonus to Robotics, the skill used to repair skeletons and mechanical limbs. They also get bonuses to Heavy Weapons and Turrets while taking penalties to Stealth, Thievery and Dodge. Clanking when you walk really doesn't help you sneak around.

The character creator gives us a little insight into how skeletons fit into the world:

The Skeletons are a complete mystery, nobody knows where they came from and how they were made but they are suspected to be thousands of years old. Fully sentient and capable of feeling sadness, anger, excitement, compassion, thrill and enjoyment, although they don't possess the ability to express anything visually. This combined with their dry sense of humour often confuses the other races, whom the Skeletons see as somewhat volatile and unpredictable. They have no prejudice or fear of death, and make for brutally effective warriors.

Fittingly for a veteran adventurer, Burn's starting stats are a cut above. They have ~15s across the board in all the melee combat skills, in turret skills, Field Medic, Athletics, and Swimming. They also have a 7 in Assassination for some reason despite their other thief skills amounting to a big fat goose egg.

Now that they've teamed up, Burn lets Jam know they've got a skeleton bed upstairs they can use if they need to fix their arm. Jam's accumulated a few dings and dents between the hive village and here, so they thank Burn for their generosity and oblige.

On the third floor of Burn's circular tower, next to a table set for two, Jam lays in a skeleton repair bed. This is an uncomfortable-looking metal bed where one has to lay across a series of metal bars with active machinery below. A robotic metal arm sits atop each end of the bed,ready to handle the repair work.

While Jam gets their arm fixed, Burn goes through their stuff and grabs a few things for the road: A couple skeleton repair kits, a nice pair of heavy armoured boots for Riddly, a hefty spiked club for Ells, and a book to add to the gang's pile of research materials.

Jam's repairs are done in no time flat. They climb to the tower's roof and excitedly wave the rest of the gang over, feeling emboldened now that they have a safehouse to take shelter in and a new friend who knows the place. The gang meets Burn, swaps a few stories, and decides maybe they can push their luck and explore a bit more of the Floodlands after all. They press further.

Strange metal ruins jut from the grey soil of the Floodlands. Behind various storage tanks, the bare frame of some long, vaguely cylindrical structure stretches at about a 30 degree angle to the ground before bending to be almost vertical. It is enormous, taking up a good third of the horizon. To the right, a much more intact cylindrical tower stands upright. It seems skinnier but it's also much further away so it may in fact be the same kind of structure. It rises from the land a ways before a pronounced bend, then continues much higher. Shortly after the bend and again at the top, it is encircled with a mushroom-like structure which is itself encircled with a narrow ring around the base. Finally, another such tower stands to the right of that one, protruding from the ground at about a 45 degree angle.

Burn's mum about the details but as the gang gets to see more of the Floodlands, it becomes clear that whatever this place once was, it must have been magnificent indeed. A bit of poking around doesn't reveal much to loot but it sure is interesting to look at.

Just before they're about to give up and head back, the gang spots another standing tower similar to Burn's. Jam and Ells set about picking locks and breaking in.

In a dark room, Ells loots a safe. The safe contains a dark leather shirt, a redundantly-named boxy dark green CPU Unit, a skeleton repair kit, a hinge, some rotten fruit, and an empty bottle. Ells has already looted a crossbow and a long, cylindrical grey and orange Power Core.

They don't find a huge amount of stuff but what they find is quality. A nice leather shirt for Knife, an excellent crossbow that none of the gang is skilled enough to feel confident using but that'll come in handy later, and a couple sophisticated skeleton parts they'll be able to sell for several thousand Cats. There's a 'CPU Unit' the game describes as “Supposedly a piece of brain from a Skeleton or maybe an Iron Spider. Must be worth something to a collector.” and a Power Core that's “some kind of ancient tech, possibly a Skeleton's heart or liver or something”. If Burn is at all disquieted by the idea of looting these things to sell, they don't show it.

Satisfied with this haul for now, the gang sells the CPU Unit and Power Core back at Flotsam Village, then gets back to their original plan of testing their skill against the cannibals. With Burn on the team, they should stand a better chance. The area northwest of Flotsam and the Hidden Forest is known as the Cannibal Plains, so that's where they're headed.

The gang stands on the edge of the Cannibal Plains, which despite the name are more badlands. The soil is a pale near-white where the gang is and quite orange on the horizon. Dotting the landscape are trees with bare trunks of white bark and a thick canopy of bright red leaves at the top. From a certain angle, they somewhat resemble paintbrushes.

Horse: I guess this is the cannibal lair. We just need to head north without being swarmed by 'em... Horse: The treasure will be marked by a flock of birds, we can't miss it. That's what the guy in the bar told me anyway.

Jam: A guy in a bar? That's your source?!

Horse: More than a guy in a bar, he's a world famous tech hunter...

Jam: Seems every bar-guy's a world famous tech hunter these days...

Cannibals, flock of birds, whatever—something's just come up that's a lot more urgent.

A horrible creature. It's vaguely giraffe-shaped with four legs and a long neck that stretches upward, but much more solid. Its taut skin is a pale ecru, pinkish around the head. It has neither fur nor feathers but a grey carapace covers its back, ridged with bony nodules protruding from a subtle hump halfway along its torso. Its head is broadly bird-shaped but its mouth gapes open, revealing at all times a row of sharp teeth along a fleshy jaw that ends in the cruel, serrated beak that gives this predator its name. It does not appear to have eyes. It has a pair of little pointy ears at the back of its head but this is not nearly cute enough to make up for the rest of it.

This is a beak thing. They're super aggressive predators, they hit really hard, and worst of all they can sprint across the wasteland at breakneck speeds. The cannibals are no longer the most dangerous thing in the Cannibal Plains.

The gang could probably take a single beak thing, provided they could find a safe place to rest up after. The real problem is that right next door to the Flotsam outpost they were hoping to use between cannibal fights, the bastards have a nest.

Several beak things patrol around a clutch of eggs nestled in a pile of bones. There are also a few turds in there which does not seem like a great environment for the babies but what do I know.

A beak thing nest could potentially be a source of a lot of money. Each of their eggs sells for nearly as much as that CPU from the Floodlands. The trick is making it past the beak things, which is a little more than the gang wants to have to handle right now.

The beak thing nest complicates things, but the gang decides to go ahead with their plan anyway. They venture forth, trying to find a group of cannibals to fight that doesn't outnumber them too badly.

2-6: Old Skeleton Steps Out

2-7: CANNIBALS! ⮞