Waking up had been rather less than delightful, despite the pleasant soreness that lingered from her self-indulgence the night before, as Clarke learned that sleeping on the ground (in both the literal sense, and as in 'the homeworld') was not nearly as idyllic as she imagined it. Likely due to the differences in gravity and, despite the long-running lament, it appeared that the mattresses in the berthing spaces of The Ark were not as hard as rock. Or even as hard as carpeted…whatever it is that was under the carpet here. In fact, it would take a hell of a lot in order for her to get a decent night's sleep down here once she finished adjusting to the thicker oxygen, moisture, and gravity.
She was honestly rather surprised that she hadn't passed out after cumming last night, given how high her heartrate was and how unused to the atmosphere she remained. And would remain for a few more days, according to ALIE, the helpful AI showing her a rather detailed explanation of how her body would react to certain activities across the next week or so. As it was, she would be having to take the coming trek slowly and with a great deal of care…though admittedly she had been planning on doing that already, given her ever-present, not-in-the-least diminished awe at the world around her, of the wonders that it held for her to discover and experience.
And, of course, the psychotic inhabitants of Mount Weather and the justifiably paranoid warrior culture that were, and had been for a century, locked into a constant struggle for the fate of mankind. A war that she was, somehow, meant to resolve before guiding a united humanity into an eternal golden age of progress and prosperity.
She pushed the thought from her mind as she stepped up to the lip of the crater formed by her landing, looking down at the broken, decrepit remnants of the pod that had carried her safely for the 250 miles separating her home from her homeworld. Her main goal, now, was to make sure that none of the 'Mountain Men' realized that she had arrived safely, instead believing that any footprints and sign of activity pointed towards the tribes.
Picking her way down the loose dirt and shattered stone, Clarke set about purging definitive proof, starting with her spacesuit. Picking it up and shaking it clean, she carefully folded it and put it in the bottom of a large duffel bag she had found in the bunker, one of three. That would certainly be the most obvious sign that someone had come down, given she doubted that they would be stupid enough to believe her people would launch a pod with an empty, fully functional space suit in it. They wouldn't have survived this long if they were that devoid of critical thinking or natural suspicion.
"Clarke, might I recommend some…artistic additions? Scratches made by bladed weapons, some well-placed and particularly brutal looking dents, perhaps some damage to the interior in order to give the impression that warriors from the clans brute-forced their way into an empty pod and trashed the interior?" ALIE piped in from her MERCS, tiny holographic form manifesting to look at the subject of discussion, hands on her hips and a contemplative look on her face.
Clarke considered the suggestion for a moment before quickly conceding that it did, in fact, make a great deal of sense to carry it out. The more convincing a false trail she could leave for the Mountain Men, the better, and this was a damn good way to do it.
Following ALIE's instructions, she set about defacing the pod as extensively and creatively as possible. Scratches, dents, rents, bends and breakages. The ground of the crater was gouged and stamped, and several pieces were torn from the pod entirely and packed away, to be disposed of far enough away that it looked like the pod was less intact than it really had been.
Finally, nearly two hours of hard labor (interspersed by several long breaks to catch her breath and massage muscles unused to working in heavier gravity) later, she was satisfied with her efforts. Of course, now she had two bulging duffle bags, one of which was full of metal, to carry. It would certainly slow her down by…a lot, but she wasn't willing to shy away from a bit more work in order to improve her odds.
It was strange, she thought to herself as she made her way back out of the crater and turned to regard, for what she was sure would be the last time, the object that had delivered her to Earth, that had enabled her to set in motion the salvation of her people. It was strange how insignificant it was, how decayed, how ugly. In the stories, the heroes always arrived on a white charger, or a sleek spaceship, or a beautiful ship. Not a centuries-old crate held together by dreams and patchworked scraps.
"Ready to head out?" ALIE asked her quietly, seemingly respectful of her need for introspection, but rather aware of the continued, ceaseless encroachment of time. "The next place you can take shelter is a few hours away. The remnants of a gated community, should have a couple of fall-out shelters still functional. Perhaps even some salvage, but I wouldn't count on it. You could easily dispose of the scrap from the pod there, and sleep safely."
"Good, I don't think I'm quite at the point where I could comfortably sleep under the stars without being safely up a tree or something." Clarke responded dryly, feeling rather relieved if she was to be honest. She had no idea what other creatures had survived, like that dear had, but where there was prey there were predators. Ostensibly, of course, said predators would be wary of humans, just like in the Old World…but it was more than possible they were mutated enough by the Final War that they considered humans perfectly acceptable food. Especially when said human was alone and asleep.
She was brave and bold, not stupid.
Probably.
Squaring her shoulders with a deep breath, she settled her cargo more comfortably and set off, heading west with a determined (though measured) stride. She would be sore as hell tomorrow, she knew, but she was equally positive that she would sleep like the dead when she finally bedded down for the night. Whenever and wherever that would happen.
She paid little attention to the sights and sounds between the pod and Andrews, already somewhat familiar with them after the two trips already taken between the two points, quite sure that animals that had been in the area were probably long since in hiding thanks to all the racket she had made.
She did, however, blush when she passed by the rock that she had finger-fucked herself halfway to oblivion on the night before. She still couldn't believe that she had done that, but she damn well wasn't going to regret it! She was free now, free from the lack of privacy and crushing, constant observation of the Ark. Sure, she had some pretty heavy metaphysical weights on her shoulders, and those weren't going anywhere any time soon, but she would not let that crush her.
Briefly stopping off at the bunker to ensure it was properly secured (she had no idea when she would be in this area again, or even if she would be in this area again, but she wasn't dumb enough to risk losing an impenetrable bunker that only she had access to because she didn't want to make a small detour), she started off again.
The walk was easier this time, than the one immediately following her arrival. While nature had reclaimed a great deal over the last century, there was still more than enough of a road to wear her our too badly on relentless cross-country. Which was a damn good thing, because she was still having to take a ten-minute break every half-mile or so. It was humiliating for a young woman who had, up until recently, considered herself to be the peak of physical fitness. Peak physical fitness on a the perfectly even, metallic surface of a space-station with 0.8 standard gravities was, however, not remotely the same thing as peak fitness on the (mostly) uneven surface of stone, dirt, and debris on Earth.
Those 0.2 gravities were really kicking her ass, if she was going to be honest, and her un-adjusted lungs weren't doing her any favours.
Fortunately, these breaks gave her an opportunity to observe the world around her some more, and revel in everything she saw, smelt, and heard. Most prominent, still, was the overpowering scent of pure life, the musty dampness of soil lurking beneath the sharp bouquet of more breeds of flower than she could probably imagine, all carried to her in the arms of a gentle, warm breeze. Which, by the way, felt nothing short of heavenly after spending her entire life on a perfectly temperature-regulated, recycled, forced-air vent filled space station.
She made a point of reading over the primer ALIE had prepared for her as well, going back over certain sections, making notes and trying to plan for hypothetical scenarios based on the knowledge it provided. Granted, she couldn't think of a way out of most situations besides 'run away and hide until the heat dies down', because anything that drew too much attention to her (like, for example, getting into a long argument or discussion with someone) would quickly make it obvious that she was an outsider.
The last thing that she wanted to deal with was the members of the Coalition tribes to think that she was from The Mountain. There was no chance in hell that such an assumption would be anything other than very, very bad. Inevitably fatal, no doubt about that, and probably extremely painful. Then, as a result of her mission's failure, her friends and their families would be killed off one by one as the Council, in their infinite wisdom, began performing 'population reductions' to try and eke out what survival they could for what they thought were the only humans still alive.
This was obviously unacceptable on every conceivable level. Which meant she would need to interact flawlessly with a group of people whose culture, lingual tics, nuances of body language, or even how they ate were beyond her knowledge and experience. Perhaps she could play the wide-eyed shy girl from the ass-end of nowhere? Too used to her tiny village life to fit in well in the big city, and keeping to herself as a result.
Yes, that seemed the best way to do thing, certainly the least likely to go horrifically wrong.
Probably.
Maybe.
She hoped.
Alright, so she was worried that doing that would just inspire some proud warrior-type to try and 'take her under their wing' in the hopes of getting inside the cute, dumb, farmgirl's pants, which would only make things more complicated.
She stopped around two in the afternoon for lunch, savoring her ration bar with a never-before-experienced appreciation born of her newest exertions. She could only hope she had enough to last until she reached civilization, because she was supposed to have landed a mountain-sized supply cache, and her stock of food and water reflected that fact. She wouldn't have been surprised if (in a world where she didn't take matters into her own hands) Jaha had sent the Skybox kids down to the planet without any food or supplies at all.
He was shortsighted enough to risk so much of the next generation, so sending them into the unknown with no food, survival supplies, or weapons was hardly outlandish.
It was nearly five when she finally approached the remains of Fairlawn Highlands, and she almost cried in relief. She was tired, sweaty, hungry, thirsty, and feeling rather over this whole walking-on-a-planet thing.
She flicked her wrist, activating her MERCS and examining the information that ALIE had given her about the area. It had once been two middle-class neighborhoods, but in the 2040s they had been merged into a larger community for politicians and their families, after the brutal at-home attacks of the late twenties and early thirties between the more extreme ends of the political spectrum. There were countless bunkers in the area, unsurprisingly, but only two within her immediate area.
Reshifting her bags, hopefully for the last time, she headed for the nearest one. She would be able to access it, same as all the others, and she was willing to bet that a bunker in a place like this had a shower. One with real water, hot water, and right now that sounded heavenly.
So focused was she on the idea that she didn't notice another blonde girl watching her with interest and suspicion from within a crumpled house.
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Who are you? Niylah kom Trikru wondered to herself as she silently followed the strangely-dressed young woman, noticing the oddly-shaped sword on her lower back and the fascinating belts and pouches around her waist and on her thighs. More importantly, where did you come from?
There weren't many people in this region besides the trading post that she and her father ran. There were simply too many ruins of the old world to make it an easy place to live for anyone who relied on hunting or tilling the land to survive. Besides the Sentinels, most people outside of Ton D.C. lived along the trade routes between the trikru capitol and Polis.
Of course, there were always the Outcasts, those too twisted by sickness in the air to live comfortably amongst the clans, but as bad as she felt for thinking it, this girl was far too pretty to be one of those poor people. She could be a lone wanderer, of course, it wasn't exactly uncommon, even in the deeply, closely-bound society Aleksia Pramheda had created for the survivors of the Old World's destruction, but something about her made Niylah doubt she was from one of the tribes. For one thing, she made far too much noise as she walked, and her situational awareness was probably the worst that Niylah had ever seen. The other girl hadn't once looked around to see if there was a predator, man or beast alike, stalking her.
Her curiosity grew when the girl took one of the large bags on her shoulders off, opening it and pulling out scrap metal of varying sizes, tossing it about with a randomness that seemed somehow feigned, even deliberate. As if she was trying to make the pieces look like they belonged there all along. A thought that bloomed into full-blown fact when the other blonde went to the effort of putting certain pieces in the very middle of various scrap piles, or under scattered leaves.
Now, perhaps the girl was stashing them here for later retrieval, hiding the more valuable pieces in plain sight so that she could come back whenever she needed them. Not an unusual thing to do for scavengers that didn't have a cart or a horse, or even for those that did but wanted to leave a stash hidden away for a particularly bad run of luck.
That didn't seem particularly likely however, a gut instinct telling her that it wasn't even close to being as simple as that.
Then the girl finished with the sack, rolling it up and tucking it into the top of the other, before looking around and locking her eyes on the biggest building in the immediate area, a four-leveled monstrosity that Niylah and her father had picked clean years ago. Being the biggest, it had of course been their first objective, and the objects it had contained had paid for their three horses and a stable to house them.
The girl wouldn't find anything else there, and Niylah saw the opportunity to introduce herself and find out just what was going on, to satisfy her curiosity…and if there was something more sinister going on, she would find that out too. Potentially dangerous, of course, if this girl was an enemy for whatever reason, but her father had taught her how to protect herself. She was confident she could win a fight, or at least escape.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the open and smiled, raising a hand in greeting.
"Hei, stranger. What brings you this far away from Ton D.C.?" she asked cheerfully, flinching slightly as the other girl spun like a startled cat, right hand dropping to grip something on her hip. Holding up her other hand to show that both extremities were empty, she continued. "Easy now, I'm no bandit planning on stabbing you in the back. My name is Niylah kom Trikru, I own the trading post near here. What's your name?"
"…Clarke." the now named blonde responded carefully, relaxing her stance with an air of cautious suspicion, moving her hand away from what I could only imagine was a weapon of some sort. "Nice to meet you, Niylah kom Trikru, and I'm looking around for supplies, I guess."
Niylah almost winced at how atrocious her accent was, thanking her many years of experience with unruly customers and annoyingly determined propositions for the ability to control her facial expressions. Where ever she was from, and her accent wasn't one she recognized, they obviously didn't speak quite like anyone she had ever met. The lack of a tribal identification was unusual as well, but not unheard of, especially from lone wanderers. Most of them didn't have a tribe for one reason or another, and many would probably be in danger if they could be positively identified as coming from one tribe or another.
"Just Niylah, please. No need for us to stand on ceremony. If you're looking for supplies, there isn't much left in this area besides simple scrap materials, I'm afraid. My father and I have been picking this area clean for a few years now." She offered the information freely, wondering if perhaps she could persuade the other girl to come back to her trading post for a transaction or two.
"Not much left for you, perhaps, but for me there is plenty more to be found." The girl murmured, scrutinizing her carefully, before her eyes sharpened and she stared over Niylah's shoulder as the wind quickened violently. Niylah spun to look in that direction and swore savagely as she saw what had caught Clarke's attention.
A towering, roiling, black mass of clouds, a wall of natural wrath approaching with no signs of stopping. She could already see the flashes of lightning, hear the rumbles of thunder, and the trees were starting to shake violently as the front grew closer.
"A rogue storm!" she snarled, looking around desperately for something that would provide enough cover. Rogue storms were almost as dangerous to the tribes as the Acid Fog of the Maunon, fierce and violent weather systems that could form in minutes and cause enormous damage to any area that they passed through before vanishing to leave a clear blue sky as quickly as they had come. Caused by the imbalance in the world brought about by the weapons their ancestors had used to kill the world, there was nothing anyone could do but take cover in a sturdy home or cave and pray to the Maker for protection.
Of course, given the two of them were stuck in the middle of an area populated only by shattered, crumbling ruins, they had neither option available to them. She despaired at that knowledge, because the chances of them surviving a storm either in the open, or in one of the ruins. The winds alone could throw debris hard and fast enough to crush bone or impale flesh.
"So that's what one of those looks up close." She heard Klark murmur, before the other girl turned and sprinted towards the mansion, shouting over her shoulder for Niylah to follow her. Instinct kicked in and the trader followed.
"Klark, it isn't safe here, we need to try and find someplace to hide! The storm could bring this house down on our heads!" she called as they swept through the front door, the wind tugging violently at their clothes.
"There's a bunker from the Last War in this house! We just need to find the entrance, and I can get us inside!" Klark shouted back, kicking open doors and rifling through the molding, tattered scraps that had probably once been expensive, luxurious clothing.
Niylah stared at her, shocked and struggling to grasp the implications, but even as she gaped at the other blonde her mind recalled when she and her father had found a large metal door set into the wall of this building's lowest floor.
"Downstairs, the lowest floor! A metal door that my father and I couldn't open!" she voiced the recollection, grabbing Klark's wrist just as she reared back yet again to smash another door off of its hinges. In another circumstance, Niylah would probably have found such a slim and slightly-build girl showing that kind of strength to be a point of interest.
The two young women darted through the house, even as it began to quake and groan around them, dust and small bits of debris falling from the ceiling as the lightning-flashes grew ever brighter and the thunder grew louder, growing closer to deafening with every moment. The moment the door came into view, Klark pulled away from Niylah and felt the wall beside the door with a frown of concentration.
"What are you…" Niylah started to ask, baffled at this bizarre and seemingly-pointless action, only to fall silent as there was a soft click and a small panel swung open, revealing a small rectangle covered in little squares that looked soft. She had never found anything like that in her previous attempts to get through the door, but then again she hadn't been looking for false panels in seemingly-solid walls either! "How…?"
"You wouldn't have found it if you didn't know that it was there to be found." Klark informed her briskly, touching several of the buttons in sequence. There was a loud, mettalic thunk!, followed by a series of rapid thuds that somehow brought to mind massive swords being sheathed, or perhaps hammers striking the earth. The metal door sank back in its frame before rolling sideways, and Klark shut the panel firmly before grabbing Niylah by the wrist and pulling her through the opening, slapping another panel on the other side. A loud honking sound resounded, and the door began rolling back into position behind them. Niylah turned, watching with mingled awe and interest as it was shifted forward and large metal bars locked into place behind it, which (by the sound of things) was what had been the origination of the thudding she had heard before. "We'll be fine, there isn't a storm in the world that could penetrate this bunker."
Klark tapped another series of panels, and with a humming sound the room they had just entered filled with light. Far more powerful light than any lantern or torch that Niylah had ever seen, and she looked around with a squint to take in her new surroundings.
The first thing that jumped out to her was how clean and well-preserved everything was. Indeed, she had never seen such pristine relics of the old world, and after a moment she realized that being both underground and behind such a large, powerfully sealed door would keep things safe even over the course of a century. It wasn't like the weather or animals could get down here, after all.
The second thing that jumped out to her was how luxurious it all looked. The tapestries were rich in color, the floor was covered in a plush, flawless rug (far above in quality even the most expertly-woven rugs she had ever seen even in the markets of Polis), and there were artworks and artifacts that she had never before witnessed.
"What is all of this?" she asked, absently wondering if even The Commander or the Clan Heads had anything close to this level of opulence.
"Back before the Last War, this is where many of the people in charge of running this country lived. As the war got worse and worse, they started taking precautions for themselves and their families, building private or neighborhood shelters, while the general public had to hope they could reach one of the large shelters in time. Obviously, these folks didn't make it in time. Look at all this stuff!" Klark explained, sounding somewhat disgusted with the people who had built this place, but rather pleased about what was around them. "Shall we take a look around?"
"I'd like to know how you knew this place and how to get into it, first." Niylah asked, folding her arms under her breasts and raising her eyebrows at the other girl, who looked startled and flushed at the inquiry.
"I'm not from around here. My people are a bit more familiar with relics of the Old World than your own might be. We consider it a method of showing loyalty and appreciation to Alexia Griffin and those like her." The other explained slowly, carefully, but (as far as Niylah could tell) honestly. It seemed like a strange thing to do, an odd way to respect Pramheda (and why had she pronounced Pramheda's name like that?), but who was she to cast stones? "I'm actually making my way to Polis, for something of a…call it a pilgrimage."
"Well, the best way to get there quickly and safely from here is to head into Ton D.C. and join one of the caravans heading east to the capitol. I'm heading that way myself in a few days, for The Conclave, if you would like to join me." Niylah suggested, deciding to believe the slightly shorter blonde in absence of conflicting evidence. Its not like she could be a Maunon, she wouldn't have survived this long without their special suits, and Niylah would almost certainly have been killed as well. Or worse. She had heard horror stories of what the Maunon did to pretty enough prisoners.
"I might take you up on that, Niylah. A long journey is always better with company." Klark said after a moment of contemplating her, scrutinizing her enough that Niylah blushed at the attention, before smiling and spreading her arms wide to encompass the refuge around them. "Now, let's explore this untouched vault, shall we, and see what treasures we can find?"