Main: [[Campaign]] Prev: [[The Collapse]] - Next: [[The Hard Winter]] # A Community Arrives During A Quiet Year _**Early Spring 2072 - Pop 84**_ The winter of ‘71 would have been considered pleasant in any other year, cool but not bitingly cold. No one was paying attention to the weather. As cities succumbed to The Illness, people grabbed what they could and got out any way they could.  No one had time to prepare, and a lucky (or clever) few grabbed what boats they could and took to Puget Sound, looking for a safe place to escape. In their hurry, many boats and ships collided, ran aground, or were taken by sudden winter weather. Every seagoing vessel from the mainland headed towards the isles, but desperate people make poor pilots. The seas filled with wreckage of ships, forming an artificial reef that kept many from making it ashore. But 84 people did make it ashore or already lived on the island and wandered to our home site, formerly a wide field on Decatur Island. And those 84 people agreed to found a community based on mutual support. The site had bountiful timber, stone, and salvage at hand, which we could use to quickly build shelter.  We stood up a makeshift timber wall for safety. We gathered what food we could, and stored it under a heap of salvaged tin roofing. Two large bunkhouses were built, experts trained those who had never worked with their hands, and people built or repaired our pier and fishing equipment in hopes of using the local salmon population as a critical food source. A resident orca pod stayed close to our shores, and grew in number, a sign of hope for our community (despite the occasional call from some to hunt an orca for food.) The orcas rarely left our sight. Late spring, a young woman (13 years of age) in our community, Ijeoma “[[Achebe, Ijeoma “Strider”|Strider]]” Achebe, gathered a group to go and gather solar panels from abandoned houses throughout the island. Half the party did not return, [[Achebe, Ijeoma “Strider”|Strider]] included, but those who did brought back a sledge filled with salvaged panels. # Outsiders and Our Periphery _**Late Spring 2072 - Pop 76**_ The land outside our community was a mix of fields, shores, bluffs, and forests. To our north, a massive wildfire had burned a Scar on the landscape, leading down to a marshy inflow of ocean water we called The Soup. The cause of the fire was almost certainly other survivors, though we never saw them. The Soup and The Scar were an uncomfortable reminder that we were not as separated from the impacts of The Illness as we wanted to believe we were.  We did not seek communication with outside communities, if, indeed, any existed. It was hard enough ensuring our own were cared for – streams diverted for irrigation, an old fishing boat unearthed, and exploring the ruins of civilization close to us. Two such ruins weighed heavily on us – a power substation, still active but damaged, throwing off sparks and fire that kept us awake some nights; and a nuclear submarine, driven aground in a cove near us, apparently uncrewed but active. We would need to do something with them, but what remained uncertain. Not far from the substation, we discovered something unusual – an area of heated ground – it’s not clear whether the heat source is technological and tied to the power station, or whether it’s geological. It’s an interesting oddity, but our hands and minds are preoccupied with survival. Late May we saw the first sign that others had survived. A lookout spotted an old State Ferry motoring by in the distance, garishly repainted and prowling up and down the coast. Our community decided caution was the word of the day, and did not signal nor seek contact. From the North we spotted a young man approaching the community, only to pause and return North. He did not appear to be in distress, but we also chose not to pursue. We’re confident now that, at least in the Sound, there are other communities. What they are like we can only speculate. # Ample Food, Meager Cats _**Early Summer 2072, Pop 76**_ Our community had two pressing goals – ensure we had enough food to keep everyone healthy and ensure we had enough cats to keep vermin at bay. Cats are remarkably immune to The Illness, which makes them essential for keeping mice, rats, and other tiny vectors for disease down. One infected rat could potentially destroy our fragile home if it carried The Illness inside the walls. We finished repairs on the fishing vessel, and began pulling an abundance of salmon. We salvaged materials from the island and built a large greenhouse. We didn’t have a massive food surplus, but we had enough to put away for the future.  ![[HuntingCats.png]] *Image depicts two cats hunting a pair of mutated rats through a kitchen. Credit: [Cesár Odilon](https://www.artstation.com/oddcesar). By commission.* Which meant we had enough to feed some cats. A small group turned over some dinghies and built a shelter for the felines, enticing them in with scraps from our salmon. Cats were granted protective personhood, and every household was expected to shelter at least one. Spare time was used to explore more of our surroundings, a small high bluffed peninsula, connected by a thin bridge, was discovered, and construction of a watchtower and signal light was started. From there, we could see the coming and going of the ferry, which our community was now confident were raiding pirates.  It was only a matter of time before the pirates came for us.  # Hot Summer, Hot Tempers _**Late Summer 2072, Pop 68**_ It happened in August, during the hot, dry spell that kept everyone on edge. Two groups decided it was time to push beyond our walls. One group, led by [[Achebe, Ijeoma “Strider”|Strider]]’s older brother Obi “[[Achebe, Obiefune “Obi” ”Shade”|Shade]]” Achebe, packed up on various small watercraft and made for the mainland. They hoped to return with boats laden with food and supplies. They were quickly picked up by the pirates aboard the Ferry.   A group of hot headed youth refused to accept the elder’s advice that it was for the best to not further inflame the situation. Under the cover of night, they broke into the small arms cabinet in the nuclear sub, took several pistols and small arms, and stole the community’s fishing trawler. They had grand visions of taking over the Ferry and boarded it at night. One youth, frightened, backed out at the last minute and fled back to us on the fishing trawler. The other two went aboard the Ferry and their fate remains unknown. The community remained split over what to do with the Ferry, some arguing it needed to be taken care of, others just as strongly insisting “if we don’t bother it, it won’t bother us”.  The natural world was not kind that summer either. A large black bear was seen on the periphery of town most days. It would stand and stare, breathing heavily but otherwise unmoving, until dusk when it would retreat into the woods. An elder Norseman in our community got curious, and believing he could drive off the beast, took a long spear with him. Both he and the bear were found dead weeks later. There was evidence of cubs, but also evidence of The Illness. The site was incinerated. Finally, we set off to hunt one of the local Orca. And we succeeded in our hunt, but not in the way we expected – following them at sea showed they seemed to be more intelligent than we expected, and they taught us ways to navigate the wrecks that we were not aware of.  It was August 27th when we noticed the Ferry was out of fuel, and adrift near us.  # We Organize… _**Early Autumn, Pop 67**_ With food surpluses regularly arriving and a strong harvest. We stopped to talk a while about how to organize. Planning for our future was always a core tenet in our community, but until now we’d had little time to actually pursue it. In town halls and raucous meetings we assembled a basic set of laws and a constitution based on mutual aid, direct democracy, bodily autonomy, collective health and safety, and the aforementioned personhood of cats. We ensured that any who acted as leaders received the last portions of resources, and began a tradition of gift giving.   Our future was by no means certain – we had no place to school or even house most of our children, we had no real long term plans, but we had the space to start thinking of these things.  Inspired by the recent planning, our community paused work on everything else, and began a massive schoolhouse – multiple classrooms, a dormitory, classes in all topics for both children and adults. It would be the centerpiece of town, both a place of learning and a place for community. The project so captivated us we set aside tools on other things and laid the foundations for something bigger than anything we had attempted before. With luck and good planning, we could complete it before winter set in. A group of angry men, wanting to feel important, seized many of the arms and declared themselves a militia, and for several weeks we were uncertain whether they intended to seize the community by force. But a voice in our community suggested that rather than trying to rule, they could be useful in expanding our safe areas – patrolling The Scar and The Soup, and making them safe for all. This soothed the minds of those who wanted to appear strong and important, and they began calling themselves “Cleaners” or “Cleansers” and would proudly turn their intensity outward, rather than inward at the community. Over time, others joined the Cleaners, and the militia was officially disbanded. # … And Prepare for the Frost _**Late Autumn, Pop 66**_ Winter was nearly upon us, and the community felt the need to deal with the Ferry urgently, before winter made it difficult to do so. The ferry was seen using small zodiacs to raid other islands and the mainland, but the more humanitarian minded of us believed that not everyone aboard the ferry was militant in purpose. On November 22nd, we drove off a number of hidden zodiacs that had been laid as a trap around the Ferry and made contact with the residents therein. Aboard, we saw both [[Achebe, Ijeoma “Strider”|Strider]] and [[Achebe, Obiefune “Obi” ”Shade”|Shade]], and 47 others. For fear of The Illness, we did not board.   The conversations with those aboard were… quiet and brief. No one seemed to want to speak of what happened aboard, but they were peaceful enough and we worked out how to bring them into our community. With their conditions uncertain, we felt it best to recover some medical equipment from nearby wrecks before boarding. Before bringing them back, troubling news spread of sightings of a glowing humanoid north of the community, near the old power substation (which we had successfully disabled in early September). Reports were unclear – sometimes there was one figure, sometimes several, always glowing, and often seen probing the edges of The Scar. Late November, we saw fireworks over the Sound every evening. Short, predictable bursts of fireworks that ran every night for several weeks. Who they were, or what they were trying to communicate, we have no clue. They stopped as suddenly as they started. Next: [[The Hard Winter]]