Trade with the Brochovs
Nikopol - May 30, 2594
Traders’ Workshop
The air reeks of resin and cold steel. Within the traders’ workshop, sleds—some pristine, others mangled by the Wasteland—are being repaired under the glow of flickering oil lamps. Aaron would be interested, if he wasn’t so exhausted of a sleepless night. Orest’s map shows a new trading route. Not just for trade. For survival. A mass exodus.
The next caravan is bound for Brochov, bartering steel plates for whatever food can be wrung from the Fractal Forest. Pavlo asks to accompany Isolde. He will prove himself. The Clique must take him in.
Wastelander Spitalians
An hour beyond Nikopol, Five Spitalians emerge from the dust, dressed in patchwork armour over their suits. They are loud, boisterous, alive in a way that only those who have faced death too often can be.
Their gazes shift. Respect for Friedrich and Isolde. Disdain for Anastasia and Sasha, whom they regard as filthy, primitive. Their contempt is present in every glance, every sneer.
One of them carries a Numenon Vocalizer, a Spitalian artefact. The device hums, decoding the ether’s whisper into musical tones. It is shut off.
Zora, the Teacher of Elders
Zora moves fast against the riverbank of a Dnipro tributary, two Brochovs follow. Their settlement and forest was burned by Spitalians.
Anastasia and Sacha have heard the stories—whispers of Zora, who teaches the Elders the true ways of Pollen, who shows them how to outlast, to resist.
Her eyes meet Friedrich’s, sharp as a bone blade. Hostility flickers. A pause. Then Anastasia speaks, her voice tempered steel. Zora listens. The tension does not break, but it bends.
And then she runs. Fast. Faster than she should. She must catch up to the Spitalians before they vanish into the poisoned horizon.
Burned Brochov Settlement
The land crackles underfoot, brittle ash disintegrating into the wind. Orest leads them through the desolation, his fingers tracing the contours of cave paintings hidden in the rock—symbols, figures that might be Zora. Might be something older.
The settlement is gone. Nothing remains but skeletal beams and the acrid scent of loss. The forest’s eastern edge is a blackened graveyard, littered with the curled husks of burned spiders and centipedes—mutants twisted in death.
At the heart of the ruins, a tomb. Three Spitalians buried with care. The others—Brochovs—were bound, stacked like cordwood, and burned alive. Systematic. Precise. No cruelty wasted.
The Spitalians left their mark. And the land will remember.