Where are we? (part 5)
May. 30th, 2005 02:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrpart 1
part 2
part 3
part 4
People are a bit more organized. A few rigged ground sheets to catch the heavy dew once they realized how cold it was going to get. Not a lot of water, but ...
Most have some sort of "travel food". A few aren't well equipped. Others have moderately heavy packs. It seems you all share a language. We shall assume it is English or close to it.
A few have radios. They work, but they aren't picking up anything. And, there isn't anything approaching a common frequency. The best you can do is two or three units that can talk to each other. (well a pair here, a pair there and one group of three that'll interoperate.)
Someone offers![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wheeti a poncho, and another offers her one of those disposable foil rescue blankets.
A few of the military types (and a couple of "barbarian" looking types have caught some insects that look like grasshoppers. A couple argue a bit and eat theirs. The rest stick them in a fine net bag for later.
Heading north again, about mid morning you startle some grazers. Antelope?
One man with red skin (not Amerind, I mean distinctly reddish) throws his odd looking rifle to his shoulder and brings one down. The rifle is very quiet but there's a loud bang from the stricken animal.
When you reach it, there's a baseball sized chunk missing from it near the shoulder. Someone quickly cuts the animals throat and a couple of people field dress the carcass.
An hour or so later, the group encounters a "road". Well, more of a wagon rut than road running at an angle apparently from the hills to the "east" (anti-sunward) off to some destination off to the "northwest".
I'll assume the group follows it.
It's got some grass growing, but not a lot. And there are potholes that look to have had gravel dumped in them at some point. No fresh tracks or the like though. Depending on the weather it could have been used a month ago or a decade ago.
It's been noted that as the sun rises higher, it seems to be getting smaller (and less red).
By "noon" (assuming the day is 12 hours long) it's almost motionless and at about 45 degrees above the horizon.
By late afternoon, the track has joined a real road running north south. It's paved with stone and some compare it to a Roman road. Though it looks well overdue for maintenance.
There is some discussion as to why the track ran at an angle instead of straight to the road.
People have picked up various bits of vegetation and small game during the day as well as some old bones and small sticks. Even a few well weathered boards from the edge of the track.
Posts are noted alongside the road every mile or so. The have inscriptions that look to be numbers.
The first one you encounter says: TTRMMMDLXVII
The next is TTRMMMDLXVI
At TTRMMMDLX there's a building on the "west" (sunward) side of the road. Looks like a cross between a small fort and a small in (think "Alamo")
Hasn't been repaired in a long time. But it's still sound, And there a well and some firewood under shelter.
There are a few interesting features of the building.
One of the "east west" exterior walls has a wooden rod sticking out with lines drawn at angles and labeled with numbers. Consensus is it's a sundial. And there's only one set of lines with two numbers at the end of each line.
There's a flat stone area off to one side with some badly worn carvings. If someone brushes out the dirt and dust, there are holes arranged in a circle with lines running to the center. In a circle at the center is a carving that several people think reminds them of one of the brighter groups of stars they saw last night. There are 19 holes, and there are 19 marks along the circle between each hole. Except there are 23 holes between one special marked hole and the one counter clockwise from it.
A staff would stand upright nicely in any of the holes.
There are some words and numbers carved on the front of the building, with numbers and arrows pointing north and south along the road.
The numbers appear to be Roman, except for the addition of T and R as "digits".
Which would, if they follow the rules of other digits, mean that you are at milepost
28,560
part 2
part 3
part 4
People are a bit more organized. A few rigged ground sheets to catch the heavy dew once they realized how cold it was going to get. Not a lot of water, but ...
Most have some sort of "travel food". A few aren't well equipped. Others have moderately heavy packs. It seems you all share a language. We shall assume it is English or close to it.
A few have radios. They work, but they aren't picking up anything. And, there isn't anything approaching a common frequency. The best you can do is two or three units that can talk to each other. (well a pair here, a pair there and one group of three that'll interoperate.)
Someone offers
wheeti a poncho, and another offers her one of those disposable foil rescue blankets.A few of the military types (and a couple of "barbarian" looking types have caught some insects that look like grasshoppers. A couple argue a bit and eat theirs. The rest stick them in a fine net bag for later.
Heading north again, about mid morning you startle some grazers. Antelope?
One man with red skin (not Amerind, I mean distinctly reddish) throws his odd looking rifle to his shoulder and brings one down. The rifle is very quiet but there's a loud bang from the stricken animal.
When you reach it, there's a baseball sized chunk missing from it near the shoulder. Someone quickly cuts the animals throat and a couple of people field dress the carcass.
An hour or so later, the group encounters a "road". Well, more of a wagon rut than road running at an angle apparently from the hills to the "east" (anti-sunward) off to some destination off to the "northwest".
I'll assume the group follows it.
It's got some grass growing, but not a lot. And there are potholes that look to have had gravel dumped in them at some point. No fresh tracks or the like though. Depending on the weather it could have been used a month ago or a decade ago.
It's been noted that as the sun rises higher, it seems to be getting smaller (and less red).
By "noon" (assuming the day is 12 hours long) it's almost motionless and at about 45 degrees above the horizon.
By late afternoon, the track has joined a real road running north south. It's paved with stone and some compare it to a Roman road. Though it looks well overdue for maintenance.
There is some discussion as to why the track ran at an angle instead of straight to the road.
People have picked up various bits of vegetation and small game during the day as well as some old bones and small sticks. Even a few well weathered boards from the edge of the track.
Posts are noted alongside the road every mile or so. The have inscriptions that look to be numbers.
The first one you encounter says: TTRMMMDLXVII
The next is TTRMMMDLXVI
At TTRMMMDLX there's a building on the "west" (sunward) side of the road. Looks like a cross between a small fort and a small in (think "Alamo")
Hasn't been repaired in a long time. But it's still sound, And there a well and some firewood under shelter.
There are a few interesting features of the building.
One of the "east west" exterior walls has a wooden rod sticking out with lines drawn at angles and labeled with numbers. Consensus is it's a sundial. And there's only one set of lines with two numbers at the end of each line.
There's a flat stone area off to one side with some badly worn carvings. If someone brushes out the dirt and dust, there are holes arranged in a circle with lines running to the center. In a circle at the center is a carving that several people think reminds them of one of the brighter groups of stars they saw last night. There are 19 holes, and there are 19 marks along the circle between each hole. Except there are 23 holes between one special marked hole and the one counter clockwise from it.
A staff would stand upright nicely in any of the holes.
There are some words and numbers carved on the front of the building, with numbers and arrows pointing north and south along the road.
The numbers appear to be Roman, except for the addition of T and R as "digits".
Which would, if they follow the rules of other digits, mean that you are at milepost
28,560
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-31 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-31 06:37 am (UTC)I'm notoroius for a D&D game where the DM had us play "ourselves" dropped into the game world. I proceeded to rattle off rom memory how to make gunpowder (including extracting saltpeter from manure), how to make nitric and sulfuric acids, and several other things.
I and another player where discussing creating a nuclear reactor at the tiome the game closed. :-)
Being a well read fan and science geek with a memory for trivia can be a danger to GMs.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-01 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-01 06:21 am (UTC)