Mark woke to Ava shaking him. “Wake up; it’s morning. I want to get going. We’re following the trail.”
Mark quickly started a fire and warmed the breakfast Dale had sent with them. Then he buried the ashes and cleaned up camp, making sure he left nothing behind. He then followed Bramble and Ava as they continued down the trail.
The sun had barely cleared the horizon, earlier than Mark liked to rise, but this was Ava’s adventure and he was just along for the ride. He opened his map as he followed them. It was still greyed out, though he could sense the direction of his own zone. The farther they went, the wider and more traveled the trail became. They passed several branches but kept following Bramble, who seemed determined to take them somewhere.
Not long after they started walking, there was a bird in the sky that kept circling them and then finally flew off west. In the forest they heard birds often but rarely saw them for the branches; the bird they saw was also much bigger than the ones in the forest.
Bramble and Ava found and killed another animal while they were going. It was smaller than the pig they had killed yesterday, but Mark did not pay it too much attention; he was too busy looking around at the differences in this zone compared to his.
Shortly after the animal kill, they were about to crest a hill when Ava pointed a little southwest of them. There was smoke rising in the distance. When they crested the hill, the path turned and headed downward toward the lake and the source of the smoke.
What they saw surprised Mark. There was a small community with seven houses and a few fenced yards with goats and chickens in them. Along with that, they saw two children playing on the path just a little ways out from the houses. The group came to an abrupt stop as they looked at the scene.
One of the houses was just on the side of the lake, and there was a small dock with a little boat connected to it. And “little” was the key word; it would barely fit an adult comfortably. There was also another path that led around the lake going south and then turned west at the bottom edge of the lake and went west out of sight.
Then one of the kids yelled, “There’s a wolf.”
Just a few minutes later, two older adults came out of one of the houses and looked in their direction. Ava then bent down and started scratching Bramble on the top of his head. That seemed to break the kids’ fear, and the boy, the younger of the two, started to run up to them, heading straight for Bramble.
Just before the boy reached Bramble, Bramble let out a low growl.
Ava said, “Hey, Bramble, be nice.”
Bramble walked forward and then around the boy and back to his front and sat down in a pose that seemed to scream, Pet me.
The little boy finally moved the last foot and petted Bramble.
The man finally came to his senses and hollered at the boy. “Hey, Benji, why don’t you come back here and go with Lily into the house?”
The boy looked back at him and said, “Fine. He’s nice.” He then headed back, grabbed the little girl’s hand, and went into the house.
The woman and man slowly walked forward and stopped about 10 feet away. The man spoke, “Hello, you’re new around here. I haven’t seen you before. How can we help you?” He said it in one of those welcome to the neighborhood voices but his facial expression did not show the same thing; he looked a little nervous and kept glancing back towards the woman.
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Mark took a step forward that almost made the man jump and then said, “Hello, my name is Mark, and this is Ava and her companion Bramble. He is a forest stalker she found when he was small and he was injured, and he has been with her since.”
The man started to visibly relax, and the woman walked up next to him. He then said, “Hello, sorry about the apprehension; we don’t get a lot of visitors, and some that have visited were, well, let’s say, not welcome to return.”
“Sorry, we traveled here from a settlement I built east of here past the stream and through a forest east of that.”
The woman then spoke. “Edwin, why don’t you invite them in and we can sit and chat? Maybe the young lady would like to take her pet and go down and explore by the lake while we chat.”
Mark replied, “Sounds good.”
Ava gave Mark a look like, “I’m not a child and need to be dismissed while the grownups talk.” But finally she whistled for Bramble and headed down near the lake.
Edwin, Mark, and Jean, as it turned out, went into their cabin and sat down at the table to chat.
Mark told them how he had learned to trap and build a camp in the forest, along with some of the things his group had done and found. Then he set a chunk of salt crystal from the cave and a piece of resin on the table.
The couple explained that they had arrived months ago and eventually founded the community. They had been lucky enough to find goats and chickens, which Jean raised, and they traded with villages north and west of the lake.
Finally, Edwin picked up the salt. “Where did you find this? I know a few people that would love to get their hands on some of this.”
Mark then explained to them about the cave they had found in the northeast corner of the zone at the top of the stream where the waterfall came off the plateau above it. He talked about the adventures and the items they had found in the cave.
The three of them spent about an hour talking and trading bits of knowledge and skills that each of the groups had. The couple decided that they wanted to trade for some of the salt and resin and talked over what they could trade for it. Mark was interested in how to build a real cabin and the carts that he saw. He would also like to set up trades for eggs and milk from the goats.
Through the conversation, Mark found out the two kids he met were brother and sister but that they did not know where their parents were, and they were found in the hills when Edwin had been grazing his goats north of town.
There was a fisherman who worked at the dock on the lake. There was also a hunter named Tessa and a trail runner named Rowan. Both were out of town at the time.
Mark did not catch the names of the others but found out there were 15 that generally called the community home. Mark was most interested in meeting the carpenter who made the carts. But it was suggested by the two of them that he go introduce himself to the people he could find around town.
Ava reluctantly walked down to the lake. She hated being dismissed like she was a child. This whole trip started to prove that she could hold her own. And look what she found, people. She knew Mark wanted more people around. He never said it, but the way he talked about community and building, she knew he wanted more.
She walked with Bramble down to the lake; looking at the dock, she saw an old man sitting there with a pole in the water, hat pulled down low, and she was pretty sure he was asleep. But every once in a while, he would swat an imaginary fly and then doze off again.
Finally deciding he was boring, she headed north around the lake for a little walk. About 15 minutes into the walk, she heard a noise. Like a panicked animal. She finally noticed ahead of her on the beach of the lake was a fishing net, and tangled in it was a bird. When Ava identified it, she found out it was a ridge glider.
She had Bramble stop and stay where he was, as he was upsetting the bird trying to approach it. Ava was finally able to calm it down. She guessed it was her skills helping her to do that. When the bird was finally calm, she was able to get it untangled from the net.
Once it was loose, she pulled out some fish she had in her inventory and tossed it out. The bird watched her and then looked at the fish. Finally, it hopped forward and grabbed the fish and then flew away. Ava watched it fly; it circled her three times and then headed east past the little village and then out of sight.
Ava noticed that Mark had finally come out of the hut, so she turned around and went back to see what was up.
Mark stood up and thanked the two for their conversation. He was now off to go see the others in town, especially wanting to meet the carpenter.