The refugees, 2nd draft

The factory

Akran

6th month, April 50th

On easter a few easter eggs were hidden in odd and inconvenient places, a few remained even thousands of years later. We would just be surveying our land, climb some tree or shoot some balloon and bam, loot has dropped, and you now have a Donin that flies back to you like a boomerang.

A few people have also gotten weapons and items with strange properties, like my sword will disappear when I'm not using it, it just becomes invisible. Charolette's blade could not burn so she could now light it on fire.

That was interesting, also on the first day of April it was also the first day of spring, on that day a gentle rain came with the sun as it rose for the first time in months. We had not gone hungry, but ration stores were low at that point.

We hosted a grand celebration and kids were sent out to the fields to look for easter eggs, obviously they were fake, filled with candy and food, we really sent them out so that others who remained could relax.

Out there they held a children's court in the knoll, under the watch of a few well compensated surveyors. They, as far as we could tell, were still led by Akran with younger kids having their own leaders who spoke for their groups.

We do not know what they said, and they guarded their records well. So, the events there have been lost to history, however the next day they added a new rule to the stone, all people must wear their factional colour at least in one place on their clothes.

We were fine with that; some people were doing that anyway. People were also flying flags outside their doors and painting their roofs before that law went into effect, so it just gave us a way to show our faction.

A lot of the kids had formed groups to look for easter eggs. A few people had quite a lot of candy and sugar, but many parents and guardians reported not seeing it when they were asked.

At the knoll, the kids showed a tendency to look for leaders that they could relate to, leaders who were like them. Later I left to oversee work in the factory, there we were trying to figure out how to rebuild what Energy had made, they made things with a dark metal with thick runes all over them.

We have tried to decipher what the runes mean but have never been able to figure it out, even energy turncoats cannot explain it to anyone who cannot summon fire. The good news is that we also have a code, our code is calligraphy, a flowing, detailed script that one will learn when they join and lose when they betray us.

We use the script to mark what something does, and with the random enchantments appearing on things. When an enchantment connects to something runes in the style of the faction that made it explain what it is and how to use it.

Magic items sometimes bind to one person and will remain loyal, not having magical properties when someone who has not earned its trust tries to use it. Each item will have a certain set of goals and ideals, best summarized as an alignment. If someone of the same alignment tries to use it, then it will work properly but if someone of a different alignment tries to use it then it will work like a normal item.

These things are weird.

What else? You may or may not remember Niki's helicopter, well transportation still uses it to travel faster and they have weapons on them. We now have a few of our own with weapons on them, no one uses planes because there is no space to land.

Each village has a helipad except for Jigonki, which is too deep anyway, we once tried to land at the floor of the maw but after a few miles the maw closes too far and though we can see that it continues to a massive chamber, but we cannot break in yet.

With our advancements in technology, I shudder to consider what the undead might attack us with. Energy has begun to build gravity fed turrets to fire at enemies faster, guns have begun to be produced and sold, the buildings are now being built in metal and glass, skyscrapers have been planned, our society has grown frighteningly fast.

However, even with all these advances in society we have adopted traditionalism, to stay with traditional building principles. This way we could advance society but still remember who we are.

The underground mines now have people living in them, how we did all of this with, so few people boil down to one thing, magic. By all rights we should barely have more than wood and stone buildings.

With magic we now have incredible abilities and technology, we got here through magic, it truly is incredible. Chapters may be short as this one is because there simply is not much happening every month.

I may use magic, but I prefer the use of technology, a more reliable 'magic.' Our faction flies vertically meaning that we can rival the transportation faction, which is really just the messenger faction since we don't need more transportation than Suwingu, but they oversee the manufacturing, production, and sales of the Suwingu.

Agriculture: Lenox, 125

Water & irrigation: cordlen, 115

Guardians: Gabriel, 53

The army: Aspira, 30

Economy: Alizee, 55

Labour: Granger, 54

Health & human services: Alvaro, 35

Mikyana: Ligh, 110

Transportation: Niki, 34

Energy: Charolotte, 108

Surveyors: Akran, 67

Arcaya: Kara, 43

Whispers: Falon, 228

The night's watch: Shiani, 70

1,213 employed