Iron Dawn [Horizon Zero Dawn, Marvel CU]

[gaouw]

Thanks for the chapter.

 

[Cereburn]

Just realized I made a bit of a plot hole in chapter 5 - I'm working on fixes and re-posting.

 

[Cereburn]

Just realized I made a bit of a plot hole in chapter 5 - I'm working on fixes and re-posting.

Click to shrink...

Reposted Chp 5.
As someone suggested I keep the original and fixed version, the original is hidden in a spoiler if you'd like to compare.
Mostly this fix is addressing the plot hole of the sensor left by the village earlier.

As I've been told I could typo for America should the event be sportalized, I also fixed some of those.

 

[Cereburn]

I find myself trying to world-build in a world someone else already built. Some of this is because we are in a non-canon area, but I think I'm also just getting distracted by writing down how I think this part of the world and its people got to where its at.
I bring this up because I remember in other stories I've read, I've felt a few times that the author was stuffing too much unneeded stuff between the action. I've felt the same about some stories documenting long conversations that don't really show off anything new about the people or what is happening. It seems to be unhelpful filler.

The closest I think I've come on what I've posted to this was in the last chapter were I spent a lot of time figuring out ways for Tony to make stuff.

What do y'all feel about that? Too much? Maybe show the method once, but then assume it happened again later without details?

 

[Tzeentch]

Considering Tony's legendary intellectual and engineering prowess, access to nanites, and now has F.R.I.D.A.Y., an A.G.I., to help him out, I'm DEFINITELY looking forward to seeing what tech he might acquire from the Machines, Cauldrons, Focuses, etc, and then rapidly improve on them over the years!

STARK: (looks at Far Zenith) Flight, personal shielding, shapeshifting weaponry, Immortality? Is that all you've got? Come on, I basically figured all of that out AGES ago! I mean, even the Cauldrons I've personally Overrode and then upgraded now have better nano-assemblers than what you've got! However, I will admit that I DO like the "white and gold/everything's an I-Pod" look your architecture and machines have. Gaudy, yet tasteful, VERY "Nouveau Riche".... but I'm guessing that, lazy as most of you are, you probably had your A.I.s do most of, if not ALL the work in building this complex. Am I right? Of course I am.

 

[Cereburn]

Chapter 6

Nialo worked with the fishers to pull the floating bridge back to the shore. Every pull of the rope felt like the walls of the world were being pulled back in on him. Now he would be trapped with his mother, her friends and their unending gossip.

Earlier this morning, one of the other patrollers spotted the snapmaws coming back into the lake from downstream. Usually they were not a threat as long as you did not attack them, but they would always tear apart any logs blocking the waterways, including their bridges. Boats in the water would also be targeted, but if you rowed to the short fast enough, they'd ignore you. From this, they had learned years ago that if they made the bridge on floating logs and pulled it out of the way before the maws came, they would ignore them. Any logs that ended up floating away from the shore would get frozen and shattered by the snapmaws.

He recalled the story of the one explorer that thought he could explore the world by floating down the river. He was not fast enough to get to shore, so the snapmaws ate his boat and supplies. He jumped from the boat and tried to attack, he managed to knock loose a piece of armor, but then the eyes of the snapmaw turned red and it rolled over, swung around then caught him and they say he shattered after it froze him like any other log.

He hoped this would be one of the times where they took a few laps of the lake then proceeded up stream. Sometimes, they could be seen digging out the bottom of either the river upstream or downstream or the lake in certain spots or just float, as if asleep. Sometimes after sleeping for more than a day, they'd randomly wake up and move on. Either way, right now they were leaving him stuck on an island that seemed to become smaller and smaller every time he was trapped on it.

---

As Tony walked back down the trail, he waited on updates from their sensor and spared some time to imagine improvements to his travois solution. It was working, but the single wheel only worked right when he held both poles, trying to one-hand it while trying to clear anything in front of him left the travois trying to twist its way out of his other hand. He continued to distract himself from the time required to move such a short distance on foot with the options to fix his design.

A few miles later, Friday fed him images of the snapmaws finally crawling over the downstream lake bridge/dam. He looked incredulous at the clearly robot alligators on a pre-historic scale. Going through the sensor overlays, he observed they were a little over 30 feet long each, appeared to have similar Musculo-skeletal features as the eye-dino he'd found earlier and were definitely the source of some of the short-range beacons they'd picked up previously. Infrared images showed part of the machines appeared much colder than the surrounding body, some kind of sacks around the neck. Also shown were some of the panels on the back appeared to be multifunctional, they looked like photovoltaic panels, but thermals showed they were also being used to radiate heat, the delta was nothing crazy, about 40 degrees C above ambient. In his world, mixing solar power and heat did nothing for you unless you were in arctic temperatures.

He wished he'd tested cutting the metal of that one carcass he'd found, or even tried shooting it with his hunting gauntlet. From what he found, unarmored sections should be vulnerable to both, but he did not want to be in a position where he needed test on a robot alligator that could scare the crap out of the monster from Lake Placid. If Betty White's character were here, what would she feed it? He had no handy cows.

Judging from the sensor feed, the alligators were splitting up and patrolling the lake in opposite directions; one moving south then east, the other north then east to meet back up on the other side where the upstream feed of the lake was likely at.

As long as no one did anything stupid, they might even just move on upriver before he could get there. He and Friday both pondered the creatures as Tony walked, looking at possible weak spots and what other things they might learn.

---

Another hour of walking and observing showed the alligators repeated their patrol of the lake a few more times then came to a spot on the south side of the lake and sat floating with their solar panels just above the surface of the water. He could now see them for himself as he'd just arrived back at the spot he'd been at before.

"Friday, any progress with the signals you're getting from these guys?"

"No Boss, they're being pretty quiet right now, no new broadcasts since they stopped moving."

Tony stepped away from the shore and put down his travois behind some nearby trees then returned to watch. He then shifted his sight to the right and looked at the island village.

"Anything new from our village friends?"

"The few conversations I've picked up were prayers for them to proceed up river soon. They seem to be praying to the 'Mother of the Waters'. I've heard mention of The Mother before, but this is the first time they've apparently started calling on her with the full name since we started recording."

"Anything interesting conversations about her?"

"Not so much Boss, so far the times it comes up are in greetings, goodbyes and pleas for various character improvements."

"Let me know if any of the kids start getting a lesson about their water mom, that sounds like an interesting lesson. So nothing about taking any action about these guys?"

"No Boss, although I did hear someone telling a teenager a horror story of a guy that tried to fight one and got frozen and broken into pieces. The teenager is now reconsidering how to prove his manhood."

"Frozen and broken into pieces? Are these guys are using cryogenics as a weapon?" Tony began scanning back through the recorded video again, but found no examples of these guys even opening their maws.

Looking around, he decided to see what they'd do if presented with some trash in the water. He looked through the underbrush and found a few branches after a short walk; apparently these village guys do clean up around here occasionally. He walked back to the shore, took another look at the alligators to see if they were facing him, they weren't; he tossed in the sticks as far as he could, which ended up being about 30 feet from the shore then he retreated into the woods to watch through the sensor.

Nothing immediately happened for a short while, about 5 minutes later though one of the robo-gaters turned to look in the direction where Tony through the sticks then began swimming towards them. Tony rechecked the feed from the sensor, as the angle on the swimming machine wasn't a direct line to the woody trash, but on a trajectory to where the current was taking it. So these guys could anticipate target positions. Definitely good to know.

When the snapmaw intercepted the trash, the eyes turned yellow then it opened up its big mouth, but then something unexpected happened, it sprayed the branches with liquid that was clearly very cold, the branches turned white with ice frozen to them from the river. After the spray stopped the machine snapped its jaws and frozen shards of the branches exploded around it. The snapmaw refroze and snapped any pieces larger than about foot then proceeded to swim upstream, its eyes still yellow and, he assumed, looking for the source of the trash. However, after it passed his previous position on the shore, it did not stop, just kept swimming on its previous patrol around the lake. Finally, it stopped next to its partner and resumed its floating vigil; the eyes returning to their previous blue color.

I definitely need to report these guys for not posting a no swimming sign.

"How do you think our holo-shields would do against that spray, Friday?"

"The shield itself would be fine, but the emitters would likely freeze up after a few hits and short out. What're you thinking Boss?"

"I'm thinking I don't want to test how well the shields will work against that while I'm wearing them."

"Lets go north around the lake and see if we can find where they've got their tied up bridge at, maybe we can find a good spot to wave at them and talk."

"Ok, Boss."

---

After walking a little more than a quarter around the shore of the lake, they were relieved that the snapmaws took no notice of them and they finally got a look at the other side of the village.

This side was much closer to the shore than the downstream side, it appeared they were only about 70 feet from the short of the lake. Hanging above the water was a pair of ropes fasted about 5 feet above the water level from what looked like a large log post on the shore supported by a cairn of rocks surrounding it and further re-enforced by the ropes continuing down into another log buried at a 45 degree angle and covered with a pile of rocks anchoring it to the shore. The other side was attached to a pillar of rock jutting from the cliff near a path leading up into the village, from this angle, they could see it was about half slope and mixed with hand carved steps.

Along the shallow shore below the cliffs were several floating flat top barges pulled up on the shore and tied down to rock anchors in the dirt. Each barge also had poles on the ends about 6 feet tall with what looked like wooden J-hooks clearly meant to ride on the ropes and keep the bridge in place when in use.

Tony briefly considered the rather girthy ropes and wondered what they were using to make them. They looked like hemp ropes, but he'd not seen that plant so far. They also looked strong enough to support someone's weight by themselves and made a note to himself to look at rope tools he might use.

Continuing to walk around the lake, they also spotted the upstream feed of the lake, this did not seem to be a fallen bridge like the other side, just a wide creek leading west and a bit of a curve northward, likely leading back to the Hudson. It was southwest of the bridge anchor, about 50 yards. Around the bridge anchor was a fairly wide, cleared area of beach with evidence of fire pits, some grass roofed rain shelters and places to sit and likely work. Tony could see an area with flat stones that might be for threshing wheat and some large hollowed out stone bowls likely used to grind it.

Clearly, somewhere around here were some harvestable grains, so these weren't just fishers. Something to ask about later. Speaking of asking, Tony looked across the lake back to the island and found not only the bridge, but a few people hanging around the top of the stair/slope to the village and he waved hello at them. One of the kids waved back while an older woman clearly told another kid to go tell someone about the guy waving at them.

"Ok, Friday, time to setup a show; I hope we can do better than the cable shopping network."

 

[Cereburn]

Chapter 6 is up. I hope you enjoy it.

No teaser for Chapter 7 ready yet. I"m currently traveling this week, making time to write has been resource sparse.

Spoiler

It occurs to me that I forgo tot have Tony temper the steel of the knifes, so they will be a bit soft and bendy. hmm...I think I'll have to write around it. Quenching in water isn't as good as quenching in oil for this, but it is still better than no tempering.

Now I'm worried about what else I forgot.

 

[Cereburn]

Teaser Chapter:
Chapter 7: Fire Sale

On the beach opposite the village, Tony found a well used firepit dug into the ground. Deciding on making a show of tempering the blades, he started looking for the things he'd need to make a quenching vessel. A sheet metal tub being unavailable and not wanting to "magic" one out of what looked like nothing, he decided to something similar to when he made molds earlier, just on a larger scale. The cutting laser, he was going to blame on re-making what he saw one of the machines doing. Tony, as always, wanted his reputation to be earned for stuff he made not mystical hooky-pookism. He mentally pushed back inconvenient thoughts of Clark's law; hoping his tech wasn't too far removed from other stuff they'd seen that they'd believe it too was magic.

He walked about a bit looking for any fallen trees, not finding any; he assumed the villagers already cut any of those up for firewood, he instead found a tree about 50 feet back from the shore on a small rise that appeared to be dying, it looked like a previous storm had pushed it over about 40 degrees, pulling up part of the rootball and damaging the taproot. Some quick work with his cutting laser and a few trips with his unloaded travois brought several logs near the fire. First, he cut in half a log that was about 12 inches in diameter and about 3 foot long. As before, he then built a fire and set those two longs to lean over the fire to start burning out the heart of the logs.

While the fire was going, he went back through the logs and started cutting a few more into some sized for sitting on and put those around the fire on the opposite side of where he was going to be working. A clear invitation to the villagers to come over when they decided it was safe.

Although his ego pricked him a bit here so he did not resist making a rough stool for himself using a 2 inch log slice, he then cut four holes in a rough square and began searching through the branches of the fallen tree for appropriate sized legs. After a little careful work to cut round two inch long tenons in the legs, he put them into the holes, then trimmed the branches down so it'd sit level. Giving his stool a test, it worked fine. He set the laser to a lower power to burn instead of cut, then burned his initials into the chair, "A.S."

F.R.I.D.A.Y., deciding to be a bit cheeky chimed in, "Boss, you forgot an S."

 

[Cereburn]

I'm trying to remember to write in the flaws that Tony has; even in Endgame where he was older and a bit more chill after, what I assume to be a crap load of therapy after his return from Thanos' world Tony was still plenty ready to toot his own horn and be in control of whatever it was that he was involved with.

I've also done more edits to chapter one and reposted that. The old version has been put into a spoiler if you want to compare.

Spoiler

I'm also thinking, due to having teenage hormones again, at some point he's going to see a pretty girl and perhaps backslide a bit into his playboy ways.
Keep in mind, Aloy isn't even incubating yet - there will be no slash content with her and Tony.
Thoughts?

 

[Cereburn]

Hoping to get something out this weekend, evenings this week have been tied up with IRL drama.

 

[Cereburn]

Chapter 7: Fire Sale

[h2][/h2]On the beach opposite the village, Tony found a well-used firepit dug into the ground. Deciding on making a show of tempering the blades, he started looking for the things he'd need to make a quenching vessel. A sheet metal tub being unavailable and not wanting to "magic" one out of what looked like nothing, he decided to do something similar to when he made molds earlier, just on a larger scale. The cutting laser, he was going to lie and say he re-made something that he saw a rare machine doing. Tony, as always, wanted his reputation to be earned for stuff he made not mystical hooky-pookism. He mentally pushed back inconvenient thoughts of Clark's law; hoping his tech wasn't too far removed from other stuff they'd seen that they'd believe it too was magic.

He walked about looking for any fallen trees, not finding any; he assumed the villagers already cut any of those up for firewood, he instead found a tree about 50 feet back from the shore on a small rise that appeared to be dying, it looked like a previous storm had pushed it over about 40 degrees, pulling up part of the root ball and damaging the taproot. Some quick work with his cutting laser and a few trips with his unloaded travois brought a pile of logs near the fire. First, he cut in half a log that was about 12 inches in diameter and about 3 foot long. As before, he then built a fire and set those two logs to lean over the fire to start burning out their heart wood.

While the fire was going, he went back through the pile and started cutting a few more logs into some sized for sitting on and put those around the fire on the opposite side of where he was going to be working. A clear invitation to the villagers to come over when they decided it was safe.

Although his ego pricked him a bit here, so he did not resist making a rough stool for himself using a 2 inch log slice, he then cut four holes in a rough square and began searching through the branches of the fallen tree for appropriate sized legs. After a little careful work to cut two inch long tenons in the legs, he put them into the holes, then trimmed the branches down so it'd sit level. Giving his stool a test, it worked fine. He set the laser to a lower power to burn instead of cut, then burned his initials into the chair, "A.S."

F.R.I.D.A.Y., deciding to be a bit cheeky chimed in, "Boss, you forgot an S."

"Very funny Friday, how're you doing with the signals work, any news from the robo-gators or GPS?"

"The snapmaws, as the villagers call them, are still chilling in the south side of the lake. The GPS decryption sub-processes are still working on it. "

"In a while, I'm going to need the induction heater from the smelter to heat up some things to temper them. Also, whenever I need to grab a tool, I'm going to go to the bag for it, assemble the nanites there after I stick my hand in the bag when needed please."

"Gotcha Boss"

---

A few hours later, he had completed his quenching vessel after carving out the charred insides coating the edges with some clay then clamping the two sides together and tying them with some of the spare wire from earlier. He then filled it with water and was satisfied that it did not immediately start dripping.

Next, he emptied out the catchall module of his back pack and reclaimed the nanites from that and re-assembled the induction heater but without the smelting section nor wire die. Setting the heater on a log, he then reached into his bag and pulled out a set of nanite made tongs, then held one of the un-handled blades into the heater. When it came up to a glowing orange on the edges and more cherry red in the middle, he pulled the knife out then plunged it into the water.

When a short burst of steam puffed out, he heard through his sensors a few surprised gasps from the islanders watching him work and he grinned knowing he had their attention.

After a few minutes, he pulled the quenched blade out and set it aside in the sand to finish cooling then started on the rest of the blades without handles.

"Boss, the snapmaws are on the move!" said an alerted Friday. "They're heading this way, but don't' seem to be in a rush."

"Ok, might be they're moving on. Let's shut down the heater and pretend we are putting it away in the bag."

Suiting action to words, they did that and by the time Tony turned around, he saw and heard that the islanders had also seen the snapmaws. Families herded their children back up the stairs and followed, keeping a wary eye on the mechanical creatures from the safety of the village height.

Over the next 10 minutes, the robo-gators swam upstream under the rope line for the bridge and past Tony's impromptu smithing show; their eyes stayed blue the entire way then they were into the river on the northern side and out of the lake.

With a thoughtful look at the machines leaving the area, Tony asks Friday "If those two are doing a patrol of the river from it's head to the ocean, how long do you figure till they come back this way?"

Cautiously Friday responds, "There's a lot of assumptions there Boss, how many obstacles do they need to clean up, are they going to pick a spot to linger in again, are they the only ones doing the patrol or are they the only two on just this section of river. The villagers haven't said much about how frequently they come by, just that they sometimes go through the lake quickly and sometimes they linger a while before moving on."

"Boss, I think the best bet here is to ask the locals."

Tony looks back at said locals, still watching the river and not prepping their bridge yet and impatiently replies, "I'd agree if they'd get off their butts and get here."

Walking back to where he'd been working, he saw that he still had two untreated knife "blanks" left along with the knives he'd put handles on but had not treated.

Reaching into his bag again, he pulled out some pliers and began loosening the wire wrapping on the handles, removing the wood then setting them aside in preparation to re-fasten them on treated knives. He next picked up one of the treated knife blanks and checked the edge, the edge felt a bit dull, it appeared to have curled a bit in the tempering process. Sub-vocally speaking with Friday, he put the tongs and pliers away and pulled out a medium sized pull saw. With the saw, he selected another log, about two feet long, put it on its end then cut a groove into the other end, about three quarters of an inch deep and just wide enough for a knife blank to fit in; which he then did with one of the treated blanks. After a little wiggling to make sure it would not slip out, he put "away" the saw and pulled out sharpening tools and went to work realigning the curled edge and re-sharpening the blade. Once it was decently sharp again, he put it into a set of handles, re-wrapped it and then stabbed it into a log then he continued working on the other knives in the same pattern until the ready handles were used up. He left the remaining treated blanks without handles after he sharped them.

Next, Tony pulled out the heater again, this time using pliers to fold over a six inch piece of wire from the middle to form a loop then twist the remaining wire into a one-inch two-sided hook, then treating and quenching it so the wire would stiffen up. He next used a file to sharpen the hook ends and cut shallow barbs behind those tips.

After about an hour and a half, as he finished his fourth set of hooks, Friday let him know that the islanders were finally messing with their floating bridge. They hooked the first "link" of the bridge to the guide rope with a hook carved into a vertical log post at the bow and began pushing it into the river, as the stern came to the rope, a similar hooked post was there to meet the rope along with a smaller looped rope around the stern post and the bow post of the next link, tying them together; this link by link bridge building continued for nine links covering the gap between the island and the shore.

---

Nialo was, as usual, the first to get across the bridge, although this time he was with a few of the other tough men from his village and had the chief behind them. He and the others were curious about the crazy man that had returned after passing through before. Also wary, not all traders were honest in what they sold or who they claimed to be.

As they crossed the bridge, the trader stood up and oddly put his back pack back on, although leaving his wares down. Looking to his Chief Hul'ka, he gave a sign to give the man some space.

The Chief approached and called out, "You are not someone we have met before, why have you come to our lake?"

Tony noted the chief was a well sized guy, but clearly not as big as he used to be, he still held himself up with strength, but he recognized a fighting man gone to pasture, he'd met many before. Unlike some of them, the eyes on this one said he hadn't suffered too many concussion over the years. He decided not to embellish too much, such men had called him on it in the past and right now, he did not have the money and resources to back up his bragging. Not that he wouldn't brag at all, but maybe turn it down to 6 instead of 11.

Standing and speaking clearly as the chief was still about 10 yards away, "Hi, I'm Tony, yes I'm new here, unfortunately most of my trade items and companions are somewhere else, so my selection is a little light at the moment, but I'm certain you can judge the quality of my wares for yourself. Please join me." He finished waiving at the seats.

The chief looked at the logs available to sit on for a bit, making it clear he would sit himself when he chose too, not when told. He then turned to his men and signaled them to let the other villagers get about their usual chores although Nialo stayed to guard the chief. Seeing that his folks were about their business, he then went over and sat down across from Tony; taking the time to look over the wares Tony had set out. "I see you have knives, is that all?"

By this time, the fishers of the village had come out across the bridge and were setting up lines to fish from while other villagers kept moving across the bridge and into the forest to, assumedly, forage for other things.

Tony reached out and picked up a pair of his finished hooks and handed one over, "You might find your fishing improved by some of these. Notice the sharpened hooks on both sides made of tempered steel. Once a fish goes for the bait on one of these, there's twice the chance the hook will catch and it will stay caught until you reel in the string."

Then, picking up one of the knives, "and then you can easily scale and filet the fish with one of my steel knives." He said while mimicking the actions of filleting a fish.

The chief was interested, but doubtful. He held up the hook and asked, "I'd like to test it before we discuss any price."

Tony looked conflicted, thinking of the ways this could fail then asked, "How deep is the river under the bridge where you usually fish?"

Remembering when he was a bit younger and had liked to swim around the bridge himself, the Chief recalled, "About twice as tall as a man. Why do you ask?"

Tony had not done much actual fishing as a child, it took Barton to get him to sit still enough to try it, but he remembered what Barton had showed him. Of course, there was no rod nor reel, but he could make do. "I'd be happy to show you a bit how we do it where I come from, but I'm out of fishing line, can you give me about 30 feet to use?"

It did not seem an unreasonable request to Hul'ka, but the length was longer than they usually used for fishing, so his curiosity was even more piqued than before. He looked over towards the bridge, looking for a specific face, and seeing her on the near side of the bridge, teaching one of the younger fishers, he called out, "U'nia! U'nia, bring me one of the spindles of fishing line."

She looked up and waved back an acknowledgement, then hook the line of her young fisher and sent him to run up to the village to get the requested spindle. Not long later, strung between a stick with two forks on both ends was a length of string in the hands of a young boy about ten running back across the bridge. As he got near to U'nia, she waved him on to the Chief and told him to return to his line after he dropped off the spool. The young boy kept running until he reached the chief and handed over the spool. The Chief looked at him, "You might make a better running than a fisher, but that will be for U'nia to decide. Thank you."

Sensing his dismissal, the boy ran back to the bridge and the nod of approval from U'nia when he got there.

Back at the trade seats, Hul'ka pulled off the requested length of line, coiling it neatly at his feat as he pulled it off the spindle which he then cut which is own knife that appeared to be a piece of metal recovered from a machine Tony observed.

Tony took the line and measured ten feet of it where he tied a knot. He then reached into his backpack for 'his last bobber' and slid that onto the line and tied another knot after the bobbin so the line would not slide either way through it. He then tied on the hook at the end then baited it with some of his turkey jerky. Standing up, he started walking to the shore; but was also subvocalizing. "Friday, find me some big fish please to drop this hook on."

The display in his googles took on an overlay allowing him to see through the water like polarized lenses, but then Friday started highlighting spots where fish should be, or highlighting the actual fish when she found them. Before tossing the line he made a loop of the other end and put it around his wrist, then spun the hook weighted with his bait and tossed it out in the direction of the big fish towards a set of broken trees by the shore and not into the river from the bridge as the others were fishing.

This had many with their eyes on him instead of their own lines; however, not long after casing, the bobber ducked under the water once, twice and then Tony jerked the line and started pulling it back in with a clear fight on the other end of the line. Not long later, he returned to the Chief with much larger than average fish. He then showed how the both sides of the hook had actually caught this time, near the side of the mouth in the top and bottom jaws. With a bit of wiggling, he got the hook free and on an unused seat, cum table, he started butchering the fish, but instead stabbed the fish through the head with the knife and pushed the table back to the Chief, "Please try out my knife."

Impressed, the Chief took up the knife and began to expertly take apart the fish. Tony was secretly relieved, he was never good at filleting a fish, he always ended up with bones all over everything.

As he was working through separating the fish into edible and inedible parts, the Chief started the discussion on price. "So what would you like to trade for your hooks and knifes? Would you also trade for the floating balls?"

"Um, actually, the bobber is my last one, but you can make them from wood or anything else that floats. As far as the price, what I'm after right now is a bit of travel food and information. As I said, I'm new to the area and I was separated from the rest of my, uh…caravan. The maps that I remember are a bit different from what I'm seeing, I'm hoping you can help me get to where they should meet up with me." Tony hoped his lie was close enough to the truth expected to not get called on it. Suddenly Tony remembered something else he needed, "Oh, also, certain metals, if you happen to collect some, I'd be interested in those."

 

[Cereburn]

Long time no post - sorry for the delay - have been fighting writers block on dealing with the conversations with the villagers - mentally getting stuck on the other end - Tony getting clues about the area instead of thinking through where Tony is at that moment.

I don't have a teaser for the next chapter either - I am considering dumping this visit into a summary along the lines of "Tony visited a village and they told him to go to yada yada way." instead of building up actual interactions with Tony and people of the time. I want Tony to get an appreciation for folks as they are in the now of the story. I'm struggling to internalize why that is important, but I know it is for later story telling.

Sorry for the lateness, thanks for your patience.

 

[GeekGod_of_Speed]

Long time no post - sorry for the delay - have been fighting writers block on dealing with the conversations with the villagers - mentally getting stuck on the other end - Tony getting clues about the area instead of thinking through where Tony is at that moment.

I don't have a teaser for the next chapter either - I am considering dumping this visit into a summary along the lines of "Tony visited a village and they told him to go to yada yada way." instead of building up actual interactions with Tony and people of the time. I want Tony to get an appreciation for folks as they are in the now of the story. I'm struggling to internalize why that is important, but I know it is for later story telling.

Sorry for the lateness, thanks for your patience.

Click to shrink...

I agree with summarising plot like that, it's hard to sympathise with the natives when I don't recognise them and I'm under the impression Tony isn't going to interact with them after this, only way I could see avoiding these issues is a character like Sylens or Aloy that seek knowledge and act as an interface between tony and any tribals while acting as an apprentice or getting tony to set down roots and start building infrastructure