150. Sparkling Shores
The heavy scent of salt and baked mud grow as the banks of the river become indistinct. A watchtower comes into view a few kilometers from the river. Cresting the small hills of a natural bend in the Southtap, you catch sight of ribbons of glowing white between you and the tower. If Adri and Jupi are with you, they will tell you about your destination. Neither Scythe has been to the village, but many in Deeproot know of it:
Sparkling Shores was founded a few decades ago, just on the other end of the salt flat ahead. This one is the second largest flat, with the largest being a few kilometers more down the river.
Salt being as crucial as it is for preserving meats, it is quite valued in the markets of Deeproot. For a very long time, it was collected via solar stills, which of course yield low quantities very slowly. Travelers along the Southtap had known for quite some time about these salt flats, but as we are still 200km from Deeproot, making the five-day journey carrying heavy salt seemed impossible.
Someone tried, many years ago, setting up an operation in another salt flat some 90km east of here, and days closer to Deeproot. After lugging dozens of sacks back to Deeproot, they soon found that the salt from that place made people sick, and gave an oily sheen when mixed with water. No one could figure out how to separate the oil from the salt, so the venture and that place were abandoned, now known as the Salty Desert. If you see a Deeproot Utaru squint at you and rub their thumb and forefinger, it means they do not trust what you say, that you are trying to sell them oily salt.
Much later, as the population of Deeproot began to grow, demand for salt continued to drive the price up and up, until it was worth more by weight than the rarest machine component or the finest art. A young Utaru man named Kurlan, who had thought he might journey to South Weave to seek an apprenticeship, traveled the Southtap and stopped, as we have done, to stare at this salt flat.
Kurlan, who was better at math than at weaving, realized that if he dumped everything out of his pack and filled it with salt, he could live for a year or more on what he got for it. Like any Utaru who has spent in time in Deeproot, he knew to add this salt to water to check for an oily sheen. The salt seemed clean, so he made his journey back, and did indeed make enough profit to live easy for a year. Repeating the journey each year, he refused to tell anyone where he was getting the salt, and developed elaborate methods of disguising where he went.
Kurlan kept his secret for many years, until he started to feel the long trip in his bones more and more. Wanting to retire, he convinced several of his closest friends and family to come with him and set up a small village: Sparkling Shores. From there, they could harvest the salt and pay others to make the trip for them.
Kurlan and his cohort did have one problem, however: the largest salt flat includes salt dunes that Glinthawks use as a roost. They lacked the weapons and skills to reliably take down the Glinthawks, and felt like they would almost certainly return in force if driven off. So they chose the medium flat, where they hoped the Glinthawks would take less notice. The Glinthawks occasionally give them trouble, but salt can buy many fire arrows.
The ribbons of salt expand into a glowing white plain which can be seen from the hilly banks along the Southtap. In the sun, parts of it are almost painful to look at, causing you to shield your eyes. The sight is impressive, continuing for several kilometers.
The village is a few hundred yards downriver from the north watchtower. Like Hanuli’s Heel, a second watchtower sits even farther to the south. Neither uses the stone and masonry base, however, and are only 10m tall.
There is no movement in the village, nor is there any sign of anyone having been there for months. It looks completely abandoned, with crops overgrown and rotting on the ground, baskets tipped over and half-covered in wind-blown dirt. You pass several empty animal pens, boar and goat tracks everywhere in the dried mud.
Four house-sized buildings sit a short distance from the river, along with a tool shed with shovels, sieves, axes, etc., and a large pile of split wood. Between them, a circle of stones for a cooking pit abut a second circle over which hangs a large carbon-scorched machine-metal cylinder, connected via a worked metal corkscrew to another cylinder away from the pit. Characters with a mechanical background would recognize this as a still, used not just to make spirits, but also to extract drinking water from a source with too many impurities.
The houses are quite sparse, and likely already picked through by the occasional traveler. It’s also possible the original occupants threw everything into packs and left. Some furniture and carved wooden children’s toys remain, abandoned in a basket, but not much else, and nothing of value.
There are no bodies, not even animal carcasses, no splatters of blood or signs of struggle. No scorch marks pock the earth or the buildings, nor broken fences as one might expect from a machine attack. The village is just empty.
Climbing the southern watchtower, you get just high enough to see over the treetops. Several kilometers to the south, Glinthawks swoop and patrol above something out of your view.