165. The Salty Desert
The boundary between the forest and the desert is striking — thick cottonwood and elm groves flourish right up to the border of the salt and sand, which then run to the horizon. Rain has left intermittent puddles, along with the heavy smell of brine in the air. The sand runs from light to dark brown, with the chunky salt crystals adding streaks of white.
Every hundred meters or so, driven into the sand, stands a waist-high pole and sign. Each sign is made of a machine’s armor plate, painted with the recognizable curved outline of a Watcher, along with an arrow pointing below the ground upon which the Watcher stands. The message is clear: machines in this area hide beneath the surface, ready to attack.
Jupi and Adri advise you stick to the treeline, making the several-kilometer trek around the north end of the desert. The boundary becomes less well-defined, eventually transitioning to a brine marsh as several rivers and creeks converge, slowing your travel. Curving back around to the south, you’re finally able to see the lake, along with signs of habitation by the Old Ones to the south.
The water is a deep brown, with a yellowish foam where it hits the shore, with an artificial, machine smell. A rainbow sheen reflects from still pools, accompanied by a smell of rotting animals and vegetation. The warning posts are present here, though the pictured machine is now a Snapmaw, and instead of an arrow each sign has a crossed-out fish-shape. Characters with decent perception would notice the shoreline littered with the bones and skeletons of a variety of land animals. Characters with nature proficiency would notice none of the animal bones are from fish, nor does the area smell like fish.
Snapmaws float back and forth in the water, oblivious to your presence. Their nests can be found along the shoreline, allowing characters to stock up on Chillwater, if desired. Unusual for Snapmaw nests, canisters of Blaze can also be found in similar quantities.
Continuing to the easternmost point of the lake, you can see it empties over a series of dams and steps into a single river a hundred meters across. At first glance, the dam looks not too different from the ones seen in Tapwash and Winter’s Fork — the worked stone and mortar of the Old Ones. Upon closer inspection, there are signs that the stone of the Old Ones failed, and has been repaired in places with the organic, woven metal of the Machines. The water glows a bright blue where it passes over these repaired sections.
Looking across the river, you note several more Snapmaw nests, these empty of Chillwater and Blaze containers. They do, however, have well-worn paths leading from each into the forest, the bush trampled and pushed aside from frequent Snapmaw travel. Following these for a kilometer or so, you come upon a clearing. The rubble of a road of the Old Ones breaks the tree line, though grasses have made it hard to see until you’re right on top of it. Snapmaw paths lead north before disappearing suddenly, ramping down into a hole in the ground, less than 5 meters wide, lined with the smooth crystalline metal of a Cauldron, in which a familiar triangular door has been embedded.
Your Focus labels the door as PI-253.