Book 2, Chapter 2: Summer on the lake, winter in the woods… maybe
An ongoing adventure of the Mary Lin D&D Club
With a ragtag fleet of open-lake and close-to-shore fishing vessels, leisure and racing sailboats, row boats, dinghies, and coracles, and at least one barrel, the party aboard The Mighty Scratcher led the way across Great Bear Lake. Normally a three-to-four day journey, this voyage took over a week and saw many vessels needing mid-lake repair, and many more scuttled to the depths. All the while, the air at night got colder, the days shorter, and winter more obviously on its way. On the ninth day, the flotilla reached the western shore, near to where the party had not a month prior first met the Momota. Upon landing, the party told the village to wait, grabbed Griff, the village historian, and marched off into the woods.
They didn’t get far before Avani’s ears started to burn, and she comforted herself by looking through Mia’s belongings. Content with a fishhook, and curious about whether she liked fishing, Avani missed it when her dad stepped out from behind a poplar onto the path. The party came up short, Avani bumped into Indigo and Mia, and instead of the royal dialogue they’d imagined, the party ended up asking for asylum for the village with red cheeks and dirt on their knees.
At first, the Momota seemed excited by the premise. New people! Guests! Reasons to make delicious Elven treats and weave things from vines. “How many number the villagers?” one of the tribe asked. “Around 200,” Griff replied. “Oh.”
It quickly became clear that the forty families that make up the Momota would be hard-pressed to take in the eighty or ninety families of Great Bear Lake Village, especially this close to the first frost. In the sad quiet of the realization that there was no home here for the village, Avani, throwing her hands in the air, “well, I guess we’re back to Indigo’s dig-a-cave idea!” Griff hadn’t heard the idea before, and looked at her sideways. “What,” she said, “caves can be warm!”
Excitedly, Griff turned to run back to the boats, calling for the party and the Momota to follow. Once there, he found the few books he had managed to save, one of which was a history of Great Bear Lake Village. In it, he found a journal reference from generations past, to a time known as Snowmaggedon, and a home in the caves. A home in the caves, to ride out the worst of winters. No one had been there in living memory — at least not the living memory of the village. The Momota on the other hand had longer memories, and while they never wintered in the Cave city, they knew of it and could mark its approximate location on a map.
Filled again with a desperate optimism, the village returned to their flotilla and set off once more, this time to the northern shore, and their winter home — the caves of Great Bear Lake.
