Ethyl Chapter 1

[Freeform solo RP/writing using the system I've been developing.]

[I am starting with absolutely nothing! I've got a few generators/oracles to work with. Below sketches a character using a variant on the One Role Engine I designed, and an adjective/noun oracle I made that I really like. I pick a name with the Victorian Name Generator from Springhole, which I usually use for stuff. She's very much a performer. She's fairly idealistic and investigative. And a bit enthusiastic, a peacemaker, and a romantic. So that kind of gives me an idea of where to go, although I will suredly deviate from the results. This is the first time I'm trying it out in depth too! I'm using my space fantasy setting, so the world is slightly known, but I don't have many details for it, more of a vibe.]

[Ethyl Dartle - Timid Designer 2x Idealist 4x Performer 1x Romantic 2x Investigator 1x Enthusiast 1x Peacemaker]

[Rolling for a seed: Answer Mountain. Get Emerald. First one didn't get me anything, but I think the two together did!]

Ethyl put the finishing touches on her latest creation. A delicious frothy dress done all in green and plum, made of fabric she'd scavenged from scraps and fronds of the local flora. She snipped a final thread and tucked it into her closet. She surely couldn't wear it anywhere. [Does she live on Earth? 1: No, and] It wasn't just that her home, a tiny colony on a tinier moon of Saturn, didn't have any events where she could even possibly wear it, the bare thought of dressing in something so frivolous was enough to make her stomach twist into knots of anxiety. Her sketchpad was open before her. Tailored suits that highlighted the form, bright gowns, functional yet beautiful workwear met her eyes. She had designed them all; she yearned to make them all. But so far, she had only been able to piece time around her chores, and materials were scarce.

The ground shook. She yelped, grabbing her sketches and running out of her little domed cottage. Her parents were outside. They joined her to watch the town collapse. Each readily made hut of mud and crystalline tree shards shattered. People screamed and searched for loved ones. The only blessing was that there was no space to get stuck inside the one or two rooms that made up the cottage. She joined in the salvage operations. [Actually, I know I want the village to collapse. But I'm curious if the food stores do too. Do they? 1: No, and]. The tall storehouses had been built of materials laboriously shipped from home and they stood tall among the crumpled village. The mayor's house stood alongside them.

And Ethyl's gowns were gone. Hours of work, making the fabric by hand, learning new techniques to work with the odd trees, taking what little time she could spare from her duties [gonna find an online generator... Eh, whatever. Can't find anything and nothing is coming to mind.]

Everyone else was occupied with families and goods. Her mother waved to catch her attention. But her eye was on the horizon. On something new. To the north, near the landing pad where all the people in all the towns had landed, a new mountain jutted into the sky. She screamed in surprise and pointed. First her father, then others followed her direction. The confused clamor grew in intensity. Everyone trying to figure out where it came from and what it was. Mountains didn't grow over night, did they?

It was oddly shaped too. Earth's were large in width, encompassing miles and miles of ground. She had been on Mimas since she was a child, yet she could dimly remember them dominating the horizon with their caps of glaciers. This one though was almost a cylinder, jutting straight out of the ground with nary a foothill nor piedmont to be seen.

Then her mother, not one for mysteries, pulled her into her tasks. She made bread, cheered up scared children, tended animals, and hunted for lost possessions, until she finally collapsed from exhaustion in the depths of the lights on a pallet near the storehouse. The pallid light of the trees made for a fitful sleep. She missed her mud walls, but was too tired for it to impede her rest.

Ethyl woke before dawn. She'd slept fitfully and her head was full of not-quite-nightmares. She yawned and tousled her short, brown hair. Her curls stuck straight up from her scalp. The whole town had so much to do that day, houses for the children, pens for the animals, safe places to cook. [Are there carnivores that threaten humans? 5: Yes And did their town walls stand? 5: Yes] Her head fairly spun with what needed to be done. But the mountain, with its viridian crest and glimmers of light, drew her inexorably. This was her best chance, maybe her only chance, to learn more. With a twinge of guilt, but the need to know overwhelming it, she grabbed a water bottle and some rations in a backpack and set off to the north.