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| The Flowerfields | |
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| Category | Random Event |
| Type | Random |
| Data ID | 315591 |
The Flowerfields is a Sunless Skies Random Event.
Story description[]
Your engine perches among the stalks, nestled between petals the size of gardens. Enormous flowers sprawl across the horizon; a welcoming forest. The petals are the colour of mellow gold and vivid ruby.
The scent of sticky pollen hangs in the air, asphodel and drowsy cardamon.
Trigger conditions[]
Location: The High Wilderness
Area: Limbo
Frequency: Always (100%)
Interactions[]
| Actions | Requirements | Effects | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harvest Nectar from the flowers
Within the vast, tubular flowers, nectar drips out over the stamen like a tongue.
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Failed event |
Advanced query needs investigation | ||
| An overreach
A rope and a brave volunteer descend into the flower's scented mouth. A team of burly stokers holds the other end of the rope, to steady their colleague as he fills his gourd.
A scream! A signaller has slipped. You help your crew pull the rope, supporting the weight of the rescuers, but they are too late. He has drowned in nectar; his corpse now sticky and sweet-smelling.
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| Successful event | |||||
| Trust the labour of your hands
A volunteer is chosen to enter the flower. She takes an empty gourd, and with the aid of rope and a few strong stokers at the other end, crawls inside the waiting lips for the flower. The flower's great head bulges like a throat as she descends.
It is almost a full half an hour before she emerges – gourd brimming with nectar. She takes a second empty gourd and dives back in. When she next emerges, her overalls are stained with liquid gold and her breath is laboured. You have enough nectar for now.
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| Partial success event (5%) | |||||
| An accident
The nectar sits deep in the flower; its stamen soaked to entice the Chorister bees to come inside. A brave stoker has to enter the flower to extract it, grappling for the nectar with an empty gourd in hand.
Suddenly, a cry goes up. She's slipped. She flails in the nectar, rapidly sinking. Her nectar gourd is sinking too. There is time to rescue only one.
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Rescue the stoker
She splashes frantically in the nectar, still reaching for her gourd.
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You go down yourself, held by a length of rope. Your crew wait beyond the flower, grim-faced.
The stoker looks up, panicked. Your hand takes hers. With the strength of your crew at your back, you haul her free. Thick ropes of nectar cling to her as you raise her from the mire.
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| Rescue the gourd
Recover what you can. The stoker knew the risks.
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A rope goes down, an agile engineer swinging on its end. After a near miss, he grips the gourd by the handle, and raises it up. Miraculously, not a drop is spilled and it reaches the surface without incident.
Your crew work to rescue the stoker next, but by the time they grip her and haul her up, it is too late. You lay her to rest beneath the canopy of flowers.
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| Lure a Chorister Bee
Bees flock to flowers. You need a giant bee; these are giant flowers. Ergo.
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Failed event | Advanced query needs investigation | ||
| A bee grown wise
With the aid of a pair of stokers, you erect a simple snare, before retreating to watch from a hiding place.
The bee, when it appears, is not convinced. Its antenna twitch, its stinger emerges. Before you've time to flee, the bee is bearing down upon you. You're able to shelter amidst a thicket of young flower, but the stokers are not so lucky. Your records will be simple. Cause of Death: Bee. It's not so uncommon in the Reach.
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| Successful event | |||||
| Entrapment
A pair of hardy signallers help you set the trap. A thread, gossamer thin, strung between the stamen and the anther. You retreat to the underside to wait.
Soon, a bee, huge and singing, descends in a slow drone. It nuzzles its way into the flower, where its limbs are swiftly covered with pollen and slicked with nectar. It trips the thread, and the cage descends and shuts. Its hymns grow dirgeful as you haul the enormous thing back to your engine.
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| Linger in the Flowerfield
The flowers yawn open; petals in full bloom. Red and gold and soft cerise all around. A stoker suggests a picnic.
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In Arcadia
You take your rest, balanced on a great leaf and shaded by a clump of tall flowers. Your crew raid the galley for a picnic: stout and cheese, wine and cold meat. A blanket is smoothed out over the coarse leaf-flesh. A stoker plays a fiddle; another a harmonica. Someone sings along to the tune, old ballads of days long gone.
You can spare your crew a little rest, at least until you have finished this novel.
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Advanced query needs investigation
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| Delve into the flowers
What lies beneath these towering thickets of flowers?
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A descent
A rotten layer of mulch and fallen petals lines the flower-forest floor. Your boots are soon stained red-gold.
You push through the shrouded gloom until you come upon a grove, deep in the undergrowth. Great stems bend to form arches like cathedral vaults. A canopy of petals, gold and cerise, forms its roof. Within the grove, a single flower grows, stunted and pale. It is a miniature of those that tower above it. Its petals are soft and fragile as spun sugar. Its stem is covered in mould. Yet, in its shape, and the sad echo of its colours, this little flower is the mirror of all of those that now tower above it. Perhaps it was the first, before its offpring outgrew it. You do not linger. Your crew are waiting for you, back in the starlit sky.
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| Take in the scent
Open a window and breathe in the fragrant air.
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A brief interlude
The air is thick with unspent pollen, drifting on the stellar winds. The breeze carries the drone of Chorister bees, somewhere far away, and a whiff of a rich, spiced scent, like cloves and roses.
Your crew, naturally, complain of hay-fever. You don't linger long, only enough to feel the sweet air in your lungs and watch the dew roll like water down the bright petals.
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Advanced query needs investigation
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