King Of The First Epic. I am not one to put over much stock in the names of a Deck. Yes, yes many have an imposing name or scary custom back but these things don’t matter in truth. Yet I confess when he spoke those words I felt the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stand straight.

The Audacious Deck Builders Guide To: Ocean, The Silver Sea

Chapter 44: Preparations [Rakino Wetlands]

Alabaster

The boys arrived at Rak town just as mid became late afternoon. They probably could have arrived a lot earlier and definitely could have arrived a lot cleaner if the pair of boys hadn’t repeatedly stopped to investigate local wildlife, hurled clumps of mud at each other and otherwise pulled harmless pranks.

The cheerfulness of Alley and Darius quickly showed itself to be very much at odds with the dour township. There were people on the street, but not many and they all kept to themselves. There were open businesses, but the customers went about their business quickly and without chitchat. After growing up in the close knit community of Valeton, and then spending a few days in the hospitality of Ashton’s Lookout the grim air of the town was a little confronting.

“Is it just me or is something…up with this place?” Said Alley as they made their way along the muddy main street. The boys had passed a number of hollow-eyed militia in rusted armor, both at the eastern gate they had entered and patrolled the streets. Though Alley thought patrolling was perhaps a generous term, given the way the town’s defenders sat slumped or meandered about with lowered heads.

“It wasn’t like this last time I was here.” Replied Darius with seriousness, which he usually only exhibited on a hunt.

“Something has gone very wrong.” Continued the red-headed boy. “ You can see it from the houses.”

“The houses?”

Darius nodded. “There are more houses than there are families to fill them.”

Looking around Alley quickly realized his friend was right. Rak Town was big, easily the second biggest settlement Alley had ever set foot in but at least half of the homes stood empty. While there was nothing obviously wrong, something had definitely decimated the town’s population, and if Alley had to guess it was within the last few months.

It made him think about the words of the voice in his cloak. “It's not Luck It’s Doom.”

Was it somehow possible he was dragging a cloud of bad luck around with him? Ever since he had left Cursed Isle Alley had been thrown from one disaster to another, and the grim vibes he was getting from the half-abandoned town were making Alley think it was about to happen again. It didn’t seem all that plausible, but at some point, he would have to accept it was more than mere coincidence.

That day was happily not today as the issues the town was experiencing were many months old and purely economic. At least according to the old lady who ran the ‘inn’ they took rooms at. It was really just the converted front half of a larger wooden house owned and operated by a lonely old widow.

She was a friendly sort, and under-charged as the business which she had named “The pleasant Afternoon” was clearly more of a hobby. It didn’t bother either boy as she was a more than passable cook and an excellent source of history on the area. Apparently, the Rakino swamp had been a source of plentiful and unusually high-quality bog iron. Had being the operative word there. Over the last few years, the swamp had produced less and less, until now finding even a single deposit had become a rare event.

So rare in fact that the townsfolk who hadn’t simply abandoned the town had become possessive and covetous. Guarding their finds with a jealousy that had fractured the shrinking community. In a roundabout way, this had made the Rakino undead, or “swampizens” as the old lady called them, more dangerous than they had been.

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It wasn’t that the monsters had gotten any stronger. But with the bog iron deposits drying up the men and women who prospected the swamp had to venture deeper and deeper into the swamp. On top of this with less wealth to go around these prospectors were going out in smaller parties. Finally, with the town’s economy in freefall, they had been reduced to a single elderly Deck Wielder who could hardly be expected to keep the monster population down on his own.

Having arrived as late as they did the pair of boys had no intention of entering a swamp full of roaming undead today. Instead, they availed themselves of the old lady's bathing facilities and homely cooking before heading into the town in search of supplies and further information.

During the voyage back to the mainland the pair had agreed they would Dust Karieto’s Blood Gem Card, as while the boys had some coin, they were far from wealthy, and trading in some Earth and Greed Dust would go a long way towards filling their wallets. At least that had been the theory. To Alley’s surprise and Darius’s utter annoyance Rak Town didn’t have a Dust Trader anymore.

If the supplies required to explore the nearby wetlands were on the expensive side, something Alley was increasingly confident was the case. The meager funds in their possession were probably not going to cut it. From what he had read on the subject that was the paradoxical nature of economics. The less money a town had, the more things there usually cost.

“Did you catch that old lady’s name?” Asked Darius as they explored the grim settlement.

“Yeah, It was Ilsa. What about it?”

“That.” The redheaded boy explained “is a Frostlander name. I wonder if she knows some recipes from the homeland.”

Alley shot Darius his ‘shit-eating grin’. “ We can only hope not.”

The response prompted a punch in the arm from Darius, who proceeded to list at length all the many Frostland meals he felt would change his friend’s mind about their cuisine. Much to Alley’s chagrin, this continued until they eventually found a store that looked like it would fit their needs. The ‘Iron Monger’s Claim’ was a prospecting supply business though it quite fit Alley’s imagination of how such a store would look. Instead of things like picks, and Resonance or Life Essence fueled digging machines. The warehouse-sized shop was mostly divided between floor space for rafts, dinghies, and tiny barge-like boats, and a pen for little dog-sized pigs.

“What do you think they are for?” Asked Alley before leaning into the pen to pat one of the animals.

Darius tilted his head and narrowed his eyes as he considered. “I” He eventually said. “ Have no idea.”

The boys didn’t have to wonder long as a portly middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair, and a clean-shaven face approached. Alley assumed he was the store’s owner. Though from the greeting he gave, the man hadn’t won the position on the strength of his customer service.

“Oi, you leave the pigs alone! They don’t work less you know their command words anyhow, you steal one, an it will just bite you an run back here.”

The boys shared a quick look before Alley replied. “Well that’s uhh good, but we are new in town and wanted to look at some supplies for exploring the swamps.”

At the words ‘ new in ton’ the man’s demeanor visibly shifted, and he cheerfully introduced himself.

“Well in that case it's a pleasure to meet you boys. I’m Ron Monger an this here is my claim.”

The portly owner looked at the boys for an awkward moment with a smile that seemed to say ‘Do you get it?’ Alley forced a polite laugh at the pun. Darius on the other hand thought it was simultaneously the cleverest and funniest thing he had ever heard.

The store owner was more than happy to show the boys around the enormous store and explain to them anything they wanted to know about bog iron prospecting. The pigs which were called Pygmy Oresnouts and they used some sort of connection to the Resonance in metal to sniff out the bog iron for their owners. They were also well out of the boy’s price range and not something they were shopping for.

Once Ron discovered the teens weren’t interested in hunting for iron he cooled off again considerably but didn’t quite return to the rudeness of his original introduction. There was still some profit to be made off of the two of them even if the majority of his products were of no interest to the pair.

In the end, they couldn’t afford to purchase the knives, maps, resonance flasks, or waterproof bedrolls they wanted. They did however manage to rent a raft they could pole through the wetlands, and purchased some more swamp-friendly boots. Ron’s mood seemed to change at the draw of a card, but the shopkeeper was a good source of information about the topography of the Rakino swamp, and where the Undead were historically found in the greatest numbers.

The boys left the Iron Monger’s Claim with enough coin for three extra nights of food and board at The pleasant afternoon. If they didn’t find anything in the heart of the swamp and quickly, Alley knew they were going to have to move on whether this place proved a good source of Cards or not.