When I awoke, there was light streaming in from the doorway, and only a couple of other people still snoozing inside. I sat up and went through my pockets for a morning snack, then headed out to take care of nature's call. The village had a few people milling about and a few small groups talking with one another as I headed off. I took care of business and went over to the river for a drink and wash, where there were a few others doing the same, and one man filling water gourds.
The river was definitely smaller than yesterday, it had gone down maybe 2' overnight, and a few patches of moss and alga were the only signs of life I could see in it. I went back to "town" and checked out the obelisk again - no change, the exact same words appeared as before. One of the English-speakers waved me over and I headed down to talk with him. He and three women were together, and asked me if there were any changes in the obelisk info. I told them no, and they said it seemed to be the same for everyone.
They were part of the faction that didn't want to trigger population growth, and were happy to hear I hadn't opted in on it. They told me that the Asians had lost a man to wild animals the previous day, when 4 of them had gone over the outer stone wall. They weren't very clear about what the animals were, but they were very aggressive and seemed to have no fear of humans. The remaining 3 men (one very wounded) had no plans to try again any time soon.
It looked like the no-growth people had pretty well won the argument, from what they had heard from others so far. Only 5 that they knew of had voted for growth on the obelisk. But, from all that anyone had said so far, we were stuck, with no known pathway out of here. There was wild forest in all directions beyond the outer wall. The river, strangely, formed a small lake at the wall and flowed OVER it, on the downstream end, while on the upstream side it seemed to be an artesian spring, coming up just inside the wall. So the only obvious landmark for exploration was downriver - if we dared risk the wild animals.
One of the women (Sally, they called her) mentioned that mountain peaks could be seen in the distance to the uphill side of town. There was a "resource pool" being created near the center of town, The idea was that people could go get useful stuff and deposit it there for everyone to share. They also had laid out a few examples of "high demand" items that the crafters wanted everyone to gather, to help arm and armor people in case the animals came in or we wanted to send expeditions out.
The weaver woman was training two other women in basic weaving methods, making her points with clicks & whistles probably related to her native language. A few men were experimenting with small poles, reeds, and sharpened stones to try to make a decent spear, but rock-weighted clubs seemed to me to be the best weapon we'd produced so far. There were two small campfires started not too long after, as some of the early morning people showed up with materials.
Not seeing anything I could do here to contribute, I headed back out to explore some more. Again, I found all kinds of useful and/or edible plants. My best find was something very much like cotton, and I stuffed a few pockets full. I also found a plant that looked about halfway between tobacco and weed. I was a bit conflicted about bringing in probably-addictive plants to the village, but decided others would find it soon enough anyway, so I grabbed some samples.
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After a while, i found myself back at the wall. Looking outwards, I could make out a few colorful birds flitting through branches, and heard assorted forest chirps and croaks signaling a living wilderness. Then temptation hit - less than 15 yards from the wall was a giant tortoise-shelled creature lounging in a pool of sunlight. It was just too good to be true - some of the best possible crafting material so close at hand. So I started looking for makeshift weapons.
Later on, I came back to the wall. I had a 6 foot long fairly sturdy (if somewhat warped) club-staff, and several fist-sized jagged rocks in my pockets. The creature was still there, a 3' across dome of shell with a croc-shaped head, the legs not visible beneath it. I carefully lowered myself across the wall and tried to creep up on it. There was no sign it had noticed me, so I wound up and took a huge swing right between its eyes. The creature shuddered and the eyes and jaws opened - in confusion. I hit it again, and it shuddered and twisted as it tried to get onto its feet. I had blinded one eye and probably given it a concussion, but it didn't seem to be dying.
Getting out my stones, I gave it my best baseball throw, and again. I could tell I was winning, but the monster must have a thick skull as well as shell. Fortunately, it didn't seem able to retract its head in for protection. As I was getting set to finish it off, there was a sharp bite on my ankle. I hadn't been watching, and a 2-foot lizard had bitten me and was now firmly attached. Worse, yet, I felt a burning sensation that could only be some form of poison.
Terrified, I wacked at it with my staff until it came loose and sprinted to the way, leaving a trail of blood. Jumping the wall, I grabbed out my pseudo-cotton to use to stop the bleeding. It seemed to be working. The pain started fading and the blood seemed to be starting to clot. I ripped off a pant leg to make a bandage. The burning from the bite was spreading, but slowly fading as it did. My leg itself had become nearly numb. I was bone-tired and started to drift off.
As my head hit the ground, I realized I could no longer feel or control my leg, and the numbness was spreading. Realization dawned. I might have survived the painful, toxic bite, but the numbing from the "cotton" was some kind of neurotoxin....and then came the blackness...again.
I woke up exactly as when I had first arrived, laying on sun-warmed sand, feeling fantastic. I opened my eyes to exactly the same village scene, but this time there were a bunch of men standing over me, two of which held clubs. None of them were people I remembered from the village. They asked me something, in an Asiatic language, I'm fairly sure. I responded "English?". At that, one of the men with a club grabbed me up and pointed me off to the side, where a latino-looking couple was being guarded by yet another Asian with a club.
They had me sit down next to the couple. The Mexican-looking guy looked me over and said "Hi gringo, I think we in trouble. I'm Javier, and this is Magda - she from Brazil. These guys be trying to grow the people, but we not the people they want. Where you from?" "Iowa, the USA" I responded. "Ok, USA guy, we probly gonna get killed, but no worry about it. Only question, you gonna do what they say first or no?" "What do they want?" "Vote for more people, of course, unless you got some other worth. They have some who speak Spanish and English, so they question us first, the others they just take to the stone and kill." And as I watched, they did just that with two more people that appeared on the sand.