Tales from the Tower World

Children of the Tower - Savage Land

Mash up of The Little Mermaid and Hunger Games

Odine paddled along, staring through the trees at the ominous tower. There were few bands of her tribe dared to travel this far inland. The legends of the tower and vast ruins that surrounded it were terrifying and dark. It had been a society ruled by greed, excess and brutality. In the end they had devoured the world and killed off their own kind.

Only she and the leaders of their tribe knew the truth, that tower housed more than ghosts and relics. She watched the vids and had been trained early on in the use of the aging technological relics. If she was to lead one day, she had know. She and each of her five sisters were trained from birth in the history and secrets. Yet unlike them, she did not fear.

On her first trip to the ruins, it had been mid summer and she had accompanied a small scouting party. Her father and several other of the tech salvagers had taken their eldest children. The days were long, the sun blazing across the sky from early morning until late into the night. It was safest at solstice, the rain infrequent and plenty of light for salvaging.

The ancestors had long since dispatched and dismantled the troublesome territorial drones.  It was considered to be a safe zone now, these towering ruins overgrown with mosses, filled with leaves, debris and sprouting with ferns, bushes and trees. As they had traveled, the scouts on the front lines had become increasingly cautious. The elders had been called to the front, and they talked in hushed, yet animated tones.

Odine had watched after that, keen eyes observing every pause and listening to whisper among the scouts. It wasn't long after that she saw evidence of what had them so startled. Foot prints, strange and yet somehow familiar. There was a texture to them that she'd only seen in vids, tred from boots, ancient boots. She knelt and ran her fingers over the imprint in the mud. It was fresh.

The next day they had camped high in a ruin and watched as a small group of human forms wound their way through the buildings. Their trip was cut short, their salvage sadly lacking. The trip was considered a failure, and did not bode well for the years to come. For Odine, it was only the beginning.

She slid along the surface of the water, careful to make as little noise as possible. Once her small wooden craft was pulled ashore and hidden among the driftwood ruins of an old house, her well stocked outpost on this rocky shore, she shouldered her pack and headed inland.

It was a day's journey south to the base of the tower, slowed by salvaging detours in the ruins. As the buildings crumbled and deteriorated, new treasures were often unearthed. Most were decayed beyond use, but there was always the chance of finding something of value. She could not return empty handed. Her ability bring home treasure was the only reason she was allowed to wander as far and wide as she did.

Hanging out the window frame of the deteriorated building she'd been exploring, she surveyed the land below. She longed to make contact, to finally meet these strange people of the Tower from which her people had escaped some hundreds of years ago.

According to the vids, the people of the tower would repopulate the earth farming and creating a great new, and better civilization after the Earth had healed. She had expected to find gardens and livestock, evidence of such pursuits. Instead, she found land stripped bare, and little evidence of civilization. The bodies of offline drones, damaged and covered in vines, scattered the landscape. Rock walls and tangles of wire surrounded the Tower in a protective barrier. She skirted the base, finding little of interest.

The curls of smoke from a campfire became evident through the trees to the East.Taking to the trees that sprouted from the long overgrown ruins, leaping from branch to branch, she moved in near silence. To them, her people were rebels and criminals, though long generations had passed since such times.