The Golden Country Part 2
Yaad explains what they believe in The Golden Country.
Dinner was something of a surrealist affair. Wine was served and everyone’s favorite synth, Chilchuck managed to polish off a bottle by himself. He had the buttons on his shirt undone and he was lounging back in his chair, his cheeks as red as ripened tomatoes.
“This is incredible stuff, Yaad,” he said. “How old did you say this bottle way?”
“I believe it’s been here since 2068,” said Yaad.
“Incredible stuff,” repeated Chilchuck.
Marcille strutted across the room in a set of black high heeled pumps and a shimmering black dress that looked like something out of a Parisian fashion catalog, complete with diamond shaped shoulders and a black hat that sat awkwardly to the side on her bald head. The cat girl who was with them sat awkwardly at the table, dressed in a peter pan collared dress and looked a bit like a pilgrim. Marcille and the other women found that the catgirl was carrying a variety of weapons, mostly varying types of knives.
“I’ve been meaning to ask about that,” said Marcille as she took her seat at the long table in the mansion’s dining room.
Before she could elaborate further, Senshi and Laios entered the scene. Laios was grinning ear to ear like a child who’d just had every whim they’d ever had indulged to the nth degree.
“We gathered Deathclaw eggs!” exclaimed Laios.
“That’s nice, bud,” said Chilchuck, smiling. “I don’t really care.”
“As I was saying,” continued Marcille, giving Laios a half lidded glare. She focused her attention back on Yaad. “How did you all come to live here? You’re all pre-war, very pre-war if you’re to be believed.”
“It’s kinda complicated,” began Yaad. “Like I said, I’m not a scientist. But my grandfather was. He was a brilliant man, Doctor Freinag Melini. He realized that tensions were rising between China and the United States. The flames of war being stoked by interests stateside, so he created a backdoor. Time is however very weird here. I’ve only aged I’d say roughly ten years physically since we arrived.”
“Has anybody ever left?” asked Laios, sitting down.
“My father left,” said Yaad. “He left maybe a decade ago. I’m not sure what became of him. I’m of the mindset that he lost our god’s favor when he left The Golden Country.”
“Your god?” asked Marcille, her suspicions immediately raised.
“Yes,” said Yaad. “Most folks don’t really go into the religious thing, which I get. But it feels too big to me to not be real. Several of us are devoted followers of Ug-Qualtoth, a pre-war deity of sorts. This faith was only strengthened by this place. We believe that Ug-Qualtoth is the reason for the constant perfect weather and the barrier that makes dangerous mutants into gentle creatures we can tend to. But, the thing is, despite all of Ug-Qualtoth’s gifts, we who believe, believe our god is in danger.”
“Elaborate,” said Laios. “How do you know when a god is in danger?”
“We believe that my grandfather’s collaborator has imprisoned Ug-Qualtoth deep within the bowels of the caves,” explained Yaad. “His name was Thistle. A child genius of sorts. He worked with my grandfather to construct the entrances to The Golden Country as well as robots to maintain Meliniville around it.”
“What happened to Thistle, Yaad?” asked Laios.
“He’s still around,” said Yaad, whispering like a child scared of being overheard by his parents. “He comes here sometimes…He takes on different shapes. Sometimes he remotely controls a robot. Othertimes, he’s a small ghoul child.”
Marcille shot Laios a look. Laios received it, but kind of cocked his head to the side, confused.
Marcille made an irritated growl, “This Thistle character is probably responsible for what happened to Falin. He probably Frankenstein’ed her into a big, horrible monster because we murdered the Deathclaw.”
“So, you can see why we want to release Ug-Qualtoth,” said Yaad. “With his release, Thistle will be purged and we might be able to heal the wasteland.”
“So, why don’t you leave and seek out Ug-Qualtoth?” asked Laios.
“We would,” said Yaad. “But we fear losing our god’s favor and dying in the darkness. We’re not hardy people. We’re fragile, pre-war creatures.”
“I’ll do it then,” said Laios. “I’ll find Ug-Qualtoth and release it from whatever bonds it’s under and then you can all come to live in the world beyond this.”
---
In their shared room, Marcille repeatedly hit Laios with a pillow.
“Why did you promise him that!” she shouted.
“Quit it!” shouted Laios, after being cruelly battered by the pillow. “It felt right in the moment!”
“She’s right, though,” said Chilchuck, sipping from another bottle. “These people have been stuck in a perpetual good day for the past 200 years. What’s the point of breaking them out? If they can even really get out. I don’t think their god is real.”
“I think this perpetual good day has made them rather bland,” chimed in Senshi. “Do you recall our dinner? It was filling and nutritious, but bereft of flavor.”
“I feel,” began Laios. “After everything we’ve seen, why can’t there be something like a god lurking in the darkest depths of the cave?”
“Because there are no gods,” said Chilchuck. “I was grown in a lab by a scientist named Tim. Tim is the closest thing that there is to a god.”
“I said something like a god,” said Laios. “If it’s a big, intelligent creature that’s capable of doing half of what Yaad thinks it is, we have to pursue it. Thistle obviously thinks that there’s something like it otherwise, why would it have all of these wasteland creatures in one place?”
“If it can fix Falin,” said Marcille after a moment of consideration. “Then we have to pursue it.”
“We can decide what we’re doing in the morning,” said Chilchuck. “Particularly, about her.”
Chil gestured at the catgirl who was asleep on the bed she was sharing with Marcille.
“That does present complications,” said Marcille. “But we can’t just leave her…She’s a teenager, she’ll die in the caves by herself.”
“Like he said,” said Laios. “We can work things out in the morning.”
---
The morning brought breakfast, particularly pancakes. Senshi was only familiar with how pre-war stoves worked in theory from reading manuals, but he got the hang of it after burning the first two griddlecakes.
Pancakes (Pre-War Style)
2 Flour
1 Deathclaw Egg
Brahmin Milk and Butter
Granulated Honey
Pinch of salt
Serves 5-6
+6 Hit Points
-10 Hunger
-4 Agility
-1 Charisma
The pancakes were thick, fluffy, and each one was served with a decent helping of jam made from the pre-war fruit that the residents of The Golden Country grew. The jam was alright, despite itself. None of them had ever had an untainted raspberry before, so the taste was entirely alien to them.
Yaad sat at the table, and Senshi cut his pancakes for him, slowly feeding them to him.
“You see,” said Senshi. “Taste is like a muscle, you have to exercise it. You can’t just eat only for sustenance. There’s something of an art to it. Like making that wine that our young friend seems to love so much.
Yaad was almost crying from how delicious Senshi’s pancakes were.
After breakfast concluded, Yaad drove them back out to where they’d entered the field and they stepped through the doorway and into the caves again. None of them noticed the figure of a ghoul child watching them from afar.
