High ground

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For the longest of times you sit there on the bumpy ground staring up into the trees and clearing your throat of the hard burn of **** going down the wrong pipe. It's only when the booming sound of another engine exploding in the shipwreck besides you, shakes you awake enough to look away.

As your eyes switch back to the large pile of items that had been dragged out of the ship, it occurs to you that if there was a canteen in there that you could use, then there might be something else. Without saying anything you scoot your way over to the large and begin sifting through it. It takes only seconds for you realize that this pile was definitely worth searching. After brushing aside a lot of the simple pieces, stuff like more metal panels, broken glass, little pieces of used rope and other packing equipment, you eventually start to find the good stuff. The first piece you find is actually just that, a gun, or at least...you're pretty sure it's one. The problem lies with how it looks, a soft black metal handle that goes up to a little orb filled with a kind of green, glowing liquid. Above that the gun goes into a modified chamber where it seems you load two rounds at once, one on each side, before you fire both rounds through one barrel.

Despite how it looks though, without thinking about it, you know how it works, with each bullet comes two parts. Two parts that are locked together in the chamber and made ready to fire in an instant before it actually is shot. You know how deadly it can be when the weapon is working correctly, but that same knowledge also leads you to believe that this particular gun is not working. After a brief scanning over the gun you take a guess and determine the problem to lie with a crack in the orb filled with green liquid. Annoyed you set it aside for now and continue searching.

After a couple more moments you find two different sized bags, stuff that you can strap to an arm or a leg. A couple bars of granola and some other dried foods, a small knife with a four inch blade tucked into a sheath, and a number of canisters with with different numbers on them and labels. It isn't hard to figure out what they do and after a moment of reading you take one you know to alter the tongue and ears of those who use it and inject it into your arm. You don't know where you are but if you run into whatever it is that speared those people to those trees, then you would like to be able to at least try and talk to them.

A strange feeling rolls through you as you press one end of the canister against your arm, various needles pressing into you as you feel the liquid flood into you with something else...something that doesn't stop flooding into your body long after you pull the canister away. Nor does it stop when you strap the various bags to your hips and begin to stuff them with the new supplies.

Storage increased!

Canteen gained! (Nearly empty.)

Food gathered! (1/3 filled.)

General Medicine canister gained!

Voice canister gained!

Voice canister used!

Strength canister gained!

Mysterious gun gained!

Knife gained!

Just as you finish strapping and filling the bags to your thighs, and fixing the knife to your upper left arm with a strained groan, you push to your feet and quickly begin looking around. As you walk this way and that, taking extra care to step over the vines all over the place and work your way through the trees, you carefully make your way around the wreck searching the arsa for answers. In a few locations you manage to find some footsteps of different sizes, at least where it isn't all covered in an ungodly amount of vines all over the place, but for the most part there really is nothing more of note nearby...so you decide to take to the high ground.

Your eyes drift up to the trees again and for a moment you consider the possibility of climbing up for a vantage point using some of the vines, but quickly dismiss that when you think about the state of your shoulder. So you resolve to finding the largest hill you can find, and fortunately it's of a decent size, but not because of the dirt that makes it, but the large number of vines all over.

Just as you go to step onto the pile of vines though, something moves out of the corner of your eyes and you turn to look in that direction as a flash of green slips behind one of the nearby trees and for a moment you see what looks like a glint of silver attached to a long wooden shaft, before it disappears completely.