Alphine and Nuria plan an Exploration of the nearby Terrain

#1

Nuria was surprised at how nice the mobile home was with its solar energy collectors, and its artificed heating units. Its reinforced walls were covered in satellite maps printed in waterproof plastics. They showed the coastline, and much of the glacial wastes.
It was an incredibly impressive region, with lots of wide open spaces.

Alphine spoke quietly as she used a laser pointer to tap out places on the maps.

"The south of the Glacial Wastes had a small forest, but the sat images show it is infested by very militant icewyrms.

The north has a few different mountain ranges, each which might be high in mineral content from the readings we are getting. In fact one section of mountains we could reach in a three day hovertruck drive would be one very high in copper ore deposits.

I know the trip out here was quite terrible Nuria, and you saw the loss of a lot of people. And I know my ex-worker royally screwed you over Nuria. It seems he was trying to line his own pockets, which the Guild does not allow for to prevent the very sort of corruption you experienced.

He obviously did not prepare you for the rigors of this office, but I know you will be a success at it. And since all the Guild documents have your name as Expedition leader, I cannot very well move ahead with any operations without your full support."

Nuria was still preoccupied by the dream from the night before. She still could divert to find the crashed Pleasure Barge, the Hot Press and the rest of Nereel’s objects shared in the dream.

Nuria wondered if she should tell Alphine about Nereel and the dream messages. Getting the Guilder’s support would allow her to send ahead the Guilder and her team to either the Forest to harvest wood, or to the Mountains to recover copper ore and stone, while she went on her own to the crash site.

Or using the Guilder’s team, she probably could reach the crash faster, and secure it within a day instead of the time it would take Nuria alone to explore it.

Or she could just ignore the dreams of Nereel, and visit either the forests or the mountain.

It was a challenging decision but the best ones always were.

“So Nuria, any questions I can assist with?” Alphine asked.

#2

Nuria stood next to Alpine and listened as the woman spoke. She had her mind set on what she was going to do, but as she was leaving, a messenger had found her, informing her that Alphine requested her presence. Now that she was here, she was glad for it. This’ll give Alphine something to do, so she might not bother with me, Nuria thought.

Nuria pointed at the mountains Alphine had mentioned. “Take your team here, and get started on setting up a mining operation. Let’s get some work going, see about getting a revenue flow through here.”

She walked to the door, and picked up her pack. “I have some exploring I want to do, get aquainted with the area, and the like. If I’m going to be here, may as well know my surroundings.” She turned back to look at Alphine. “Get the mining set up and rolling, see to it that the workers have what they’ll need, then return here. I’ll touch base with you when you get back.”

And with that, Nuria walked out of the mobile home.

(Ooc:And we go back to http://dr-forum.whitestarhosting.net/showthread.php?1769-The-Blessings-of-Nereel-Pyreen-(For-Nuria)&p=11401#post11401)

#3

The days travel had been good to Alphine, and finding the deposit of copper had not been hard when using orbital deep scans. She just needed to keep that fact from Olim and the other Banking Guild reps.

The copper would need to be mined out, and that might mean a temporary mining community until the ore ran dry. Alphine set to work assigning her team to build a few small structures using the natural stone to keep the worst of the wind and cold out. Three structures were built, and Alphine realized she had far more work to be done than she had hands to do it.

If she had the full working contingent she would succeed faster, but it was just her and a skeleton crew.

#4

The work had been hard, and Alphine had quite a few new scars and calluses she did not have before starting the Mine.

Mining operations with a skeleton crew had taken quite a bit of time, in fact the mining operations had almost cost the life of the entire crew on more than one incident.

But now after all this time in the cold, Alphine could finally report that they had successfully bringing copper ore up from the mines.

Alphine had the crew prepare a storage area for ore on site. But getting it back to Jemison Post, or out to the other settlement at McGraw Harbor would take some logistics choices.

Alphine knew that both Jemison Post and McGraw Harbor had their own hovertrucks, but Nuria would need to negotiate with Eli (for McGraw Harbor) or with Grim or Lurtor for Jemison Post.