Orange and Green stand at the inlet, the new scrap wall catching the low light in dull sheets. Beyond it, the oasis water stays calm, while the factory’s pulse rolls on like a distant heartbeat under the dirt.
Green lowers herself to sit on a flat stone near the shore. Her shoulders loosen a little as she watches the reeds sway, not from wind, but from the steady vibration in the ground.
Green the Colossus
It still hurts, but less when you are here.
Across the inlet wall, Purple keeps watch with folded arms. Blue lingers nearby like a carved monument, while Red and Yellow stay close enough to hear but far enough to leave the moment intact.
Purple the Colossus
Let them rest. The wall holds, and the water holds. That is enough for this hour.
Orange’s tools rest heavy at his side. The cannon waits behind them, ugly and patient, pointed at the horizon like a promise nobody has to speak aloud right now.
Yellow the Colossus
We can keep building. We can keep breathing. For now, that is the victory.
For a few quiet breaths, nobody reaches for a weapon. The only sound is water moving through repaired metal, and Green’s hand settling against the ground as the pulse passes by.
“I ask Green if she'd like to help me create a special ammunition for the cannon that will cause the ruins of the factory to grow into a vibrant forest”
SUCCESS (Superb Repair, rolled +0)
Orange the Colossus
Would you help me make special cannon rounds, ones that could help the ruins grow into a forest?
Green the Colossus
Yes. If the land can remember how to bloom, I want my hands on that work.
Green reaches down and scoops a pinch of dark, poisoned soil from the shore. She lets it sift through her fingers, then closes her hand around a seedling sprig tucked in the reeds, as if testing what still lives in the ruin.
Green the Colossus
The ground is wounded, but not empty. If we feed it right, it may answer.
Orange opens his tools and begins sketching a capsule shape in the dust between them. Green leans closer, studying the lines, her earlier pain giving way to focused calm.
Purple the Colossus
A weapon that grows instead of burns. That is the sort of reply I can respect.
Purple's voice softens at the edge of the wall, and Green looks from the sketch to the horizon where the factory keeps pulsing under the dirt. For a breath, the cannon no longer feels like a threat, only a decision waiting for shape.
“I start forging the special cannon rounds”
SUCCESS (Superb Repair, rolled -2)
Orange sets the dust sketch aside and works at the forge with steady, heavy hands. A slag-blue flame licks the mold, and the first capsule shell takes shape in the heat.
He packs the round with the strange soil and a fleck of living green, then seals it under a scored cap of scrap metal. The little cylinder clicks shut like a promise.
Green the Colossus
It feels alive in there. Not healthy, but alive.
Orange lifts the finished round free, and a seam of ash falls from his wrist into the sand. The cost is small, a fresh sting on his burned hand where the hot mold kisses him through the old injury.
Purple the Colossus
Good. Make more of them, and we give the wastes a different answer.
Green studies the round in Orange's palm, then looks past it toward the distant factory glow. Her relief hardens into something quieter, and heavier.
Green the Colossus
If these can wake the ground, then what kind of ruin taught the factory to poison it?
+ New Item Acquired
Special cannon round
“Has the factory been poisoning the land for years?”
NO (Likely, rolled 74)
Orange turns the capsule over in his grip, the metal cool against his palm, and shakes his head slowly at the question. The factory's blight is a recent, sharp wound upon the earth, not a scar of long years.
“I ask Green what the factory's poison means”
FAILURE (Terrible Reasoning, rolled -1)
Orange the Colossus
What does this poison mean, Green?
Green the Colossus
She stays quiet a moment, eyes fixed on the ash caught in Orange's hand, as if the answer has weight she does not want to lift.
Green kneels by the stabilizing wall and pinches a little of the blackened dust between her fingers. The forge light catches the grit, then loses it.
Green the Colossus
It is not just waste. It is a message from something that knows how to poison slowly, and how to keep working while the land dies.
She turns the restored capsule round over once, then sets it beside the scorched control unit, linking the clean repair to the burned-out proof of the factory’s hand.
Green the Colossus
This place was not meant to be broken quickly. It was meant to be changed until nothing here could remember itself.
Purple watches from the side, silent now, while Green looks up at Orange with a troubled calm. Her question is small, but it lands hard.
“I load the cannon eith the special ammo and prepare to fire upon the factory to destroy it once and for all”
SUCCESS (Great Demolitions, rolled -1)
Orange seats the restorative round in the cannon’s mouth. The crude barrel dips, then locks as the mechanism catches.
He braces the mount, and the whole rig shudders once before settling into aim toward the distant factory.
The trigger line goes taut in his grip. For a breath, the oasis holds still around him.
Then the cannon cracks, and the round streaks out over the dark waterline toward the wastes.
Far off, the factory answers with a dull flash on its face, small from here but unmistakable.
Green the Colossus
It sees us now.
Purple the Colossus
Hold. Watch the strike.
Quest Complete
Confront the factory making the poison
Attribute Upgrade: Reasoning Terrible→Poor