Shattered Sea Scavengers

The salt stings your eyes. The wind, a razor across your exposed face, threatens to rip the meager cloth covering your body. You claw at the frozen earth, desperately trying to gain purchase. Around you, a kaleidoscope of fractured ice stretches as far as the eye can see, reflecting a sky the colour of bruised knuckles. This is the Shattered Sea, a graveyard of a world, where the remnants of a civilization choked on its own ambition lie scattered like broken toys. You are a Scavenger, one of the few who dare to scratch a living from this desolate wasteland. Survival is your only god, and every breath is a victory hard-won. You were born into this existence, raised on tales whispered around flickering fires – tales of a time before the Shattering, when the Sky Cities hummed with power and the land bloomed with life. Tales that feel more like fantastical dreams than faded memories. But today, the wind carries a different song. Not the mournful howl of emptiness, but a faint, almost imperceptible vibration that shimmers through the ice. Your instincts, honed by years of desperate struggle, scream at you. Danger? Perhaps. But danger is your constant companion. No, this is something different. This is… potential. Your ragged gloves tighten around the handle of your makeshift ice axe. You glance at the dented respirator clamped to your face, a vital shield against the toxic dust that blankets the land. Every scrap of salvaged equipment, every morsel of scavenged food, is a testament to your resilience. You've heard whispers of a hidden Vault, a relic of the Old World rumored to contain knowledge and technology that could change the fate of the Shattered Sea. Others have sought it, driven mad by greed or consumed by the unforgiving landscape. But you, you have something they lacked: a desperate hope and a ruthless pragmatism. The vibration intensifies. To the east, beyond the jagged horizon, a faint shimmer dances in the air. It could be a mirage, a cruel trick of the light. Or… it could be the answer to your prayers. The fate of your future, perhaps even the future of the Shattered Sea, rests on your next move. What will you do?