Chapter One, Page Ten

Frame takes a second to consider, once again, trusting a raven, pacing along the front of the rubble. How could a raven even know if the pile were steady enough to support her weight? 

She clambers onto the first of the rocks anyway, hand over hand as she makes her way up towards the opening.

For a moment, you think you should warn her, because your superior animal instinct is foretelling another earthquake. But in just as short a moment, you notice she’s noticed the impending earthquake too, via vibrations in the now-shifting pile, which is coincidentally how you figured it out. 

You take off, heading for the exit.

She reaches where the raven was perched. From the top, the sunlit end of the tunnel is visible, open air beyond.

Frame hops down the other side of the pile, rock to rock, scrambling, thinking all the while that she is the last Arche if she dies here. She leaps to the tunnel floor, dashing forward. She exits the tunnel, and the raven takes flight, turning to the right. But she halts, recalling the map; if she turns right, she’ll be headed for Marth.

She sprints to the left.

Having turned right, to lead Frame away from crumbling, unstable side of the highway, you’re dismayed to see her ignoring your concern for her safety.

<You’re going the wrong way!>

Chapter One, Page Nine

Oh. She hears the raven now, better than before. She hears its awful, shrill cawing.

She hears you.

You are standing at the peak of the rubble, and because she can hardly make out your figure, you are crying out to her and hopping side to side. You don’t dare fly further in because you are full aware that a collapse is incredibly likely. Frame’s fears have been seeping into you ever since she woke up, though, and you feel as though you might lose your sentience if she dies. “Please, just come up here!" You say, although all that comes out of you is indecipherable, panicked squawking.

She looks up at the raven, frozen. Does she dare believe a raven might be saving her? She has only ever seen a dog and several cats, all of which are probably dead right now, and not much of what anyone’s ever told her says anything about the possibility of trusting ravens.

They eat dead things.

<Corn is also delicious! But whatever, just trust me!>

Chapter One, Page Eight

She doesn't know why she shouldn't worry. She's unsure of who might ever think otherwise. I’m not getting out. This is all a tomb for my family. And now, me.

It would figure. Everyone but the Arche line leaves, and a few months later an earthquake kills the remnants of the family. Frame never really even had much pride in her family name, but she thinks that if she ever did, now would be the time to lament it.

Also, she can hear a raven calling out towards her, and ravens are carrion feasting animals. She's already frightened of her oncoming death, can't you abandon this macabre motif?

<Caaaw!>

Chapter One, Page Seven

Frame would like to do so very much, but as she stands at the base of the rubble, she fears what might happen if she climbs up. Her weight could dislodge a rock, and encourage the pile to topple towards her. And then where would she be?

Dead, probably.

There isn’t even a guarantee that she’ll find anything on the other side of the debris, except maybe for more debris. Wreckage could be filling the tunnel all the way to the exit. Even the highway could be gone, taken from the side of the mountain by the force of the earthquake and tossed down into the rifts.

Maybe Frame will never find a way out.

<Stop worrying! And also, caw!>

Chapter One, Page Six

Frame isn’t terribly scared.

The sides of the tunnel wall are supported every few feet by heavy stone pillars, which were hewn from the inner rock of the ridge a few hundred years ago. Frame had marveled at them, each at least twice as wide as she was. The hub within which she spent most of her life, was made by scorians, as a connecting point for a much larger network of highways and hallways. All this, explained by Frame’s mother, when Frame began to show an interest in history.

Thankfully, the earthquake hasn’t done much to damage the hanging lamps running along the ceiling. One of the tunnel’s builders must have realized there was a chance of an earthquake, and had reinforced whatever electrical system kept the lights linked together. Frame wishes they’d done more to reinforce the hub.
Something shakes and Frame hears the ridge groan.

She hurries forward, coming to a collapsed section ahead of her. Frame halts before the blockade of stone and concrete, gazing at the crumpled pieces of tunnel. The ground quivers under her feet, mumbling with increasing volume.

<Caw! I mean, find a way through!>

Chapter One, Page Five

Frame folds up the map, tucks it into her jacket, and hops off the fountain. Her father’s sword didn’t seem to have a sheath, so she rests it on her shoulder as she strides north, to the tunnel leading out of the hub. Though there’s usually enough space for a caravan to pass through, with room to spare. On Frame’s thirteenth birthday a pair of machine men had passed through, tall enough to reach the ceiling. They’d been dragging the carapace of a riftcrawler with ropes, the inside of the shell filled with crates and bags tied up and destined for Glenbloc.

But now, pieces of rock and cement have fallen to the ground in pillars and piles, so Frame has to wind along a freshly cratered path. Dust floats down from above.

You worry, and find yourself surprised at your capacity for worrying.

<Is it still stable?>

Chapter One, Page Four

Frame’s father never had much positive to say about the Marquess Clan, not after Frame’s brother left. But Frame’s father had a lot of negative things to say. Like; ruthless, savage, unkind, and disloyal. “I doubt Caghalle has any idea what he’s getting himself into,” Frame’s father had said, more than once over meetings with Glenbloc representatives.

So Frame looks at the rest of the map.

Fifteen miles west along the highway on the north side is a bridge connecting to the Korb Ridge, along which Frame knows she can find peoples loyal to her father, or at least might be friendly to his progeny.

<Sure sounds like a plan!>

Chapter One, Page Three

The map provides an overlay of the tunnel network in the ridge Frame calls home. Two tunnels cut north and south to the other sides of the ridge, connecting to cliff-side highways running east and west. Along the ridge to the east is a town called Marth, which, judging by the purple ribbon drawn next to the city on the map, is under control of the Marquess Clan.

And because the name Marth is crossed out with red ink, it might be fair to say that Frame’s father doesn’t want Frame traveling to Marth.

<Why not?>

Chapter One, Page Two

In case of trouble, her father told her to take his sword, old and chipped as it is, and make for the road. He showed her a brown shoulder-slung pack and told her where to find dehydrated food and the bottles of water which could provide hydration.

But even though she’s might have cried the water out of herself, she doesn’t feel thirsty, so she’s sitting on the lip of a dry fountain, wondering what exactly to do next. Frame’s father didn’t tell her anything else, although from the map Frame found tucked into the inner pocket of her dark grey jacket, she can tell her father was thinking trouble would be coming along before long.

<Okay, so what's on the map?>

Chapter One, Page One

Frame finds herself sitting on the lip of a dry fountain, staring up at the cracked concrete overhead, and the flowered gas-pipe, a thick dust still settling from hours earlier. Her eyes are dry and the tears wiped clean from her face.

Around her are the shattered windows of others’ homes, with splintered or twisted doors. Most everyone were inside their homes with the earthquake hit, and Frame herself had been the only one outside. She supposes the greater structure of the hub had suffered less than the hastily constructed homes. Frame has already checked the other homes in town, even the ones which had been deserted before the earthquake struck. She found no one still alive, with the exception of her mother, who died soon after.

<Did her father give her any advice for what to do in case of trouble?>