Presumably located near the equatorial band of your world, your nameless home stands as a memorial to fleeting grandeur. How much greater it may have been, in its heyday, you can never know, but since the salt flats petered out and the locals were forced to turn to subsistence mining, things have only gotten worse. Now, abandoned homes collapse slowly along dust-covered trails that probably used to be streets, just one more set of rock formations slowly eroding away under the arid wind of the desert's borders; any identity the place may have had is shriveled and gone with most of its population, leaving only a few grim miners digging away at the low-yield salt domes dotting the ancient lake basin: Those who cannot leave, and those who have nowhere to go.

Ironically, it was the salt that once kept the area from drying up, so to speak. As valuable as gold and nearly as difficult to obtain, stories say the precious substance brought trade and wealth. That was so long ago, now, though, that even your elders were children or not yet born by the time folks started packing up and heading for more hospitable places. Salt comes out by the block, these days, rather than the barrelful, and being trapped underground with it rather than scooping it up in the open air often means an early and miserable death for those who have no choice except to claw what living they can from the shallow mines.

The area has never been good for anything but the salt: Nurturing any kind of plant is nearly impossible with so much of it in the ground, despite the tricks employed to get precious water out of the air or from deep in the earth. More often than not, the water has salt in it, too, so the only things that grow are the generally spiky flora that already thrive in the hot savanna or along the sand. Money is useless, what with the lack of trade, so the de facto currency in a place where dehydration is the leading cause of death has become fresh water, and those who can figure out how to get it are rich...for all it matters.

Your neighbors aren't all foolish people; they recognize the problem, but there is only so much that can be done, especially with so few hands to help. Between herding the village's precious quickhorns out to better grazing and back�and protecting them while doing so�and eking whatever can be scraped from the mines, there is little time or enthusiasm to spend on solving any puzzle which takes longer than a few moments' consideration to unravel. Skilled labor is scarce and precious, and resources like the smith who repairs tools, or the expert who maintains the town's only oil press, are fiercely protected�if something were to happen to them, there would likely be no one who could truly replace them; at their cockiest and most self-indulgent, even the local gangs still give trained craftsfolk a wide berth, for infringing upon such artisans could spell the end of the militia's tolerance for their troublemaking.

In a town full of strong, frustrated people with no other outlets, entertainment falls largely within the realm of self-stimulation: Storytelling is popular, but so is brawling, as the salty desert makes the coolest heads hot. The village women have little patience for the shenanigans of idle menfolk, but there are only so many good tales to go around, and once you've heard them all, the restlessness returns. Adolescents, especially, tend to find common ground in the age-old pastime of gathering in groups and scuffling with other groups over nothing worthwhile, like arbitrary "territories" or a particular symbol or motto. These imaginary battles occupy the majority of the militia's time�an unofficial constabulary of concerned miners with a modicum of formation training, constantly in rotation as different people come off shift or go down to the mines. So long as their activities remain in the realm of claiming abandoned buildings as "forts" and shoving one another in back alleys, the ever-shifting labyrinthine landscape of the gangs is largely ignored; but when they cause too much trouble, real scraps can occur, typically resulting in some upstart youth being sentenced to extra hours with the salt by the militia foremen.

It's the same routine, over and over�as far as you know, it always has been. Nothing ever really changes in the village, not even the day-to-day irritations that poison the air with tension between whatever brief reprieves can be found on a cool night. The stories that get passed around the most are ones of far-off adventure and great doings, but everybody knows they're just what they sound like: Fantasy. No one ever really saddled and rode a sandsnapper, or found a cave full of fresh water, sparkling with precious gems, deep in the desert. No one you personally know has ever been much further from town than the spire of the big climbing rock, really. A little fantasy would surely make things easier, though... Conjuring water up out of the ground, making the wind blow to cool your skin, taming the wild beasts with a touch�all the things, it's whispered, that druids can do, though nobody's ever seen yours do any of it, even if she does know a lot about how to survive in the wastes.

Magic is the prerogative of the Divines; everyone knows that. Mortals aren't supposed to have that kind of power, for fear of what they'd do with it. That's why anyone who's born Strange�dreams that come true sometimes, or feelings that turn out right�pairs off with someone else who's born Strange; always man or woman, the same as them. The gods don't want their gifts stolen by undeserving mortals, but presumably (as with any trait), magic would get stronger in the blood with every child who had it, if they were to find someone else who had it, too. Instead, fate intervenes, and those who are believed to have some shadow of the Divine in them wind up man-to-man or woman-to-woman�no children to carry their legacy onward, so the blood lies quiet. That's what the stories say, at least; folks in the village always marry their neighbors, anyway�that never changes any more than anything else. Everyone works the same in the daytime, and sleeps the same during the chill of the dry desert nights, so there isn't much talk about the second part as long as the first part holds true.

It always comes back to the heat, really. The heat and the salt. The stories all villagers grow up with say that there are cooler places elsewhere, where the land rises and falls and you can grow anything, and water is easy to get somehow or other. Maybe it's true; the infrequent traders who come to exchange a pittance of water for your salt have to come from someplace else, with their dark hair and fair skins that are burnt by the sun. But the stories say a lot of things, and mostly it's metaphor. The meaning's the same, no matter how you tell the story.

But the heat and the salt... Those never change.


See also:
Family and Neighbors
Landmarks