As a guest who had helped out, Hao Ren and the rest was shown hospitality in Hearthfire. While the viceroy may be a stern, severe man, but he still knew how to treat guests well. But as the world itself was a desolated place, try as he may, things will still not be of much comfort. Hao Ren and the rest ,with Willy leading them went down the keep , or to the factory’s ground floor. Along the outer walls were a row of small guestrooms. The room had been made using sheet metal and molded boards. Within them were some simple furniture and the general atmosphere was pitiful. There too were some faint odour as well, but within Hearthfire, this was already premium residence.
After seeing the broken shakes the civilians had lived in, Hao Ren knew he and his party was already given priority treatment.
And this also suggested that while the viceroy was severe towards Willy, the boy still had a place in his heart, or else he would not have treated his son’s saviours this well.
Willy had already went forward to invite the famous Orrow the Scholar while the Hao Ren and rest squeezed int othe tiny house, exchanging their opinions. After seeing the dystopian state of the place, everyone certainly had guesses and opinions, and now was the time to exchange them.
“It seems obvious that their heritage had broken off somewhere.” Vivian said as she looked out. The scenery of the plaza was visible from her window. A couple of kids covered in grim ran about on the streets that were made using waste metal and plastics. “The civilisation had regressed to the age of coldsteel.”
Nangong Wuyue added. “The society too had returned to a feudal state.”
“The societal structure itself had not really changed. As we found on Terra Firma, the people here were uder a monarchy even when they were technologically advanced.” Hao Ren waved his hand. “What I’m curious about is what made the entire society regressed so evenly. These people does not seem to have the concept of spacecrafts, and they don’t even know that what a fault in the gravity generator means. MDT, explain.”
The MDT vibrated in Hao Ren’s pocket but its voice was heard in the mind of everyone present. “A massive loss of population, or a total loss of industry could lead to a civilisation regressing substantially. But it should not have been that thorough. Even if technologically impaired, the people should have known how their forebearers had lived, and they seemed not have any concept of their own world, almost as if…”
Lily could not contain her curiousity. “Almost as if what?”
“A whole generation was wiped out.” the MDT said plainly. “Unless a whole generation disappeared at the same time, leaving the next generation without any poper systematic education, or only partial education; only that would have caused a civilisation to rupture altogether. Or there was a brain wipe on a massive scale, and what everyone knew disappeared at the same time, and they were unable to find a cure for that.”
“Now that we know, that the ark’s latter journey was plagued with faults and malfunctions and every ark had to depend on each other to survive, but this would not have led to what we’ve seen today.” Vivian rubbed her temple, the vampire was knowledgeable, but it seems even that was of no use here. “The ark’s malfunctions was a gradual thing, it would not have wiped out an entire generation.”
Hao Ren pondered quietly, as his eyes peered out from time to time. He saw three men in tattered clothings trying to maintain the lights in one of the dirty alleys. One of them climbed up the pole and carefully unscrewed the spoilt lightning and replaced it with a new one. As he got down, all three of them bowed towards the light pole and turned on the switch. As the new lightbulb lit up, the children around them broke into a cheer, some of them even started singing, praising the light-bringing ‘electric fairies’.
“They still have electricity, and new lightbulbs to change. Some even know how to install them. Even though they don’t know the logic behind them.” Hao Ren pointed towards the scene outside the window. “Some of the machinery in this ark is still functioning, like the electricity generatior and the factory, and if the factories could function until now, that means the rupture in their civilisation’s heritage was not caused by some maintenance malfunction.”
“Not a spaceship malfunction?” Nangong Sanba frowned. “Was it only through civil war? That a space-faring civilisation regressed all the way back to a feudal state?”
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At the same time, the door creaked open. Willy had pushed it open. “Uh.. sorry, I should have knocked. But the door was not locked. I’ve brought Master Orrow here.”
A hunched old man appeared from behind Willy. He looked like he was about eighty odd years old, and his white hair was only left around the side of the head. His wrinkles had extneded all the way to the neck. The old man was dressed in a thick, dirty old robe with multiple coloured threaded loops on it. Dainty small metallic trinkets hung from the loops. Hao Ren took a good look and noticed that the trinkets were actually capacitors, fuses, copper wire connectors and the likes. The scholar had took those electronic components as decorations on his robes.
Lily was the first to get up to greet the scholar enthusiastically. “Hello mister! Have you eaten yet?”
The odd greeting took the old scholar aback for a moment before he broke into a smile. As he laughed, he spoke with a bright voice. “What a energetic young lady. I’ve heard that a group of vagrant warriors had saved Willy, and I thought that they were no different than the brutes in the keep. I never thought I’d see such a polite young lady here.”
Willy helped the old scholar to sit on the rickety chair near the door. Even as the son of the viceroy, he showed deep respect to the master, like a student should. “Master, these people are interested in your wisdom. They want to listen to the stories that you have told me.”
“Oh? Oh… Those old stories.” Surprise flashed through the scholar’s face. He had not had time to hear from Willy about Hao Ren and only thought that they were vagrants from far away. Only now that he had managed to have a good look and realised while the group before him was weirdly dressed, all of them were fresh and clean, and was totally different from your usual vagrants. “You’re interested on the matter? Aside from scholars no one will actually study such a dry topic these days.”
“We are indeed interested.” Hao Ren smiled. “Winter is coming. This was a forewarning from long time ago, and now is the time to pay attention to the warnings of the old.”
“Winter… Winter is really coming…” The old scholar subconciously wrapped himself. He visibly stiffened as he heard the words, and his expression turned serious. “Five years, it have been a full five years since the Furnace of the Ancestors had went out. And this time around it is asleep for far far longer. The world is getting colder by the day, and the Giant’s Nasal at the end of the world had already half-frozen. Snow had already fallen on Lusvayten last year….Winter… it is indeed a harsh winter.”
Hao Ren was pretty sure that the ‘Furnace of the Ancestors’ referred to the massive reactor and its controls at the end of this enclosed place. The central control tower. Even when he was rushing along the Royal Highway he had noticed from a distance that the reactor was in bad shape. And even as it operates better than the already dormant reactor on Terra Firma, yet half of its energy grids was dark.
It seems like the ark’s life support system was at its limit, and its power source was about to shut down.
“How many times had winter came?”
“How many? Uh… there have been many… once or twice every century. Sometimes it lasts for only a year, and some it will last over ten years.” The old scholar’s head bobbed as he explained. “A year long winter may bring only fear and uneasiness, but a ten year long winter can kill up to one third of the population. And when there are so many dead, even the recycler furnace will be filled to the brim. A hellish nightmare, that was bone-chilling.”
“But this winter doesn’t seem all that bad.” Willy suddenly quipped. “It’s not that cold and till now, just a leather shirt would keep you warm.”
“That’s because you are on the warmest part of the world.” the old scholar threw Willy an admonishing glance. “And the real cold has not come yet. A mild start to the winter is a prelude to a harsh one, a slow fall in temperature means its rise will be slow as well, and winter will last very very long.”
The locals had used their own understanding to explain the change in the enviroment after the core reactior had malfunctioned. Their theories were sound and logical, but yet it different wildly from the truth of this world. With their limited knowledge, they could not undertand that their world was being maintained by a massive machine.