Age of the Titans | Open World RPG

The fires had been burning since before sundown, tucked beneath ribs large enough to shelter whole families from rainfall, as if shielding them away from the stars and sky. The rib cage lined the slope of the ridge, old bones disappearing into the earth at one end, and reaching over the gathering at the other, growing from dirt and stone as if something dead was being raised from its eternal slumber. Old, sun bleached leathered hide stretched between some of the ribs, clinging to life where there was none, catching the wind, while smoke curled through the gaps overhead.

Families had come down from the mountains, across the plains, waded from marshes and rivers, come ashore from oceans, and crawled out of the deep forests. Different clothes, different markings, different tools, different ways of doing things, even different drum beats and chants that thundered along the ridge as one dissonant song. All of them brought things to trade, things to argue about, and scattered along the groups, some had brought young adults apparently old enough to find a match.

Meat hissed over the fires, juices sizzling, as fat popped and dropped into the flames below. One drum sounded further down the slope, its rhythm occasionally lost beneath chants, laughter, talking, trading, and the crack of wood being split. Young adults lingered between camps, finding reasons to pass the same fire more than once. Older relatives watched with the subtlety of a landslide.

Near the largest hearth, a man offered a carved bone pendant to a woman sharpening a spear. She inspected it, then held out the spear instead. Whatever answer he gave was swallowed by the laughter around them.

Beyond the ribs, the valley was darkening, and long necked shapes moved between the trees below, following the river towards the marshes. Something called from the far bank, a low, carrying sound that briefly quieted the dogs. A few heads turned, many a flame sputtered and grew brighter as groups fed another branch into their fires.

After a few moments of watchful silence, the drums started again, and the gathering carried on beneath the bones of something that had once been considerably harder to ignore.

The valley smelt fresh, clean, and earthy, of dirt and leaves that had been drowned by the sky. The rain had settled over the valley sometime before dawn, it came on suddenly, but not unexpectedly, there had been signs, if anyone had thought to read them. It ran down the broad leaves of ferns, dripped from conifers, and gathered in the deep impressions along the riverbank, the river swelled, but hadn’t flooded over yet. Some were tracks left by the animals and dinosaurs, other impressions were wide and big enough to develop their own ecosystems as they sat pressed into the earth from long ago.

Mist clung to the lower slopes, rolling in the wind, those who would witness it would later tell stories of witnessing spirits from the auroras moving through the living world once again as visitors. Beyond it, the mountains had disappeared, leaving only the dark shapes of trees and the occasional pale face of a cliff. The river was rising, carrying branches and torn vegetation through the shallows.

The first footfall barely disturbed the rain, the next sent a tremor through the bank, shaking water from the leaves. Small animals scattered beneath the undergrowth. Further downstream, a herd of grazing dinosaurs lifted their heads, then began moving with the quiet agreement of things that intended to remain alive. That was the last warning, and it was the most important.

An enormous shape passed behind the trees. Water streamed down its flanks, following cracks in old armour, spilling from the moss and vegetation growing along its back, moving waterfalls that flooded the areas the water crashed down upon. Its shoulder pushed through the mist, high above the canopy. A stand of dead trees broke against its leg, the sound sharp and brief beneath the steady rain.

The titan crossed the river slowly, moving along as its footsteps shook and reworked the landscape to fit its need. Even the river started to shake and shudder and flow differently as a result of the disturbance. Water piled against its shins, then surged out across the banks. Its tail followed through the forest, dragging a fallen trunk until the roots caught between two boulders. For a while, the whole valley seemed to move with it.

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