Life as an explorer has been
interesting this past year. The expedition crew was based around the concept of
balance. Arline, Janice, Regine and I were all the pillars of equality that
kept this establishment running smoothly.
Our first month began with small
outings which brought us into contact with the native peoples in the
surrounding areas. The natives were friendly and happily showed us around the
land. One of the findings during these explorations was a sacred nesting ground
for the double striped gazelle. There, something unimaginable was discovered:
ruby reserves. Arline was following one of the natives and happened to sit on a
large, dusty rock while taking a break from resource hunting. As she sat, she
talked and gazed at the rock beneath her, which seemed to sparkle in the midday
sun. After having a closer look, the rock was indeed sparkling, and so was the
ground beneath her. That was the day we found the rubies. That was also the day
we found out the natives did not appreciate our attempts to bring back the
pieces of soon to be jewels. However, we refused to pass up the jewels and the
natives allowed us to claim some jewels for our own satisfaction that month.
That month also brought good weather and increasingly good relations between ourselves
and the natives.
The
same could be said for the next few months that followed. That is until we
pressed the natives a bit too far for more rubies to send back to our kingdom. There
was an unexpected disagreement after Arline sent me to collect the rubies for
the week from the sacred ground. The natives were concerned that we were going
to harm the land and insisted that we “replant those no good tomatoes” before
the land took out her wrath on the innocent. I was given orders, so I could not
turn around and head back to the camp until they were completely carried out.
The natives retaliated with refusing to give us our share of months. When I
returned with the rubies that night, Regine sat me down and insisted that I immediately
stop aggravating the only help we had out here in the middle of nowhere.
Weather conditions were tolerable the few months following this incident.
Regine
was becoming increasingly concerned about our relations with the natives and
insisted that we ease up our demands for rubies. Janice was on the fence. Yes,
the natives had desires, but we also had expectations to meet. We had only been
in this new land for six months and had already become the most successful expedition
to be sent out by our country. Surely we had to be doing something right. We
went about two months without insisting on retrieving rubies from the sacred
lands to appease Regine. She seemed convinced that the natives were going to
attack us if we continued to demand resources outside of the original agreement
we had with them. The only issues we seemed to have had those two months though
was the weather.
Unbeknownst to Regine and Janice, the
regulation of resources was no longer controlled by us during the last quarter
of our expedition. After seeing how successful we had become, King Jameson sent
a letter to Arline and me putting us in charge of reporting to his guard and
making sure there was a steady income of jewels as long as our expedition was
in effect. This led us to push the natives to give us as many resources as we
could get the last four months of our stay. The natives retaliated with
violence, but the idea of the welcome we all would receive back home clouded
any thoughts of remorse as we insisted the natives give us the amounts of rubies
we requested. By the end of our 12 month expedition, we left that strange land
with 4 times as many riches as we had preceding our trip and optimal
relationships with the natives with our departure.
I am happy to say
this was quite the successful quest.
