Scrawls and scratchings of shape and color and numbers on the side of an old bunker. As promised, Ccindy Pfeffer, the mutant witch and caretaker of the Fire Crystal, has revealed the results of the vote she put forth to the Wastelands community a few weeks ago to determine the ultimate fate of the Fire Crystal.
Putting it to a vote from the community seemed the only sensible thing to do. It owes it existence to the cooperation of many diverse Wastelanders and scavengers during the last few months. Some were more willing than others but in the end, rivalries were put aside and a tenuous fellowship was formed through cooperation and bartering. They successfully assembled the many small orange crystal fragments into larger ones, eventually combining the final three into the Fire Crystal. It was entrusted into the care of Raze Repine and then passed on to Ccindy Pfeffer who guarded it fiercely.
The Fire Crystal raised many questions. What was it exactly? What was its purpose? What use, if any, did it have to the Wastelanders? One particular individual of note expressed much interest in it…the Old Man known as Gill. He claimed it stored information that he could possibly cull from it. He also claimed that it was a piece of memory used by ancient and deadly rustmen like our very own Tin Man. While many doubted his first claim, the Tin Man himself confirmed the second when he revealed to Raze that his metal scalp did contain old crystals and empty slots for more.
Which brings us back to the vote proposed by the mutant witch. Would the Wastelanders hand the Fire Crystal over to the Tin Man or his rival, the Old Man Gill? Or should something so potentially dangerous simply be destroyed? Or perhaps even worshipped as a sacred stone from the Fire God as the witch hoped for? Or was the community just apathetic about the strange crystal and its fate?
Votes were collected at the witch’s bunker and last night, she finally took a measure of them, drawing the results upon the dark wall of her bunker with crude yet highly creative drawings for each option and their results.
One wonders if recent events may have affected the voting results. The suspicious sabotage of the salvager masheens coinciding with Gill’s monopoly over the only working salvager followed by its destruction by his own actions may have swayed some voters. His most recent behavior, perhaps an act of driven by rage, hysterics, or desperation against the Tin Man, may not have sat well with folks. Perhaps it also suggests that the Old Man’s mind isn’t particularly stable and therefore not to be trusted with something as potentially powerful as the Fire Crystal.
Nonetheless, those that have voted have spoken as the writing on the wall clearly shows. The mutant witch, Ccindy Pfeffer, will hand over the Fire Crystal to the Tin Man. Will he actually accept it? And what will happen if he does plug it into his metal brain? Will he turn violent as the Old Man warned us? How will this new information affect the Tin Man? And will this prove beneficial for the Wastelands?
The answers to these long standing questions may soon be known…