The aftermath of their skirmish with the wolves has left many feeling exhausted. Walter catches his breath as he returns to the map in his hands, the situation is getting more dire than it was before. With more injuries and little supplies to upkeep everyone's well-being, Walter was contemplating if they should stop and let everyone rest to slowly gain back their strength.
Moving up along the line, an elderly man wearing a red-flat cap comes up behind Walter and taps his shoulder to get his attention, "Excuse me, young man. I'm sorry to interrupt your navigation, but everyone is almost on their last leg, not to rush or anything, but how much further do we have to walk till we get to New London?" said the elder. Walter could see the ice starting to form on his beard.
"It shouldn't be long now, Just stay close and keep moving, and don't stop." Walter said, he turned around behind him and looked at the rest, "The rest of you, make sure you do the same, don't let anyone get left behind."
The survivors collectively nodded at Walter.
The children were holding on tight to their parents to share body heat, "Mommy, will we see daddy again?" The child looks up at her. The mother looks down with a small smile, "We will, sweetie, we'll see your father again when we reach our new home, okay?"
"Will he be waiting for us when we get there?" the child asked. The mother never lets her smile go as she gives a little hug.
Jack was quiet ever since the skirmish, Walter noticed and asked, "Hey, Jack. You've been awfully quiet, something happened to you? Are you hurt?" Walter spares a quick glance at Jack.
Jack shakes his head, looking sad about something as he explains, "No, I'm fine. It's just that I've never killed anything before. I have nothing against the wolves, they were just doing what their instincts told them to. It's in their nature, but I'm not a violent guy. I can't help but feel a little sorry for the wolf I've killed."
"Don't think too much about it, Jack. It was either you or the wolf. And if that wolf survived, it would have gone for the rest, even the children." Walter justified.
Jack turns his head to look at the pile of wolves stacked onto one of the sleds. Walter said they could bring these back to New London, for their food, fur and bones. Finn would be surprised to see wolf meat on his doorstep. But could they even eat wolves?
"I'm not sure if we could eat the wolves, Walter. It's not common and who knows if it's safe." Jack said, which caused Walter to roll his eyes, "I know, but you heard about the food problem from the others. I'm a little skeptical about eating the wolves but we need food badly. I'm sure Finn can do something to make it safer to eat. At least we won't starve." he said.
"How do you do it? Getting used to killing beasts?" Jack asked.
"I don't know how to explain that to you, Jack. But for me, I do it to survive, if there are bad ones, I kill them. If they are good, I leave them alone." Walter explains as best he could.
Jack nods somberly, "Okay."
The torches were helpful, providing light, and heat. The others that were suffering the cold with their working lamps had stopped shaking, the shivering man from before had also shown signs of recovering but still laying on his back.
Walter struggles to keep his map up, Jack assists by grabbing part of the map to keep it steady from the blizzard, "For Christ's sake, I can't see a damn thing in this blizzard!" Walter yelled in frustration, using the light from his lamp to see in front of him. "We should be going the right way," Jack said.
"I hope so, first the wolves, and now we're blind without the sunlight. I'm honestly not sure if we are heading the right way- Ahh!"
Out of nowhere, Walter slipped and fell.
"Walter!" Jack screamed, startled as he tried to grab him before he fell into whatever they had stumbled across. The map flew out of their hands. Jack and a few others that were behind them managed to hold onto Walter as he had only landed on his back.
"Ow..." Walter groaned, messaging his back.
Jack gave a sigh of relief as he pulled him over to help him stand back up, "You okay, Walter?" Walter grabs his hand and stands up, "Yeah, I think I'm alright. My back's not broken." Jack looks at the ice, confused.
"Where did this ice come from?" Walter asked, he could barely see the ice hidden beneath the snow.
Jack looks ahead and taps Walter's shoulder and points ahead, "I think I can ask a better question. Where did that ravine come from?" he said.
Walter turns to him, and then looks out to where Jack was pointing at. Everyone else had gathered around them to do the same, "Ravine?" Walter said.
Bringing their torches up to light the way, a long black line can be seen not too far from them, stretching for miles with no end in sight. There is a ravine, and by the looks of it, a big one. "The rest of you stay back," Walter warns the others, ushering them to backtrack away from the danger.
Jack took a closer look, leaning forward over the edge, only to see a dark bottomless hole. "I can't see the bottom at all," Jack said in wonder. "You almost fell in, Walter."
Walter looks around in frustration, "There was no ravine here, where are we? I was sure we were going the right way. Are we lost?" he said, rubbing his head in contemplation.
"Calm down, Walter. Look, we can still see the forest, we didn't go too far for us to get lost. Let's grab that map and check where we might be," Jack suggested.
"Yeah, you're right." Walter nods and grabs his map, only for it to be missing. "That's strange, I could have sworn I had my map with me." he said as he searched through his pockets again and again.
Then a sudden realization came in, "Wait, I think I must have dropped the map somewhere when I fell, has anyone seen where the map went?" Walter asked the rest, but none of them noticed where it went.
"Oh no, this can't be happening, I did not just get us lost, and then I lost our only map!" Walter yelled at himself, kicking the snow in frustration.
"Hey, Walter," Jack tried to get his attention. But Walter was not listening as he continued to throw a fit, Jack tried again but louder, "Walter! Pull yourself together!" Jack grabs his shoulders and shakes him into submission.
Walter stops and catches his breath, staring at Jack.
"Calm down. These people need our help, and we can't give up now. We still have some options to gather our senses and keep moving." Jack said.
Walter sighs in defeat, "Okay, how?" he asked.
Jack points ahead again, his finger facing a barely visible light in the distance, just down the ravine was something moving in the blinding wind, "There's a light over there just down this ravine, it might be something that can help us."
"But this ravine has already shown us that we went in the wrong direction, and I lost the map. What makes you think this might be our best option?" Walter asked, feeling quite helpless as he tried to keep himself from losing his mind.
"Well, better than staying here, that's for sure. I mean, we'll never know if we don't go." Jack simply answered. One that Walter could not disagree with.
"Fine, let's move. Couldn't be worse than being completely lost." Walter said, informing the others of their new plan. Jack nods and takes the lead, "I'll lead for now, just calm yourself, Walter. I'm sure everything will be alright."
It wasn't clear what was going through Jack's mind. Maybe he was just in pure denial of their situation and wanted just about anything that could help solve it. Maybe it was more of calming the kids down from crying in despair like Walter did just a moment ago had he not calmed him down too.
Slowly making their way to the barely visible light along the ravine, the moonlight was barely helping their vision when the clouds above were in the way, but soon Jack could see something protruding up into the sky, like towering structures piercing through the thick clouds as it stood in defiance to the harsh winter.
Just what did Jack find in this seemingly endless plain of snow?
Soon, they have reached something that neither Jack or Walter would find, metal. Or steel to be precise. A large platform of steel was laid out enough to fit a dreadnought through. Its sheer size was intimidating, but Jack and the others couldn't help but marvel at the sight.
At the light that brought Jack to it's discovery was coming from a lonely machine working tirelessly to sweep and clear the snow off the bridge. Knocking the ice off the beams and making sure the bridge's integrity still holds.
"That's quite some bridge, it's even bigger than I imagined." Walter said, looking around to see if there was anyone else that could be here. But as far as he could see, there was no one else but them at the bridge.
He unslings his rifle as always, ready to defend from any dangers that could be near or on the bridge. The survivors gathered closely to see the spectacle of the bridge.
"Woah, it's huge."
"Did one of ours build it here?"
They said as they continued to wonder about how this bridge came to be. The steel bridge crosses the entire ravine and over to the other side. It could be a way for them to get back to New London. But as always, Walter was skeptical about crossing it, for all he knows, it might be another trap.
Walter couldn't believe it, "It's too good to be true. I'm not trusting it one bit, it could be dangerous, Jack" He said in disbelief.
Jack shrugs, "Believe it or not, I'm not complaining. Let's go."
Walter immediately puts his arm in front of Jack, stopping him from taking another step towards the bridge. Jack sighs at Walter's interfering, "What is it now, Walter?" He asked.
"Jack, aren't you at least a tiny bit suspicious of it? It could be dangerous for all we know. I'm not saying we shouldn't, but you are too naive on this." Walter said.
Jack thought for a while, "Nope, but I know that home is on the other side of that bridge, and we need to get these people safe and fast." He points at the other side of the ravine.
He does have a point, backtracking would take a long time, and these people can't survive in the cold for long, after all that walking. They're getting tired.
Without any options left, Walter sighs, keeping his rifle in his hands. "Then we'll need to check it out first before the rest can come over. We'll take the bridge but only if we know that it's safe enough to cross."
Jack nods and readies his ice ax, "Thanks, Walter. I know you'll see my reasons." he said.
Walter turns to the rest and instructs them, "The rest of you stay together. We're going to check this bridge out real quick. Maybe it could help us." Walter said.
Everyone nodded. "Don't take too long. The others are starting to grow tired the longer we wait." Said one of them.
Walter nods, "We won't." He signals Jack to follow him. "Come on, stay behind me, Jack."
Jack smirks, "My hero."
"Shut up."
They cautiously crossed the bridge. Walter guards their front with his rifle. He hoped the bridge was empty as his rifle wasn't strong enough to even take on a bear. Even though Jack was completely okay with using the bridge at first, he quickly felt scared when they heard a clunking sound getting louder when they got closer.
Walter taps his boot against the platform of the bridge, "Yeah, this is steel, this bridge should be sturdy, and I don't see it swaying with the wind. Looks promising," he said, nodding with approval, but they have yet to confirm if the bridge was safe enough to cross.
The lights eliminating from the blurriness of the wind became more clearer as Jack's expression quickly turned from scared to amazement when he pointed again at the figure slowly appearing in front of them.
"Look, it's an automaton!" Jack said as he pointed at the machine working in the middle of the bridge.
Jack and Walter marveled at the sight, "Well, an actual automaton, all the way out here. Where did this one come from?" Walter asked as they stopped in their tracks, continuing to marvel at the automaton working away as it swept the snow out of the bridge.
"Hm, maybe it came from a place called Winterhome?" Jack asked out of nowhere.
Walter gave a confused expression as he turned to look at Jack, "Huh? Winterhome? What are you talking about?" he asked.
Jack shrugged as he pointed above them, up where a large sign was displayed with some wording still visible enough to read, "Well, there is a large sign up there, it says 'Built by the people of Winterhome in 1887'. And this lonely automaton here is probably sent by them to keep the bridge clean of snow for them to use it." Jack said.
Walter stares at the sign in shock, "Hold on, that means that there's another city here. If this bridge is here, then that means they are not too far away from us! We got to tell the captain." Walter said, wanting to relay this important piece of information back to the captain.
Another wind blows harshly at them, reminding them of their situation once more.
"Alright, you win, Jack. We'll take this bridge across and hopefully it takes us back to New London. I'm getting really tired of the snow, and I want to get out of it." Walter said.
Jack nods, "Alright, let's move them. But what about this automaton? We can't just leave it here. I say we should try to direct it back to New London. Maybe it could help us."
"Jack, we can't, this thing belongs to the people of Winterhome. If we take it now, it's stealing if any of them comes back through here. And who else is going to keep the snow off this bridge if we need to use it?" Walter said, trying to reason with Jack.
This was another decision that they had to make.
Walter knew that this automaton was important to the bridge, this snow would eventually clog up the bridge and it would be more difficult to cross again should they take the machine with them. But the idea of using automation to help support New London was growing bigger by the second.
Jack could see that Walter was slowly considering the idea to take the Automaton with them.
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A/N: I am going to end the chapter here. As much as I know that Frostpunk has a surprisingly severe lack of fanfiction, that's why I want to give Frostpunk a good fanfic too. But not one with the usual approach with the captain's view of building the city.
I can do that, but I am also interested in the scout's perspective.
Frostpunk has a ton of potential in literature storytelling and writing. I don't think there are many stories about the scouts. So that was why I have decided to make a story based on the scouts and their survival in the snow plains during "A New Home".
Now, for the bridge, Jack and Walter's reaction was nothing much to expand on but the fact that they now know that there is another settlement that may not be too far from them. But then there was the option of taking the automaton with you or leaving it. I have yet to fully decide if they should take it.
Again, with Jack and Walter taking sides of the choices, with Walter thinking of leaving it alone, but Jack wants it to help New London.
And, after this, there is also the bear with the survivors at a cave, and the observatory, these interactions have been vastly expanded with Jack and Walter tackling them with their own capabilities. I have already done this in an old draft. But with this rewrite. Maybe I could do even more to make these moments more important for this duo.
But yeah, a scout's perspective might be harder to write. But this is a lot better for me then having to write the captain building the city. We all know what happened, and it would have been a copypaste, and boring.
Okay I am done here. Thanks for the comments. I hope this story would get more attention for any fans of the game that wants any reading material for Frostpunk.
Thank you all so much for reading.