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Abandoned - Westwood - Story 85

Started by Abandoned, September 30, 2022, 06:22:21 AM

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Abandoned

Intro


  This is the 85th story in the Smallville Series and tells of the wood elves who live in the forest southwest of Smallville, just south of the Animal Refuge of story 9 and Portage of story 58.  Westwood is west of where the founders of Smallville were born and raised.  The original elves that settled in this valley taught the old ways of survival and conservation to the Smallvillian ancestors who taught their children, who in turn taught many others in Smallville's survivor school. These wood elves are hunters and gatherers who often wondered why others work so hard raising crops and livestock when there is so much given to them by Mother Earth that is free for the taking.  The story starts in autumn of year 40 SVT.






Map seed   # 947881816      Valley One River,    Small,     Mild,   Disasters Off,    Easy  (8 families)


Mods activated for this map and load order are:

Map Changing and Starting Mods:   Banished UI Maps, Labor Window, RK Minimized Status, CC Light Rain, Override map, Lush & Green, Settler Deco, Kid Deco Tree Fall, Kid Tree Replacer Fall (new, testing), Kid New Flora Edit, Family Start

Tweak Mods:    Fishing Dock +25%, Hunting, Hunting Season, Increased CC,  1:1 Alternative (Voeille), override Fairy Clothes, Tiny Smoke

Major or Must Have Mods:    An Empty Square, override Uneducated, Storage Crates, Kid Abandoned Places SE, Kid Fairy Garden, Kid Forest Deep, Kid Forest Haven (updated with small shed), Kid Tiny, Mini Buildings

Supporting Mods:    Campfire, Deco Sunflower, Kid Deco Farm Animals, Kid Deco People, Kid Elf Girl, Kid Farmyard, Kid Forest Fellow, Kid Hedgerows, Kid WorkShop



  Yes, weary traveler, wood elves are usually found much farther north, mostly in the highlands and the winter woodlands.  Some can be found in the eastern forests and even some in the swamp, but there aren't many to be found in the west.  I can't tell you when the first elves settled here in this valley, it was long before Smallville time, but I can tell you why my husband and I came here, and about the settlement we found when we arrived.   

angainor88

Wow! 85 stories already. Looking forward to this one too

Abandoned

 :) Thanks  :)  Hard to believe 85 stories.  It kind of snowballed  ;D  First story was in Oct of 2016, 6 years ago  ???  ;D

Kristahfer

Every one of them has been a joy, and beautiful to see. Thank you so very much.

Abandoned

 :) Hi, Kristahfer, good to hear from you as always.  Thank you for reading and enjoying stories.  :)  There is still room on the map for more settlements  :)

Abandoned

Chapter 1


  My husband and I, plus two other couples, came from Crystal Canyon which was, at that time, a secret elven settlement in the far north.  It is no longer a secret.  We are purebred elves, and we are also descendants of those early elves who taught the old ways of conservation and survival to the Smallvillian ancestors.  We were sent here by the Elven Council of Elders to help replenish the trees that were destroyed by years of extreme heat and drought and subsequent severe storms and flooding.  The extreme heat has tapered off in the last few years and reforestation of most areas is now possible.  The Council chose this location because it is close to the damaged areas but escaped the devastation that the others suffered.  The Elders conjured a magic portal to teleport us to this valley. 



  No, weary traveler, we cannot summon a portal for you, only High Elves know that kind of magic.  We are wood elves like the elves we found here when we arrived.  The 6 of us with 3 newborns came through the portal in autumn and were immediately enthralled by the beauty of our surroundings.  The terrain was lush and green from recent rains and the oaks and maples were breathtakingly beautiful in their full fall colors.  The elven settlement was just north of the portal.

  One sight of the settlement left no doubt that it was an elven settlement.  We saw tree houses and a magic garden.  There were tree fellows, fairies, and will o' the wisps scattered around the valley.  We felt at home already.



Abandoned

Chapter 2


  We made our way to the center of the elven settlement where we were welcomed by the five elven families who were living in the tree houses that their parents and grandparents had lived in before them.  The elders were off helping wildlife that were also victims of the drought and floods.  Some of the elders had even taken stray farm animals they found through the north pass up to the Animal Refuge.  The five families remaining were all young people the same ages as we were.



  Two of the families with 5 children lived in the center part of the settlement.  There was a magic garden, a frock maker, and a small storage barn.  They had an outdoor classroom and mini town hall just like the ones in Smallville.  A path led north from the large stockpile to a mother tree where a forester was carefully selecting trees to cut and replanting more.




  To the west by the river, two more families lived in tree houses with their 4 children.  There were several small ponds formed by recent heavy rains.  The fifth family with 2 children lived east of the settlement's center.  An old tree stump there served as an herbalist's workplace.  These elves got everything they needed from Mother Earth, they were hunters and gatherers.  We saw that, like us, they used elven bows and enchanted arrows that would cause no pain and suffering to the animals they hunted. 



Abandoned

Chapter 3


  The local elves hunted the deer right there in the center part of town. Their hunter kept a campfire going to roast the meat. They also hunted the rabbits in the hedgerow there.  They picked berries and gathered branches for firewood from that hedgerow.  An elven magician in the magic garden conjured up herbs, rose hips, walnuts, apples, berries, onions, mushrooms, roots, and firewood.




The duck pond to the west provided duck eggs, duck meat, and down.  The hedgerow with the smaller pond provided duck eggs, mushrooms, wild oats, and walnuts.  From the larger hedgerow, they gathered apples, berries, chestnuts, flax, and more branches for firewood. 




  The days were getting shorter and cooler, and the leaves were really beginning to fall as we took a second look at the herbalist tree stump and the hedgerow to the east.  It produced hazelnuts, sunseeds, wild corn, and more branches.  A warm fire would have been most welcome that day. The rustling leaves crunched and crackled underfoot as we made our way back to the center of the settlement.

Abandoned

Chapter 4


  On our way back to the center of the settlement we came to the sacred circle where fairies and will o' the wisps gathered around the sacred stone.  The elves here had a lot to be thankful for. 




From the sacred circle, we saw that the leaves of the elven treehouses had changed to their fall colors.  We had been staying with the local elves as we got to know them and the surroundings, but it was time we build homes of our own.  We were welcome to build house in their settlement or to the north or west where there was room.  There were ponds and hedgerows to the north and to the south.  Since we knew others would be coming through the portal to join us, we decided to settle in the larger area south of the portal.  If the weather held we should be in our own homes before winter.



Abandoned

Chapter 5

 
  The winter was mild but was still too cold for the laborers and builders who had a long way to go from the main stockpile to where our 3 houses were being built.  There were no warm coats to be had.  The locals had duck down but did not know how to use it to make warm coats.  We would supply the warm coats as soon as we got a workshop built.




  Gracey & Emberle and Winstone & Nellis both had tree topper houses built near the river.  They both wanted a view of the river and the duck ponds, and safety from flood waters.  Both families had infant sons as did Archery & I.  My name is Billison, Billi for short.  Our son is Muhammed.  We built our haven house farther inland by a hedgerow with an apple and a chestnut tree.  We chose the location because there were 2 large herds of deer and a hedgerow with rabbits.  Archery was a hunter.  A hunter's stand was built out back behind our house.  I would gather foods from the hedgerow.  A small storage barn and stockpile were built near the portal between the houses by the river and ours.  The storage barn had just been completed when 15 elves came through the portal to join us.  We needed more houses.





Abandoned

Chapter 6


  It was a cold rainy autumn day when the elves came through the portal from Crystal Canyon to join us.  There were 4 couples with 3 adult children and 4 young children.  Like us, they wished they had brought warm coats.  They expected it to be warmer this far south than what it was.  One of the basic rules of survival is to dress appropriately for the climate.


  Being elves most of the new arrivals wanted tree houses which were known to be warmer than ordinary houses.  The first snow was falling before the first tree house was completed.  A couple with a 4-year-old son moved in and their 10-year-old daughter moved into the haven house that was built nearby.  Both houses were built in the valley near our hunting stand.




  The second tree was built near the haven tree house closest to the river.  A couple with the 5-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son moved in on a cold snowy day.  Building was slow because we were short of logs and firewood.  Laborers were gathering branches and delivering building materials at the same time.  The couple's oldest daughter who was 15 moved into a tree house built by the local elves' mother tree.  She would be the 2nd forester working there.  And because our tool supply was dwindling, the locals built a mini workshop by the main stockpile to make iron tools.  A haven workshop was built, by our stockpile and storage barn, to make the badly needed warm coats.




Abandoned

Chapter 7


  A haven forester was built in the forest south of our storage barn along with a haven house for the forester and his wife and 5-year-old son.  A haven tree house was built southwest of there by the river for a couple with a 6-year-old daughter.  By the time that last family moved into their house, the family that moved into the first tree house had a newborn daughter.  We would need a school soon.




  The school was built near the haven tree houses.  A fence was added to keep the school children from wandering in the direction of the river.  If they wanted to watch the ducks, there were 2 duck ponds nearby.  There were also several tree fellows in our area now.  They would watch over the forest we were cutting in and they would watch over the children as well.  Tree fellows were known to have a fondness for children.



  Our log and firewood supplies were often low.  We gathered branches from the hedgerows and forest but it was not a steady supply and was often not enough when the weather got colder.  We built a woodcutter by our stockpile not far from our forester.  The locals preferred the old way of gathering from the forest but the main storage pile now had a supply of logs that was more than enough for their builder and smith.  A mini wood cutter block was set up to the right of the stockpile.  The winter would be a bit warmer with warm coats and more firewood.



Abandoned

Chapter 8


  I did not have as much time as I did before to gather branches from the hedgerow or surrounding area because I had a toddler, and now a newborn daughter we named Arma.   Our inland valley was more open and unprotected from the winter winds and drifting snow.  We built a branch gatherer's hut in the forest south of our house.  The hut was small but big enough to get out of the wind and warm up for a short time.  Our stockpile was small so we built a covered firewood storage next to it.  The roof would keep the snow off the firewood. 





  Corro, the young single girl living in the house behind the hunting stand, did some branch gathering too.  She said she found what she thought were 3 large walnut trees not far from her house.  She dug around in the snow under the trees but did not find any nuts to prove they were walnut trees.  If there had been any nuts, the deer from the 3 large herds that roamed the area probably ate them all.


Abandoned

Chapter 9



  When the snow melted and the weather warmed, Archery and I checked out the trees that Corro found.  They did indeed appear to be large walnut trees.  We weren't sure but we thought we already had enough walnuts.  There were walnuts, hazelnuts, and sunseeds in the hedgerows, and there were also chestnuts in the hedgerows with the apple trees.  We would have to go all the way to the local's mini town hall to check their inventory records to know for sure.  We only knew our food surplus was high, but our overall health was a little low.  We probably could use more grain.  A mini fishing pier was built by the locals to add more variety to our diet.




  We decided to build our own haven town hall to keep inventory records and statistics like birth and population.  Our Westwood villages had a total population of 51, 27 adults, 4 students, and 20 young children.
 


  That number increased by 10 when 8 adults with 2 young children came through the portal.  They brought seedling pots with them.  I guess it was time we got down to the business that the Elven Council of Elders sent us here to do, which was to help replenish the trees that were destroyed by years of extreme heat and drought and subsequent severe storms and flooding in areas to the south and to the west of us.

Abandoned

Chapter 10


  We needed to build more houses before we did anything else.  We had just finished building a haven fishing pier when the new families arrived.  A couple with an adult daughter and a newborn son wanted a house there by the river and school.  Like us and others who arrived, they thought the area and the fall colors were spectacular.  The colorful leaves were already beginning to fall by the time the second couple moved into their haven tree topper next to the branch gatherer's hut in the forest in our inland valley.





   A young single girl moved into a tree house near the local's fishing pier just as the first snowflakes began to fall.   The last couple with a newborn son were the couple that brought the seedling pots.  They had their haven tree topper house built to the right of our small stockpile and firewood storage.  A potting shed was built on the other side.  They thought the small forest there would be a good place to dig up the seedlings to pot.  The seedlings being planted by the forester across the road would be safe from being dug up by mistake.  Their house and potting shed were close to the portal if they needed to return to get more pots.