For those onboard, the fall of the Doenhaemr was a tragedy. Those who weren’t knocked clear of the airship’s deck with shot and blade were scattered across the rocky hillsides of southern coerthas. In what was perhaps the only blessing afforded his crew, none survived the landing. Their torn and shred bodies were food for the jackals and vultures of the region, and in a few short months, naught remained of them but a few scattered bones.
For the crew, it was a tragedy, but for those residents of the nearby town it was a strange and unsought miracle. Fox’s Hollow was a sleepy place, as Ishgardian hamlets went, too far south to feel the true wrath of either the Calamity’s weather, or Nidhogg’s crusade. It, like the dozens of unamed and unheralded villages like it, kept Ishgard fed through during the dark times of the Dragonsong war. Here, on the rocky highlands, woolly Karakul nibbled at the thorny shrubs, while rock enclosed terraces grow popotos, grains, and vegetables.
Things were tough in Fox’s Hollow, though every village has a similar story. Bad Harvests, animal attacks, disease, and the annual march of the recruiter for the Holy See come to take their best and strongest. Leaving the village a perpetual home of the too old and the too young to fight. Things were tough but bearable, the life of the peasantry in all times and all places.
Then, the airship fell. Most of its ceruleum and powder were long since spent, the Doenhaemr’s final battle with Halone’s Teat more an act of defiance than of survival. Thus, instead of a flaming wreck, the airship’s armor and hull was kept mainly intact, its deflated gasbag falling over it like a burial shroud.
It was a young herder who found it first, this rusting hulk of wood and iron, thought it was a moon or more before any were brave enough to venture inside. Eventually curiosity overcame fear, and among the shattered spars and decking they found crates of silvery steel, along with weapons and gold worth enough to feed their village though an era of bad harvests.
The men and women of Fox’s Hollow hid their boon well, sequestering the goods in barns and cellars, selling them off bit by bit as not to raise suspicion. Fearful of bandits and taxmen both, they lived their lives much as before. The empty hulk was now silent except for the laughter of children playing knights and knaves among broken gundecks, and as the villagers broke ground with fine new Limsian tools, or kept the chill away with imported Ul’dahn linens, they gave silent thanks to whatever force sent the Doenhaemr hurtling down from the clouds.
Or at least, they did until the killings began.
For the crew, it was a tragedy, but for those residents of the nearby town it was a strange and unsought miracle. Fox’s Hollow was a sleepy place, as Ishgardian hamlets went, too far south to feel the true wrath of either the Calamity’s weather, or Nidhogg’s crusade. It, like the dozens of unamed and unheralded villages like it, kept Ishgard fed through during the dark times of the Dragonsong war. Here, on the rocky highlands, woolly Karakul nibbled at the thorny shrubs, while rock enclosed terraces grow popotos, grains, and vegetables.
Things were tough in Fox’s Hollow, though every village has a similar story. Bad Harvests, animal attacks, disease, and the annual march of the recruiter for the Holy See come to take their best and strongest. Leaving the village a perpetual home of the too old and the too young to fight. Things were tough but bearable, the life of the peasantry in all times and all places.
Then, the airship fell. Most of its ceruleum and powder were long since spent, the Doenhaemr’s final battle with Halone’s Teat more an act of defiance than of survival. Thus, instead of a flaming wreck, the airship’s armor and hull was kept mainly intact, its deflated gasbag falling over it like a burial shroud.
It was a young herder who found it first, this rusting hulk of wood and iron, thought it was a moon or more before any were brave enough to venture inside. Eventually curiosity overcame fear, and among the shattered spars and decking they found crates of silvery steel, along with weapons and gold worth enough to feed their village though an era of bad harvests.
The men and women of Fox’s Hollow hid their boon well, sequestering the goods in barns and cellars, selling them off bit by bit as not to raise suspicion. Fearful of bandits and taxmen both, they lived their lives much as before. The empty hulk was now silent except for the laughter of children playing knights and knaves among broken gundecks, and as the villagers broke ground with fine new Limsian tools, or kept the chill away with imported Ul’dahn linens, they gave silent thanks to whatever force sent the Doenhaemr hurtling down from the clouds.
Or at least, they did until the killings began.
![[Image: yr2A1Eo.png]](http://i.imgur.com/yr2A1Eo.png)
