The Flats
The green brush gives way, and then there is nothing. Pure white below, pristinely blue above, and between them: the Flats. A vast salt desert stretching across the western half of Progress, the Flats are the final and most lethal stage of the pilgrimage to the Great Lake. No food. No water. No shelter from the relentless sun or the vultures that circle overhead waiting for pilgrims to fall.
The corpses of fallen pilgrims are so well preserved by salt that they remain standing or sitting as permanent trail markers. Living pilgrims leave offerings near these bodies as they pass, making well-traveled paths identifiable by the accumulation of leavings around the dead. The system works, up to a point. As more pilgrims die and more corpse markers accumulate, the correct path becomes harder to determine; each new body creates a new potential waypoint, and the multiplying dead scatter the trails into a maze of the faithfully departed.
The Dead Tree stands nearly a hundred feet tall at the center of the Flats, a man-made metal structure of unknown origin with rusted empty branches reaching skyward. Its narrow shadow stretches across the desert, serving as the only reliable landmark. Legend says the first Pilgrim, a man of the King's Court, built it to give hope to those making the crossing. Whether or not that is true, the shadow of the Dead Tree is the only thing in the Flats that points a reliable direction. Everything else points at the dead.
The corpses of fallen pilgrims are so well preserved by salt that they remain standing or sitting as permanent trail markers. Living pilgrims leave offerings near these bodies as they pass, making well-traveled paths identifiable by the accumulation of leavings around the dead. The system works, up to a point. As more pilgrims die and more corpse markers accumulate, the correct path becomes harder to determine; each new body creates a new potential waypoint, and the multiplying dead scatter the trails into a maze of the faithfully departed.
The Dead Tree stands nearly a hundred feet tall at the center of the Flats, a man-made metal structure of unknown origin with rusted empty branches reaching skyward. Its narrow shadow stretches across the desert, serving as the only reliable landmark. Legend says the first Pilgrim, a man of the King's Court, built it to give hope to those making the crossing. Whether or not that is true, the shadow of the Dead Tree is the only thing in the Flats that points a reliable direction. Everything else points at the dead.
Geography
The Flats are a vast expanse of pure white salt desert stretching across the western half of Progress in Deserter. The terrain is flat salt with no food, no water, and no natural shelter. The climate is arid with relentless sun above blinding white ground. Salt-preserved pilgrim corpses serve as trail markers, with offerings left by passing pilgrims accumulating around the dead. The Dead Tree, a rusted metal structure nearly a hundred feet tall with empty branches reaching skyward, stands at the center as the only reliable landmark. The Green Desert transitions into the Flats from the east.
