Riven Tides: Scout Report

I want to be honest about how all this started. 

Shani’s been telling stories of an old first wave refuge along the coast. A place we abandoned years ago, when there were too many vulnerabilities. Exposed to attacks from the water, but trapped there if surrounded from the West. I get the sense it hurt them when they had to leave. 

She told me there was a hotel. That’s something akin to an accommodation block - but from what I gather, more. A swimming pool, bars, a place where people would dance.

And down the coast, a dockyard. It had something to do with the Exodus. She called it a… stain on the horizon. Shani’s an old-head, clearly got some resentment about whatever went down here.

Shani said I could have backup, but I told her I didn’t need it. It sounded like a good idea, and I thought I’d find a few things for myself along the way. Was only planning on a perimeter sweep but the place drew me in. There’s a story here - one that bleeds out of the cliffs, flows down the dried-up riverbed and into the ocean. But the tides just keep bringing it back… like an old grudge. 

APPROACH 18:06:

The welcome sign was salt-worn and peeling but clear enough: Panorama Azzurro. 

Inside it’s strange. Posters still hang on the walls, smashed glasses on the countertops, beds still made. It’s like whoever lived here got up one evening and just never came back. Like everything’s on pause. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about the rooftop bar, imagining people revelling beneath the stars, without fear of what might descend out of them. 

EXTERIOR, REAR 18:39:

I’m in it now, so I decide to press on. The resort wasn’t totally abandoned, if you know what I mean, and I don’t fancy fighting metal today. 

Passing the pool I saw a large plastic slope descending from the hill. Some kind of water feature? Up and over, across the ridgeline and down toward the beachfront. Nothing can prepare you for a sunset over the ocean. I stayed here longer than I should have, but come on…

Others used to have the same idea - sun loungers and another bar. Damn, these people were celebrating something alright. I snapped myself out of my daze and set my course along the coast. A bad idea I know. It’s too open… too low. 

But I had to take off my boots just to feel the sand beneath my feet. I listened to the birds and felt the heat of the sun on the back of my neck. Walked like that all the way to the harbor. A pack of Wasps brought me back to reality further down the beach. 

HARBOR 19:14:

The docks are something else. Towering cranes, piles of shipping containers, and a sea wall encasing it all. It’s different from the hotel: industrial, cold.

It’s easy to imagine the Raiders going wild for a place like this; plenty of verticality, cover, spaces to cause trouble, or disappear into. There's signs of flooding too. The tides seem to have swallowed parts of the dockyard and spat it back out again onto the sand. Dead ships lie wrecked and half buried while stacks of containers are toppled and strewn along the strip.

Hard to believe this was an Exodus port, once. Must have taken a small army to staff it up and keep it running. I wonder who they were, and what happened to them. Something tells me they weren’t exactly living it up at the Azzurro. 

I was checking one of the buildings when something passed overhead. Just a shadow. Slow, deliberate. By the time I got outside I'd lost it. I just want it on record before anything else happens.

Someone needs to come back here properly. Full team. Full sweep. Shani was right.

She usually is.

End of report. Coordinates appended. All pictures filed.

Awaiting confirmation.

*The Riven Tides Update goes live April 28.