We send back first load of trade goods. Oh-boy-dokey those go over well. Of course they do. We say they from Shenyu. Who want to call cranky egg-layer shen liar within her hearing? We send shens most likely get good dealings, not one get into fights so much. Need fighting ones here. Wherever 'here' actually be.
Much moneys made on first trip. We hire more experts. Get some more carts, hire wheel-wright. Get a book-keeper. Send encrypted messages back to Shenyu. Tell them we struggling toughly against much odds in wilderness. Need more troops, more engineers, cheap labor, lots of melon seeds and more settler-shens.
While merchant-shen go back to markets in Butrus, we two boss-shens and a small group of crossbow-shens go take looksee at small talus cave under 2 miles away from our encampment.
Nice walk.
Could make a road later, if cave worth anything. Might use for storage. There's a small river flowing into cave, maybe a grotto. We okay with that.
Shen explore cave. Find markings, bits of pretty-glass, digging around and we find a pair of nicey-nice decanters. One goes into our office. Sell the other one, or use as a gift-bribe if needed. Good lootings, not a lot, but a start.
Then we smell something.
Kitty!
Not Mister Sprinkles.
We find big cave-beasts with long-long teeth. Dumb big stinky cave-cats. Rotten things kill some shens. We kill them back. Skin them and make armor for chieftain of the hunters who come along with us to this place. Eat the meat for dinner. Stringy. At least the skulls look good over our gate.
We get engineers to examine cave. Too crumbly-unstable to make fortified, but might work for storage and a nice resource depot. We go explore other interesting area next time. Maybe we can capture some cave-beasts, make them guard-kittys for the camp? They might make nice pets for the childrens, once they learn no eat shens.
This good place. We make a good life here.
