The Revenant: Wulf's Retreat - EPILOGUE

[Adder1234]

Now THAT was an epic story. All it needs now is some epic celtic music and underpaid and skilled actors and we have a pretty cool movie.

[Teleskop]

i miss it

[DaniAngione]

"Wake up." said the voice, "Wake up, you fool!"
As the senses started to come back to my body, I could feel some sort of big animal licking my face... What the hell?



"NIMBUS! Is that you, boy?"

Somehow Nimbus survived. After all this time, after all my other animals were dead, after everything that happened... Nimbus was still there, living his little life day by day... for hundreds of days.
How? Well, it all started with a message from someone.

We'll call her the Ghost of Wulf's Retreat.


CHAPTER 13:
THE GHOST OF WULF'S RETREAT

It was a very nice message.
A lot of things have happened in the Retreat during my time away. It was apparently sacked, reformed & sacked again... People stole stuff, people brought stuff, people even lived there for a while - apparently.
But in the end it was taken over by someone that had a different plan.

Someone that wanted to preserve it, not ruin it. Someone that wanted to take care of it and keep the dream going; someone that spent a lot of their time and effort to keep it repaired, built a new village idol, kept authority up, all that. Oh, and as you might guess - kept Nimbus well fed.

I got a message saying all that, explaining what happened and what would happen now.
I had to come and see it with my own eyes.



The Retreat was certainly in a bad shape.
It is a tough place - like the mountain it sits on - but it had seen better days...



I was filled with both joy and sadness.
I can only imagine what it has been through. The Ghost even told me that new gates were built, but she took them all down and rebuilt them to be like it were before...



The signs of the passing of time were everywhere... If the Retreat was to ever see its golden days again, or even more than that:
If the dream was to be fulfilled... it would take a lot of work.



Even poor Nimbus' enclosure was damaged.
Although, to be honest, most of the "abandoned" signs were intentionally created by the Ghost.
She meant to turn the Retreat into an abandoned town of sorts - and it looked great. I kept the broken stone fence because it's so pretty!



She also did a pretty good job by placing a lot of stuff, garbage, empty crates and stuff.
However not all damage was decorative and made by her... Some of it was real.



There were signs of raiding, signs of occupation... people apparently hauled a lot of stuff out of it. All my metal was gone, most of my materials and equipment were gone... I had tons of bones, leather, wax, metal bars of various kinds... Gone.
I suppose that's fine. I mean, it was expected.
It wasn't the worst thing, the greatest damage...



The greatest damage is something else.
It's the broken dream, the dreams of what could have been and what will never be.

But as they say: dreams come and go, the important thing is to remember what we are aiming for.
I've always had visions of a nice and open place for hearthlings from all over the hearthlands to gather, drink beer and wine, rejoice and sing songs by the fire. This is what the Retreat was meant for, this is the greatest dream of them all, regardless of anything else. Bigger than this, bigger than me.

And that dream lives on.

I guess it is time to chase after that dream once more!
It is decided. I shall come back, the Retreat shall rise once again!

Well...

First things first... let's see the damage inside the houses.
Kitchen!



Oh, alright... Gonna need to replace some cupboards and clean the mess. But seems mostly ok.
General storage?



Yep. Someone probably turned all my bone and wax into bone glue and hardened leather. Good for them, I guess
Apparently walking to the cupboard was harder than bringing the cupboards near the cauldron. Heh

Anyway, got a lot of work ahead of me, so let's get started!



In no time the interiors are reformed and back to their original states.
Improvements are on the way, of course.
But for now, I couldn't resist using my remaining Laurel to improve my master room even more with ALL THE COOL STUFF that was added after I was gone. NEW FURNITURE, study deks, COUCHES! Thanks, Jorb & Loftar! I'm so happy to come back to all that!



Alright! That's a good start.
With study desks built for me and my two alts and everything set up, it is time to bring things back to a functional state.

The first thing I wanted to do is to fix the farm gate.
By the way: I was really glad to see that the Ghost also preserved the farm (and my crops!)
About the gate: someone changed the gate to the "right" position - I liked it "wrong" because I could get in with a slave key.

So I fixed that with a bit of a rumble...



That wrecking ball had no idea how much work it had ahead of it.
The next step was to implement a new idea from my great new King --

Because, yeah - the Retreat is now part of the Ivory Kingdom! I've officially embraced it and acknowledged my new King.
He has nice ideas, what can I do?

For the idea to work, however, I need the "private area" walls down:



Woah.
That was lucky.

(Also "yay!" for Garden Pots!)



And it's done! With this new marvel from the modern world, I can finally go back and forth without having to teleport every 15 seconds.



Thank you, my great Sheriff King!

Nimbus is looking at me completely clueless; "What the--... our gate!"
Don't worry, Nimbus. The worst is yet to come.

There's one last thing that must be destroyed if the Ghost of Wulf's Retreat is to be renewed...



The village claim itself must go down and a new village claim must be built.



Nimbus looks from the distance. Poor horsie, he's worried. "The retreat will be vulnerable for two days" he tells me. Or at least I imagine he is telling me.
I say "It's ok, so what?" and he's like "You're going to do it and let everyone in the forums know!".

Well... Yeah?
But it happened a week ago - so that's fine now



It is time.
I pull the wrecking ball for one last time.
Farewell, Ghost. Thank you for keeping the place safe.



To be continued soon...

----

Well, that's it.
Thank you so much... my Ghost, for keeping the retreat safe and for helping me with ALL the things you've been helping me so far; new tools, new stuff, animals and all that.
And the mighty silver bar for a silver village idol chain (Spoilers!).

I've told you before but I'll say it again now: you're a part of the Retreat's history now. There's nothing to be done about it. You've owned it and kept it safe; you have made this return possible and you've given me the will to play the game again after so much.

For that, I'll always be thankful. Feel free to reveal yourself (or not); you deserve the praise!
And for the future, let us hope that the Retreat will finally fulfill the dream it's founded upon.

Hello again, Haven community

[Granny]

Awesome, you're back!

Wishing you all the best.

[tirioll]

Epic story, epic presentation. Good luck!

[Redlaw]

Glad your back, you did inspire me to my thread. Ya I love playing with the lighting in the game when I can, but we all have are fun ways of making things amazing in how we do it. You keep it up ^_^.

[DaniAngione]

Awesome, you're back!

Wishing you all the best.

Yes! Thank you :3

Epic story, epic presentation. Good luck!

Thank you very much. Hopefully it will only get better from now on!

Glad your back, you did inspire me to my thread. Ya I love playing with the lighting in the game when I can, but we all have are fun ways of making things amazing in how we do it. You keep it up ^_^.

Thanks I'm honored. Your thread is awesome and I love your style, like I said! Glad to see you here

-----------------

Oh, by the way, I should mention that since I'm back the Retreat has been operating on a "Gates open, Charter Stone on" policy! So feel free to visit anytime!

[Damon_Cooper]

Nice to see you're back, bro!
I've moved pretty far away from my last spot (twice), but I'll surely visit you again asap.

[Atamzsiktrop]

hey welcome back nice to have u

[Redkat]

A Most Welcome Back