Event·Wasteland

The Lightning-Struck Tree

A massive cottonwood - rare in this terrain - stands at a bend in the trail, split almost perfectly in half by a lightning strike. The wood is charred black along the split, and the ground around the base is fused into a glassy crust where the strike superheated the sand.

The tree is still alive on one side. Birds are nesting in the upper branches, unfazed by the destruction below.

Choices

1
Rest in the tree's shade. Cottonwoods mean groundwater - this is a good spot.
no requirement
Success
You sit in the shade and eat. The breeze through the remaining canopy is the closest thing to comfort you've felt all day. Near the roots, you notice a small seep - water, barely a trickle, but clean. You fill a container.
Failure
The shade is inviting, but the ground is covered in sharp glass fragments from the fulgurite. You sit on what you think is a clear spot and immediately feel something poke through your pants. Glass, everywhere. Comfort denied.
2
Examine the fulgurite at the base. Lightning glass has value if the formation is intact.
no requirement
Success
You dig carefully around the base and extract a tube of fulgurite - sand fused into glass by the lightning strike. It's about thirty centimeters long and perfectly hollow. Fragile, but intact. Collectors and crafters pay well for natural glass.
Failure
The fulgurite shatters the moment you try to extract it. The formation looked solid but had internal stress fractures from the thermal shock. You're left holding a handful of glass splinters and a lesson about gentle hands.
3
That glassy crust - the mineral composition of the fulgurite tells you about the soil chemistry here.
Smelting lv 3
Success
The fulgurite has a greenish tint - copper content in the local sand. That means there's likely a copper deposit within a few hundred meters, leached into the topsoil over millennia. You take a sample of the fused glass and scan the surrounding terrain. Sure enough, a low ridge fifty meters east shows the distinctive blue-green staining of copper carbonate on exposed rock.
Failure
You identify the greenish tint as possible copper content, but when you test the surrounding soil by taste - a common prospecting technique - all you get is a mouthful of dirt. The copper signature in the fulgurite might be from a source that's already been leached dry, leaving nothing economically viable at the surface.

UUID