Frostbound

The first thing that I noticed was the change in temperature. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt at my grandparent's house since it was mid-March and Ohio was going through the false spring period with temperatures in the high sixties or low seventies. After putting on an extra layer of leather, the clearing we came from was starting to make me sweat even though it was roughly the same temperature.

Standing on top of the hill we were on I could feel the cool breeze cutting through my gear and was not looking forward to the temperature drop at night. Being cold was better than being hot, but sleeping in frigid temperatures didn't sound appealing.

I took a moment to take in my surroundings and was blown away by the view. It was breathtaking. To the north were the tallest mountains I had ever seen with snow-capped tips jutting into the clouds. Being from Ohio -and never having been to a mountain- that statement didn't mean much, but I had no words to describe it.

To the west and east were rolling hills for miles before ending and turning into a flat plain with a river running through it to the east. The west ended in a forest a bit further out than where the hills stopped in the east. To the south, there was a much closer forest that was only a couple miles away compared to the dozen or so miles to the west. I didn't know which direction was the most beautiful as they all had a picturesque look to them.

"Why didn't you pick one of the middle markers that were closer to the forest? It's freezing here." One of my uncles broke the silence with his question.

"Having an easily defensible position is more important than being comfortable with the temperature. Plus those markers were surrounded on all sides by other markers. Having to defend from every direction is impossible with the amount of people we have. This far north has hills that are defensible, a close forest for lumber and food, a river to the east for water, and no markers further north so we can't be surrounded." Granddad's answer gave me something to think about.

He was already thinking ahead to which areas would be defensible and which could be surrounded by other factions, even taking food and water into account. It gave me comfort to know that he was taking this seriously and thinking of the future because if it was up to me I would have picked one of the middle ones.

There was a blinking obelisk at the top of the hill we were standing on that took our attention away from the discussion and all of us walked towards it. The obelisk itself wasn't that large, being only about four and a half feet tall and only a foot wide on both sides.

After some trial and error we discovered that touching the obelisk brought up a new screen where you could buy things from a store using points. As none of us had any points yet, we couldn't buy anything but we could still look and see what was available for purchase. Skills were available alongside gear and weapons. There were even defenses available to turn the area around the pylon into a fortress -like wooden walls and guard towers- but they were greyed out like it was unavailable. The most exciting thing was at the bottom of the list it said, 'Upgrade to outpost to unlock more options.'.

There was no telling what we would eventually be able to purchase and I was starting to get a little excited. What if it can give me a skill to throw fireballs or something.

At the top of the list, there was a button that said, 'Claim ownership of pylon.'

Not knowing what else we were supposed to do, Granddad selected it and confirmed that he wanted to claim ownership. As soon as that happened a timer started counting down from a minute with big bold letters that said,