Moses the Mutant and his tribe settled into the strange land comfortably. The boney structures provided unique resources unknown to the world previously. The sinew of Jotun could be used to make four hundred-pound bows. A dark green ore calcified on the bone, which he figured out can be melted and hammered into a sturdy metal. Some mutants took interest in blacksmithing and used the metal to create armor and weapons to resemble pictures found in Moses’s books. Jotun continued to provide. His bones were cut down to create boathouses. In a particularly symmetrical skull in the middle of the skeletal forest, Moses built a shrine and made his library available to all in his tribe. He encouraged them to learn from the books and to try and practice the skills from them. Naturally the tribe of mutants took interest in becoming better warriors. They conceded that their approach to fighting was not well thought out as they relied heavily on their resilient bodies and brute strength. Without an enemy to distract them, they honed their skills with melee weapons forged of Jotun. They hunted death claw and yao guai with their powerful bows and honed their aim. They sparred against each other frequently. Moses was proud that they took interest in different things and was able to distinguish archers from berserkers and shieldmaidens. He never thought he would see his people as a group of builders and individuals. He was particularly fond of a Mutant named Drood who figured out a way to domesticate the Yao Guai and breed Brahmin. He beamed and sighed contently every day when he exited his pale boathouse. He created a civilization. He was right about following the human’s books. It would be arrogant to not seek the wisdom in them. He took to writing his own books but had to come up with a simplified alphabet that all the Mutants could read. More mutants became literate, although most only learned the new written language. They couldn’t figure out how to make paper, so when Moses ran out, he took to carving on the most aesthetically pleasing structures of Jotun. For a tribe of Super Mutants, they knew peace. They had plenty of outlets to release their aggression, whether it be hammering Jotun Steel or sparring in Valhalla, which was a training ground the mutants created within the boneland. They roasted Yao Guai and drank fermented Mut-Fruit out of death claw horns. After about four years a mutant hunter named Arte spotted a human for the first time. He was hunting death claw about six miles from Jotun. He recognized him from his days in the Mojave as a Legion scout. Arte fired a Jotun steel arrow with his four hundred-pound bow and pinned the legion scout to a tree at his leg. Still pinned to the tree, the scout tried to ready his assault rifle, but before he could return fire, another harpooned sized arrow shattered and pinned what was left of the weapon against the tree, useless next to the struggling human. Arte approached the man and used a Jotun Steel hatchet to chop off the leg pinned to the tree and free the scout. Only to knock him unconscious with a held back punch. He woke up again when Arte cauterized his stump with mut-fruit vodka and a small blow torch he carried with him, to maintain his weapons on long hunting trips. He knocked him out again and carried him back to Jotun. Moses felt only a little guilty for lying to the human. After getting all the information he could, he took his axe to his head. He wanted to keep Jotun a secret from humans for as long as he could. He had the Nightkin of his tribe train to be adaptable and remain undetected. He sent his Nightkin on thirty mile patrols in every direction. Sometimes they would travel with hunters, but they kept to their task, which was to make sure humans don’t reach Jotun. He was becoming more and more worried about the Legion, as every so often his nightkin would return with another scout. He maintained extracting information and killing the human. As he learned more about the Legion, he admired them. He remembers reading about humans as such in his favorite book. He knew that history would repeat itself and humans would find their way to Jotun. A Mutant named Brok obsessed over Jotun Steel. He handled it and worked his clumsy mutant fingers to the bone to create tools, weapons and armor. He discovered that if one cooled Jotun Steel meticulously slow, then it would take on a unique effect. Moses couldn’t believe his eyes as he witnessed a Jotun Arrow bounce off the armor, leaving only a dent. Then violet veiny like tendrils would glow dimly inside the metal. The dent disappeared along with the strange glowing veins. “Jotun lives in the Steel, brother!” Brok declared famously.
While his Nightkin kept their location a secret, Brok worked tirelessly to outfit the tribe with equipment forged of his refined, reforming Jotun Steel. He even outfitted Drood’s Yao Guai with some armor plating. Moses was always proud in the advancements of his tribe, but he wondered if Jotun would provide enough to keep the humans away. It angered him to think that a human would see his land and his tribe, and somehow believe they have claim to it. Jotun is as unnatural to them as the FEV itself. He had no problem migrating from Jacobstown, but he had to keep Jotun for his people. His tribe grew slowly, which suited Moses; Jotun provided more than enough. His scouts would escort stray bands of super mutants to Jotun if they were encountered, which was infuriatingly less often than Legion scouting parties from the West. He noticed an influx in Mutants coming from the east. Even for mutants, there was something wrong with them. They were significantly less intelligent than members of his tribe from the west. They were hard to keep entertained and didn’t have capacity for much else, other than breaking things and fighting. Luckily for him, the Mutants of the East proved to be stronger than his western brothers and they made short work of cutting and mining Jotun. Many complained that it wasn’t violent enough, but they were happy when Brok fitted them for their own gear. To his surprise, the Eastern Mutants fit in well. They made him miss his old friend Marcus; he might be able to help them with their broken minds. He took interest in a mutant and named him Psalm. Psalm tried his hardest to be like the mutants from the west. He was the liaison for helping Moses understand his eastern brothers. Psalm once explained “We are from pain, but Jotun makes the pain go. No humans, no anger, perfect place.” Moses wondered where the mutants from the East were from; he could trace his original tribe back to Mariposa. He could never get a straight answer from them, but he deduced that they were the result of FEV experimentation gone more wrong than it did in the west. A twenty-three-foot mutant wandered from the East to Moses’s astonishment. The great mutant couldn’t communicate in the most basic speech; it only whispered gutturally the words “I’m sorry” and no one could be sure if that’s what he said. He didn’t harm the other mutants. In fact, he seemed drawn to Jotun and somewhat at peace with its surroundings. Psalm let it be known that this was extremely unusual for a “behemoth” to “not be angry.” Moses named the mutant Goliath. It was a hard task for Drood to keep him fed, but all of Jotun agreed it was worth having an unstoppable warrior in case a human army made its way to Jotun. Brok even forged massive armor and fashioned a great mace so Goliath could change the landscape. A barrage of missiles wouldn’t stop Goliath.
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