First off in regards to our stance on other peoples, I concur that our intimidation is a great factor to utilize. I do caution about it when trying to recruit though, as different people respond to different things. Though specifically the type of clan we might be looking to recruit and in what position we are expecting them to fulfill. I am wary however of capturing them by force for the simple reason that it would add a threat to our own domain. The current advantage of our island is that we are free to roam around on it without fear, even the children as long as they don’t play too close to the edge that they might fall off. An enslaved population is a potential uprising, and may mitigate some of the safety we currently enjoy. However, it is likely would could handle such a small threat to ourselves.

As an experiment we had Wehilani fly Kennae down to the earth below to scavenge for snails since she is the strongest flyer. In terms of weight she can transport at least, the harpy is definitely more agile in the air. This went well, though definitely was tiring for Wehilani as she had to climb quite a height to get back up. Unfortunately, the fires have affected the snail population as well. Kennae was only able to find perhaps a dozen. Though it is a start.

We also had Ka’oana investigate the depths of the lake. Along with some of our others who might understand the situation to investigate. The problem seems to have been compounded not only by the fact that the deeper part of the lake doesn’t run out through the river, but the floating island has trapped it where it is. So there isn’t enough natural drainage through the soil, as not too far down is whatever rocks allow the place to remain aloft.

The Huanacan have a few oozes among them who could help clean the place, but they hate submerging themselves in water. Something about being washed away. We could consider draining the lake entirely so that the oozes can reach the problematic areas. Then utilize these snails and perhaps other creatures for the long term cleaning. However, in the short term, we are likely to experience a water shortage soon. Water is also the hardest thing for Wehilani to bring up from the ground due to its weight, difficulty of transport, and the sheer quantity needed to slake the thirsts of so many. Though judging by how green this island is, there is no shortage of water. The task is simply how to collect enough of it. A lot of people are at least getting something from the fruits of the island, though you see why I am still concerned with the availability of drinking water. These are issues we must tackle quickly. On a related topic, Kennae isn’t sure how to get fish up here yet. Which may be something we wish to do in the future.

While the island provides much we did not have before, the land beneath is still a burned wasteland. Since we cannot control the island to move, we have no idea how long it will be before we find ourselves above more fruitful lands for our few flyers to scavenge.

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You may chant by moonlight, but it is day! You have no power here, now I am chieftain Chants by Morning! Ooga chugga ooga chugga. Wait what did I come here for again…

Oh yes right. So bone rope….yeah no. I can make bones strong and noodly like a rope…wait whats a noodle? Squishy…bendy. Anyways I can make a bone kind of ropey but hrmm that sounds like rapey. No wait rope bone, can’t make it long. Unless maybe we find something with a very long spine…about a hundred of them. SNAKES! Bring me ALL THE SNAKES. Hehe danger noodles. Whats a noodle?

*The next morning at an ungodly hour for anyone to be awake*

BEHOLD, A BOWL OF NOODLE. I made it out of plant fibers and bone marrow, its like a giant basket but its really strong. Also it floats on air. Be sure to tie it to something- oh there it goes. It floats even with the weight of two people in it! I’ll leave you to unstick it from the roof of your hut. It’s really hard to get back down. You might need a big rock. Good thing you have a nice hut, it almost carried mine off.

A rope from the island to the ground is difficult, because the ground below is not always the same distance away. Also that is a really long rope. I estimate it at seven hundred ninety eight skips straight down. It needs to be a strong rope too. ALL THE SNAKES. WINGS FOR EVERYBODY. Oh actually, Huanacan once tamed a manticore. Get more. Attach bowl of noodle. Via snake. All of them.

I went asking around to figure out what magical options the tribe might have available to it overall. I do notice we make up the bulk of it, I was hoping this cultural exchange might yield more ideas for my work. Yet of course, the one person with a magic truely original and different that I was most excited for, has no damned clue how their own powers work. Anyways we have…

 

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Before our harpy was sent to look for more of her kind that more of her kind simply…showed up. The flying island passed by the mountain her kind would call home. This island definitely attracts all who can fly due to being such a curiosity. They likely would have fought us for the territory were not for the fact that we managed to get a whole tribe of things onto it.

Actually a few of them took to nesting in the mountain on this island. Notably on the far side, they are definitely experimenting if they can sneakily inhabit Auwana despite our obvious claim to it. They are not all harpies though, and they are not all united. They simply tolerate each other as fighting for territory seems of little benefit given they all realize that their food source will have to come from down below as long as our tribe holds claim to Auwana itself.

We have seen Aarakocra, a griffon, some harpies, members of the demon clan below, and even a faerie dragon. Not to mention non-sapient species as well, including a juvenile roc. Not all have stayed but many have passed by, which affirms the earlier idea that the island’s mere existence draws flying species to check it out. This may pose a defensive threat to us in the future if anything decides it really wants to settle down. Despite fears the island could not support the whole tribe or might limit our expansion, the reverse is our current plight. There aren’t enough of us to cover such a vast stretch of land, especially from things that just fly around. We have a few members of the clan keeping watchful eye on the far mountainside, I think its a mountain at least. Its seems too rocky to call a hill but its not actually all that large.

Anyways, we have some of our people watching the area as well as other places near the island borders to see who visits. Our old friend Kaya, the camp invader, has been instrumental in this since she can just stand in plain sight without any of them noticing here counting how many are perched on the mountain rocks. I have been collecting their reports just to keep an idea of what is going on around here, and what strangers might be visiting. It definitely strikes me that despite our assumed security up here, that we are not able to totally secure these borders. I think the elder chief underestimates the threat of these visitors, I would definitely not recommend children leave the village alone. There are far more birds of prey than one would think, and they can get pretty big.

Our harpy has become an ambassador of sorts to these flying guests, keeping tabs on them as well as talking with the more intelligent ones. This has been a fruitful relationship, one of the Aarakocra accepted the offer to join the clan. Perhaps tentatively as they are afraid of the rest of the tribe near the lake, but they are content to keep staying in the mountains and assist us with tracking and speaking with visitors of the island. They took the offer as a form of assurance that they are now official denizens of the island, and I have offered that if any of the other bird folk might try to evict him from his spot on the mountain that we will send our warriors to assert his legal claim to the land.

In regards to the lake, we actually never recruited any aquatic species. Largely because we have never lived near a lake. Too many people visiting, but the Elder Chief assigned it to Ka’oana. Since crocodiles actually just hold their breath underwater, he is not affected by the troubles of the water quality.

Also I have taken full stock of our people and their unique abilities.

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I swapped the tents, they are confused but not amused. Success. Also I have no idea what sugar cane is. You can’t change your title to elder either, for one thing you’re the youngest. Second, that title is reserved for the old bull, to symbolify that he is the chief of chiefs and rules the whole tribe. Sit still dang it.

Anyways, our clan seems to have become appointed as officers when it comes to mediating disputes between clans as long as our own is not involved. Though after that tent swap I wouldn’t be surprised if we are the most frequently involved. That being said, that job had a lot more to do than I originally thought. I’ve spent most of my time helping Huanacan keep an eye on the wild life but Nenetl has been-

Doing all the actual work thank you very much. As it is there are actually a lot of things that might need mediation as the clans get used to each other but also as they all get used to the tribe’s own rulings on certain matters. Recently its just been some housing disputes but those were relatively minor especially since everyone started building up their little sections of the village a bit split from each other. Though there is also a distinct lack of tribal laws available to base mediation off of, and every clan has their own bright ideas.

Oddly one of the first questions to come up was if two people from separate clans were to marry what clan do they remain a part of? There aren’t any marriages planned, but I had four of our girls ask me that within relatively quick succession and I suspect that despite our independent spirit, some of the rescued slaves are happy to see some men again that aren’t trying to rape and pillage them.

Another thing I’ve noticed is some arguments over resources. Specifically who gets to harvest what. There is of course always a desire to cut down all the trees to build a really sweet house. However, the Huanacan are rather attached to the trees as they live in the wooded areas and aren’t so happy with the idea of people cutting down the whole forest relentlessly. Not to mention some of the people who want to cut down all the things aren’t always aware which trees bear fruit that we’re currently relying on. There was also an incident where a member of the Hariwana almost got stabbed because it turns out the dozen also like having trees nearby to their camp and someone wandered a liiiittle too close with an axe. For now I’ve put in a ‘okay we have houses now, stop cutting down trees until we figure something out’ rule. While the island’s forest is fairly vast, you don’t know when you’re over-harvesting until you’ve over-harvested. Given we are trapped on a floating island, it might be important to maintain such things carefully.

Also there have been some fist fights but I left those alone because we do have a thing for duels anyways and until they start stabbing maybe its just best to let them work it out. However, such conflicts can lead to further clan introversion and mentality. So that’s a thing to look out for.

Also as requested I looked around to see who knows how to make what. Rope, Fire, Bows, sewing, tanning, jerky, pemmican, adobe, the atlatl, canoes, calenders, sundials, stone shaping, suspension bridges, how to put stuff in a pipe and smoke it.

Some of the other clans down below might know some other weird tricks. Though thats our current baseline.

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Most of the village is built on the lakeshore rather close to the woods. So we just built our homes slightly further east towards the river. It had the large boulder requested. It’s been a long time since any of the dozen have built a proper home for longer term use other than an overnight tent. Admittedly we let the beastkin help us with some of the construction ideas, such as where the support beam is supposed to be and whatever this adobe stuff is to add some reinforcement to the structure against the strong winds this island…apparently named Auwana, experiences.

The two greatest contributors in the battle with the Wyvern were arguably Ka’oana and Hakenu’e himself. Turns out the old bull still has some life left in him after all these years. Obviously they were somewhat attached to their own clan, so not much recruitment to occur there.

As for the lake that was covered at the tribal council already and the ongoing effects that is having. Though our own magic men lack for any method of dealing with the lake’s stagnation. Scouting off the edge of the island for Avanoco yields a difficulty, most of the larger beasts were destroyed by the fires of the Chanai. Anything else that might be one such beast, could easily be one of the mounts of the Chanai. It is hard to tell from up here if there is anyone riding them, though we assume as much due to them often being in groups with other animals that do not match their species.

Also Ragash has returned from scouting.

The Huanacan have been making an effort to find all that flies around the island, so I went looking elsewhere. The mountain that they’re poking at due to how many birds are landing on it has a cave network underneath it. It is however, not a very large cave and can be somewhat difficult to squeeze through but there are many winding passages. Most notably, there are a lot of colorful stripes in the rocks. Lot of blue especially, some lines that were obviously gold as well. However, some of them don’t look like they just naturally formed. Some look more like they were intentionally placed there by some unknown entity. All the rocks that don’t look like they should be there are notably green in color with some of them emanating a soft glow. I’m wary of poking at them.

The woods are quite vast here, I would imagine its because this island has been adrift since possibly the dawn of time and they had nothing to do but grow. I do notice a very odd trend of the woods though, there are trees that line a lot of the island’s boundaries and they are all of no tree we have seen before. Instead of leaves they look more like they have green needles along their branches. They are still soft, and only mildly prickly, but these trees are dominant around the entire border of all the wooded areas whereas leafier trees tend to exist more inwards towards the island’s center. There is also more than one lake, and even a swamp. This island must have a lot more water than you would think available to it, we’re just doing doing so well with figuring out how to drink it. Notably there exists a bit of a pond to the northeast of the lake we dwell by. It runs off the side of the island and notably had no water in it at the time.

Earlier in the month  built a dam to prevent any water it did collect from flowing off the side of the island. Later when I returned to it, there was already enough water in it to take a drink from, and it was quite a bit cleaner than the lake we live right next to. There had been no rainfall though, but I asked around and according to the village the expert on such matters was a kobold they called “Kennae”. He says that the island is collecting large amounts of water by passing through clouds, which is why we are occasionally and randomly plunged into deep fog. Whatever the clouds contact, it leaves some moisture on. It is likely that this is why the island is so wet, instead of waiting for rain it merely steals the rain from the sky for itself. As proof of this, the island came from the northwest. A very dry area, yet its swamp is still very wet. The shallows of the lake stagnated during that journey, the majority of its water ran off through the river off the side of the island. By damming that we should be able to collect enough water to fill the lake again in no time, we just have to clean it up.

For now, collect water from ponds that form downriver or from the lake I dammed off in the northeast. That is freshly acquired by the island and hasn’t touched the central lake to become contaminated yet.

As for other creatures, there are only birds here. I have yet to see any squirrels, bears, or anything else. I don’t think anything else has ever been able to get up here and that has contributed to the massive overgrowth of the forest. Seriously, the ground is almost impossible to see underneath all the foliage running wild up to my damned chest in some areas. Nothing is grazing on the smaller shrubbery so it just keeps on growing. We might need to drag a couple deer up here.