Stories of Lore 12

 

 

Still got awhile before the island leaves the jungle. Its almost as if some cosmic force prevents us from leaving until we finish some sort of purpose in each location. Sometimes I wonder if the goddess controls the island and determines when and where we will go arbitrarily by some sort of purpose, and if we had not chosen to go on the island -of all possibilities- we’d have more freedom even though the island can move. I don’t know man, sometimes it keeps me up at night.

 

 

 

The siblings have gone to meet with Xacalli. The particular hurdle they currently face is just finding Xiomac in a reliable enough way to launch any sort of attack on him. The jungle is fairly large.

Tupai has added a claw to a zombie annnnd that’s it. According to him adding new pieces and getting them to be functional is difficult when dealing with a corpse. Though he has started looking into it more and is in need of a humanoid corpse for experimentation. We mostly just store bones. We also may not want to necessarily tell everyone about his latest project.

We’ve gone around and made sure the village’s magical artifacts are concealed to a reasonable extent. Though there are a few Sawiri insisted on leaving where they were. When I asked why he just started giggling.

 

We’ve had some people start tending to the ponds, its not a particularly intensive task. Mostly just watching them to see how they’re doing. The only difficult part is the walk over there. Maybe we should get some steeds onto the island, it is quite large. As the whole Esin thing has proven.

Speaking of which, the snails are doing well. We’ve lost half of them in the lake but I suppose that was the intent in the first place.  The lake is looking better as of late, though its still not quite drinkable.

Kennae and the Vanguard are hunting through the jungle to see if they can find the Great Stalker a second time. I get the impression it is difficult to do.

As for the northern monsters that Uyitzan has encountered, they’re not too different from those on the Ashen Plains. It is worth noting the river the villages they found is the same river that runs through the old Chanai territory on the north side. So I suppose its not all that different. Less gnolls than usual though, a few more goblins. Gnolls are dominant in most open areas, I think they prefer to go south into the plains and the grasslands where its warmer. Once you go past the river for any meaningful distance things start getting uncomfortably cold. Though the goblins lurk around there as they can usually make clothes and simple shelters, as well as the area not being full of gnolls. Which eat goblins.

As for determining Esin’s standing, I can’t quite suck her brain out and read her mind no. Though we do have some people in the tribe who are very talented at finding out much deeper layers of information. Koamalu and Kaya come to mind.

 

If its any assurance, the travelers are much further south than the events at the river. They’re actually further south than Auwana. It seems they’re just taking a lap around the whole jungle…and they started on the northern side. So they are unlikely to find this plague creature. If that would even affect The Leper.

 

As for Mikaere’s weapons. They are snake fangs strapped to a stick with venom in them. I don’t think it has much application beyond the first hit or so that it lands. Though I doubt many encounters require repeated uses. Really its just a club with spikes on it, and the spikes happen to be taken from the giant snakes in the jungle. Though they are working on a new idea for a weapon similar to that along with Sawiri.

The Travelers have decided to start scouting out for the key edges. Just to know where they are, how well defended they are, and maybe lure out the archdruid in the process if they can figure the stones out. They requested we send someone who can figure out how the edges work in case the opportunity should arise.  As for druidism, their guide informs them that such things are possible and that was the end of it. Mostly because the Travelers are busy traveling. I’ll have the Nezatl druid students look into those things specifically though while they’re taking the time to just sit around and study.

The Vanguard have headed down below to join up with Kennae in the hunt.

So Silas took a different route to learning about Mikaere’s weapons on accident. More so he took a side trip along with Koamalu and this leads into…

Esin is a descendant of one of the original demon druids. She cannot shapeshift…fully. I have reason to believe she wasn’t originally as large as she is now, but she used her mother’s druidic talents to help her grow bigger and stronger than any other demon. Silas believes she might be the strongest demon he’s ever seen, and can likely overpower crows with just her physical might.

She seems to be far more intelligent than she might otherwise let on. For the most part her motives are somewhat hard to pin down. Koamalu had some things to report on the matter.

 

She seems to view the world very measured terms. I believe her to be shaped by a very peculiar youth. I need someone more talented in poisons to confirm this, but I think she killed her own mother with whatever is in her claws. It smells like no other poison I have come across. I suspect she made the only poison in the jungle that could defeat a druids natural immunity to such things, so no one would suspect the illness her mother died of to be a deliberately inflicted thing. I could be wrong, but she behaves like an orphaned exile. So at the very least I don’t think they had a good relationship. I have many other theories but the important part is that she doesn’t trust anyone or anything. She’s acting the way she is because as long as the people of pride rock consider her valuable and of similar motives to them she feels that she can trust them if only due to mutual self interest.

Her obsession with these things is why she’s the strongest demon we’ve ever seen, but she presents no attempt to use this to intimidate anyone she talks with. She is amassing traits that prevent people from desiring to enter into a conflict with her. This leads into the issue, we don’t entirely understand her motivations but may need to trade with her. Food and hides are not important in this regard. She knows a lot of things, information dies with the holder and that I believe this to be the reason she guards it so closely. As I mentioned earlier – it makes sure that being forceful with her is not going to produce a desirable result.

There are still many unknowns regarding the demon, but I can say for sure that she is the most intelligent adversary I have yet encountered. She will be more careful in the future, as she did not know what I specialize in until now. My advice is to decide very quickly what you want to do with her. The longer you wait, the more moves will be cut off from you. If you want her gone from Auwana, you need to kill her immediately. She already has the loyalty of pride rock and we will lose the village by going against her so overtly, but give her any longer and we may have to deal with other sympathizers. If you wish to put up with her ploys and try to affirm an alliance you should do so immediately before it is less a favor or gesture of goodwill from us and more an act of necessity she controls.

However, I will say I don’t think her ties to Xiomac are the concern to deal with. It is if we start losing perhaps, but by then we’ll be in deep enough that its not too risky. Xiomac won’t settle for a victory against us, he’ll want the island itself. So we’ll already be halfway into the ground by the time she turns around and burns the village to the ground.

This brings us around to your…initial grievance. She sees what she claimed as her own that she simply moved to the island. More accurately, she stole half of it from Xiomac to cement her position here. That or did so to enforce his goal of infiltrating Auwana. I am pretty sure it would be very easy to get her to tell us how these things work and where to find them now that she already has the largest collection of them. I don’t think she’s just going to hand it over…at least not yet. Once winter comes she probably will be a lot more interested in trading them. If I were to bet on it, she’ll give us the necessities you mentioned freely. Though not right now, only once people need it. To maximize the affect it has on people’s perception of her.

In essence, she’s very passive aggressive. Putting the burden of making a decision on us as an exploitation of our currently higher standing than her. We will have to anger all of the flying folk to take the supplies from them and cut off her trading plans. That or we will have to do nothing and let her have free reign to do as she wishes. I’ll leave you to decide what to do with her. In the meantime Silas has a different matter to mention.

She has weapons. Lots of them. Not necessarily in storage or anything, but she knows how to make them. She got the information from the western water people and Xiomac. I talked to Koamalu about it on the walk back here. We think she didn’t make any to show us so we can’t take them by force since the flying folk could not win if we were to try that. Instead we have to ask her for them directly.

While our own weapons and understanding of them rival hers, they are two separate ideas. Notably, she specializes in two aspects of weapons. I will call it ‘augmentation’ in particular. Her claws are a natural born gift, so is the venom on them. I think that asshole who attacked me was trying to imitate her craft. She makes non-magical…things to add to weapons to increase their effectiveness. Particularly, some sort of liquid that protects wood from the jungle. You know how we rub sticks to make them last longer? She has a better version of that. Her other aspect is materials. She knows special kinds of wood, stones, and such that make them just…better. While we know more thanks to your travels in terms of what materials work and don’t, she knows how to alter materials to make them just a little bit better. The thing she lacks though is craftsmanship. She has been trying to train some of the feathered folk in ‘making stuff’ but they’re not the most nimble with their talons. That is probably why she just makes stuff that goes on top of weapons.

I should mention that is another thing we still have that she doesn’t, yet probably wants. The Nezatl are the best weapon makers. Sawiri makes bone materials, your clan knows what the end thing they’re trying to make is, but the Nezatl are still the ones that make it not break the first time you swing it.

Basically if you want to beat Mikaere at his own game, Esin is the one to talk to. Though on our own end, Mikaere’s weapons are really just snake fangs strapped to a club with a rather small head. We’ve recreated that much without too much trouble.