[centre][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/206ee0f8-5d3d-49f0-82e5-ac1e6468fc87.png[/img] [h1]Anshumat[/h1] [h3][color=gray]Behold The Sovereign! They wear a chain of Their own forging! They can be bound by none but Their own Hand![/color][/h3] [img]https://i.imgur.com/gG92wzy.png[/img][/centre] [hr] [i]"Aaaaaaiiuuumaaaaaah…Aaaaaiiuuumaaaaaah kiphal la Kirwooooon..."[/i] The old selka healer repeated her sympathetic chant beside Yimbo's wounds as if comforting a child. The gathered tribe gave her all the space she needed to surround the beast with a ring of dried reeds, all smeared with the blood spilled from the great beast's punctures and slashes. [i]"Aaaaaaiiuuumaaaaaah…Aaaaaiiuuumaaaaaah..."[/i] Yimbo whimpered as Rema stuck a wad of crushed leaves into one of the openings. The leaves themselves were meant to ward off the pain, but for a beast of such size, there was no telling whether it worked. Humat the smiling one was not the most patient of k'nights present. He could not sit still for long before he leaned to one side to his friend. "Psst, Takos, what are those words she speaks?" "Some upriver dialect," Takos explained. "Stories say you can talk to unseen spirits with it. Don't know much about it." "You're supposed to know everything, though! You're the Clever-" "Shhh!" Takos pressed a finger to his snout. "It's not [i]men's lore[/i] in these parts, Humat! I am not allowed to know." Humat huffed and rolled his eyes. "[i]Men's lore, women's lore[/i]...No one agrees on that stuff." [i]"Aaaaaiiuuumaaaaaah kiphal la Kirwooooon...Kiphal la Delphina, goh ha embral."[/i] The old healer Rema stood up and put her hand and ear up against Yimbo's side. Everyone stood quiet to let her listen. A wave gently broke nearby. Rema opened her eyes and walked with her elderly demeanour to the Rephaemle the Fair and Chief Grumla. "I have done all I can, with all I have. There are no more herbs or chants to use. All we can give now is time." Reph glanced to Anshumat and back to Rema. "How long does he have?" "Don't know," Rema admitted, sadly. "Yimbo's old, but strong. Never healed anything big as him before. Maybe...a guess would be a couple of weeks." Chief Grumla nodded solemnly. "It is all we can ask for. Thank you, Rema." Rema bowed, before taking her walking stick and wandering back to the village off the beach. Reph closed his eyes and sighed. Anshumat looked at Yimbo silently, slowly turning their head to look at Reph. They said, quietly, “We’ve done what we can. We can only hope the healing tribe is found now. There are more tasks to be done and too little time to linger.” They turned to look inland, continuing, “Reph, the rest of you will need to set off as well. The healing tribe is not the only one we will have to gather if we are to survive what is coming.” "Right," Reph lifted his chin and rallied. "Gather the k'nights! We will group off and make plans, and those not staying will leave at first light!" "Mister Rephaemle," Anboor added. "I'll get together some supplies for your journeys. Expect 'em before you go." "Thank you...what was your name again? You look familiar." [hr] Rephaemle was surprised to hear that the first candidate in the village to fail the k'nights' trial had changed so drastically, but it was a pleasant surprise. They were able to focus on planning, and the plan was made in earnest. The k'nights split into four groups of three: Yim, Phialu, and Phorea would strike out on their mission to find Yimbo's saviours. Rephaemle, Karagetak, and Phassam would travel at speed to the downbeach Sharkskin tribe to negotiate an end to the bad blood and tensions with the River Mouth tribe. Humat, Kyko, and Hiphaeleon would travel south-west to the inland nomads to win them over with charm and prophecy. Finally, Anshumat, Takos, and Antoph would stay to protect the River Mouth tribe and prepare for the fight with the Ihokhurs -- with the help of Kreekh and the tribesfolk. Each travelling group found a package waiting for them in the morning, courtesy of Anboor's promise. Each had food, some helpful small tools, and a lit torch to make their journey faster. The k'nights renewed their commitments, sang a song together, and then parted ways for their respective missions. As they left, none noticed the discrete energies of blessings following in their wake. Work began immediately after breakfast. Anboor was able to gather some of the meatier men of the tribe to help carry the lumber, and with the help of the mighty Antoph the Strong One -- the third k'night of their group -- they gathered the wood Anshumat picked out to a clear area skirting the village. The log rolled off their shoulders after a united count and thudded onto the dirt. Anboor, Toraph, Anshumat, and Takos stood in a row, watching the labour. Takos put his fists on his hips and nodded approvingly. Anboor scratched his head. "You, uh...said you'd make a lever out of that thing?" he asked the others. Anshumat inspected the logs, saying, “It would use less wood if we were to first cut and treat the wood, but teaching the village how to do that in the span of time we have would not work. We will have to make do with the logs, as it stands.” They then pointed to a set of thicker logs. “We will need to make lengths of rope to lash those together for a base -- hemp fibres will do. Gather hemp fibres and tie them together successively until you have a length of cord as thick as your hand.” All of them save for Anshumat looked down at their hands. Anboor breathed through his teeth, overwhelmed, but Takos was less discouraged. Takos turned his head around. "Hey, Kreekh!" The huge humanoid pile of stones single-handedly lowered another log onto a third pile of lumber. He then looked up at Takos with his one blue eye-hole. "Got another job for you!" They were lucky hemp leaves were easy to draw on the ground. [hr] Takos wiped his nose. Antoph twitched and cleared his throat. Anboor tied two full stems of hemp together end to end and held up the result with a grin. "Did you tie it strong enough this time?" Antoph murmured. His strong build belied his surprisingly high pitched voice. Anboor confidently closed his eyes, held his chin forward, and tugged the stem from both ends. [i]-Tick-[/i] Takos put his face in his hand and Anboor groaned. Anboor opened his eyes to find his latest attempt in two pieces again. A little frustrated, he picked up two more stems from the broad and deep pile of freshly harvested wild hemp they all sat upon. Toraph sat with them, too, paying little attention beyond his idly pulling one stem apart, thread by thread. Something about it was soothing. "Hold on a moment…" Takos took notice of Toraph's growing bundle of tiny threads. He leaned towards the young selka. Toraph looked back unsurely. Takos took a small bundle of the threads. Antoph furrowed his brow. "Those are useless pieces, Takos. Look how small and thin they are. We cannot tie them together and expect anything helpful." Takos the Clever One paid the mighty Antoph no heed. He stared closely at two threads as he twisted them together into a helix between his thumbs and fingers. He tugged at both ends of the tiny length, and they held together. He gasped. "Antoph, turn your back to me." Antoph began to shift. "What are you doing?" "Just stay still! You've got the biggest back here." Takos took more of the threads and rolled them against Antoph's back to bundle them together. "I think this will make a fine 'rope' if we can get enough hemp like this!" Toraph piped up. "The flax grass splits like that, too. Should we try that?" "Not now, young one! We have enough plants, but not enough hands! Anboor! Gather the most dextrous of the tribe! We need all these plants made into threads." [hr] Once the rope had been twisted and a nearby boulder half-rolled-half-pulled with the new ropes into the clearing, the work could begin in earnest. Anshumat and the rest created a base of four logs, lashing them together with lengths of twisted rope. Once the frame had been properly anchored to the ground, they then worked on the rest of the device. Four logs were rested on each other, lashed at the top to each other and the bottom along the frame. The fifth log was placed atop the set of four, it too lashed to the device. A shorter log was similarly lashed to the bottom, connected to and flush with the bottom frame itself. Once the entire frame was created, one log was taken from the pile. Holes were drilled into both ends and a quarter length down one side. In one end went a large wooden cup, made of crude half-logs and attached by rope and pegs to the drilled log. The log, then, was lifted up onto the frame and lifted against the top log. Lashed to it with ropes through the quarter-length hole, the arm was secured to the frame itself, though could still move about upon it. Finally, the mechanism itself came. A rope was tied at medium tension to the middle of the frame, connected to the free end of the arm -- the side without the cup. Two more holes were drilled through the bottom frame, and rope connected to the cup fed through them at low tension. The device itself was done -- the arm held up in the sky by the rope in the front, with lengths of rope in the back that could be pulled upon to lever back the arm. Now, after many hard days of work, it was now time for a test launch. "I've built huts that were easier than this," Antoph said, panting the heat from his body. "No hut will do what this will, I tell you that honestly," Takos added. Toraph tugged at his silken hood nervously. "Are you sure it'll work? Those rocks are pretty heavy." The demigod simply said, “The only way to know for sure is to try it.” Anshumat called for six men to pull the two ropes in the back, in unison, to draw back the arm. The ropes creaked with a sound that stood everyone's neck fur on end. Another four loaded the boulder into the cup, and then, on Anshumat’s command, the rope was released entirely. The arm flew upwards violently. The whole frame jerked forward at its zenith and the boulder arced far into the sky. It drifted quickly but lazily through the air for a moment, before coming back down perhaps a few hundred yards downfield. There was a violent crack and the rustle and crash of falling trees in the distance as the boulder landed. A flock of panicked birds fluttered up from the landing site. Antoph's eyes grew three sizes. "Kirron's heart…" he said. Takos suddenly threw his fists into the air and laughed at the top of his lungs. He shouted across to the others. "Did you see that!?!" The tribesfolk present involved in the project all gave cheers, whoops, and whistles. Toraph pulled up his hood and looked closely into the distance where the rock landed. Whatever he saw, it put him in just as high spirits as those around him. "We can't call that a lever. It's not amazing enough of a word." Anshumat silently watched, their face as hard to ascertain its expression as ever, though they stood noticeably taller. They simply breathed, “You’re right. It’s not a lever. It’s a machine of war.” "It's a…[i]Mang Konna Ell[/i]…" Toraph said. Antoph turned his broad-necked head to him. "What in the depths is that meant to mean?" Takos explained for him. "Mang Konna Ell is a warrior from a story of the River Mouth. A fighter said to hurl stones over the horizon. Challenged Kirron to a competition and lost, but they earnt fun from it, so-" "Mankonel," Antoph crossed his arms and sniffed loudly. "Easier to remember." Toraph grinned. "We'll call it Mankonel, then." Anshumat walked over to the Mankonel, running their hand along the frame. They then looked back to the group, saying, “We’ll need at least a dozen of these and the boulders to fling with them -- that is why I wish to gather the tribes. We can’t man a dozen mankonels with one tribe, let alone build them.” "Another challenge for another while," Takos said with one hand up. "First, let's put in another rock and see if we can't hit something." Anshumat nodded, saying, “I think we can modify how far it flings the rock. Once we load the rock, if the rope is slowly allowed to pull back, we can put less energy into the throw, and hit much closer targets.” "Hey Kreekh!" Takos called out. Kreekh shrank a little. [i]Please, Kreekh is not hit![/i] the rock man said with the few words he had learnt so far. Takos snorted. "Don't get your whiskers in a twist, we just need you to move something big out there and come back so we have something to fling rocks at!" [i]Oh! Kreekh can helps![/i] The Ihokhetlani lumbered forth. [hr] The chief of the Sharkskin tribe tore off another mouthful of tuna. The skin audibly ripped as he pulled it back from his scowling mouth and glowered at the three k'nights sitting on the mat opposite him and his two best underlings -- his wife and his brother. Rows upon rows of dried yellow shark teeth clicked in waves from the assertiveness of his chewing, tied like so many scales as they were into a coif that drew all the way up his head and along the top of his snout. Reph returned the look with a straight back and a stony gaze. The Sharkskins ahead of him, garbed in their long tailed capes of the same material, had been much more welcoming the first time he and the K'nights of Red Horizon passed through. The chief did not have to mention why. The Sharkskins and the River Mouth had been enemies for well over eight winters. The Chief slowly swallowed the tuna, reveling in forcing the K’nights to wait. He roughly dropped the fish down onto the shell that held the rest of his food, growling, “Five deaths this summer alone. None of yours bled to recuperate the cost. Why should I even bother listening to a word you say?” Reph twisted his head to Karagetak the Skilled. Their plan started here, whether it would survive first contact or not. He addressed the chief in front of him, straightforward and confident. "I've been told in detail about your feud with the River Mouth. Any good chief would be furious and saddened by the murder of their tribespeople. We do not come here to mock their deaths. We come here with the hope of preventing more. In fullness, we come with a warning, an offer, and wish to discuss the future." He turned his head down and looked up at the chief earnestly. "But the warning is not a threat from us, it is a new threat cutting down each and every selka up the river, and it'll keep cutting down the coast, into the land...straight through all of you and all of us." The Chief narrowed his eyes, saying accusingly, “As far as I see it, your tribe is my greatest enemy. Nothing worries me of some threat conveniently out of reach that could destroy me and my tribe.” "If you would not take it from the River Mouth tribe," Reph responded with some remorse. "Then take it from us K'nights of Red Horizon. We have lost two of our number to the Ihokhurs while exploring upriver. We wish for unity to drive them back. That is our honest goal here, if you would hear our case for it. It has our spilled blood on it, much like yours has your own spilled blood." He still did not look particularly convinced, saying, “Then surely I would have recognized them from the last time they came through. Who of yours was killed?” Reph sighed from his nose and downcast his eyes. "One was a new recruit. Wassamuttu the Quick One." He took a pause that his voice would not falter. "The other, you knew as Gralph the Mighty One. Our previous leader." The tone in the hut suddenly shifted, as the chief stared in disbelief at Reph. “You are telling me Gralph is dead? What could kill that beast of a Selka?” Slowly blinking, Reph clenched his jaw and fists. He then looked into the chief's eyes. "The Ihokhurs. Clawed people of walking black stone. Wicked and evil. They stand beyond twice the height of a selka and kill for pleasure." He relaxed his fingers. "Gralph fell covering our retreat when we found them." The chief studied Reph for a minute, before conceding, “If I were to bring my tribe, yours will be responsible for feeding us. And if these Ihokhurs do not show up, we have punishments for liars. Is that acceptable to you?” Reph curled his lips and nodded. "The River Mouth will feed you. But there was the third matter I mentioned to discuss. If the River Mouth and the Sharkskins are to fight together, we would see them fighting together in an accord resolving the cause for your feud. This will foster good will in this alliance." The Sharkskin chief responded, “I’ll talk to your chief about it. I will speak no further on this matter.” Reph bowed his head, reached for a small flint knife on his belt, and pressed a small cut on his palm. He held his fingers out, letting small droplets of blood fall before the chief. "Thank you, chief of Sharkskin," he said, and then curled his hand back. And thus the gesture of deference was respected, and the first negotiation complete. [hider=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZEnViU3Pqc] An old lady from the River Mouth tribe tries to ease the wounded Yimbo's pain while Anshumat and the K'nights watch. The k'nights resolve to split up into four teams of three to do what's needed. A team lead by Phialu will seek out the rumours of the tribe with healing magic, as outlined in the previous post. A team lead by Rephaemle will go downbeach to try and convince the feuding Sharkskin tribe to cool off and ally with the River Mouth to fight together. A team lead by Humat will go inland south-west and also head a little downbeach to gather up more manpower from other selka tribes using their charisma. Finally, the remaining k'nights lead by Anshumat will organise the river mouth tribe's agriculture and build machines of war. Oh yeah, by the way, Toraph's brother Anboor is kinda really competent at leading people now. His failure at the K'night's challenge really kicked him into changing his ways. He helps out coordinating people with Anshumat. Anyway, those machines of war...Anshumat and his k'nights Takos the Clever One and Antoph the Strong One oversee the tribesfolk (and Kreekh) gathering lumber with Anboor and Toraph. Once ready, they switch gears to gather up loads of wild hemp to make rope. Anshumat leaves them to make rope without teaching them, so they fuck around for a while until Toraph starts splitting the stems into fibres as just something to do with his hands. Takos the Clever gets inspired to try spinning the fibres together and boom...they've got the beginnings of rope. Along the way, Toraph notes that flax grass might be able to do it as well. Ain't that a useful thought? Anyway, fast forward through a construction montage and now the gang has a prototype stone-throwing device. They test fire it and it's pretty cool. Toraph compares the stone thrower to a local selka legend called Mang Konna Ell, who was said to throw stones so far that only Kirron could throw further. Antoph said 'Mankonel' is easier to remember. So now they've got a mangonel, [i]weeeeee![/i] They ask Kreekh to haul a practice target out for them. This exposes to the reader that Kreekh is starting to learn the coastal selka dialect and is generally a great boon to these recent advances. The final scene is between Reph and the chief of the Sharkskin tribe. Reph wins him over by a combination of sympathy for Gralph's loss and the fact that whatever would have killed Gralph is probably worth taking seriously. The chief agrees to talk to the River Mouth tribe about settling their dispute and also agreed to provide some more manpower to repel the Ihokhurs. Stay tuned for more. [/hider] [hider=Might/Prestige Summary] [i]Before:[/i] K'nights of Red Horizon, "The War Singers", "Who Have Faced Death and Lived" - 8 Prestige - 12 Members +1 Major role +1 Minor role +1 Collaboration +1 On a quest to repel the forces of desolation -6 To kick off development of plant textiles in the River Mouth tribe [i]After:[/i] K'nights of Red Horizon, "The War Singers", "Who Have Faced Death and Lived" - 6 Prestige - 12 Members [i]Before:[/i] Anshumat - 5 MP, 11 FP -2 FP: Teach woodworking and mankonels to Selka 0 MP (1 base, discounted by portfolio): Bless the K’nights to make convincing arguments. [i]After:[/i] Anshumat - 5 MP, 9 FP [/hider]