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The First Parade - 4
Featuring: Susa, Lakshmi, Chroma
And special guest, Gerrik
The territory to the south was inhabited by the strange race known as the fiberheads. Although relations between the fiberheads and the hain were varied, they tended to be on the tense side. Their appearance was strange, fleshy and hairy, they stood nearly twice as tall as a hain, and their customs, habits and language were alien; or so the tales went.
Gerrik Far-Teacher planned to plunge into the heart of fiberhead territory, this land of alien, hostile people. But he was no fool, so he gathered as much information as he could from the hain tribes on the outskirts of fiberhead lands. Much of the information he gathered he discerned to probably be myth, but some of it was useful.
Of particular value was when he found a Chipper who had actually been exactly where he wanted to go. He learned that his destination was the village of Susa, named after the famous Susa the Huntress. This woman, Susa, matched Gerrik's vision exactly. She had, for a time, been stuck in the village due to a broken leg, and while she was there she had taught the people many things relating to hunting and other technologies and techniques. If she were a hain, she would have made a great Chipper.
Gerrik also learned from this Chipper that the fiberheads called themselves 'humans', and he was given a few phrases of the pidgin language which had developed between the human hunters and hain traders, as well as some knowledge of the lay of the land. Gerrik gratefully thanked the Chipper, and carried on his way, trekking deeper into the Mesathalassa towards Susa.
Gerrik was cautious on his journey through human territory. He kept clear of hunting parties, something fairly easy for him to do with his Perception and his mobility, and lived off the land rather than go into the human villages. As a lone traveller, he could maintain good stealth and pace, and it was not too long before he finally came near to the village of Susa.
Even before coming into view of the village, Gerrik could tell that this had to be a major village from the signs of activity around it. Well-trodden trails had been worn into the surrounding brushland, and Hunters walked a few of them, heading out to go hunting or heading back hauling some prize. Gerrik avoided them all, and only made himself seen as he approached one of the entrances to the village of Susa.
A watchman saw Gerrik approach, and called out to another guard. Gerrik stopped and waited at the watchman's signal of an open palm facing him. The pair of humans approached Gerrik, and although Gerrik was yet to learn the intricacies of human body language, and especially the expressions of their fleshy faces, they did not appear to be threatening.
"Hello," Gerrik greeted in the pidgin he had been taught, waving a hand. Encouragingly, one of the humans waved a hand in return.
"Where you come from?" one watchman asked, also in the pidgin.
"I Chipper. I travel big length, to places-places. From north," Gerrik answered, making appropriate gestures to indicate self or direction.
"Why you here?" the watchman interrogated.
"See Susa the Huntress. Learn," Gerrik replied.
The two guards muttered amongst themselves in their own human tongue. They came to a consensus. With a welcoming smile, the guards stepped aside and gestured down the path and into the village. "Hello."
"Thanks," Gerrik replied, before heading into the village.
Inside the village, Susa was preparing herself to take her friends Lakshmi and Chroma to see a nearby pond, however yet again someone called for her attention.
"Miss Susa, there is a Hain wanting to talk to you, he just arrived, from the north."
Susa tilted her head a bit confused, it felt like it was too soon for someone to know about her arrival at the village. She turned to Salassar and asked:
"Did you send dreams again?" she questioned
"I have not done that since we left the jungle, there was no need"
The huntress pondered about it for a bit longer, could it be just a coincidence? The timing was odd.
Either way, there was no point in standing there thinking about it, surely many questions would be made clear once she met the traveling Hain. So she walked outside, Salassar following her.
"Are we going there now?" Chroma asked, quite excited to see the supposedly pretty landmarks Susa had been talking about
"There will be a little delay, apparently there is a Hain wanting to talk with me" said, Susa
Nevertheless, both Chroma and Lakshmi decided to follow the huntress to see who this unexpected arrival was.
Gerrik was inspecting the human village, with both his eyes and Perception, absorbing as much information as he could. Surprisingly, it was not too dissimilar to a hain village, with huts and food and drying racks and people going about doing people things. It was on the large side for a village, and that seemed to be attributable to the organised group of Hunters and their leather making.
He was interrupted from his musings when he sensed the approach of not just a human woman, but a horned bipedal grey-skinned female, a strange Jvanic amorphous being in humanoid form, and a lizard-like biped.
The human Gerrik identified as Susa- she did not look too different from when he had seen her in the vision. The others were not only complete strangers to him, but he had never seen anything of their kinds before. It was strange, but he was already in a strange place surrounded by a race he hardly knew so it did not perturb him too greatly.
As Susa came into view, Gerrik realised a potential problem. He only knew a very small amount of the pidgin language, which was limited in its capacity for communication anyway. But he didn't have much else, so he would have to improvise.
He raised a hand and waved it. "Hello, Susa," Gerrik greeted in pidgin.
"Hello, uh, Hain." she said in confusion, the Hain even knew her name. "Sally, can't you be our translator here? It will make things easier for us all" she said to the Quara, who complied.
"Good morning friend. I'm sorry to ask such thing, but from where do you know us? Susa apparently doesn't remember meeting you ever before."
Gerrik relaxed when Salassar spoke to him in a language he knew. A translator was much-needed.
"I am Gerrik Far-Teacher, apprentice of Stone Chipper and prophet of Teknall. I had heard tales of Susa the Huntress during my travels, and came here to see her and learn what I could," Gerrik said.
"He is lucky. I have been away from the vilage for decades now, just arrived here." she said in rudimentary Hain before asking for Salassar to translate everything else
"She also heard a bit about you beforehand and has met many Chippers before. It is a honor to meet you, mister Gerrik." Salassar politely bowed "Ah, let me introduce myself, I am Salassar-Madori Denomoritore..."
"Call him Sally"
"Please don't. I'm from the Grand Parade, an organization blessed by the goddess Ilunabar with the mission of spreading beauty and culture across the land. The one to my left is Lakshmi, a Lifprasilian warrior who has fought the Chaos Order herself."
"I fought the hordes too" Susa boasted
"And finally, to my right is Chroma... She... We... We just found her. She describes herself as a hero of justice and so far has done enough to prove herself trustworthy." Salassar controlled his words, he didn't want his mistrust to spread to others.
Gerrik nodded. Gerrik hadn't heard of the Grand Parade, or Lifprasilians, although he had heard of Ilunabar. And evidently, nobody at all knew what Chroma was. "It is most fortunate that we have met, then. Hello Salassar, Lakshmi, Chroma. You will have to tell me about the Grand Parade and the Lifprasilians some time. One thing I am particularly curious about, though, Susa, is how you make those treated animal hides."
Susa smiled "Sure. I can make you a cloak." It was a honor to teach something to a Chipper, it was her own way of repaying how much they had helped her before "Here, let's go back to my home."
"What? And what about the pond? I wanted to see it." Chroma complained
"Ah, it can wait. I doubt we will be able to continue our journey today anyway"
Gerrik nodded his head respectfully and followed her. "Thank you, Susa." Chroma spoke in a different language again, although some words were vaguely familiar. There was some mention of water there.
In Susa's abode Susa showed Gerrik how to tan leather, then demonstrated the ways of leatherworking by making him a new cloak.
Gerrik stretched out his arms and twisted around, testing out the new cloak. It seemed to be much more durable than furs, yet more flexible than rawhide. This new material, leather, would be incredibly useful in many applications.
"It is marvellous, Susa. Thank you," Gerrik said. "I must find something to share with you in return."
"Ah, no worry. Chippers helped me and the village a lot in the past." she said, but there was something that had been bothering her. "Though, I have been thinking about food storage. We have lots of dry meat, but other products, not so much." after interacting more with Gerrik the use of Hain language became easier for her, it was far from perfect, but good enough to convey ideas.
"Food?" Gerrik said, his beak rising. He rummaged around in his travel bag and pulled out a light-brown baked object. He tore off a chunk, revealing it to have a soft texture that was somewhat fibrous, and a white interior. He handed the chunk to Susa, and took a bite from his own piece.
Susa inspected the odd object with curiosity. The texture didn't look similar to anything she had ever seen; at most, its interior looked similar to some mushrooms.
Gerrik showcased it was edible and she decided to take a bite; the taste was nowhere similar to what she had imagined, she could identify it was made from certain grains, but she had no idea how it turned into that.
"Curious. I have never seen anything like this before, what is its name?"
"It is called bread," Gerrik answered. "It is nourishing, and it lasts a long time. I can show you how to make it."
"Please. I can sense that this was made from grains but I can't imagine how those turned into this fluff, so I am really curious."
Gerrik nodded. "Of course. I just need some grains..."
After gathering the necessary ingredients, Gerrik ground the grains between two stones until they became a powder. He then mixed this powder with some water so that it became a thick pasty blob. He flattened this blob out with his hands and then put it above a fire to cook. As the dough cooked Gerrik explained that many variations of the recipe were possible to yield many different consistencies of bread, although Gerrik hadn't had cause to experiment very widely.
The bread was baked and Susa heated up some soup to eat with it. As the heroes gathered around for the meal, Gerrik tried to find out a bit more about them.
"Salassar, this Grand Parade sounds as though it a carries a purpose of great significance. Yet I will admit that despite being the traveller that I am I haven't yet heard of the Grand Parade. Could you tell me a bit more about them and what they've done?" Gerrik asked.
Salassar stopped munching on the bread to properly answer to Gerrik "This is the very first mission carried by our group. Furthermore, we do not go around calling ourselves the Grand Parade, you are an exceptional person so I disclosed about such information. But it would be ideal if the people did not know exactly who we are, even with hundreds of years of activity.
"Though, if you want to see our actions closely, do visit Fibeslay to the south of this village." he added.
Gerrik nodded. "Ah, I see." He thought a little longer. "To the south of here? How convenient, I was going to head that way after this place."
Gerrik turned to Lakshmi. "Lakshmi, could you tell me a bit about the Lifprasillians?"
Lakshmi cleared her throat, having sat in numbing silence for so long, she had grown weary and tired in anticipation, and chose to stand when she was chosen. "U-uh," Lakshmi coughed, and sputtered - as if slowly winding up her broken speech. "W-we're servants of t-the c-child of b-both things, Lifprasil, h-hence our name-ssake. Illunabar is our comrade, a-as isss S-ss-Susa, a-and C-c-chroma. W-we were created b-by Lifprasil when h-he was born, a-and I was his c-chosen hero t-to lead his a-armies." stated the towering female - it wasn't hard to see that Lifprasilians, judging by this specimen, were built to fight, but the expensive garments - covered in metals and gems unseen throughout most of the world - gave the stuttering heroine some semblance of grace outside her immense size.
Her wardrobe could best be described as some profound transmission of regality, and if Susa had not come for her in the nude, she would probably be just as lavishly fitted."Y-you are f-familiar, we h-have a f-few Hainn-n in-in our C-city of Alefpria. I-if you w-would l-like to v-visit, a m-master of the craft s-such as yourself would b-be welcome."
Lakshmi's attire intrigued Gerrik more than her report. These fabrics and materials and the way they were brought together indicated technology far ahead of anything he had ever seen. "I will have to visit Alefpria some time," Gerrik responded.
Finally Gerrik looked to Chroma. Salassar and Lakshmi, although they were of species unknown to Gerrik, still possessed a familiar anatomy, which he could see with his Perception. However, Chroma was different. His gut told him that Chroma was unquestionably Jvanic in nature. And rather than having a neatly arranged internal structure with organs and blood and stuff, it was a chaotic, amorphous, ever-changing mess. It was unnerving.
"And you, Chroma. Where do you come from?" Gerrik asked.
"I come from a sweet little town called Iridia... Ah, but you probably don't know it, since it is in another universe. I just got to this place recently, used to be a hero back in my world, and then an odd woman that looked similar to Susa brought me to this Clashing World. Then I spent some time on an island by now I am here."
Chroma's origin was about as strange as whatever her species is. Gerrik shouldn't have expected anything better. It made sense that a being of such alien physiology would be alien to this world. "Okay," he replied simply.
They finished their dinner as dusk turned to night. Susa's hut was already rather full, with Susa and four guests, so there was not much spare floor space or furniture for sleeping. However, Gerrik had a solution. He strung up his hammock between two posts inside and slept suspended above the floor in the comfort of his hammock.
When the sun rose, Gerrik awoke and packed his belongings. He wrapped his new leather cloak about him as he prepared to leave.
"Thank you Susa. Thank you Salassar. Farewell Lakshmi and Chroma. It was good to meet you," Gerrik said.
Susa was the first to answer to him. "I hope you find your cloak to be useful. Also, I'm sure our paths will meet again someday, so stay alive until then."
Salassar simply bowed. "Have a safe journey."
"G-goodbye G-gerrik. It w-was good to m-meet you, too." replied Lakshmi, standing up from what appeared to be morning meditation. "I h-hope to see you s-soon."
Chroma waved her hand "Take care boney friend, stay safe," she said
Gerrik waved back. "Goodbye." He then set off on his journey, walking southwards.
