The Curious Expedition
(Collab with
@Yennefer)
The birthing pool was still, having already created it’s most recently children the day before, it would be at least another day before anymore were born forth from the waters, unless of course one of the Shamans stoked the pool into action using some form of sacrifice. Leaning on her spear Alwai gave a sigh, and touched her smooth cheek, it was cool, and felt almost as if it was made of river stone. She was getting old, and soon would join her sisters in the garden of ancestors, or die in battle.
This fucking jungle. What kind of creature on Wendigo’s green earth could possibly deign to call this home? For Aku, it was hard to believe that anything could live here, let alone sentient life. Someone actually chose to live here. Permanently. For the rest of their life. Utterly wild.
They’d been travelling for a couple of weeks now. After that little “incident” in Karakor that wound up with two nobles dead and a young lady without a husband, the King had been insistent on his daughter settling down her wild antics and learn to become a proper royal. So he set her up on a diplomatic mission to the great jungles in the west to speak with the Amazon tribes and see if they can’t maybe muster up some kind of mutual agreement that could provide even the slightest of advantage against the bastard Freishannese. Aku had to question the logic of sending a young, fiery Princess who had made no secret of her attraction to the noble women at court into a jungle of creatures that were apparently nothing but women, but hey, he was just a bodyguard. Who was he to question the authority of an old and respected king who had spent the last twenty years never bothering to leave his goddamn castle?
But bloody hell, they could have sent them anywhere else. Anywhere at all. They could have gone to a nice civilised kingdom with plains and castles and cities. But nope, Aku’s luck determined that he was gonna be packed off and sent away to some forgotten hellhole that even the Ancient Ones themselves wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole being held by someone else. If the heat wasn’t making him sweat through his armour, there were animals who saw him as nothing more than a snack. Even the plants couldn't be trusted - they’d already lost someone because they dared to stop for a rest for a couple of minutes. But Aku was nothing if not loyal, and he battled on regardless. It better be bloody worth it at the end, or he swore, he’d run the king through himself…
The jungle was quite filled with fog this morning, a person likely not being able to really see more than ten feet in front of them. Another thing to notice would be the quiet, everything was silent, not a bird in the trees making a noise, not a bug clicking as it moved through the underbrush, not even the sound of the strange goat like animals that seemed to wander the well traveled animal paths of the jungle were to be heard, no, it was a silence like that of a cold death far from civilization.
A shadow in the fog, what could it have been, then another, but this one was large, strangling shaped, it might even resemble some paintings of dragons of old, but then it too was gone. A low hooting sound came from the branches above their heads, then another in the distance, then another even further away.
Like children huddling from the boogeymen in the closet, the ragged delegation bundled together. Obviously it wouldnt provide them much protection if whatever the thing was decided it did want to chow down upon one of the greyskinned intruders, but it gave them the illusion of safety. Sometimes that was enough. And sometimes, just sometimes, the trees would break and everyone would get a lovely view of the sky shining down from above like the finger of God, before the oppressive heat, hanging vines and thick fog would once again plunge them into obscurity. A part of Aku feared they would never escape - that the stories they had heard were lies or illusions, and that they would be lost in this jungle forever, chasing a myth. It was a thought that seemed impossible to shake off.
As the silence settled once more, a odd shrieking sound, and clicking would come from the group’s left, louder it grew, and soon the found of feet joined it, though what came from the fog was no woman, instead it was a group, at least fifteen of them of bipedal reptiles carrying spears and clubs. They gave a shrill screech at the sight of the party before them, and began stamping their feet, clicking their tongue and thrusting their weapons into the air.
“Skinks!” one soldier cried. “Kobolds!” said another. What they were didnt really matter. The problem was, they were in the way, and by the looks of things, they werent exactly happy with the intruders in their territory.
As head bodyguard, it fell to Aku to give out commands. “Close rank! Protect the Princess!” he barked, his voice painfully unsuited to the position of authority he had been granted. But Anikki wasn’t a fan of that plan. “Come on then, ya ugly bastards!”
A slight snapping sound could be heard, and the reptilian men stopped dead in place, not moving as they looked around, their leather shields being brought up. They seemed worried about something, and it wasn’t Anikki and her group. Almost if there was some signal given, arrows and javelins filled the air from the brush on either side of the reptiles, the primitive yet effective weapons punching holes in the creatures, that left them stumbling to the ground, foaming blood issuing from their mouths. One began to run, but suddenly a large set of jaws came from the fog and snatched him off his feet, both disappearing once more into the white, the only sign that they’d even been there was the sound of bones cracking, and snapping as the beast ate the smaller creature… Once more things fell deathly silent, the group was left staring at the dead lizardmen.
Well… that simplified matters. But before they could allow themselves to be relieved, the question of HOW that happened was already running through the Drow. Their mage died weeks ago. Who could have done this - and more importantly, were they friendly?
Nothing happened, for a long moment it was still, and quiet. Then suddenly an arrow launched through the fog and impaled itself in the ground before the group, then a second slightly further away, then a third even further, like a path was being created for the group.
Anikki took the executive decision. “That way.” She shook free of the circle that had formed around her and darted along the path. Aku swiftly followed, “Come on, boys. Or would you rather wait for the skinks to come back?”
For several minutes they would follow the path, and still nothing appeared before them, simply more jungle. Occasionally noises could be heard, the hooting sounds would emit all around them then go quiet again. They would finally come to a clearing, a woman standing along in the middle, her face covered by the skull of what looked like some kind of reptile, her body bare except for paint that obscured any fine details of her flesh, in her hand was a club with what looked like some large beast’s teeth embedded into the sides.
Almost out of instinct, at the sight of the woman, the mottley troupe averted their eyes. All but two, that was. The Princess herself, and Aku; Anikki looked out of curiousity and admiration, Aku because his duty as a bodyguard came before his modesty. For a long time no-one spoke. Then, in order to break the silence and to stop Anikki’s blatant ogling, Aku finally spoke. “I assume it’s you we have to thank for removing those lizards?”
The woman only growled in reply, and from the brush around them, stood up even more of the warriors, all of them dressed in varying forms of paint, feathers, and bones, their weapons pointed towards the group, whether it was spears bows, or javelins. Still they were quiet, at least for the moment, a single woman walked forward from the fog, she was dressed rather regally, and held up a hand then motioned at the group. “Lay down your weapons, or you will die.”
Aku raised a closed fist. Then, realising everyone was still looking at the ground, he clarified “Come on, gents, swords away!” and they sheathed their swords. Except, of course, Anikki, who seemed determined to get the entire crew murdered. Even after her bodyguard elbowed her, she refused to drop her sword.
“Ani, let’s not start a fight.”
The Princess seemed insulted at the idea. “What, and give them the advantage? Come off it, Aku”
“They HAVE the advantage” Aku bristled. “This isnt like Karakor. You can’t fight your way out of everything”
“Watch me”
Of course she’d say that. Idiot was gonna end up committing suicide by angry Amazon. “Ani, if you die, we’re all dead. This isn’t just you we’re talking about, and if you keep waving that bloody thing about, they WILL kill us! At least this way there’s a chance!”
A look of aggravation crossed the woman with the bow’s face, and in a blue of movement, there was suddenly two arrows in the air, one impaling the ground right next to Ani’s foot, the other hitting the hilt of the sword just above Ani’s hand. “Only warning. Put it away or I kill you before you can even take a step.”
Ani didn’t show any sign that she was gonna drop it. She narrowed her eyes at the Amazons and for a brief, terrifying moment, Aku thought she was gonna attack. So in an act of physical force most unbecoming, he grabbed the damn thing out her hands.
“You are going to get us killed!” he hissed as he jabbed into her sheathe. Glares were exchanged, but Anikki saw something in her friend’s eyes. It wasn’t anger, but fear. He was scared of these Amazons. Why? Didn’t he have faith in their abilities?
“Better.” The woman approached them and stopped. “I am Tamo, Elder of the Momo tribe, why have you come to our lands? Outsiders do not last long in this place.” Her nose would wrinkle a bit as she looked them over, and stopped on Aku for a moment. “Tiny.” She said simply before looking back to Ani. “You are their leader?”
Anikki’s lip curled up in the hints of a snigger. “Momo…” before earning a sharp elbow to the gut by Aku. She cleared her throat and began again. “Oh, sorry. Um. My name’s Anikki Ykkonen, princess of Tsunatontu and second heir to the throne. Nice to meet you.”
Aku cleared his throat, signalling her to go on. “Oh, and this is my friend Aukustii. Aku for short.”
Right, fuck this noise, time to take over. “We’re here on a diplomatic mission from Tsunatontu.” Aku rolled his eyes “We were told your people may be around here and we hoped to speak with your leader”
“You act more like a leader so you no get those who follow dead.” Turning from the group Tomo would begin walking away, the women still surrounding them ready to strike at the first sign of danger. “Come we talk, I am leader of tribe, so now have found me to speak with.”
Crisis averted. But there was no time to rest on their laurels. These deadly women could fall upon them and tear them all to shreds if they wished. Best to keep them on side for now. They made to follow, the soldiers still very clearly averting their gaze from all the scantily clad women kicking about.
They walked for some time, before eventually moving through a curtain of vines, and laid out before them was a village, huts strewn about stone temples, large stone statues brooding over those that entered. A circle of amazons seemed to have been made near the center of the village where two of the warriors were fighting each other, full contact too became apparently was one slammed their fist into the other’s face and sent her spinning into the dirt.
“We go to shrine for talk.” Tomo said simply. “Only two, others stay here watching, eat.”
Well, that certainly got their attention. Anikki looked more keen to run up and join in with the brawl than sit in some boring old shrine and talk politics, but it was kind of her job to do that. She did have another ambassador with her that she could theoretically send in her place. But in the end, Aku got to stay outside and watch the pretty ladies while she was lumped with some-level beaurecrat.
“Keep them in line for me, eh, Aku?” she told the younger soldier as she gathered her assistant and went off with the Elder.
Within moments food and drink were brought to the group waiting for the Princess to be done speaking with Tomo, sustenance seemed to consist of some kind of wine made from a very very sweet fruit, and the food itself was some sort of roasted fowl.
Tomo stopped before a enormous statue of a woman, and stared up at it. “Speak before eyes of Goddess.” Tomo said simply to Aki. “Why come here?”
“Goddess?” Ani glanced up at the towering statue. These people… had goddesses? She shouldn’t really be surprised - they seemed like backwards savages after all - but it was just such a shock to hear that word. Her shock must have shown in her face, because the other ambassador, an elderly Drow lady, piped up quickly “The Princess is here to discuss a potential alliance and trade deal with the people of your nation. Is that not right, Princess?” The last word came out a little tersely
“Huh? Oh, hai, hai, that!” This was gonna be a disaster, this was…
The brows of Tomo furrowed as she considered this offer. “Many come, many ask alliance, trade these things Kitini know not.” She looked up at the Goddess once more and reached out gently touching the foot of the statue. “Goddess give life, birth to Kitini, give birth to Tomo we stay near Goddess, no leave for alliance, no leave for trade. You trade with Tribeswomen, that it though.”
If it wasn’t already painfully clear that Anikki was a total novice to the whole negotiation thing, her reaction to that surely gave it away. She blinked in surprise. “What? Surely you have some kind of enemy that you’d like protection against. A-and we’ve been fighting for years, do you even have training? You guys are surrounded, after all.”
“Enemies come to Kitini tribes and die in jungle, foreigners come to Kitini tribes and die in jungle, all die in jungle, Kitini tribes live.”
“Odd. We said that about our plains. Trust me. Someone will break through eventually, and they’ll use smoke and fire to do it. You need an organised force here. Someone who knows how these guys fight.” she smiled thinly “And that happens to be us”
“Survive this long easy enough, Ninika tribe fight generations against North Men still no fall, now you here, with pointy ears, fancy clothes, fancy weapons, think we need help from you. Think we need protection from you, but you just say you fail to protect selves.”
Anikki looked down at her clothes, marred and mucky from the slog through the jungle. Then she looked back up at the Amazon. “I’m trying to tell you that even the strongest empire has its weaknesses. Its inevitable. The advantage comes when two people with different strengths cover each others weaknesses.” She paused and thought for a moment “Have you ever heard of trebuchets? Catapults? Balistas?”
“Tomo has heard of these things, massive weapons for massive walls.” She frowned a bit. “Useless in jungle. Tell Tomo, what princess expects from Kitini for alliance.”
“Where do you get your weapons from?” the princess asked suddenly. “Cant be many mines around here, can there?”
“Make weaons from stone, wood, and black glass.” She said simply as she waved a hand towards a pair of arrows resting on a table nearby with stone heads.
“What, no iron? Steel? Mithril? Silver?”
“No these are things we no have, Do not make. Have seen Iron, no have iron, have bone though, bone work well as weapons.”
She was going to argue her point - but she realised she could just show her instead. “Do you mind coming with me for a second?” She asked
Tomo would cock a brow before shrugging, and following the Princess. “Tomo will follow.”
Outside, the assembled gadabouts, desperately trying to avert their gaze from any of the passing Amazons who dared so much as glance in their direction, were sitting in a circle, looking firmly at each other and talking amongst themselves. One word from Aku had them on their feet and saluting.
“Can I borrow someone’s hammer?” she asked the assembly, who promptly managed to produce one from the only guy with a warhammer that actually survived. Well, it was more one of those one handed hammers, so it wasnt utterly worthless in a jungle environment, and it was perfect for what Ani wanted to do.
“Alright, get me one of your bone swords” she told Tomo
Nodding towards a warrior, the woman stepped forward and set a flat almost paddle looking object on the table before the Princess. It was completely made of bone, with sharp serrated teeth embedded into the thinner blades on either side fo the paddle like weapon
The Princess took the sword in hand and passed the hammer to Aku. “You know what to do.” she told him. He certainly did. As the Princess held the blade out flat, Aku, with a mighty swing, slammed down on the bone blade. Under that kind of pressure, it splintered immediately, shards of ivory flying everywhere as the sword split into two equally useless ends.
Aku and Ani both looked at Tomo as if to say “Well?” but neither said anything. The shattered sword was a statement that needed no clarification.
“See I do..” Tomo said mildly as she walked forward and took the hammer, holding it out and looking it over. “Hmm.. We discuss trade for this in bath.”
“You guys have communal baths here?” A few eyes perked up. That was a familiar thing to hear so far from home.
“A spring, river runs next to, keeswater clean, we use it to bathe in.”
“Fair enough. So when does that happen?”
“Now” Tomo would lead them down a path through several sets of vines, and between huts, and fires. Upon reaching the spring it would be seen there were already several of the Momo tribeswomen bathing, and chatting, Tomo herself disrobing and entering the water, and sitting and waiting for the foreigners to join them.
With an uncharacteristic eagerness, the troops swiftly disrobed and sank beneath the water, completely changing their tune from their near pathological insistence of avoiding looking at the scantily clad ladies around them. Nudity was okay, but scant dressing was not, it seemed. The only one who reserved themselves was, you guessed it, Aku. He blushed furiously when he saw women actually naked and decided to sod the whole business, claiming he would look after everyone’s gear from potential thieves. Ani let him. She had ladies to flirt with.
The hammer was passed over to the women who were already in the spring, and they began to look it over curiously, testing it’s weight etc. Tomo looked up and leaned back on the edge of the pool and tapped her fingers against a rock. “What want in exchange for these items?”
That was a good question. These jungle fighters wouldn’t fare well in the icy pits of the Drow homeland, but they also seemed to lack the modern equipment the Drow so desperately needed. With war on the horizon, they needed good weapons, strong fighters and raw materials with which to make weapons, armour and defences.
“What are you like with magic?” Anikki asked, washing her arms
“Have shamans, powerful magic users, more powerful warriors though…” Tomo stood up and walked over to a rock that weighed at least two hundred pounds, and lifted it up above her head and then hurled it into the river. “Strong.”
They had good strength, she’d give them that. But its the cold thats the problem. “You get snow here? I cant imagine it.
“Know not what snow be.” She slipped back into the water, and stared for a moment. “You still no make offer for what want.”
“Sorry. There’s just a lot of things to consider. Frankly, I can’t think of anything we can trade. No offense, but all your stuff seems best suited for jungles - which is fine, but we don’t live in jungles, and we don’t fight in jungles. We’d be poked if we used your weapons and tactics in our homeland”
Frowning a bit, Tomo looked back at a woman standing nearby and gave her a nod. “Tomo assume all foreigners want same thing.” When the woman returned she was carrying a tray, and upon the tray was several chunks of raw gold. “This trade?”
That was… A hefty price. She felt sort of bad. “Isn't that too much? I mean, its steel, its not like its STUPIDLY valuable…”
Looking back at the gold on the tray, she turned back to the Princess. “This not just for hammer, this for more. You bring more, for this in exchange.”
“Well… alright. But how do you have gold and no steel?”
“Does it come from same place? We found this, pretty enough, but no good for much else. Outsiders like though. You think on it.. Tomo must do other things, eat, sleep, then go see chieftess… Maybe bring Princess.”
Well, that went better than she thought. The look on her dad's face when she came back with Gold! But for now, they had to rest up, talk things over and deal with all the finer details after a hot meal and a cold drink.
