11 Rova 4719, night

Ekujæ Treetop Village of Akrivel

This morning’s trip through the Hunter’s Gate went exactly to plan. Magically granted resistance to fire Qantrip, Aemi, and I passed through and we were able to quickly locate and disable the trap. We let the others know the path was clear and we all walked through the lava tube to the exit gate and stepped through.

We were among the ruins of some sort of temple complex and the intense heat and humidity instantly made themselves known. But what caught our attention the most were nearly a couple dozen elven archers all with arrows knocked and drawn and pointing at us.

Those more gifted with communication skills explained who we were and what we were doing here, and that we had slain the group of Cinderclaws that had gone through the gate to our section of the world. Qantrip produced the head of Malarunk to prove our story. This latter revelation eased the tension a great deal and we were invited to accompany the leader of this band, Jahsi, back to his village.

Renali left us at this point to rejoin her people, but she offered to be our guide should we need to travel through these tropical lands.

It was a ten mile hike through the steamy jungle. Along the way we learned that Jahsi and most of the people in his village were Ekujæ elves of the Leopard Clan. The presence of the Cinderclaws cultists was a relatively recent change and they had worked some sort of magic that blinded the elves, which made it nearly impossible for them to drive them off.

A few hours of walking later and I noticed a village of sorts perched upon platforms up in the jungle canopy. Each platform was built around a massive tree, or cluster of trees, and boasted either a single large structure or multiple smaller buildings. Wood planked bridges connected the platforms to one another with rope ladders ascending to upper (and lower) levels.

Standing beneath this village was a slender half-elven woman, who introduced herself as Nketiah, Jahsi’s daughter. She welcomed us to her village and invited us to a feast and to safely spend the night among her people. That’s when I noticed that one of her arms was extraordinary: it was made up of twisted interlacing twigs.

Jahsi quickly scrambled up a tree to the village and Nketiah followed, but she simply raised her… other arm and it branched upward, grabbing onto some vines and lifting her upward.

Well, I can climb, and so I quickly followed them to the village where I saw there were rope ladders available but they were rolled up. I asked the elves to lower them so the rest of the team could easily ascend and laughing they unfurled them.

There were a few more introductions in the village itself and we were invited to rest or explore their village. I wanted to see the village and decided to walk the perimeter, where I found elven archers on watch peering out and down. Maybe halfway around the village I saw something unusual: a lioness was perched upon the broad branch of a tree staring at me. Sure, lions can climb, but they usually don’t go very high and they certainly don’t… well, lounge on a tree limb.

The guards laughed and said they called the lioness Harriet, and they joked that she thought she was a leopard. And she was still looking at me. The elves didn’t seem concerned about her presence — in fact they had a rope ladder they offered to extend over to Harriet if I wanted to get closer.

Yes, I decided, I did want to get closer. And so I walked over and sat next to the lion. She stared at me and I said a few calming (I hope) words to her, but it was a little awkward. I then remembered that I had salted meat in a pouch and so I offered her that.

That broke the ice and she seemed quite content to sit there with me. Presently I stood up, said farewell and bowed to her as I took my leave. The guards seemed pleased with this and maintained that Harriet liked me.

I’d rather not think about what would have happened had she decided that she didn’t like me.

I returned back to the others in time to meet another elf, Akosa, who was from the Hawk Clan. He was taciturn and did not seem happy to be with us, but he was in charge of providing fresh game for the evening’s feast and he came to ask us what we would like to eat. Almost as an afterthought he said we could join him on the hunt, which I think he immediately regretted when most of us jumped at the chance.

But we proved our worth and we brought back quite a few river boars, which the elves prized as a delicacy.

And yet still Akosa was prickly almost to the point of being offensive. It turns out that he and his people had been kept as slaves by the Aspis Consortium and forced to mine for gold at their Whitebridge Station outpost.

Yes, I knew of it. Geography was one of the things Natre would teach me, and it was a subject I delighted in learning. Although now, looking back, how a goblin from the Chitterwood knew so much about the world was yet another mystery in the enigma that was her life.

Qantrip speculated that his dour attitude was probably due to problems with his love life, and the way Akosa clammed up after that Qantrip was likely right.

We returned to Akrivel and were introduced to the Twin Leopards — the clan leaders, Ose Panin and Ose Atsu, who were literally twins.

They quizzed us about our goals and outlook and then tested us on skills we knew. I opted to demonstrate unlocking a lock using a training device I had — earlier I had already proven my abilities with a bow during the hunt, and I thought it unwise to search for some secret hiding place or to unlock some door or chest that might hide something private.

This culminated in a friendly musical competition between Ose Panin and Aemi in which Aemi performed at her absolute best, impressing the Ekujæ onlookers.

And then it was time for the feast. We sat near Nketiah and Aemi noticed that she was a little distraught, because she notices things like that to which I am completely oblivious. Her father, Jahsi, and Akosa liked one another — really liked — but kept away from one another because they were from different clans and they worried how it might look.

Aemi and the others worked out a clever plan to get these two star crossed lovers together over dancing. Aemi provided the music and the rest of us started to dance, pulling in Jahsi and Akosa separately until all of a sudden we handed them off to one another.

It worked and I was happy to have a hand in making them happy, but it’s a good thing the party doesn’t rely on me for these sorts of things.

Later Nketiah led the clan in a ritualistic telling of the Great Darkness. After which they asked if any of us had a story to share.

The day’s successful hunt for river boar had reminded me of the time a pack of boars had menaced our local goblin tribe in the Chitterwood, and so I recounted the tale of how I led a band of goblin hunters in the quest to slay the beasts.

Aemi told her story of the loss of her first team to some unnamed horror.

Liberte gave a precise and fascinating history on the cowardice of the Order of the Nail.

Marcus told of his visions of dragon-fire.

Tarsius told of an attack on a walled city by a clever band of thugs that he helped drive off.

And then talk turned to the business at hand: the Cinderclaws. We made it clear our goal was to find and defeat them and this was probably why the Ekujæ had welcomed us into their village. We discussed the likely location of the cult in the jungle and the means by which we could hunt for them.

They also gave us a number of items that should prove useful in our quest, which we gratefully accepted.

Later still we were shown to a place where we could sleep.