It didn\u2019t take long to realize that a jungle is not merely a hot, wet forest. It is a dizzyingly complicated ecosystem that\u2019s teeming with life, from the canopy to the forest floor. It is layer upon layer upon layer upon layer. It\u2019s not a place, but a <\/span>thousand <\/span><\/i>places, all woven together.<\/span><\/p>\n Kyira gave voice to the obvious: If we were to walk into this thing and have <\/span>any hope <\/span><\/i>of coming back out alive, we needed a guide.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe need a guide\u201d, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n The Ekujae couldn\u2019t provide one. Even getting within a few <\/span>miles <\/span><\/i>of these totems rendered them blind. Fortunately, before we parted ways, Renali had offered to guide us. The Ekujae knew where her village was, so it was just a matter of getting in touch with her.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIskaryn, do you think you could find Renali?\u201d I asked.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cCertainly,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n I naively thought this simple exchange would stop there, and she\u2019d fly off. I was wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMaybe she can drop a note to them,\u201d Kyira said.<\/span><\/p>\n Then Trip chimed in. \u201cCan\u2019t your bird just talk to anybody it wants to now?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Iskaryn fluttered down and gave me a pointed look. \u201cWhat does \u2018your goblin\u2019 mean by \u2018your bird\u2019?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This sort of thing is why Trip keeps making jokes about roasted bird.<\/span><\/p>\n Renali said she would meet us here tomorrow. I thought it would be just an uneventful day in the village\u2014there is nothing wrong with uneventful\u2014but Liberte had other ideas. He had been studying the gold bar we found near Huntergate, and learned it was thoroughly tainted with arsenic.<\/span><\/p>\n He explained that it can occur naturally in the raw ore. It\u2019s removed during the refining process, long before it would ever be formed into gold bars like the one we found. No one would knowingly wear jewelry or carry coins laced with poison.<\/span><\/p>\n This turned into an interesting conversation with Akosa, who I learned had been held captive by an Aspis Consortium operation and forced to work in one of their gold mines. It explained a great deal about why he\u2019s been terse with us. Perhaps all of it.<\/span><\/p>\n Akosa explained why most of the Ekujae didn\u2019t wear any gold, and it had nothing to do with arsenic: it\u2019s simply <\/span>taboo<\/span><\/i>. Their ancestors fought Dahak and somehow imprisoned him inside Alseta\u2019s Ring with some ancient ritual, long forgotten. They believe his blood spilled over the land here, became gold once it cooled, and is now cursed by his nature. This taint is why people covet gold, and are willing to spill blood and take lives just to have more of it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The only exception is the <\/span>keledi<\/span><\/i>. They swear their lives to fighting Dahak should he ever return, and wear gold not as a sign of wealth, but as a sign that they are worthy. \u201cThat their very souls\u201d, as Akosa put it, \u201ccan cut the flesh of a god\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n I grew up around gold; we had quite a lot of it when I was young (when I was older, not so much). It\u2019s pretty much everywhere in Druma. I understand his point, but wealth takes many forms, and gold is only one of them. Removing gold from society doesn\u2019t actually solve anything: people who are greedy or desperate enough will always find something worth killing for.<\/span><\/p>\n But then again, my family was destroyed by gold. In my home country, the people in power wear white to show their purity\u2014abundantly adorned with gold jewelry\u2014and long, white gloves so they don\u2019t bespoil themselves by touching the unworthy. Otherwise known as \u201cregular people\u201d. It\u2019s difficult not to see gold as a symbol.<\/span><\/p>\n So is gold tainted by the nature of Dahak? Maybe.<\/span><\/p>\n Or maybe it\u2019s just tainted with arsenic.<\/span><\/p>\n I was thinking of the jungle as more of an endless rainforest, but it\u2019s not really like that at all. There are trees, of course (just see Akrivel for proof of that), only they appear in groves rather than large stretches of land. Most of it is a dense tangle of underbrush, with plants so thick you can\u2019t walk through them without clearing your own path ahead of you. The sun beats down on everything, and all this vegetation tries to crowd out its neighbors to get as much of it as it can.<\/span><\/p>\n And there are insects everywhere. This is not hyperbole. I have never seen so many insects at one time ever in my life. It\u2019s apparent why the Ekujae gifted us with mosquito nettings and cautioned us to ensure our tents were completely enclosed in them at night. If only mosquitoes were the only bugs we had to worry about.<\/span><\/p>\n Renali pointed out that a common mistake people make when first entering the jungle is assuming that the biggest threat is from large predators. Yes, large predators will certainly kill and eat you if given the chance, but the more <\/span>pervasive <\/span><\/i>dangers are toxins and disease, delivered in the form of insects and reptiles, or just eating the wrong food. It\u2019s humbling to realize that you can die from an insect that you didn\u2019t even know bit you several days earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n As for Renali, she is traveling in what she calls her natural form: a humanoid spider. She actually asked us if this was OK first, because the Anadi have learned that humans are not always comfortable around spiders, much less human-sized ones, much less ones that literally look like people and spiders meeting halfway. That is a fair assessment, but after you\u2019ve seen a skinless rider-and-horse monstrosity, it raises the bar for what you consider disturbing. A bipedal spider just doesn\u2019t register.<\/span><\/p>\n The others didn\u2019t seem bothered, either. Honestly, we\u2019d seen worse in our first week in Breachill. Which, uh, sounds like I\u2019m insulting the place where I live. I\u2019m not. We just happened to stumble into some unusual events.<\/span><\/p>\n Entirely by coincidence, I\u2019m sure.<\/span><\/p>\n Nketiah warned us that there were fey in this part of the jungle. Today we met one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n I am not under any illusions about the fey. There are a few that seek out humanity out of genuine curiosity, but most simply do not share our values. Their motivations range from inscrutable to entirely alien, and that makes them dangerous almost by happenstance: the boundary of a fey\u2019s territory is as likely to be a rock half buried in the soil as it is something obvious like a stream or tree line. Others see us as inconvenient, entertainment, or outright prey. The malevolent ones will often combine the latter two.<\/span><\/p>\n It is not surprising that the most alluring of them tend to be the most dangerous. And that brings us to today.<\/span><\/p>\n We were tracking the Cinderclaws through the brush\u2014the grauladons left quite the trail\u2014when Gath came across a trail of freshly spilled blood. He decided to follow it. Someone will need to remind me why we thought this was a good idea.<\/span><\/p>\n What he found was a self-proclaimed hunter carrying a large sack over his shoulders. It was still dripping with blood.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He was a very handsome man. And I want to point out that I meet a lot of attractive men and women, and normally don\u2019t feel compelled to write it down. So when I say \u201che was a handsome man\u201d, it <\/span>means something<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n He claimed that he had just killed a bird. Not long ago, we had fought <\/span>two<\/span><\/i> birds about the size of the lump in his sack, so it all seemed on the level to me. Gath, however, was suspicious.<\/span><\/p>\n I handled the translation between Taldan and Mwangi.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cCan we see the bird?\u201d Gath asked. \u201cWe\u2019re awfully interested in the local fauna.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cUh, no. It will escape if I open the bag. But you can see one of its magnificent feathers,\u201d he said. He then held up a large, fluorescent orange feather which did <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> look like any bird I knew.<\/span><\/p>\n But I don\u2019t live here, so I threw the question to Renali, in Taldan. \u201cAny birds in this jungle have bright, orange feathers?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNot that I am aware of,\u201d she answered.<\/span><\/p>\n Which made me suspicious, too.<\/span><\/p>\n Some of my friends came up to investigate, and as they approached him, I could see them fall under his influence. One by one, their suspicions simply\u2026faded. Trip and I stayed where we were. I didn\u2019t know exactly how close I could get to him, and I was in no hurry to find out.<\/span><\/p>\n Real horror is not a monster. It\u2019s watching your friends succumb to supernatural charms.<\/span><\/p>\n The creature discovered Gath spoke Sylvan. A few quiet words later, Gath did something extraordinary and terrifying. He set his bow on the ground, and calmly walked away.<\/span><\/p>\n Then Kyira recognized the feather: it belonged to an <\/span>angel<\/span><\/i>. She and Tarsius surrounded him, unaffected by his presence. His head <\/span>swiveled<\/span><\/i>, revealing a hyena\u2019s face, and it attacked.<\/span><\/p>\n The violence shattered the enchantment on everyone. Everyone but Gath. He just kept walking.<\/span><\/p>\n As the others closed in on the creature, I sent Iskaryn after Gath. \u201cKeep an eye on him!\u201d I shouted. The thought of him wandering alone through the jungle\u2014that we might <\/span>lose<\/span><\/i> him out there\u2014was even more frightening than what we were fighting.<\/span><\/p>\n Both Trip and Marcus tried to break the enchantment on him, but neither could.<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, Trip yelled out, \u201cGath! Tarsius has been killed! We need your help! <\/span>Now!<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t true, but it didn\u2019t matter. I watched him stop. Then he turned around.<\/span><\/p>\n The creature, which we later identified as a kishi, was surrounded by our warriors, but the killing blow came not from their blades, but a cold iron arrow.<\/span><\/p>\n Shot by Gath.<\/span><\/p>\n He looked at Trip and Marcus and said, “I will remember what you tried to do.”<\/span><\/p>\n We cut open the sack. Inside was not a bird, but a wounded angel with wings of bright orange feathers. Trip stabilized him before the kishi’s work could claim him.<\/span><\/p>\n He introduced himself as Choima, and thanked us for freeing him. Choima explained that he\u2019d been traveling to the Magaambya with materials needed to break a curse, and apologized that he couldn’t stay. The mission had already been delayed long enough. We said our good-byes, and he took flight, disappearing to the south.<\/span><\/p>\n We gathered what little the kishi had left behind, found a place to make camp, and tried to put the day behind us.<\/span><\/p>\n Sleep did not come easily.<\/span><\/p>\n We encountered our first dragon pillar this afternoon. We\u2019re calling them that because they are pillars topped with a carved dragon head, and there\u2019s no reason to overcomplicate the name.<\/span><\/p>\n This one poisoned Gath. We are lucky that he is still alive.<\/span><\/p>\n So lucky that I am not even sure <\/span>how<\/span><\/i> he\u2019s still alive, because it just doesn\u2019t seem possible that he survived. It was that close.<\/span><\/p>\n It happened so quickly I only pieced it together afterward. The thick underbrush broke into a clearing of tall grasses with a small copse of trees, and the pillar was planted roughly in the center. Two bodies were hanging upside-down from the trees, which naturally put us on edge. We kept behind the taller vegetation while Gath and Qantrip crept forward through the brush to try and get a better look at it.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s when they spotted the drakes perched in the trees. Then <\/span>something<\/span><\/i> triggered it, and a beam of green light shot out from the pillar and struck Gath. He crawled his way back to us but looked horribly ill, his skin pale, his breathing strained and ragged, and sweat breaking out across his forehead.<\/span><\/p>\n Then the drakes took to the air and came for us, and our attention was split between surviving the attack and <\/span>saving Gath<\/span><\/i>. Arrows flew and blades slashed as the drakes descended on us. And every few seconds someone would glance back at Gath. Was he still breathing? Was the poison getting worse? Did anyone have another idea?<\/span><\/p>\n Then <\/span>Marcus <\/span><\/i>cried out as one of the drakes stung him while flying by. Now we had <\/span>another <\/span><\/i>poisoned companion to worry about. Kyira used a restorative spell to keep Gath alive while Marcus scrambled for an antitoxin. Neither of them was looking good.<\/span><\/p>\n One of the drakes went down, crashing into the ground, dead. I put an arrow in the other\u2014a shot that it will remember for a very long time\u2014and it took off to the west.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But Gath was still dying. Marcus was getting weaker.<\/span><\/p>\n And all I could do was stand there and watch it happen.<\/span><\/p>\n I was sure Gath was gone, but Kyira managed a second restorative spell that I <\/span>swear<\/span><\/i> was too late\u2026and he stabilized. His breaths were ragged and shallow, but he was still alive. The poison must have run its course.<\/span><\/p>\n Marcus was still struggling, though. We broke out the healer\u2019s kit and more antitoxin, and <\/span>still<\/span><\/i> he fought not just to stay upright, but to even <\/span>stay awake<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n Eventually, he, too, stabilized.<\/span><\/p>\n But the dragon pillar was still there. Waiting. Two of our friends were down, and we hadn\u2019t even gotten close to it.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s when I noticed what Renali had done during the fight. She had made herself invisible, crossed to the trees, and cut the charau-ka body down. The pillar hadn\u2019t targeted her. And that gave us a way forward. I cast my own invisibility spell on Trip, and she used a flight spell to cross the clearing and drop a sack over the dragon pillar\u2019s head.<\/span><\/p>\n That is all it took. It seemed so ridiculously simple, but I\u2019ll take simple, ridiculously or otherwise.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We studied it for a while before Gath figured out how to disrupt its magic for good. It is completely inert now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He\u2019s currently hacking the dragon\u2019s head to pieces.<\/span><\/p>\n No one is stopping him.<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019re camping by the river that Nketiah told us about while Gath and Marcus recover. There\u2019s not really much for me to do here (I don\u2019t have restorative magic beyond healing wounds), so my thoughts have turned back to the dragon pillar.<\/span><\/p>\n When Qantrip studied the white one over by Huntergate a couple of days back, she said, \u201cThis thing is a focus for magic energy. It funnels occult ritual magic, amplifies, sends it to a point far away, powers something there.\u201d So the Cinderclaws are using these pillars to power something important. And that means they need the pillars, which means the pillars need to be defended.<\/span><\/p>\n Blinding the Ekujae elves was a logical choice, since they and the Cinderclaws are in direct opposition to one another. Nketiah said the Cinderclaws hold a <\/span>grudge<\/span><\/i> against the elves because they trapped Dahak between worlds long ago. So, keeping the elves from interfering, or even investigating, makes a lot of sense.<\/span><\/p>\n But more things live in the jungle than the Ekujae, and the Cinderclaws cannot assume the elves are the only threat. So the pillars can defend themselves. The green one proved that quite effectively.<\/span><\/p>\n The problem with that, though, is that it\u2019s still a pillar. It can\u2019t move, can\u2019t think, can\u2019t pursue anyone, and can\u2019t adapt to when someone does something unexpectedly clever\u2014like putting a sack over its head.<\/span><\/p>\n That is what the guards are for.<\/span><\/p>\n The more I think about the guards, though, the less the arrangement makes sense. There were two bodies hanging from that tree: a boggard and a charau-ka. Every <\/span>sentient<\/span><\/i> Cinderclaw cultist we\u2019ve met so far has been one of those two. One of them wore enchanted armor dyed deep red, which just screams \u201cCinderclaws\u201d to me. So these must have been the guards, or at least part of them.<\/span><\/p>\n So why were they dead? And how do the drakes fit in?<\/span><\/p>\n I am not entirely unfamiliar with drakes. We\u2019d get them occasionally around Macridi\u2014The Forest\u2019s Drake didn\u2019t just choose that name for the clever wordplay\u2014and though they were <\/span>generally<\/span><\/i> smart enough not to tangle with the city, that is not the same thing as being <\/span>smart<\/span><\/i>. And, certainly, no one I knew ever accused drakes of being <\/span>reasonable<\/span><\/i>. They are impatient and prone to violence.<\/span><\/p>\n So why were there two drakes, a dead boggard, and a dead charau-ka sitting in those trees? I can think of two possibilities. The first is that the Cinderclaws intentionally paired them up, and that pairing\u2026went poorly. The second is that the drakes weren\u2019t sent by the Cinderclaws at all: they just came along and found the guards to be a tasty snack. They weren\u2019t guarding the pillar. They were guarding their meal.<\/span><\/p>\n Except the pillar didn\u2019t attack them. And presumably it wouldn\u2019t attack its own guards. So maybe there\u2019s something the pillar \u201csees\u201d that lets it recognize an ally. Maybe whatever marks a creature as dangerous to the pillar does not include drakes. Or maybe the same magic that made this pillar poisonous also made poisonous creatures seem harmless to it.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t know. That last one feels like a stretch.<\/span><\/p>\n Or maybe it\u2019s not. Maybe the pillars are capable of more reasoning than I thought.<\/span><\/p>\n Or. Maybe it\u2019s a dragon pillar, <\/span>Afternoon<\/h3>\n
Rova 13, 4719<\/h1>\n
Mwangi<\/h2>\n
Evening<\/h3>\n
Rova 14, 4719<\/h1>\n
Mwangi<\/h2>\n
Evening<\/h3>\n
Rova 15, 4719<\/h1>\n
Mwangi<\/h2>\n
Evening<\/h3>\n
Rova 16, 4719<\/h1>\n
Some River, Mwangi<\/h2>\n
Afternoon<\/h3>\n
Night<\/h3>\n