Your Story

Day 74 (Spring Season)

Four were your number, hunters of the Gomja Morkai, searching for prey or anything else of value to your tribe. You were supposed to return to the dwellings of your people yesterday, but you were on the trail of a prize all hunters dream of, but few have claimed: a jotuhn, heavy as ten warriors, hide tougher than a rhino's, viscous face crests, and a tail like a bristly, falling tree. Along the crown and back of the jotuhn, spines as long as a foot bristle like fur. These spines are what are valued above most else - they are harder than bone, harder than stone, equal in strength and toughness to the black glass of the Chaddah.
You four were committed to claiming this prize.
Among you was apprentice Helka Gomja Morkai, studying to become a wisdom. Many in the tribe feared that her trials may be impossible for her. Wisdoms are speakers within the tribe, and their voices carry much weight, sway many hearts. Apprentice Helka's tongue was sharper than black glass, and for the past three days you other three suffered its lash. Some whispered that she would remain an apprentice for all of her days, that it was a flaw she would never overcome. Of the other tasks of a wisdom, she was an excellent hunting mate. Her skills as a healer may be sorely needed on this hunt, and she earned her place ten times over when she used alchemy to create four sunspark torches, one for each of you, for the hunt ahead.
Another of you was Slin Gomja Morkai, a crafter who dreamed his whole life of joining a hunt, exploring the world beyond the dwellings of his people. He would have, many winters ago, but for the fear his mother had of what may happen. Always she saw dire omens foretelling death and tragedy should he go, and to honor her, he stayed. But last winter, she passed from a wasting disease the wisdoms could not cure, and after a period of mourning, Slin took up his dream and began traveling with hunting parties. He was still new to this life, and was eager to prove himself.
The largest among you was Alfra Gomja Morkai, a warrior who favored a great club and a blocking bracer of bone girding his right arm. He was a curious tribemate, always dreaming of building grand walls and structures of wood, bone and stone, though his tribe rarely stayed in one place for a year or two before the local resources were diminished and the tribe moved on to find another home. Tents and hastily-constructed huts made up the dwellings of his people, and such grand projects were considered foolish and wasteful. Still, Alfra dreamed. Thanks to his obsession, he always set up camp for his hunting parties, and he did a fine job of it.
The last of you four was Kri Gomja Morkai, a warrior favored by the spirits of beasts, as his eyes and tattoos would profess. In the dark, his eyes glowed green, and in the moonlight his tattoos would glow the same color, inked upon him with alchemy by the tribal wisdoms. All urnothi recognize these as the markings of a beastkin. Very rare, they are gifted with an affinity for animals, able to commune with them. It is said that this is the blessing of the animal spirits, and they are seen among their tribemates as favored, holy. Since the age of nine winters, a croah has served as his animal guide and companion. Any who start a hunt with a beastkin among them would say the favor of the spirits goes with them.
On the third day, a day after you had been expected to return to the tribe, you found your quarry. It was foraging in a narrow valley flanked by three hills, rutting up the roots of a halto tree. Every urnothi has heard the tales of how to properly hunt a jotuhn, but those tales warn of the dangers, too. Many a hunter has died trying to claim a jotuhn. They are said to be water spirits trapped in flesh as punishment for their greed, and that they fear fire, though their thick hides do not burn easily. To hunt a jotuhn is to surround it with hunters in stealth, ring it, then hold torches high to fence it in. Then, hunters take turns distracting the beast while those opposite attack.
It is a dangerous game, for the jotuhn can sweep its backend with a powerful smash of its tail, and eviscerate a hunter with its face crests. When you surrounded the beast, struck your sunspark torches to light, and stood tall, you soon learned how dangerous it was. Slin the crafter, eager to prove himself, dashed in when the creature faced away, stabbing it with his spear, and the club tail threw him aside like a discarded bit of rubbish. The other three had to adjust into a triangular pattern, but Slin surprised you all. Broken and near death, he staggered to his hands and knees, crawled to his discarded torch, seized it and rose shaky on two legs. Twice more the circle nearly broke, until finally Kri took up a throwing club tossed to him by Slin and made an incredible shot, through the eye of the jotuhn.
In every successful hunt, it is customary to choose one among the party most responsible for felling the jotuhn. The chosen one may harvest the face crests to fashion a trophy, so all may see who is most honored by the other members of the hunt. Three of you singled out Kri for this honor, and he claimed the face crests while Alfra harvested the tongue and prepared a fire to roast it, a delicacy only successful hunters may eat. Apprentice Helka tended Slin's wounds, then the two of them began harvesting spines.
Throughout the battle, the jotuhn had trumpet-bellowed a mighty cry that nearly unnerved you many times, deafening as it echoed through the hills. Miles away, a hunting party of Ohba heard the cries of a hunted jotuhn and came to find you. Outnumbering you by more than two to one, the cowardly Ohba approached. Their filthy bodies, makeshift fur armor and shoddy weapons marked them instantly for what they were. Ohba are so reviled that their name is used as an insult, implying one is dim, foolish, or cowardly. Though they outnumbered you, they should have recognized you as Morkai and fled, but some strange fear seemed to have given them courage, and as their hungry, fearful eyes fell on your prize, you saw that they wanted what you had, desperately so, enough that they were willing to fight for it.
As you stood together to defend what was yours, you glanced to one another in confusion - what could drive the Ohba to overcome their nature and face you?
Fearful that Helka's sharp tongue may ignite a fire and mindful that one of your number was still injured, you tried to parley with them, but it became clear that they were unwilling to leave peacefully unless you gave them at least one of the jotuhn crests. Offended, Kri came forward with the crests thrust into the strappings on his waist and his weapons held ready. Alfra joined him, leaning on his club, and as one the Ohba barked their yipping battlecry and fell upon you, hurling stones.
Slin and Helka tried to hold the flanks, but all of the Ohba were set on reaching Kri and willing to trample any who stood in their way, and soon Slin fell in the fight. Seeing this, Helka began to sing the song of the fallen brother, and Kri and Alfra joined her, the three fighting like demons possessed. This is the danger of taking on the Morkai, and the Ohba would pay with their blood.

Day 74 (Spring Season)

With one of your number fallen, the remaining three tribemates fought desperately to defeat the Ohba, but you were not alone. The bellowing of the jotuhn had attracted another, a lone wanderer of the Sumatai Tribe who was curious to see if the beast had fallen, and if so, who had claimed the prize. Krodd Sumatai was raised as a scout for his tribe, considered by many tribemates to be touched by the spirits, for he had been born with a disfigurement disturbing to look upon. Since his youth, he wore a mask in the presence of others, a ram's skull fashioned into a helm. He was now a seeker, on a pilgrimage to discover what the spirits intended for him: was he touched to serve a great purpose, or cursed?
As he surveyed the desperate battle below, Krodd grew angry. The shameful Ohba seemed to be trying to steal the prize of the Morkai, an honorable tribe his people have had fair dealings with, and as the song of the fallen kin wailed from the lips of the survivors, Krodd readied his giant bow and began raining spear-sized arrows among the Ohba. As the filthy thieves fell by club and spear and arrow, they soon realized their doom, and those that could, fled in terror.
As apprentice Helka rushed to tend to Slin's wounds, a terrible fury shook Alfra as he turned from his fallen brother to the wounded who could not flee. With brutal efficiency, he walked among the prone thieves, smashing heads flat into the earth with his massive maul. When but one remained, Helka stayed his hand, arguing that your group must learn from this survivor why they would dare attack the Morkai. Still trembling with rage, Alfra struggled to stay the strike, but his anger continued to smolder.
Krodd approached the group in a non-threatening manner and met with you. The remaining Ohba suddenly shivered and sat upright, wounds forgotten as terror and despair was replaced with a distant, slack-jawed gaze. You questioned him on why, why did the Ohba attack the Morkai? In a dull voice, he spoke of his tribe, for weeks now wracked with nightmares, fearing a horrible end is near. Their wisdom demanded that the warriors bring back a token of a jotuhn, and they had been searching for weeks.
When pressed to elaborate on the nightmares, he told you the dreamers speak of this land fouled and twisted, a dark parody of Urnoth, damp and fetid with poisonous air, the sky black and churning with everlasting storms. Some spoke of forms moving on the horizon, tall as mountains, outer gods lumbering over the land with forms terrible to behold and impossible to understand. Such speakers would tremble at the memories, throttled by their own thoughts. Some went mad from this, laughing, raving, sobbing at the doom in their minds. At the end of his tale, the Ohba stared into the distant, drool spilling from a slack mouth.
Krodd offered to search the surrounding area in case more Ohba may be approaching and departed. Though tended by your healer, Slin was still weak and lay resting while the rest finished harvesting the jotuhn. Helka suggested that Krodd be given a piece of the tongue of the jotuhn, in honor for his aide, but the warriors were against it, for only those who participated in the hunt may partake in the ritual. She suggested a compromise, one where you four do the the ritual, and offer him a leftover. Alfra seemed willing to concede, and when he agreed, Kri followed his lead.
Krodd returned and assured you there were no signs of any other hunting parties, and was honored to witness the ritual and accept the delicacy. Though each member of the hunting party seemed to enjoy eating jotuhn tongue, when the seeker lifted the bite under his helm to sample it, so vile was the flavor that he nearly spit it out, but with his Morkai friends watching, he wisely avoided the insult and chewed the horrid bite before swallowing.
Alfra and Kri harvested limbs from the surrounding vegetation and fashioned a litter for their fallen brother, all of you readied to depart. Krodd offered to escort you, and you agreed - your tribe would wish to honor him with a proper feast for coming to your aid. As you readied yourselves to leave, a moment of stillness settled in the land as the wind stopped, and you all paused at the ominous silence, as if Urnoth held its breath. Agitated, Kri's croah flapped its wings, shivered, and looked to the south in fear. The kneeling ohba also turned to look south.
"An omen," whispered apprentice Helka, and when the winds resumed, it sounded as if the world had groaned. You turned to her, seeking an explanation, but she had none, other than a feeling of dread. The seeker Krodd, however, was also a study of omens, and he feared he understood this one.
The Ohba prisoner stood and began walking south, and Alfra's rage could be no longer contained. Throwing his sky club, he struck the man in the back, but the dazed man kept walking. His second sky club brought the man to his knees, but he struggled to rise and continue, and Alfra approached from behind and brained him with the great club. Leaving the dead behind, you gathered the litter and headed home.
Once dusk approached, you camped at the edge of Stonewood, less than a day's travel from home. Alfra left briefly to hunt, soon returning with meat for the fire. Krodd revealed to you that he was a seeker, and he suspected he knew what the omen of the still wind was: the world was in danger. He admitted that his heart ached at what the coming days may bring. Helka tried to read the omens within the embers of the fire, and her omen was this: the spirits of the land were riled, going mad with fear. When you arose the next morning, Slin felt strong enough to walk, and with helping hands he made the rest of the journey on his own feet.

Day 75 (Spring Season)

Your journey home took you through Stonewood, much of the day's travels through lush forests broken up by mountain-sized pillars of stone that create a warren of dead-ends and narrow trails choked with dense brush. Despite the earlier omens, you Morkai began to smile to one another, excitement and anticipation building as you saw the exit of Stonewood ahead - but an hour's run from the dwellings of your tribe.
Traditionally, you would join as one to sing your arrival and signal the successful end of a jotuhn hunt, to be celebrated by the entire tribe, honoring you as the first among the people. As you exited Stonewood and crested a rise, some began to sing, too early yet, but the infectious mood spread as each of you, grinning to one another, took up the song one by one, Krodd watching with good humor. At the top of the hill, many fell silent, choking off the harmony, and the final note of the last singer ended sourly in annoyance, followed promptly by a ragged gasp.
Before your the horizon laid darkened, as if storms had settled to kiss the ground, but they were not clouds from the sky but smoke from a great many fires, the stench faint in the wind. Tendrils of this smoke reached down to converge upon the earth, right where your tribe lived. Confusion was replaced by concern, then fear, until a terror gripped each of your as you realized your tribe burned.
The hunting party broke into a frantic run, Kri pulling ahead of the rest, while Helka and Alfra slowed their pace to let Slin keep up. Krodd followed a short distance behind.
As you approached the border of the dwellings, you slowed to a stop as you struggled to make sense of what you were seeing. This fire had burned for many hours, perhaps for a day or more. It still smoldered within the foundations of the dwellings, most little more than smoking piles of coals framed with the blackened, skeletal ribs of huts.

        A powerful stench of rotting flesh awaited you with each gust of wind that pushed back the smoke. You saw the bodies of your kin scattered like broken reeds hewn from a trail as wide as the space your people built their dwellings on. Bodies, weapons, and even armor were hacked apart, as if they were but flesh parted by the sharpest shard of black glass, even the kulons, the beasts of burden your people use to move heavy loads, were not spared, and you all lingered for several moments as you stared at one such beast cloven cleanly in half, from its back to just behind its front legs, one half lying a few feet from the other, its rotting innards spilling out as if trying to reach the other half.

        You walked among the dead, searching desperately for any sign of life, any sign of hope, but when you caught sight of movement upon the northern edge of the dwellings, rage built within you. You saw a few figures scavenging the dead, but they were not Morkai.

They were outcasts.
Alfra reached for the sky club hanging from his thigh, but apprentice Helka brandished her staff and sprinted towards the nearest one nearly thirty paces away. Angered and fearful of her brashness, Alfra took up his great club and sprinted to keep pace with her, Kri at his side. Slin took up his own sky club and threw it, bowling over one of the outcasts, but they were garbed in heavy, makeshift armor of furs and bone, tougher than the Ohba you faced yesterday. Only Krodd kept a level head, scanning for more as he tried to assess the threat.
Several more outcasts rose from crouched positions where they had been scavenging, at least a dozen. Grief and rage had blinded the Morkai, and as the three fell upon the four, the rest of the outcasts closed to surround and kill you. It was an ugly battle, and Alfra fell to the clubs of the outcasts, but as more and more outcasts fell, they soon realized that they faced not three foes but more nearby, spear-sized arrows punching through their bone armor. In ones and twos, quickly turning to a riot, those still able to stand fled.
As apprentice Helka tended Alfra's wounds, he yelled at her, grief and worry and rage slurring his words. She was an apprentice, not a warrior, running headfirst into a battle was foolish of her, endangering not only herself but the rest of them. She did not take his words gracefully, scowling at the tongue lashing, unaccustomed to being at the receiving end. Despite her displeasure at being treated so harshly, she did a fine job binding his wounds, and Alfra stood to rejoin the rest of you.
For the next few hours, you searched the ruins of the dwellings and the surrounding area. You determined that virtually all of your tribe had been slaughtered, save the young - aside from a few who fell, most were missing, perhaps as many as 20 may yet survive. As to who or what struck your tribe, you were at a loss. A trail over one hundred paces wide formed a path, far larger than any trail you had ever seen or heard of, sweeping down on your tribe from the northwest, washing through the dwellings, then turning south to dwindle into the horizon.
Krodd inspected the tracks, but they were of no creature he had ever seen or heard of. Large ones had run among the dwellings, but several huge creatures had skirted the dwellings themselves, some plowing twin furrows as if they had heavy horns that gouged the earth at both flanks as they walked.  With the help of his croah, Kri found two surviving kulons west of the dwellings, sheltered in a cleft through a hill. The tamed beasts were joyous at the reunion with their tribe, their large round nostrils quivering between you as they hungrily drank in your familiar scents. Neither Krodd nor Kri found any trail to hint at survivors, though both admitted this did not mean there were none.
Searching the smoldering dwellings, you found several crafting supplies, some daily provisions, and plenty of discarded weapons common among your tribe. Alfra found the crafting tools of Master Jota, one of the best crafters in the tribe, and gave them to Slin. Though only a clever mind could use them effectively, Slin vowed to learn their secrets. Apprentice Helka found some evidence of their foe: two alien skyfangs, strange light weapons that were surprisingly heavy for their size, made of a dark, unnatural stone that reflects light within its mottled recesses like the surface of water. Clearly they were made to fly through the air, like small throwing clubs, fashioned as three curved fangs spiraling out from the center. The outer edges were razor sharp, and she found one embedded in a post, the other sticking out of a stone that had been split by its impact.
You gathered supplies, mourned your loss, and spoke among yourselves. There are difficult choices ahead, and two of your number are wounded, one seriously.

Day 75 (Spring Season)

You may be the last of the warriors, crafters, and wisdoms of the Gomja Morkai. Save for yourselves, there are perhaps as many as twenty young from your people who may still draw breath. Perhaps they fled the slaughter and traveled north to the Keita Morkai, perhaps south to the Zen Morkai. That the young would travel without warrior, crafter, or even a wisdom to guide them chills your heart, but that is a bonfire beside the terror that ices your veins.
Perhaps the savagers who killed your people took them. With no clear sign of them, you fear this is their most likely fate.
You have no idea who or what these savagers are, but the devastation they left behind is reminiscent of the Savager Tribe, a large, brutal clan who reveled in slaughter that wiped out two tribes before the remaining four in the region banned together and exterminated them. Savager is a term now used as a curse, a name for those who become worse than monsters.
Vengeance is a fool’s dream, for whatever could so casually slaughter your people would have nothing to fear from you. Of the dead, all of the bodies belonged to your tribe, suggesting they were unable to slay any of their foe. If the enemy did take your young, then those who murdered your tribe hold the future of the Gomja Morkai.
Do you risk all, follow the savagers, learn if they have your kin and, if so, try to spirit them away? Do you abandon them to such fate and try to join a sister tribe? These were the choices you faced, and after much debate you chose to follow the trail and learn the fate of your young. Even Krodd, the seeker of the Sumatai Tribe, moved by the horrors of your slaughtered brothers and sisters, vowed to help.
So apprentice Helka went into the wilderness to gather materials to perform a blood vow. A blood vow is an oath to the spirits, the ritual involving twin, red markings sweeping outwards from the eyes and brows, lending a fierce cast to your face, marking your vow. This incurs the favor of the spirits. Each of you took the same vow - to save the young - even Krodd, though he begged Helka to keep his face hidden, so they stepped away from the others when his turn came, and when they returned his ramshorn mask bore the same markings as his hidden face underneath. Krodd and Kri were first, for they hungered to scout ahead, hoping to spy on the savagers and report back what they see. As soon as they were done, they set off at a run, following the massive trail of destruction to the east.
As dusk approached, Alfra and Slin searched the ruins of their tribe, Alfra discovering the bone maul of Sakta, a massive, crushing weapon. Lacking the strength and body to wield such a huge tool, he stowed it on the harness of Nuak, one of the two kulons you recovered. With Slin still recovering from his wounds, Alfra took his stone knife, some leather strips, and repaired the rent in his warrior leathers. With the searching and blood vows complete, the three remaining Morkai laid to rest as Helka treated your injuries.

Day 76 (Spring Season)

In the pre-dawn hours, you rose, Slin much recovered from the sleep and the ministrations of the wisdom apprentice. By dawn you began running, following the trail, one hundred paces wide, that wounded the land to the east. Through the morning you made good progress, but through midday Helka and Alfra began to tire, struggling to keep up with Slin who seemed to glide on the favor of the spirits. Helka was badly winded, but Alfra nearly killed himself with this pace, collapsing after a few hours of wheezing and struggling. The others bound him to the back of Bakka, but by afternoon they stopped to rest. Once sufficiently recovered, they set off at a walk past dusk, collapsing to sleep near midnight, smelling the moist air of a bog ahead.

Day 77 (Spring Season)

Come dawn, Helka became excited at the sounds of the bog - a strip of marshland running along the southern edge of the trail. She had heard the cries of a yeup, three in fact - little amphibian creatures with a long tongue that could paralyze its prey with a touch - their saliva can be used to make healing salves. You decided to linger and hunt the yeups. Helka turned to the surrounding grasslands to gather provisions for your journey while Slin and Alfra hunted the yeups with skyclubs. The tiny critters proved elusive, and every missed throw from Slin caused a yeup to cry out in alarm, alerting the others, all jumping to vanish beneath the waters, forcing the hunters to wait patiently for them to eventually emerge at another location and resume their calls.
By the end of morning, after many failed attempts, you had your prizes, Helka using a stone knife to harvest the glands of each yeup, careful not to let the slimy gunk on their tongues touch her skin. You set off at a walk, still leery of the exhaustion you suffered from the day before, and at the end of the bog Slin stiffened and signaled danger, pointing frantically at a mossy hill in the water. As you began to withdraw, Alfra voiced his doubts that the crafter saw anything, causing the hill to stand up - a grunja, a huge beast that fears nothing, known to hunt and kill even johtuns, and upon seeing such a fearsome creature, you fled, following the kulons as they bleated their terror. As a lazy predator who prefers ambushing prey that get too close, the grunja bellowed and watched you flee.
Into the afternoon you tried to increase your pace to a jog, but Alfra immediately began to flounder so you settled on walking. At dusk, he built you a camp and Helka created three healing salves, using her knowledge of alchemy to bind the glands with gathered herbs, wrapped in leaves, to simmer near the coals of the fire. During his struggles running two days ago, Alfra had lost some of his tools, dropped on the trail, so Slin crafted a stone kniife to replace the one he lost.

Day 78 (Spring Season)

Come dawn you tried jogging once more, covering twice the distance of walking through the morning, slowing to a walk through midday. The trail led you to a hill, commanding a view of the surrounding grasslands, the top smashed flat, as if from a titan's fist. You lingered on the hill, realizing what it was - a camp for the savagers. It took you three days to travel the same distance as your quarry had in one, assuming they rest at night. Some among you began to despair - how could you hope to catch up if they travel at such speeds?

With Helka exhausted from your journey, you decided to rest at the savager camp, Alfra building a camp in the center while Slin searched the site. He was able to determine that the savagers bedded down in rings, each outer circle bearing the imprints of large creatures, surrounding a huge one in the center. There are no signs of fire, nor spoor from the beasts, but he did find strange tracks of two-legged creatures, man-sized, near each center alongside the huge beasts.  Slin also spotted a toy skyclub trampled and half-buried in the mud. Bringing what he found to the others, Alfra asked to see it, and as he wiped the mud off the toy skyclub, Helka spotted some strange markings on the underside - with teeth or nails, someone had scratched a crude symbol of the Gomja Morkai on the underside of the toy. You took this as a sign that at least one of your young are held by the savagers.
You were getting ready to settle down for the evening when Krodd appeared coming up the hill, furious to find you camping in the afternoon. He scolded you for lingering and traveling so slowly, for your quarry moves at a sprint, and it took you three days to reach the same distance they reached in one.  Chagrined by his words, you struck camp and walked onwards, following the trail to the east, until you bedded down past dusk.

Day 79 (Spring Season)

At dawn, you struck camp and committed yourselves to setting a better pace, taking off at a run. By midday, with bellies grumbling and supplies low, you slowed to a jog, trying to hunt as you travel. After a few unsuccessful attempts at some smaller animals by the hunters among you, Krodd was able to wound a deer, and you tarried while you tracked it through the grasslands off trail, killing it and strapping the carcass to the back of one of your  kulons. You then picked up the pace, running until dusk.
At the camp, Slin pulled the deer carcass away from camp to butcher it, but when he split it open, a horrid stench filled the air, its organs black, slimy and bloated. As a group, you opted to dispose of that meat, and you doubted if any of you could even stomach the taste,  so you slept with a gnawing hunger.

Day 80 (Spring Season)

With the rising sun your group tarried in the area, hunting and gathering for food. While picking a bush rich in fruit, Slin spotted some figures  to the north on a rise, hiding once they were spotted. You gathered back to eat, stowing the remaining provisions, and by midday you began running along the trail once more.
As you ran, you spotted figures to the north among the tall grass, shadowing you - once they realized they had been spotted, they began to sound off with their yipping battle cries, more voices in the distance joining in. Once they had twice your number, they approached to challenge you. You formed up shoulder-to-shoulder, your line facing off with theirs, as both sides brandished their weapons and tried to intimidate one another. When they attacked, you savaged them with skyclubs and giant arrows, and the fight was short and brutal. Once half their number were wounded or felled, the ohba fled back into the grass, but as you resumed your run, more continued to shadow and yip their cries.
Eventually, when the ohba had swelled to three times your number, they challenged you again. This time, the battle was was bloody for both side, Slin and Alfra both dropping at one point, but with the cry of the fallen on the lips of your Morkai, you eventually wounded enough ohba that they broke once more. Helka used her healing salves and bandages, the rest of her supply, tending your wounds, before you resumed your run, more ohba shadowing you as you went.
By afternoon, large groups of the ohba boxed you in, over a hundred strong, yipping their warcries. An ohba apprentice stepped forward, a young, pretty woman with dark mud painting her face and slicking her hair to her skull, a twin feather headdress upon her brow. Her neck was adorned with looping strings of colorful stones. She surveyed your party, taking note of the Blood Vow painted upon each of your faces, and demanded to know why you had invaded ohba territory.
Helka spoke apprentice to apprentice, her caustic words and harsh demeanor causing the rest of you to cringe, but the ohba apprentice seemed immune to her sharp tongue. She appeared sympathetic to your vow to hunt down the savagers, but you had killed some of her tribe, and a reckoning was needed. She proposed a deal - each of your warriors must face hers in a one-on-one duel. If you gain more wins, she will allow you to continue through ohba territory as you follow the trail. Should you lose, you'll be escorted to the south, beyond their territory, and must circle its outskirts until you find the trail beyond their borders.

Alfra was the first to duel, and he had three opponents to choose from - a big one that he thought of as a meathead, one with clever eyes, and a scrawny, jittery one. As Krodd was still wounded and Slin had fallen in nearly every fight so far, Alfra reluctantly chose to fight the meathead. The rules were simple, the first to bleed loses. The ohba apprentice chose boga sticks and hide bracers as weapons for each duel, and each had to strip to smallclothes, wrap their blocking arm with a hide bracer, and wield a boga stick with their dominant hand.
A boga stick is a light weapon the ohba use to teach their young how to fight - about as long as a forearm and hand, it's a braided coil of thin, flexible branches bristling with hooking thorns, one end stripped clean and bound for gripping. slightly flexible: they can cut into flesh but do little serious damage. Each duelist is expected to defend themselves with the bracer while trying to bleed their foe with the boga stick. They make a sinister swishing noise when swung.
At the start of their duel, the meathead flexed his superior bulk as Alfra went on the defensive, then the meathead stepped forward and shoved Alfra to the ground, hard. The surrounding ohba laughed and jeered along with the meathead who motioned Alfra to stand, but when he did, he favored an injured leg. Alfra lunged at the meathead, but seized up in pain, screaming as he gripped his stiff leg and fell. Again, the ohba laughed and pointed, while the meathead, wiping tears from his eyes, motioned Alfra to try again.  Glowing red with embarrassment, Alfra approached cautiously, careful not to tweak his injuries. Rearing back with all his might, Alfra swung down upon the meathead's face, and with a leer his opponent raised his hide bracer to block - but with a flick of his wrist, Alfra caused the boga stick to flex, swinging wide of the arm, returning to strike the exposed armpit, drawing a stuttering line of blood down to his thigh.  Howling in pain, the meathead glared furiously at Alfra, but the ohba apprenticed intervened to declare Morkai the victor.
Slin elected to go next (since Krodd was both tired and injured), choosing the clever man as his opponent. Clever he may be, but Slin quickly bloodied him, winning their second duel. Looking upon Krodd's injuries, the apprentice advised that they had already won sufficient duels to win passage through their lands, causing the ohba to cry out in dismay, but Krodd didn't want to back down, and offered to fight anyway. The ohba got excited that perhaps one of their number might yet win a duel, but Krodd defeated the scrawny one quickly.
The ohba melted back into the surrounding grasslands and you continued along the trail, though you sensed a number of them shadowing your progress. As some of you were tired and wounded, you decided to walk the final hours of this day. Within a few hours, the grasslands around you seem taller in this area, and the ohba stop trailing you - it seemed you had passed beyond their territory. By dusk, you reached the second camp of the savagers, the trail now tending southeast, upon another hill.
Examining the tracks, Krodd determined that your quarry camped here four days ago. Alfra set a camp, while Helka tried to gather some provisions from the surrounding grasslands, though here the reeds and grass were taller than her and she had no luck.  Before resting for the night, Krodd repaired his armor, Slin began building a better spear for himself, and Helka treated everyone's wounds. Slin had a fine haft for his new weapon when he bedded down.

Day 81 (Spring Season)

At dawn you set out at a run, trying to close the distance with the savagers. Many of you had become competent runners, though Alfra still struggled. By late morning a storm brewed in the north, dark, ominous clouds, with a strong wing gusting and building. Several reeds had their tips pulled off by a fierce gust, setting the reed tips to dance over your heads. Helka and Krodd both recognized omens within the patterns, but Krodd flinched as one reed drove right into his eye, averting his gaze at the last instance to save himself from injury. Only Helka was able to interpret the omens: off the trail ahead is something not of your world.
As you journeyed on, you found a large trail splitting off from the main one, angling northeast. After a bit of discussion, you decided to have Alfra and one of the kulons continue along the main path while you took Bakka with you to follow the side trail. In time, two other trails merged with this one as it wove through the tall grasses, to a clearing perhaps 20 paces across, trampled flat by many giant creatures, the air reeking of decay and old blood. Another large trail continued on, angling southeast.
Within the clearing lay three slain bull aucks, huge creatures, rotting in the rain that was steadily growing stronger as the darker clouds approached from the north. Slin and Helka began to creep towards the corpses while Krodd stuck to the surrounding reeds, moving along the western edge. Slin spied something shiny under the tusks of the central auck, but as he drew near, several reypas rose from quietly feeding on the corpse, the small creatures clustering protectively around the shiny object. Helka hissed at the sight of them, for the scars on her face came from an ill-fated encounter with a pack of reypa when she was a child.
Against three man-sized threats, a pack of reypa always flee, but these acted strangely, bold and snarling at you, fearless. Krodd began to notch an arrow, causing the reypa to freak out and charge you - two for each. Like tiny monsters possessed, they fought savagely until all dead by your hand, causing minor wounds among you. Slin in particular was disturbed by their ferocity, as six small reypa had no hope against you.
The object was large, made of a strange, woven material that glimmered like water. It was some sort of basket, on its sides, with part of a harness caught in the tusks of the auck bull. You knew it as a basket because it had a sort of lid on its side, cracked open. Krodd reached out to open the lid, and you all marveled at its mechanism, for inside the basket, strange arms of that shiny material folded and twisted outwards, supporting the lid as it opened. When Krodd closed it, the strange dance of the bits within reversed itself, and he found the material to be hard as stone, slippery, and strangely cold to the touch. He was able to pry the lid open a few hand-widths, and when he peered inside he gasped in wonder.
As each of you peered in one at a time, you beheld the interior to have a nest of those strange, shiny fibers, crisscrossing to form a pocket with a wondrous object resting inside - it was fist-sized, a sort of glass blossom with a dark, spherical core with a surface scored in strange markings and lines, encased in a dazzling cocoon of glass. Like a slow heartbeat, light pulsed from within, reminding you of the sun if glimpsed from the bottom of a murky pool. Helka reached in to pull it out, but as her arm emerged gripping the glass blossom, she gave a startled gasp and dropped it in the mud, claiming it seemed to bite her.
Slin tried to reach within the basket to pull out some of the nesting, but he found it hard, cold, and firmly attached to the interior. Nearly cutting himself on the nesting, he abandoned it, and with Krodd's suggestion, took his stone knife to carve a small bit of hide off the rotten bull, fashioning a makeshift bag to carry the glass blossom. The rain was coming down hard at this point, so you left the clearing, guiding Bakka along the exit trail that eventually merged with the main trail, Alfra and Nuak awaiting you.
Opting to jog through midday, still Alfra struggled, gasping and wheezing through the storm. By the afternoon the rain had cleared, though the winds were strong, and Alfra was struggling so bad he begged you to slow to a walk for the remainder of the day. By dusk, you were gratified to come upon the next camp of the savagers, meaning you had traveled the same distance they had four days ago. 

Eager to scout ahead, Krodd continued on to survey the trail while the rest of you settled down for the night. Stripping the netting and supplies off the kulons, you let them graze as you settled in the center of the savager camp. Alfra set a big fire for the night while Helka tried again to gather edibles - she failed to find much, but found herself more familiar with the fruits of the grasslands. Slin used the fading light to finish his jotuhn spine spear, a fine example of craftsmanship.
Shortly after dusk, your campfire exploded into a shower of flames and embers, perhaps from some of the strange foliage Alfra used as fuel. He was burned, though the rest of you escaped harm. Gathering around the bones of the fire, you realized there were many strange symbols formed in the bed by glowing coals, and Helka gasped at such an obvious set of omens - even those of you who did not know the signs could tell this one was strong.
A large formation often associated with seeds or budding growth, another symbol representing both a trapping pit and a protective cover, a third representing the teeth of a predator, or threat of death, a forth the wind of a traveling step, and a fifth: a long, thin coal of a thin stick, a small dot of an ember framed by glowing curves representing the dim sun, a symbol of the Winter Solstice. Helka interpreted them thusly: the young ones of your tribe are trapped in a manner they cannot escape, but their trap protects them from harm. Within this trap, they travel a journey of countless steps, but there is a prediction of doom - if they are not freed by the Winter Solstice, they and the future of your tribe shall perish.

Day 82 (Spring Season)

At dawn, you spotted something new at the western end of the savager camp, at the edge of the trail you followed to get here. As you approached, you saw bundles wrapped in leaves around a banner woven of sticks - someone crafted an omen symbol, which Helka shuddered upon seeing - the hidden sun, the dark omen, one that symbolizes the sun extinguished in the sky, a doom that promises the destruction of one's tribe, should other omens be ignored. Using his hunting skills, Alfra determined the tracks were those of several urnothi, one of whom  was either a small woman or child. The bundles contained many provisions and several salve bandages.
Back along that trail, not two days ago, you encountered a horde of ohba led by a reluctant wisdom apprentice, yet none of you were confident who left these supplies or why, though you did take them with you. Clearly whoever left this must have done so in the night, in clear view of your fire a hundred paces away in the center of the clearing. While you debated who left these supplies or why, Alfra became alarmed as he realized both Helka's and Slin's eyes had turned green - all young of the Morkai have green eyes, a symbol of the spirits blessings, though their eyes change to other colors as they mature. Only beastkin retain green eyes, and there's glow in the darkness. Unsure what to make of this, you packed up the kulons with the new supplies and broke into a run, along the fresher trail that leads on towards the badlands.
By midday, when you had slowed to a jog, you noticed that Nuak, one of your kulons, seemed tired and restless, showing signs that he had gotten little sleep. Though the kulons typically ran side by side, they seemed to be keeping their distance from one another today. In the afternoon, as you pushed to run, Helka stumbled and nearly fell, blundering into Nuak, causing some of the supplies to fall off.  The kulon ran ahead several paces as the rest of you slowed and watched, curiously he approached the other kulon, Bakka, the two nuzzling one another for the first time today. As you gathered around the fallen supplies to retrieve them, Slin realizes one of fallen items was the skin pouch holding the glass blossom.
He pulls it out of the bag, giving Alfra his first look at the wondrous artifact, leaning within inches of its surface as he peered at the pulsing core within the encasing glass petals. As Slin returned it to its pouch, the rest of you began walking back to Nuak with the fallen supplies in your arms, Slin just a few paces behind. Catching sight of Slin, Nuak became frantic and excited, bowling through the rest of you to reach him, knocking Helka aside, but Alfra would not allow this, his thick muscles cording as he wrestled with the large beast, halting its advance. Backing from the scene, Slin wore a dawning look of suspicion, glancing from the artifact pouch in his hand to the excited kulon and back again, before announcing that he will be carrying the artifact rather than stowing it on the kulon.
You ran onward, noting that both kulons were once again side-by-side as they followed, though Nuak frequently watched Slin, and by afternoon you reached the next savager camp, next to a great spur of rock a few hundred paces wide at its base, fifty wide near its top, nearly a hundred paces tall, looming over the grasslands. Strangely, the savagers had set their camp on the windward side, and given the strong winds of this land that seemed a bizairre choice, not to take advantage of the shelter. Their exit trail was half the width of the one you had followed, now only 25 paces wide, curving further southeast towards the badlands.
Wishing to close the distance, you pushed on, using the last few hours of daylight to run along the trail, stopping to camp at dusk. Helka was able to gather food from the grasslands while Slin hunted for crafting materials and Alfra set up a sorry excuse for a camp. As darkness fell, you noted that both Helka and Slin had eyes that now glowed in the dark. 

Day 83 (Spring Season)

At dawn, when the sun rose, you noted that Alfra's eyes had turned green during the night.

At at loss as to why Alfra now had green eyes and Helka and Slin had green eyes that glowed in the dark (like a beastkin), you set out at a run shortly after dawn, hoping to gain on the savagers you pursued. In the morning, a flash rain in the heat quickly turned to fog that cut your visibility to a few paces.
You ran onwards through the fog, Bakka and Nuak following a few paces behind, until you stopped in alarm, hearing something massive moving about near the edge of the trail. You could not determine what it was, other than it was huge, much bigger than your kulons, possibly bigger that the largest creature you have ever come across. Fearful, you began sneaking away, through the fog to find the other side of the trail. While trying to sneak, Alfra kicked a rock, causing the noise of shuffling and deep breathing to pause, the unseen beast barking out a short, powerful challenge while everyone froze.
Thinking to distract the hidden beast, Alfra scooped up a rock and threw it hard down the trail, back the way you had come. In the quiet stillness, the rock clattered in a series of skips, quickly drowned out by a much louder bellow as the invisible monstrosity shook the air with a threatening growl. Terrified by the noise, Slin and Bakka broke into a sprint, vanishing in the fog, Slin voicing a squeal like a small prey animal about to be eaten. The rest of you were stunned by this turn of events, standing there frozen for several seconds, before sneaking after them, finding a trail into the grasslands marking where Bakka dove in. With his hunting skills, Alfra found markings suggesting that, terrified as he was, Slin retained enough reason to turn and follow the edge of the trail in his flight, while Bakka pushed off into the surrounding wilderness.
As Bakka had many of your supplies tied to his harness, you opted to track him through the badlands. Easy enough in the tall grasses, but once the trail climbed up into the sparcer terrain of rocks and pillars, you remembered that kulons have an excellent sense of smell and prodded Nuak to track Bakka. Thus began a foggy tour of a frantic path through gaps in stone, elevated platforms, steep slides, and a twisting route. For nearly three hours you followed Bakka's path before being led back to  the savager trail where Bakka turned and followed the edge, until eventually you came upon Slin and Bakka both waiting for you under the shade of rock as midday approached, by now only sparce pockets of fog clinging to low, sheltered areas.
Eager to make up lost time, the group resumed running onwards.  Within an hour, you came upon the next  savager camp. By now the terrain was rockier and more barren compared to the border region you had been traversing, and the trail turned north into a shallow valley, like a bowl a thousand paces across, a small rise at the center, where the vegetation had been flatted for the camp.  The savagers had obviously rested there, then returned to the trail to continue onwards in a southern direction, into a region dotted with rock spires surrounded by a warren of erosion channels of dry river beds, interspersed with grass-choked low areas and a scattering of gnarled, thorny bushes.
Though you desired greatly to press on, Slin suggested you spend at least an hour searching the camp for any signs of the young ones. You found the same pattern as with the other camps, evidence that the huge creatures flanked by twin gouges would rest encircled by the large creatures that shadowed them, strange two-legged markings of normal-sized creatures appearing around the large and huge ones.
Near one of the twin grooves, you found a curious indentation in the earth, about three paces from the outer edge of twin markings, parallel and two paces long, a precise line as if a staff had been laid flat, then pressed half a finger-width into the sandy terrain. A small, morkai craft knife stuck out of the ground near the outer edge of this marking, apparently stuck point first into the earth, and several strange tracks showed much activity around this spot. Without a professional tracker, you could determine nothing more, so Helka took the morkai knife and you resumed your run.
The savager trail at times was difficult to follow, but at each junction where the path was uncertain, you found three stones stacked vertically, an old urnothi symbol marking a preferred path - you assumed Krodd left these for you, and each time you took the marked path, eventually the terrain would return to grasslands and the savager trail was obvious once more. With just a few miles further before camping for the night, you determined that you had, at best, kept pace with the savagers this day.

Day 84 (Spring Season)

At dawn you redoubled your efforts to gain ground, running through the morning. With several days of running and recovery, each of you had been hardened by the journey, and found yourselves capable of running for many hours without lagging. Near midday, you came upon the next savager camp, nestled in a U-shape of rocky spurs surrounding a small lake in the back, a dry streambed snaking from the lake out through the narrow entrance. The devastation to the earth surrounding the lake make this camp clear.
After Bakka and Nuak tested the water with blasts of frantic sniffing through their huge nostrils, they began drinking their fill. Trusting the kulon senses, you refreshed at the lake and decided to tarry an hour. Slin searched the area for crafting supplies, Helka for food provisions, while Alfra took his skyclub to hunt any fish that could be lured near the surface. Helka and Alfra both had some success, enough to feed the three of you for the day, and by the time you settled for camp, you had run for virtually the entire day, clearly gaining on your quarry.
Once Alfra set up a fine camp, the rest of you noticed that his eyes were now glowing green in the darkness. With a well-lit fire, Slin decided to do some crafting before he slept. Taking Helka's light skyclub and the two alien skyfangs she had recovered at the remains of your village, with a few hours of trial and error, Slin modified her weapon into a fearsome light skyfang with the range of a skyclub but with razor-sharp teeth along its leading edges, to be admired by the rest of you come dawn.

Day 85 (Spring Season)

With the light of the rising sun, everyone admires the weapon Slin modified for Helka, a light skyfang, some morkai tech with the small alien blades added at impact points. Within an hour of running a severe dust storm swept in, reducing visibility to 10 paces. You came upon the next savager camp, but with limited visibility you had to explore the edges until you were reasonably certain of what you found, picking an uncertain trail to follow.
Once the storm passed and visibility improved, you found Krodd walking the opposite way on your trial. He was amazed to discovered all of your eyes were now green, and searching the shadows of his bone helm, you discovered his were, as well.
Krodd warned you that the lands ahead are yasitch territory. You followed the trail until you spotted a yasitch keitoah - a blood-red, domed structure used by that tribe for religious ceremonies and to honor their warrior dead. Built upon a bluff towering over the surrounding terrain, the trail passed along the base of the bluff, and you even saw paths up to the structure, but though Alfra badly wanted to inspect it, Hekla insisted you push on, though you traveled slowly, scanning for danger and creeping along.
By the time you settled for camp, you knew you made poor progress that day.

Day 86 (Spring Season)

Eager to make up for yesterday, you started at a run, following the trail as it wove through regions of badlands dotted with gullies, pits, and narrow ravines.
After a few hours of a brisk pace, your kulon Bakka bleated in fear as its footing slipped as it slid down into the gully of a dry riverbed. Nuak bellowed distress cries, and Krodd tried to calm it as the rest of you began climbing down to help it, Alfra and Slin directly down where Bakka fell, Helka searching the edge ahead, finding a better spot to descend.
Unfortunately, the commotion attracted a pack of predators in the dry riverbed - the kaklu, one of the fastest creatures on land, known to prowl the wastelands and deserts of Urnoth. Four legs, a lean but muscular body, and a long tail for balance and speed. Their maws, hinged at the neck, can split its head into vice-like jaws of considerable strength, and a small, second set of arms on its chest were tipped with paralytic poison.
Slin and Alfra climbed/slid down to stand before Bakka to protect it while Helka crept to flank while the kaklu howled and harried the downed kulon. Krodd rained spear-like arrows into the nimble beasts, and Nuak surprised everyone by braying aggressively and charging in, stomping and snapping at the predators in an insane act of bravery. Helka put her light skyfang to good use, and after a tense battle, only one kaklu survived by fleeing. Aside from some minor injuries, you came out of the scrap victorious. Helka harvested some of the venom from the dead, warning Alfra off of trying to harvest the meat, known to be toxic. Once settled, you found a path back to the trail and resumed your run.
Upon reaching the next savager camp, Slin insisted you tarry an hour to search, though you found nothing new. Noticing his wounds, Hekla bound Slin. The trial exited the badlands, entering a region of grasslands, much of the green turned golden in the dry conditions.
About an hour before dusk your running brought you to another camp, making up for the slow progress of yesterday. This camp was simply an expanded area of trampled grass, narrowing to continue a trail southwest. Using the last of daylight, Alfra set up camp while Krodd searched the tracks and Slin tried to gather some crafting materials (finding little of use) while Helka foraged for food. Alfra hunted for meat, bringing back a few rabbits, and with the tubors and edibles Helka found, Slin cooked the first decent meal you've had in days.
Settling for the night, Krodd searched the coals of the fire for omens, reading this: you walk the fastest trail to the prize you seek, but that trail grows harder ahead.

Day 87 (Spring Season)

In the night, motivated by the omens he read within the embers, Krodd went ahead to scout out the trail, letting Slin know before he left. During your morning run, you came across an older trail bysected by the one you followed, at least 50-paces wide, made by huge, cloven beasts. As Alfra was more of a hunter than a tracker, he could determine no more.
Shortly after midday you encountered the 10th savager camp and pressed on. The group was able to maintain a run throughout the day. By dusk, Alfra set camp while Helka and Slin both gathered for provisions - Slin luckily found a few nests of bird eggs, a nice addition to your meals.

Day 88 (Spring Season)

An hour into your run the next morning, you spotted some wisps of smoke leaking out of a dense tangle of scrub between two rocks on a rise overlooking the trail. Slin cut his elbow in the climb up, but once before the scrub you called out towards the source of the smoke. Emerging from a hidden door of woven twigs, an ancient woman, little more than skin and bones wrapped in a ragged cloth, one eye milky grey, heard your calls and emerged from the scrub, apparently her home.
She called herself Geedee, and she spoke of a terrible racket she heard three nights pass, after midnight, that she thought was a horde of demons from the spirit world. She had thought it a dream until she saw the trail the next morning. You offered her some of your provisions in thanks, including some eggs, and she smiled a toothless grin and said, "the omens suggested I make tea this morning, blessed be the spirits!"
Though she did not see the savagers, she did give you an important and disturbing clue - apparently, they camp at day and travel at night, for you estimate this spot as midway between one camp and the next, and she spoke of their passage in the middle of the  night.
Running on, you passed the next savager camp as a savage duststorm reduced visibility to a few paces. You slowed to a jog during the storm, wary not to lose the trail, and Helka struggled. In the afternoon, the storm settled and you resumed your run, and about an hour till dusk Nuak, excited by something he smelled, forged off the trail, leading you to a freshwater spring  in a tiny valley, lush vegetation choking the hollow.
Helka volunteered to make camp, freeing Alfra to hunt and Slin to try and gather some crafting materials, both searching until darkness. Though Alfra had some luck, downing a small deer, Slin turned up nothing of use, and both had difficulty finding the camp in the darkness, for Helka was unable to make fire. In the dark, Alfra got a fire going, and you worked into the night curing the meat.

Day 89 (Spring Season)

During your morning run, a lesser sandstorm reduced visibility to a hundred paces, the cliffs, chasms, and rocky hills hazy beyond. Helka struggled with fatigue, but she ate a spirit surge, a concoction she had made with her alchemy, to ignore the pain and press on. An hour into your run, you encountered the 12th savager camp and pressed on without pause.
By midday, you slowed to a walk to let Helka recover, working your way in a ravine where the trail led, when heavy, boiling dark clouds swallowed the sky. With gale-force winds, a thunderous rain drenched the land, and you found yourselves in the path of a flash flood. Scrambling to survive, you abandoned the trail to climb to high ground. On top, you had a view of the mountains to the South, looming over you now, and smaller hills to the north. Many of you cried out in terror upon seeing the heart of the storm to the north west.
There, the rain and clouds were so thick it was as if a darkness walked the land. Many of you saw movements and shapes within the heart of the storm, as if a monster titan roamed the land, parts of it writhing like snakes. You spied a village in the distance, in the path of the storm, so far away that the people seemed little more than tiny hairs waving about. The darkness of the storm passed over the village, hiding it from view, and some of you swore you heard cries of terror in the wind.
Once the storm passed, you could see the village once more, but could sense no movement from the tribesmen who lived there. You decided to investigate, though it was a few hours to walk to the distant cluster of huts.
An hour into your walk, Helka, looking over her shoulder, stopped to gasp, drawing your gaze to something back further towards the mountains on a high hill - a yasitch keitoah, the blood-red dome clearly marking this land. Still, as you could still see no movement in the village, you pressed on.
You reached the dwellings about an hour before dusk, about twice the size of your own village, putting the population somewhere around 200 yasitch. Aside from some storm damage and pools of blood here and there, there were no signs of the ones who lived here.
Alfra chose the largest intact structure, possibly a communal hut or a dwelling for the chieftan, to set up camp for the night, the kulons stripped and bedded beside it, while Helka and Slin used the dying light to search for supplies. Gathering around the fire within the big hut, Slin marveled at all of the crafting materials he had found, while Helka used some of the supplies she had gathered to make some sunspark torches.
During the night while you slept, nightmares plagued you, and by dawn Alfra had bags under his eyes, unable to get enough rest. 

Day 90 (Spring Season)

As you readied to leave at dawn, you discovered your kulons had not slept in the village - you found them lounging beyond its borders, and they were skittish, refusing to enter the empty village, so you had to ferry their load to them. Thinking you could make up lost time, you decided to angle to a point further along the trail, past the keitoah. Approaching the structure at a jog, only Slin dared to look inside while the rest of you circled around back to view the nest of hills and ravines between you and the mountains, somewhere within laid the trail you seek.
This keitoah was circular in design, a foundation of irregular stones stacked to nearly two heights, the top of blood-red clay that formed a dome a few heights above that. The doorway was open, framed in human bones with a row of skulls along the top, angled downward to stare at Slin as he approached. Inside, he saw a central pile of skulls forming a pyramid, the top revealing a central pillar of timber that rose to supporting crossbeams spanning the dome overhead. The wall that wrapped the chamber was girded in human ribs and had recesses at regular intervals, each containing an intact skeleton posed as if guarding the room within, each with a great stone club or stone axe of impressive craftsmanship.
The room itself was furnished with chairs, tables, and benches, each made of human bone, clever works of feet, arms, ribs, and backbones that was disturbing to witness. Before the pillar a display stand sat on four skeletal feet, rising in a cluster of leg bones, joined to arm bones, ending in a splay of hand bones fanning out like the tilted surface of a small table. Nestled within this was a necklace of braided hair with an amulet carved from a cloudy green glass, in the shape of a predator's fang.
Slin persuaded Helka to come see what he found within, and she was greatly disturbed by the decor and distrustful of the amulet. She recognized it as a greenrock tooth, a talisman said to help the injured recover from their wounds. Praying to the spirits for guidance, she listened to the wind and read the omens - any who take from within these walls shall be hunted.
Helka forbid you from taking the amulet, though Slin tried to sway her, and reluctantly you left without taking any of the weapons or amulet.
With Alfra using his hunting skills to track and find the trail, you spent the rest of the day combing the hills, trying to find your way, only stopping at dusk to rest. Gathering from the badlands was slim, only Slin was able to find any food, some sour fruit from a strange form of cactus.

Summer Solstice, Day 91

After a full rest, Alfra decided it was better to backtrack to the region where you lost the trail. Many of you begun to despair, but by midmorning he found a clear marking that led to an unwashed portion of the trail, and with renewed fervor you resumed your tracking, by luck coming upon the 13th camp of the savagers soon after.

Within the foothills, the terrain grew lush, fed by streams and rivers from the mountains ahead. The savager camp lay along a small river. Alfra examined the tracks with his hunting knowledge, guessing they were now four or five days old. The rich greenery around you prompted a pause in pursuit while Helka and Slin gathered provisions while Alfra hunted small game.
Afterwards, you set off along the trail, to the far end of the valley between two steep hills like a V at the river entrance. Beyond, you could see the mountains looming, and far to the west, to the right of your trail, a distant mountain loomed larger than the others, smoke oozing from a dozen places along its crown. You had heard of such places - it is said that fire lives within them, so hot it melts the very rock itself.
As you neared the exit to the valley, you spotted a croah perched out of reach over the narrowest point between the flanking hills. Hoping it was Kri's animal companion, you approached, but as you got closer you realized this one was different, and it watched you as if it spied something distasteful.  Croah are rarely seen, and when they are, often they are accompanied by a beastkin. Scanning your surroundings, you spotted a woman emerging atop a rise to your right, well out of reach but within earshot.
She was beastkin, as her eyes and tattoos showed, but more than that she was your cousin, a Morkai from one of your sister tribes, the red stripe tattooed from her lower lip down to the end of her chin.  Dressed in warrior leathers, she carried a fighting staff crowned with the skull of a stag, the antlers serving a wicked purpose upon the crown of the weapon. Surprised but delighted to come upon her kin deep in this wilderness, she bade greeting to you.
Her name was Eesh, and she asked you about elder beasts. None save Helka knew of what she spoke of, for your legends know of them as the Firsts, the progenitors of all the beasts of urnoth, said to have lived since the beginning. Such creatures are said to be spectacular specimens of their kind, ancient and wise, though for you they live only in myth and legend. Like many, Eesh had seen the signs of the doom approaching, and was seeking elder beasts, in the hopes they could guide her into how to protect her people.
When she heard of your tale, of the slaughter of your tribe and the abduction of the young ones, Eesh wept, for all Morkai see one another as kin. Moved to help, she offered to accompany you, stepping aside to gaze into the eyes of your kulons, and you could sense she was speaking with them, introducing herself and learning something of their own tales. Her croah, which she called Niyak, seemed distrustful of you, and kept its distance.
With your added companions you set off at a run, and though many of you were now capable of keeping up this pace all day, Eesh was soon flagging, even with a dose of spirit surge given by Helka, and by the afternoon you slowed to a jog. Your path took you higher and higher into the mountains, rising above the northern lands behind you, where all you have known lay in the distance. 
When you arrived at the next savager camp, you found it nestled in a hollow to the left of the trail, flanked on three sides by cliffs, and decided to camp there in the relative shelter from the wind. Alfra set camp while Helka cooked some of the meat, greens, and fruits gathered from before, while Eesh rested to regain her strength. Slin used the remaining alien skyfangs to craft a second skyfang club, which he gave to Alfra. A cleft in the rock formed a shallow cave just big enough for a fire at the entrance and a bit of space from any rain that may fall. You bedded down for the night, stripping the kulons of their harnesses and letting them linger near the entrance to the cave. With the new moon and cloud cover, beyond the feeble light of your fire the darkness was absolute.

Day 92 (Summer Season)

About an hour before dawn, the wind began to howl, and you awoke to the sounds of an approaching storm, stabs of lightning booming occasionally, turning the darkness into a harsh still image of the surrounding terrain. As the heavy rain descended, amidst the noise and fury of the storm, many of you heard a familiar sound - so faint as to be doubted, like distant screams of terror, similar to when you witnessed a storm engulf a distant village of the Yasitch before finding the grounds deserted but for storm damage and pools of blood.
Alfra put the remaining wood on the fire, stoking it up, and you coaxed the kulons into the back of the cave. Then, at the edge of the firelight, a horror emerged.
You watched with icy fear as wisps of darkness-like smoke began to converge, stirred as if by a frantic wind that did not touch the falling rain. The dark smoke coalesced to form a winged horror, a creature of nightmare. Its skin was black, glossy-smooth, streamers of darkness still filling the black webbing of skin stretched out into two slimy wings. Its arms and legs were tipped with long, powerful claws, while a slender, long yet strong tail whipped around behind it, like a mad snake, wisps of darkness bleeding from its end.
The most terrifying part of the creature was its head - a huge mouth, filled with rows upon rows of curved, sharp fangs, beneath two pitted eyes that glowed like the embers of a dark fire. It was utterly alien to you, but its malice and murderous intent was clear as it gazed upon you and screamed, a blood-curling cry not unlike the sound of a man screaming mad with terror.
Before you could gather your wits, it dove at the most obvious threat, Alfra, and felled him with a swipe of its claws to his neck and chest, the warrior dropping to the fetal position as both his hands clasped desperately to the wounds, trying to stem the blood loss as his life essence oozed from between his fingers. Though Bakka did what was natural for kulons, cowering and bleating in terror, Nuak trumpeted his fury and jumped into the fray, trying to stomp on the monster with his front hooves. You began the Cry of the Fallen, even Eesh joining the call, and with skyfang, johtun spear, and antler staff you fell upon the horror, causing it to bleed black goo, before Eesh stove its head in with her staff, and the creature collapsed, where it quickly dissolved into fading wisps of black smoke.
Helka worked frantically to stem the bleeding caused by the horror, Alfra the first to be tended to, while you retreated behind the light of your fire and listened to the distant screams amongst the storm - it sounded as if hundreds, if not thousands, of the horrors were out there, and fear became your closest companion as the last hour slowly bled away until, at long last, the cries faded to silence moments before the sky betrayed the first hint of dawn.
Thanks to Helka's skill, Alfra was able to stand on his own, his wounds closed by the poultices and bandages of her craft. Not wanting to linger, you set upon your path once more, heading out at a jog in deference to the wounds and the struggles of Eesh to keep up. By midmorning the air became foggy, Eesh weezing to catch her breath, and you slowed to a walk to help her recover. After a few hours, the path leveled from its relentless climbing and the wind cleared away the surrounding fog. Looking behind you to the north, you realized the fog you had traversed was in fact clouds, now beneath you to blanket those receding lands.
In the afternoon, you returned to a jog, and with only a couple of hours before dusk, you reached the apex of this pass - to either side towering peaks of snow-capped mountains loomed, but spread out before and beneath you were the lands of a strange world unknown to all of you, stretching out to a hazy horizon. 

Together, you followed the trail past the apex between flanking mountains, jogging when you could, keeping an eye out for a suitable campsite, with but a few hours of daylight left. Eesh sent her croah Neyik ahead to scout for a place. At some of the steeper parts, Alfra and Slin suffered minor scraps from sliding, before Neyik returned to gaze into the eyes of Eesh (a disturbing thing to watch, for croah have no eyes), who then relayed that a suitable campsite had been found.
She led the rest of you to an alcove sheltered on two sides, good shelter from the wind, with a commanding view of the lands to the south and the trail below, with enough local scrub to support a strong fire. An hour after dark, Krodd approached the camp from the darkness - he had seen the fire from further down the trail where he was camping. You introduced him to Eesh, thanking him for the markers he left to help guide where the trail grew difficult to see, and told him of your adventures while he was away.

Day 93 (Summer Season)

With dawn you continued your climb down the mountain, following the trail. With the danger of falling down the steep inclines, you chose to walk. After a few hours, you came upon the next savager camp, and each of you paused to make sense of what you saw.
On a sloped rise along the trail, the savagers had set their camp in an area with a commanding view of the lands below to the south, where lesser mountains and wooded hills receded to the distant horizon. Bunched and littered throughout the camp were the bodies of hundreds upon hundreds of slaughtered bodop. It appeared as if a great host of the beasts had attacked the savagers - the way the bodies were cloven apart made it clear the savagers had slaughtered them. At the far end of the camp, you saw larger forms clumped together.
Drawn by your curiosity and awe, you drew closer to inspect these forms - they were large, alien creatures, dead, and with a shock you realized that at last you were looking upon the bodies of the savagers themselves. Like monstrous, two-legged insects, the large beasts had carapaces that gleamed like colored crystals of differing hues, but some great force had cracked them open, pools of green ichor leaking from the wounds to pool the earth where they lay.
Among these large alien forms lay the bodies of humanoid creatures, perhaps the savagers themselves. Their two legs ended in stilts, their tracks by now well known to you. Both arms had three-fingered hands, two digits with an opposable one. Their skin was of the same material as their large beasts, and for a face they had only two eyes sunken within a shiny mask. They, too, leaked green ichor from their mortal wounds.
You counted eight of the large savager beasts and nine bodies of the savagers themselves. At the center of these slain creatures lay a huge structure of alien design (made of glimmering materials) that reminded you of a strange hut built upon two sled rails - it appeared to be broken, abandoned by the savagers. At last you understood the twin grooves of tracks that trailed some of the huge beasts among the savagers. Such beasts were still a mystery, for it seems none of them had been slain.
Alfra and Helka searched the abandoned hut-sled (finding nothing beyond an interior made of strange materials), Krodd inspected the surrounding area, while Slin studied the bodies of the savagers. While puzzling over the green ichor that flowed from the corpses, he noticed splatters of red blood, teeming with lush grass and a tangle of blooming flowers of differing species at each spot, the colors drawing his eye to a trail that led into a gorge. Bringing your attention to this strange trail, you decided to see where it led.
Though the slaughter at the savager camp clearly happened days ago, the blood on the trail looked fresh, glistening in the morning light. After following the trail through a cleft between neighboring slopes, you paused when you realized two groups of bodop were flanking you along the rises, watching you grimly. With a trumpeting bellow filled with rage, the alpha of each group led a charge into your midst, focusing on Helka and Alfra, the two who carried weapons modified with the alien skyfangs of the savagers.
It felt unnatural being attacked so viciously by grass-eaters who are not known to be territorial, and they fought as if you threatened their young. Alfra was grievously wounded under the press of bodops, though by a twist of luck the skyfang he had thrown early in the fight was kicked to within reach, and by another strange twist of luck, as he laid about with it like a cutting tool, it got tangled in the horns of one of the bodop and ripped from his grip.
Once you had bloodied and wounded enough of the bodop, they fled as one, causing Slin to bemoan their escape - he had hoped to skin some of them. After Helka treated your wounds, you continued to follow the trail.
As the strange blood led higher and higher into the mountains, you began to hear the sounds of a great beast laboring to breathe up ahead. There was pain and suffering in each breath, slow, ragged wheezes. When you rounded the final corner, you beheld a sight that was both awe-inducing and terrible to behold - nestled in a hollow formed by two short cliffs lay a large beast straight out of legends: a hulking, armor-plated version of the bodop. It lay in a lush bed of grasses and blooming flowers, fed by the blood that even then seeped from dozens of wounds.
This creature was the source of the breathing, and you watched as it struggled to continue to draw breath. Its eyes of pure orange glittered with untold wisdom and cunning as it beheld you, and it stilled as it watched you warily. About a dozen bodop, many bearing wounds you inflicted, emerged to surround and protect the beast, including one that still had Alfra's skyfang wedged in its horns. But again and again, your gaze was drawn to the legendary beast, and you realized you were looking upon a Bodop Elder.
Elders are rumored to be the first of their kind, as old as Urnoth itself.
Overcome with the joy of fulfilling her mission, Eesh stepped forward to commune with the beast, but all of you were surprised when its thoughts echoed in your minds like the voice of a strong elder. She warned you that urnothi were not allowed in the Unspoiled Lands, and that she and her kin were charged with guarding the pass that led to the Spoiled Lands, presumably where you came from and and where all urnothi live.
Assuring her that you mean no harm to her and her kin, you told the elder that you were tracking the savagers who took your young, and found the slaughter and its blood trail leading you here. The elder told you that, four days ago, her children found a great host of strange creatures resting in the pass to the Spoiled Lands, unlike any creature they had ever seen before, and bid her for guidance. When she beheld the invaders, she saw beasts among them known to be servants of the shadowskin, so she gathered her clan, intending to drive them back into the Spoiled Lands.
One of the aliens approached the edge of their gathering bearing a green-eyed urnothi child, shaking it and pointing at her host. The tiny one trembled in fear, and though it had eyes like a beastkin, it seemed to be ignorant of the ways of parley. The elder bid the little one that they were not allowed to go any further and must turn back. It chattered at the alien in the way of your kind and was taken back into their host, but they did not depart.
Soon it became clear they would not turn back, so she led her clan in an assault against the aliens. You could feel her sadness as she recalled this part, and she shared with you that, since her first waking, she had never beheld such creatures before, and they were terrible foes. Though the elder was capable of slaying these things, her clan stood little chance, and their weapons poisoned her as they cut her. In shame, she fled, leading what little was left of her clan, failing in her mandate to guard the pass.
You asked her to speak more of shadowskin, and she obliged. According to the elder, such creatures appeared many hundreds of moons ago, during the last stirring of the Great Old Ones, in a form similar to urnothi but with skin black as a moonless night. They cannot abide sunlight and work their mischief at night. None can say how they came to Urnoth, but some of the elders believe they are in league with the Great Old Ones. Many of you commented among yourselves, understanding now why the savagers seemed to travel by night and rest by day.
During your discussion, Alfra decided he wanted to retrieve his skyfang and approached the bodop who had it tangled in its rack, but as it lowered its head Eesh intervened, warning Alfra that he was about to get a belly full of horns. Communing with the bodop, Eesh retrieved the skyfang, telling you they did not like that you carried the weapons of the savagers as she returned it to Alfra.
Helka studied the elder as it communed with you, and in a lull in the conversation she spoke, suggesting that perhaps she could treat her wounds. Pulling the rest of you aside, she admitted she had seized upon a grim idea - if she could skin freshly-dead bodop, she could use the hides to bind its wounds. Glancing up at the elder, Krodd warned you that it could read your thoughts, then the elder's voice echoed in your minds as it disagreed, asking Eesh to explain. She did, telling you that beastkin speak with eye contact, reading the thoughts and feelings of beast by watching their expressions and postures.
Each of you agreed that, though it may lengthen the time between you and your quarry (for Helka warned that attempting a heal may take hours, perhaps even days), it was worth attempting to heal the elder, and you would tarry here for a while to let her try.

Neyik the croah communed privately with the elder before flying away. As Helka continue to examine the wounds on the giant bodop, the croah returned minutes later gripping clumps of weeds in its talons, dumping them before Eesh, who informed you that Neyik wants everyone to eat the seeds of the weed. They were sickly-green plants with split crowns of seedpods that flutter in the wind, and Helka knew the weed as stutterfork plants. She also knew the seeds were poisonous.
Many of you balked when Helka spoke of this, but when she refused, Neyik angrily charged her face, snapping talons in front of her eyes. Resigned, everyone agreed, and each of you began chewing on a few seeds. They had a foul, bitter taste, causing your lips and tongue to tingle. Krood and Helka immediately spit theirs out, Slin lasting a little longer before he joined them. Only Alfra was able to fully chew his seeds, but as he went to swallow his body forced him to gag it all up.
Watching this and the growing amusement of her croah, Eesh suddenly recalled a similar prank played on her by Neyik, back when they first met. She told you that her croah was a prankster and played a similar joke on her. Annoyed, you returned to your discussion, but several minutes later everyone who chewed on the poisonous seeds began to act strangely.
You were astonished as you looked upon the animals around you as if for the first time. The feeling you had was incredible, and you understood then why beastkin spoke in such cryptic terms about communing with animals - nothing you could have been told would have prepared you for this.
It was as if you had another sense all along, like an eye you kept closed your entire life that had suddenly opened, flooding your senses with new perception. As your gaze lingered on each creature, it was as if their thoughts and feelings were laid bare: a wounded bodop that stood proud refusing to acknowledge the pain of its injuries, yet a map of that pain trembled in its form, at war with a growing tone of wry amusement as it watched you intently.
With glances to one another the bodop conversed among themselves, a wary tenseness over you fading into relief. Many of them still did not like you, but they were aware that you were becoming beastkin, and they looked upon their elder with a mixture of pride at her role in awakening you, awe at her presence, and dread for her fate.
When you glanced at your kulons, you were shocked at both how familiar and strange they were. Kulons and urnothi have lived together for many generations, and you already knew much of their moods from understanding their expressions and calls, yet now there was a deeper understanding of their thoughts, and you were suddenly shamed. Many of you had always looked upon beasts as lesser creatures, thinking your speech made you superior to them. Beasts may have differing priorities and perceptions, but they are living creatures, as rich and complex as any tribemember.
Some of you recalled the fables of your childhood, fanciful tales of little creatures that would speak to one another, used to teach lessons to the young. Even as a child, you knew these stories were not true, for animals cannot speak, yet now you wondered: did these tales begin with the observations of a beastkin?
You understood then that all creatures of urnoth conversed in this way, a conversation and understanding far beyond what urnothi suspect. Something incredible was also laid bare to your understanding: lies would be impossible in this manner of communication - lies belong to your kind alone, made possible by speech.
You realized also that the elder used a strong form of this way to communicate, yet with your awakening it went even deeper. The elder informed you that she had been named, and shared a memory of a giant urnothi speaking in a powerful, deep voice, naming her Kapatep. The bodop who followed her were known as the Clan of Kapatep. Helka realized the memory was that of an urnothi elder, and such a thing caused her to shudder.
The wounds on Kapatep were grievous, and three problems doomed the elder. Blood loss had weakened her, and needed to be stopped, but the toxins in her system were building up, making her too sick to eat and replenish her strength. Worse, some of the alien skyfangs were lodged in her body, yet removing them then could bleed her out. The apprentice decided that the toxins needed to be delt with first, so she informed everyone that she needed to gather materials to make a cleansing poultice for the wounds.
You beseeched Eesh to persuade Neyik to scout out a suitable location for harvesting herbs, needing a warm, humid biome lush with vegetation. With your newly-awakened beastkin sense, you could tell Neyik was still distrustful of you, but Eesh grew firm in her demands so Neyik went searching. Thinking she would be gone a while, Alfra and Slin decided to do something while everyone else waited, Alfra went off to hunt in the desolate terrain while Slin tried to gather some crafting supplies, but in only a quarter hour later Neyik returned to lead the rest of you to a suitable biome.
Slin was having no luck, but he did spot you following Neyik down the mountains with Nuak. Racing back to the elder, he took Bakka and used the kulon's keen sense of smell to track down Alfra (interrupting the stalking of what looked like a plump, tasty bird), then they set off down a separate trail, hoping to intersect the path of the others and track them. By a twist of luck, they encountered everyone else just as you were entering a lush valley.
On a nearby ridge, three local female bodops watched as you entered the valley, two displeased to see you in the Unspoiled Lands, the third more curious. Communing, Krodd echoed her curiosity, causing her to draw closer as her companions judged her harshly for this. With the curious female following at a distance, you explored the valley briefly before getting to work. You named the bodop Dancing Flakes, as she is known among her clan as the one who likes to leap and play with the snowflakes when they fall fat and heavy.
Helka began gathering the necessary plants while Alfra went hunting. Recognizing this as an opportunity to forage, Slin elected to gather provisions, and at the urging of Krodd and Eesh, he taught them the basics of gathering as he searched. By midday, Eesh had learned the fundamentals of gathering food from plants, though the basics still eluded Krodd, though he did make a fine discovery of a honeybee nest in the knot of a tree, and they watched as Slin built a small fire to pacify the nest with smoke, harvesting three sizable honeycombs out of the tree.
Helka was excited to learn that whistlestrip bushes grew in this valley - the leaves, ground into a paste, worked well as a poultice, but she needed huge quantities to treat a creature as large as the elder, so she spent much of the day harvesting the needed amount. Alfra was concerned about hunting with an awareness of a beastkin, but the first time he locked gazes with a small prey animal, his concerns faded away. This was a tale as old as time, of predator and prey, the prey knowing the predator wished to eat it, the predator recognizing he would have to catch the prey if he wished to live, for the predator needs to eat to survive.

Enemy of the Bodop

By late morning, everyone spotted a distant figure climbing the ridge of a neighboring peak. At extreme range (nearly half a kilometer away), you saw a black feline with pale stripes walking up the ridge, its movements speaking of both power and grace. A small form dangled from its maw, and you realized it was a slain bodop. With this understanding, the scale of the creature became apparent: this was a large predator.
He casually paused as he turned his gaze directly at you, and even at this great distance you could clearly read one another. You are my playthings, he inferred, shaking the bodop like a toy, and I shall kill every night, to feed you to my young. They shall sharpen their claws on your horns as they crush your bones and draw strength from your flesh. You realized he was speaking to the bodops with this message. You failed to protect the pass, invaders now wander the Unspoiled Lands, and now I see you suffer urnothi in as well. I shall not stop until your entire herd is fed to my clan.
Krodd turned to the curious bodop to see her trembling with fear, and she imparted that, for a few days now, that speartooth had invaded their territory each night, killing bodop and taunting her clan by day from beyond the borders of their domain. Angered by this, Krodd took his great bow and set a spear-sized arrow to the string, drawing it back. Sensing that the archer wished to harm the speartooth, the great predator stood tall and glared amusement and contempt. Everyone held their breath as Krodd angled his shot high into the sky, for this was a difficult range even for his bow, and he loosed the arrow to climb high overhead. All of you watched its dwindling flight, but the speartooth seemed to be ignorant of bows, and sat unmoving as it watched you arrogantly.
When the shot hit the great cat, the shock and pain caused it to leap in place, and on landing it turned to race up the ridge, its victim dangling wildly from its maw. Though this was now a much more difficult shot, Krodd took one of his few remaining arrows and fired a second time, the arching arrow falling down high above where the cat was, yet somehow meeting him on his race up the ridge. The speartooth tumbled and fell out of site beyond the ridge. Everyone congratulated Krodd on an excellent shot, and though you could not see his face, your awakening of beastkin senses told you he was grinning fiercely.
Leaving behind Alfra (still hunting), Helka (focused on finding the necessary herbs), and Nuak behind, the rest of you set out to hunt the fallen speartooth. After a couple of hours spent finding a path up to that distant ridge, Krodd found pieces of his shattered arrowhead and spots of blood where he had first struck the cat. Tracking the trail to where the second shot struck, he found no evidence of his arrow, but on the back side where the speartooth fell, you saw a steep drop, hundreds of paces down, surely a lethal fall for any creature.
You wanted to find a way down there to locate the body of the speartooth, though Dancing Flakes cautioned that terrain belonged to the speartooth clan. Undaunted, Krodd found a way down, and you followed him to search the tumble at the base of that grand cliff. Slin immediately found the body of the speartooth, twisted in the brush next to the corpse of the slain bodop, and everyone paused to gape at the size of the beast. Eesh and Slin carefully skinned the creature, harvesting its great fangs (both more than half the length of your arm) and many of its claws, while Krodd found a vantage nearby to keep watch.
Once done, you loaded the rolled skin and the slain bodop on Bakka, who was not happy to be expected to carry the corpse of a normal-sized creature. Krodd found a route back to the lush valley, and by midafternoon you returned to where Alfra and Helka continued to work. Having successfully hunted a number of small game, Alfra had built a fire to cook the meat, but ruined a third of it through charring.
Some of you inquired of Dancing Flakes if they had any customs for dealing with their dead, wanting to use the slain bodop but being wary of seeming disrespectful, but the bodop was baffled by your inquiries - that bodop was dead, and in her eyes it was no longer a bodop. You realized they would not care what you did with the body.
With sufficient supplies of whistlestrip leaves harvested and loaded onto Nuak, Helka led you back to the elder, where she made a poultice, gooping the stuff over every sore and wound on Kapatep's massive, prone body. With evening approaching, Alfra pulled back a respectful distance from the elder, out of sight, back along your original trial, and built a campsite for the night. As the rest of you gathered there around the fire he built, with some supplies from Slin, Krodd fashioned a few replacement arrows, while with Alfra's help Slin had a rack for the speartooth hide built, first scrapping and prepping the hide before stretching it out to cure, sacrificing an old throwing spear into the project.
Using one of the claws to fashion a necklace, Eesh set to carving an image on the surface, a simple yet intriguing depiction of a proud speartooth standing on a peak, two arrows dropping on it from the sky. At dusk, Helka joined you, sticky and tired, announcing that she was done treating the wounds, now you will have to wait for a day or two to see if its working. Hopefully, the elder will recover enough to eat, to build its strength so the apprentice can properly clean and bind the wounds.
Everyone marveled at the claw necklace that Eesh had made to commemorate the day, then Slin took the two fangs of the speartooth and fashioned a defensive bracer for Krodd, then everyone bedded down for the night.

Well past midnight, a distant, rumbling sound grew from the lands to the south, in the hills and lower peaks beneath you. Each of you woke to sit up and listen. Your awakened senses told you much of what you heard - it was the roar of a Speartooth, only many of them, perhaps a hundred or more, joining in a thunderous chorus of pain and anger. They mourned the loss of one of their own, and they howled vengeance in the darkness.
As the wind picked up, the roaring faded and seemed to cease, but whether because they had grown silent, or the winds drowned out their cries, you were uncertain. 

Day 94 (Summer Season)

At dawn, Helka checked on Kapatep, the bodop elder. The large creature slept, her body coated in the poultice used to both stem further bleeding and to leach out the toxins in her blood. It was difficult to determine, but Helka finally concluded that the poultice seemed to be working, though it may be another day or two before she could further treat the wounds, but there was another concern. The elder was very weak, and needed to eat to gain the strength needed to survive further blood loss and treatment.
If this were an urnothi, Helka would be trying to feed her rich, nourishing food, ideally choice bits of game, nuts, and fruits, but she knew nothing of bodop fare. Using her awakened beastkin senses, she communed with one of the bodop alphas, Rufflewind. He shared that the Great Mother craved one food beyond all others, the fronds of the yarga plant dipped in honey, found in a sacred place known as Skystep, a region known to the bodop, though they were forbidden from entering.
When Helka spoke to the rest of you, you decided to seek out and harvest these plants, with Rufflewind guiding you, though he had impressed upon you it would be a difficult climb, and may take much of the day to get there. Dancing Flakes, the curious female bodop who had taken an interest in Krodd, watched as you departed, and when Krodd's willingness to let her tag along was sensed, she joined you.
Rufflewind led you east, crossing over the savager trail, and an hour later, while you were walking along a steep drop to your left and a rising mountain to your right, at a narrow choked by a rockfall, you froze in surprise as a yasitch warrior rose from hiding above you.
She was a proud warrior, jotuhn crests worked into her warrior leathers, gripping a great bone axe with a wicked cutting edge similar to black glass, but the color was off. The hatred she bore for you was intense, and with a shrill whistle she signaled eight yasitch warriors to emerge blocking your path ahead, each staring murder and hatred at you. Your bodop escorts backed away, unsure of what to do, as the lead warrior sized you up, setting her gaze on your biggest warrior, Alfra, and with a fast, hooting cry of challenge, she charged him, her warriors engaging the rest of you.
Alfra and the proud warrior clashed, and despite her rage she employed clever tactics, testing him early in the fight before fully committing. She blocked every smash of his greatclub with her bone axe, and his arm-length bone bracer blocked her blade from biting. As they battled, Alfra grew fearful, for he could tell she was a powerful opponent, perhaps his better.
Four of the yasitch warriors held back, trading arrows with Krodd while the other four rushed in to battle the rest of you. Though the proud warrior was more of a match, you were better than her companions, quickly wounding them while escaping injury in return. One fell screaming down the steep drop, while a number of the enemy archers were grievously wounded by Krodd's spear-sized arrows. The proud warrior realized her tribemates would soon be decimated, and with a roar of frustration, she signaled a retreat, covering their escape. Though you were desperate to understand why they hunted you, you wisely chose not to pursue them.
Their path of retreat did not follow the path of your guides, so you carried on, muttering among yourselves as you tried to make sense of the ambush. Days ago, you had camped in a deserted yasitch village, and you had entered one of their sacred keitoah sites, but you had taken nothing from their holy site, for Helka had read the omens and determined the yasitch would hunt you if you took one of their sacred artifacts from that place. Slin commented that perhaps it would have been better to seize the greenrock tooth necklace on display there, rumored to heal wounds, since it seems that perhaps the yasitch would have hunted you, regardless.
Your climb up to Skystep took much of the day. At a more difficult point, Helka inadvertantly triggered a landslide, spilling Eesh into a fall that could have been lethal, had she not been able to stop herself by clinging to a ledge. She was battered and exhausted, so Helka offered her the last of her spirit surges, but one whif told the apprentice that the medicine had gone sour, so with a curse she threw it down the mountainside.
Intent on carrying her weight, Eesh pushed on.

Skystep

Your destination lay far above where trees would grow, on a barren, rocky mountainside, a ledge many hundreds of paces wide and deep, two sides yawning over an abyss, the other side wedged between two wings of a mountain. In a few places along the outermost edge, waterfalls burst from the tree screen, turning into colorful spray  that fell to join a smeared cloud of water to obscure whatever lay below. A curious wall of dense trees ringed the edge, barrier to both you and the wind, and your path ended in a pocket just a few steps below the floor of the  treeline. You rested for an hour, to let Eesh and the others recover, while Rufflewind cautioned that beasts were forbidden from entering this sacred place.
He also spoke of a creature you translate into rumblesting, the protectors of Skystep. Eager to see inside, Helka, Alfra, and Krodd decided to scout ahead while the rest of you recovered, climbing to the treeline, then hacking their way inside. Half an hour later, they returned, with Helka and Alfra both claiming to have seen a bee as big as two fists placed together, though Krodd didn't see it. Helka also saw the yarga plants, and was eager to return.
Once everyone rested, the five of your entered Skystep, leaving the bodop and kulons behind, even the croah, who was clearly uncomfortable and reluctant to enter. Beyond about ten paces worth of packed trees, the interior of the plateau opened up, and what you found felt magical.
The air was much warmer here, humid, and each breath restored your vigor. Those of you who had been laboring to breathe beyond the trees now sighed with relief. Much of the interior was carpeted in lush clover and exotic plants, including pockets of yarga bushes - two-pace-high plants with thick, broad, velvety fronds with fruiting buds the size of your head. Many of the buds were opened in the shape of a crinkly yellow bowl, the center of each sporting a blue bulb that glistened wetly. Rare in your homeland but plentiful here were also yebba trees, gnarly growths of stumpy plants where half their height above the ground was a tangle of roots, ending in a stumpy tree with limbs and leaf roughly equal in size to the root mass.
Cautious, you crept deeper in, angling towards a stand of yarga plants. A faint, rumbling growl grew louder, and you beheld your first rumblesting up close, the giant bee spiraling in towards a blossoming bud on the yarga. Eesh leaned in to get a better look, shifting up against a tree, but her weight encountered a dead branch that snapped off with a loud crack. This startled the rumblesting, and it took one look at you and buzzed off back into cover, its rumbles fading to silence.
You approached the yarga and began harvesting the fronds, the skilled among you harvesting while the unskilled were relegated to carrying. You had decimated about half of the plants when everyone paused to the growing cacophony of rumbling buzzes headed your way. Five small swarms of 20 bees each converged above you, merging into a single swarm of a hundred rumblestings. To your beastkin senses, as the swarm grew in size, so did its intelligence, and you realized the big swarm was as intelligent as a bodop, at least.
Seeking to parley with the swarm, Krodd used his beastkin ways, communing that you have come to take these fronds to the Great Mother. This promptly angered the swarm, and in their buzzing and frantic flight you sensed they looked upon Kapatep as a thief and invader who steals the plants and honey from their hives. As you had just identified yourselves as her agents, the swarm attacked.
Everyone fought except Krodd, who frantically tried to pacify the swarm. With staves, spears, and a greatclub, you swung wildly, smashing rumblestings as you fought off hails of stingers with painful venom. Eesh got the worst of it, with many swolen clusters on her face and arms where she was stung, but she was not badly poisoned. When you had killed most of them, what was left had been reduced to a small swarm once more, and they fled.
Spooked by the encounter, Helka ordered everyone to pick up what was harvested and leave this place. Back at the pocket where you left your animal companions, Rumblewind told you that what you had was but a tiny fraction of what the Great Mother could eat in a single sitting, and he was doubtful she would find the fronds appetizing without the honey. You debated among yourselves briefly before deciding to reenter Skystep.

Parley

Pushing deeper beyond the first patch of yarga you had harvested, you encountered another swarm of a hundred rumblestings, some survivors of your first encounter among them. They wanted to parley with Krodd. They wished to broker a deal - they would lead you to a larger hive, one three times the size of their own, with sufficient honey to sate your monster's hunger, if in exchange you leave their territory alone. In communing with this swarm, you learned there were multiple hives, in competition with one another, two large ones in the richest areas of Skystep crowding out the three small hives that clung to the edges.
During the last fight, Slin had gotten some of the yarga nector smeared onto his chest and arm. The sticky stuff had a sharp, overpowering smell, so he inquired where the water source was, and the swarm was puzzled by this, communing that water can be found on every leaf (they had no sense of what its like to be so big that drops of dew were insufficient). They did concede that the source of the rivers in Skystep was a grim place at the foot of the mountain, a place of evil and darkness that no rumblesting enters.
You brokered a deal with the swarm, and they broke off a small swarm of twenty sacrifices to guide you to a big hive. Slin was disturbed a bit by this term but he later came to understand why they referred to their guides as sacrifices. Led by these tiny rumbling escorts, you moved deeper into Skystep, taking what appeared to be a rather meandering route, but you managed to avoid other rumblestings the entire way.
Eventually, they led you to the top of a small hill. On the other side, in an area cleared of all other vegetation, save the carpet of clover that grew everywhere, you beheld a large yebba tree, its lower half of bloated, exposed roots buzzing with dozens of rumblestings circling about or landing and crawling among the roots or emerging to take flight. Slin and Alfra were the first to spot the distant rumblestings among the roots, and they guessed that this was the hive.
Your tiny escorts drifted down the hill, towards the lone yebba tree, yet the rest of you lingered on top. Krodd broke the silence, suggesting you could shoot fire into the hive, but Slin was quick to reject this idea, for he reminded you that you wanted the honey, not to burn it up. You started off down the hill, after your escorts who were now twenty or thirty paces ahead.
All at once, a swarm much larger than your escorts assembled in a furious converging of rumblestings from the surrounding area. With a speed and efficiency of frantic violence, the bigger swarm engulfed your escorts, their bodies falling to twitch in pieces on the clover. Ready for action, you advanced slowly towards the swarm, but it fled as you approached, away to the yebba tree. Some of you looked mutely at the twitching bits of sacrifice, but in moments the air filled with a thunderous buzzing, as a swarm composed of many hundreds of rumblestings approached, demanding to know why you were invading its territory.
You tried to negotiate with the big swarm, asking to trade for the yarga fronds and honey from their hive. The big swarm flat-out rejected this, then suggested that there were smaller, more vulnerable hives on the edges of the world, easier targets where you could get honey. During this discussion, another big swarm approached, filling the air around you with a thousand rumblestings. Realizing you had a simple choice of betraying the smaller hive that sacrificed twenty of its rumblestings to get you here or commit to hitting this hive, your intent was clear in your body language - they would not give you their honey and you would not accept that.
The swarms attacked, half the rumblestings in the area zeroing in on Slin, who was coated in yarga nector. On full defense, he thrashed around him with his spear and jumped and rolled about the area, making it dangerous for the little creatures to risk landing on him. Lighting a sunspark torch, Alfra set about burning rumblestings but he soon realized he could have simply clubbed them with a stick for how many he was killing. All of you pitched in, hacking about you until both swarms were destroyed.
Helka, Slin, and Eesh got to work harvesting red honey from the hive in the roots of the yebba tree. Then you used what little daylight remained to gather yarga fronds before setting off by moonlight, back to the edge of Skystep. You joined your animals long after the sun had set, finding the air much, much colder beyond the tree screen, laboring to breathe once more. With the help of Krodd, Alfra built a camp with a roaring fire there in the pocket, and both bodop and kulons edged closer to the fire as you settled down for the night.

Day 95 (Summer Season)

On your climb down the next morning, Eesh did much better, though Slin slipped and cut himself. When you returned to Kapatep, Helka was pleased to see signs suggesting fewer toxins in her blood. She decided to try and fashion a sort of pill out of the red honey, wrapped in fronds, and was making a mess trying to fashion one when the smell woke the elder. The Great Mother loudly sent, WHAT IS THAT I SMELL? Helka approached and held out the mess of honey-soaked, crimpled fronds, and a huge tongue snaked out of the elder's mouth, stripping the bulk of it from her hands to cram into the Great Mother's maw, chewing messily.
For the next two hours, Helka slathered red honey on fronds before feeding them to Kapatep. During this time, the rest of you returned to the lush valley below to forage. Slin taught Krodd the basics of gathering off the land, while Eesh and Alfra went hunting. Both hunters were soon returning to your camp near the elder, Eesh with a string of small game, Alfra strutting with the body of a large deer slung over his shoulders. Alfra began to prepare the meat for the fire, and as he cooked it, Eesh decided to cook her kills, though she typically ate it raw. Unfamiliar with cooking meat, she charred her game, ruining it, then settled back to watch Alfra at work, hoping to learn.
Slin and Krodd returned with crafting supplies, and Slin allowed Alfra one of the honeycombs he had harvested with Krodd's help the first time they encounterd that valley. Alfra glazed some of the meat, adding both flavor and preserving it to keep longer. Krodd crafted some arrows to replace those he had lost the last few days, and Slin harvested the hide from the dead bodop you had taken away from the speartooth, though the meat was spoiling - the rest of the carcass he rolled down the mountain.
After a few hours of feeding and treating the elder, Helka return sticky with red honey, bathed in a nearby spring, then set about making some regular bandages out of plant fiber to augment her healing salves.
Thus you spent the day crafting, repairing, and settling down to see if, tomorrow, the elder would be recovered enough to more permanently treat her wounds. Bored, Krodd scouted the area as you settled down for another night, but after dusk he returned, insisting that you put out the fire. Near the slaughter site around the savager camp, he had spied smoke from many fires, seeing urnothi by the dozens, and when he drew close enough to identify some as yasitch, he withdrew, using the remaining daylight to ensure his trail was wiped.
Alfra pointed out that he chose this campsite as the surrounding terrain blocked the firelight, only your smoke would be visible, and even then only in daylight. Terrified of being discovered, many of you were too afraid to risk it, so you put out the fire and huddled together for warmth as the night grew bitterly cold, unsure of what the morning would bring.

You huddled together for warmth in the brutally cold night high up in the mountains, putting your hardiest tribemates (Slin and Alfra) on the edges, and your more vulnerable members in the middle. Despite these steps, by midnight Krodd and Helka were freezing. Knowing that the worst was yet to come, you relented and built a fire, letting everyone warm up for an hour before settling into a ring around the flames to sleep.

Day 96 (Summer Season)

Before the first hint of dawn, a bone-jarring boom shocked everyone awake, and you rose as the shadows about you danced wildly. You turned towards the new light source, a small, gnarly, dead tree that stood watch over your little hollow, entirely wreathed in flames. Split asunder, it sizzled and cracked as spiderveins of red coals flared within, turning it into one large symbol of the dark omen - it's meaning was clear even to those of you who knew little of the signs, for this was an infamous omen. The dark omen symbolizes the sun extinguished in the sky, a potential doom for your people, should you not heed the spirits.
Smaller omens glittered among the split trunk and twisted, crackling branches, and Krodd and Helka approached to study them, trembling with trepidation. Both agreed that the omens were thus: doom awaits unless you confront the enemy tribe. You must reach them before dawn, and you could not be seen by them.
None of you were eager to face a hundred or more enemy warriors, but Helka was insistent that the omens must be heeded, but to reach their camp in time, you would need to hurry over treacherous terrain, in the darkest night, for you were too afraid of being spotted to use torches. Krodd led the way, and despite the danger you managed to reach the enemy camp with the dawn still many minutes away.
He led you to the top of a rise overlooking the camp, where you had a fine view of the pink horizon to the east, framed in distant peaks. You snuck into position and, lying on your bellies, you inched up to get a clear view.
Your hearts thundered in your chests as you looked down into the yasitch camp - there were many dozens of fires, meaning there are a few hundred urnothi camping there, and though it was not yet dawn, you saw signs that much of the camp was already awake - figures moving about the fires, huddled in groups, and they frequently looked about them into the surrounding darkness.
Slin noted that the numbers were far too many for one tribe.  With fierce whispers, you conferred among yourselves, speculating on who they were and why they were there. It seemed likely they had followed the savager trail as you did.  Perhaps the yasitch, upon discovering the deserted village you came across several days back, formed a war party seeking vengeance. You debated what to do next, but Helka was firm - the omens told you to arrive before dawn and not be seen, and here you were - she thought it best that you wait, for now. Though many of you grumbled, you saw the wisdom of her words and waited, watching the horde below.
Just before sunrise, as you huddled in hiding, you saw the eastern sky brighten with hues of red and orange, lighting up a thin strip of clouds barely visible from your vantage, lending the distant peaks a strong outline. Those among you with knowledge of omens drew in a sharp breath. Krodd and Helka, upon examining the patterns in the fiery clouds of the dawn, interpreted the omens thus: you must be seen by the enemy in the first rays of dawn. Many of you argued against this, for though you had the high ground, you could not hope to stand against such numbers. Krodd was insistent that the omens must be obeyed, Watching the light play out on higher peaks, Slin sought to time your stand just right.
Just as the sun peaked over the horizon to bathe your ridge, you stood as one. Slin stood tall, leaning on his spear, though he quickly admonished Krodd as the seeker started to nock an arrow. Perturbed, the sumatai warrior settled for leaning on his great bow. Alfra held his greatclub before him, whacking it in his hand. Eesh stood mutely as she leaned on her staff, and Helka stood in a fair imitation of a wisdom.
As the sun rose to the east, you all stood tall, in full view of the camp below as you were bathed in the dawning light. With the sun in your eyes, you were temporarily blinded to the dark valley, but you heard a rising cacophony of shouts and cries. As the camp became visible, you saw hordes of urnothi flocking to the foot of your rise, fifty paces down a steep incline to the valley floor below, where they gathered to stare up at you.
There were perhaps three hundred of them, shouting and yelling, individuals words impossible to make out, but you could not help but look to one another in puzzlement. The voices were those of amazement and wonder, and you were astonished when the entire horde dropped to their knees and prostrated themselves before you.
Many breaths passed as you struggled to make sense of this. Krodd scanned the horde, looking for the proud warrior who had attacked you yesterday, but he was too far away and the horde was on their knees, facedown to the earth. He even looked over his shoulder behind you, wondering if perhaps a mythical beast was the source of their wonder. You whispered among yourselves, Slin suggesting you stay until the horde does something. Helka suggested you go down among the horde to speak with them, but Alfra feared this, worrying that if you moved, it might break whatever strange spell gripped the horde. Slin suggested to Helka that she make some sort of proclamation, but as she didn't know why the horde was there, she opted for silence until you learn more.
Finally, Helka became insistent, ordering you to follow her, and as she worked her way down the ridge, you obeyed. Halfway down, the horde rose to their feet, but Helka did not hesitate and you followed her lead as the horde watched your descent.

The Champions

As you were reaching the bottom, just a few paces from the closest urnothi, the crowd parted as a couple of wisdoms and an apprentice emerged, one you recognized as the ohba apprentice you had met many days ago. One wisdom was an arrogant yasitch, but the other was surprising - she was a sumatai wisdom, and as they arranged themselves before you, it became clear that the sumatai was the leader among them. You stood before one another in front of the horde, examining each other, before the sumatai wisdom turned to the gathering behind her and raised her arms to address the horde in a loud, commanding voice.
"YOU HAVE WITNESSED THE SIGN!!! NOW, RETURN TO YOUR FIRES AND PREPARE FOR THE DAY!"
As if released from a spell, the horde melted into knots of chattering urnothi as they returned to camp, leaving you with the wisdoms. You noticed that the arrogant one shot the sumatai wisdom a dirty look as she commanded the horde, but kept her tongue. The sumatai introduced her companions and herself. She was Eepatta, an elder wisdom of the sumatai tribe. The arrogant wisdom was Keetasha, of the yasitch tribes. The ohba apprentice was known as Geeb. Helka started into introduce you, but when she started with a self introduction, proclaiming herself as an apprentice of the gomja morkai tribe, Keetasha snarled that beastkin cannot be wisdoms, but Eepatta shushed her, earning a  second dirty look.
It is true that beastkin cannot be taught the secrets of the wisdoms, but as Helka was raised as an apprentice, and only recently awakened to her beastkin sense, there was no precedent for this. She suspected Keetasha would have ordered her death on the spot, but clearly the omens brought them here, and perhaps it was the omens that protected her. Still, Helka was wise enough to see she was on very shaky ground. After an akward pause, Helka introduced the rest of you, naming Eesh as beastkin of the zen morkai, Krodd as a seeker of the sumatai tribe, and the rest of you as of the gomja morkai tribe: Slin the crafter and Alfra the warrior (with your green eyes, you noticed both introductions raised some brows among the wisdoms).
Eepatta invited Helka to share tea with them, bidding the rest of you to relax. They led your apprentice-turned-beastkin to the center of the camp while the rest of you mingled, surprised to discover more than yasitch here - there were many ohba as well, and, to Krodd's delight, around forty sumatai warriors in the center of the camp, next to the tents the wisdoms had entered. Most of the urnothi looked upon you with awe, whispering reverently among themselves, respectful but distant, and you found yourselves somewhat isolated within the horde. Some of the yasitch glared at you resentfully but kept their peace.
Though her meeting with the wisdoms was private, Helka shared much of what they spoke of, later when she joined you at a sumatai fire to partake of breakfast. She told the wisdoms everything of your journey, starting with your discovery of your slaughtered village, though she omitted mentioned the elder and the specifics of how you actually became beastkin (and as she herself does not understand how, this was not a lie). In return, the wisdoms told their tale.
Eepatta told her tale first, of the dark omen and the signs that urged her to  gather sumatai warriors and seek out the gomja morkai. There, she found the destruction of your tribe, and followed the trail of the savagers. Along the way, she encountered the ohba forces that had harried you, and after conferring with Geeb and learning her  tale, she bid the apprentice to gather what ohba she could and follow.
Geeb the ohba apprentice confirmed her part in Helka's story, adding that after you had left their territory, she beheld the dark omen, and the signs led her to gather supplies and track you to where  you were resting at the savager camp. She left the supplies at the edge of the clearing, and to help you understand why they were there, she fashioned a representation of the dark omen symbol with sticks, hoping you would understand why the supplies were left. After Eepatta bid her to gather ohba warriors and follow, after the wisdom had left she beheld once again the dark omen symbol in the wind-swept grass and hastened to obey.
During the conversation, Helka slipped again in addressing herself as a wisdom apprentice, and Keetasha admonished her. Helka defended herself, for her beastkin sense had only recently awakened, and Keetasha retorted that that was when she should have stopped using that title. Eepatta bid Helka to listen to this wisdom, for the horde sees her not as apprentice but beastkin, and she relented. When Helka relayed this part of the story to you, Alfra was very saddened, feeling as if his tribe had lost their last wisdom, and he struggled to bear further loss.
Helka mentioned that, during their conversation over tea, the apprentice Geeb would sometimes leave, later to return and whisper to the lead wisdom, Eepatta.
After your apprentice-turned-beastkin had finished her tale, the yasitch wisdom Keetasha went last. She told of her own confrontation with the dark omen, how the signs led her to gather warriors and seek out the bowatey yasitch tribe to behold a great calamity, and when she arrived she found the village abandoned, no sign of the urnothi except bloodstained earth - the omens led her to believe the people had been eaten by dark spirits. Leading the yasitch warriors now intent on vengeance, they found the savager trail and followed it here, where the signs bid them to wait for the spirits to reveal their champions.
Keetasha said it was while they were waiting that they discovered that not all of the bowatey yasitch  were lost - a small group of wounded warrriors led by a proud veteran named Gletta approached the horde, speaking of hunting down those responsible for the destruction of their tribe but unable to defeat them alone, seeking that every yasitch take up their great axes and clubs and hunt them down, but Keetasha refused, ordering them to wait until the champions were revealed. She cautioned Helka that Gletta was most distraught when it turned out that the champions were the very same people she had hunted, and that she may still blame you for the loss of her tribe.
As you finished your meal and wondered what you were to do with all these urnothi,  the mountains shook as the roar of a god filled the sky, born of a creature so large, so powerful, that animals and urnothi alike quivered with fear. The roaring washed over you in waves for many breaths before subsiding, and when it did, the urnothi chattered among themselves in fear and desperation.
To your beastkin senses, it was much more than the howl of a great beast. That was the roar of a powerful predator, almost certainly an elder, and it was a message for Kapatep the Great Mother - it could be translated thus: you have failed to guard the pass, allowing outsiders to enter our lands, and now you suffer urnothi to dwell in the pass. They defile our sacred lands, they murder and mutilate my children, and still you do nothing.
This is war. My clan will invade your territory, and we shall feast on the flesh of the invaders. Continue to cower and hide, Great Mother, for I am enraged, and if I see you on the field of battle, I shall eat you.

With the approaching threat of a speartooth horde, you went forth among the urnothi who did not understand what was happening, but they feared the wrath in that distant but powerful roar. You spoke of the threat, and bade every warrior to prepare themselves for battle. As the people struck camp with many voices clamoring with concern, doubt, and fear, while you gathered together to discuss your options.
You soon settled on two places of defense. The speartooth would come from the southern lands, up the mountains to this pass. There was a choke point further down the mountains, where a violent river continues to carve its way through rock, an area with a switchback route that could offer defensive positions. This pass offered many places where terrain offered an advantage to the defender, but the enemy may use alternate routes, difficult to climb but perhaps possible, to flank you. Should the battle go poorly, the pass also offered a means of escape, back towards the trail that leads all the way home.
Your other option was the most defensible, with two towering cliffs hundreds of paces high at the back, chasms of deadly drops to the sides, boxing you in but providing a guarantee against flanking maneuvers. Defenses could be built there, using natural terrain like a fortress, but should the battle go poorly, there'd be no escape. A gambit that could lead to the utter destruction of your forces. Alfra and Slin both seemed in favor of this option, Slin confident that, should the battle go poorly, most if not all of you might escape by climbing the cliffs, though he admitted the war party itself would be doomed. You argued among yourselves for a while, but finally settled on the pass, recognizing that the warriors who came to fight for you risked much, putting their lives in your hand.
As the sun climbed into the sky you got to work. Helka left to return to the Great Mother, to check on her progress, promising to bring back supplies. It was an hour's hike up to where the bodop elder lay, though she did not return until evening.
Alfra took charge of the urnothi, putting them to work in the pass, digging trenches, setting stakes, building defensive lines for the urnothi to hold. Anticipating the night, the sumatai warriors were set to work digging bonfire pits. The weather was not ideal - it frequently rained, but thankfully not so much as to cause a flood or turn the conditions deadly. Slin, pilfering the supplies the urnothi brought with them, settled down for a day of crafting, first making heavier hide armor for Alfra, then warrior leathers for himself and Helka.
By late morning, everyone but Slin at the pass had begun to notice strange flocks of birds, circling overhead, new flocks arriving from the south to circle while others flew south, down the pass towards the speartooth lands. With your beastkin senses, you could detect that the birds were very keen to count your number, excited about the work. Seeking to investigate this, you turned to Eesh, the true beastkin among you, to engage the flocks and find out why they did this.
One over-excited bird was eager to engage with her. He conveyed that the speartooth god charged them with finding every urnothi in the land and count how many their are. This breed of birds, in particular, were very good at counting. Those who provide an accurate count (for the elder shall confirm the number) will be granted free grazing rights on speartooth kills for the rest of their lives. The bird was very excited about this, and eager to win such a prize.
You thought scouts a fine idea, so you sent Eesh and Krodd down the pass to find the horde, each leading a team of yasitch veterans, while the rest continued working on defenses. After creeping down the pass for three hours, Eesh on one side of the river and Krodd on the other, the seeker was able to spot them far in the lands below, a large horde of speartooth snaking up the valleys, into the foothills at the base of the mountains. By his estimate, there were between 100 to 150 speartooth in that horde, and they may reach the pass by dusk. He found Eesh, imparted this news, then she sent Neyik to warn the others at the pass. Foregoing stealth, they hurried back.
Krodd had suggested that a monstrously-large boulder, at least ten paces wide, sitting at the top of one switchback above your first line of defenses could be destabilized to roll on the enemy. After some consideration, Alfra set some of his forces to digging around the boulder, determined it could be set in motion, and set diggers and bracers to the dangerous work. He trusted the yasitch to this task, while the ohba blundered in their own works, getting little progress until the yasitch were done and back alongside the ohba, building the next line of defenses above the boulder.
By sunset, the scouts had returned, your defenders were in place and the sky had cleared enough for moonlight to illuminate the pass. Slin had finished his crafting, and wondered why Helka had yet to return. The Great Mother had cried out once, a cry so filled with loss and mourning that your hearts ached in sympathy, but to the urnothi it was the roar of yet another frightening beast.
With the sun fully set, the warriors began to grumble about speartooth - should they not have been there already? Doubt began to grow, and with the shadows growing longer by a setting moon a flare of light high into the mountains scared the urnothi. As this light came from where Kapatep the Great Mother lay, you wondered and worried. It was an hour later that Helka returned, leading your kulons, and the sorrow in her walk made the fate of the elder clear - Kapatep the Great Mother was dead.

Tale of Kapatep

Helka told her tale. When she returned to the bodop elder, she found that Kapatep was dying, her body beginning once more to lose the fight over the toxins building in her blood. Recognizing that another round of poultices may kill her, the apprentice decided to proceed with extracting the poisonous skyfangs and bind the wounds - very risky at this stage, but she felt she had no other choice.
She spent the morning preparing the wraps for the wounds, knowing that once she opened them up to remove the skyfangs, the Great Mother would bleed heavily, and time was critical. She took the remaining yarga fronds and red honey and made wraps, the honey that Slin had harvested to make more, and even dipped into her own low alchemy supplies to make more still. She knew being short a wrap would be deadly to the Great Mother.
Once she was ready, she began unbinding the poultice wraps from Kapatep, digging out the alien skyfangs with her knife, cleaning, then binding each wound. As she worked throughout the day, the Great Mother slipped closer and closer to death. Such was the extent of her injuries that Helka didn't finish until dusk, but by then she realized the bodop elder had lost too much blood and was dying.
Helka began to grieve, but she noticed strange eddies in the wind, setting seed pods to dancing. She read the omens thus: comfort is hand between the eyes.
Thinking the omens were asking her to console the elder, she approached and lay a hand on her snout, right between the eyes, but the elder pulled back in alarm and sent, WHY ARE YOU TOUCHING ME??? Helka begged forgiveness and said she was only trying to provide comfort.
This answer seemed to disturb the elder, but in a short while she lay her head back down and closed her eyes against the inevitable.
Again, the omens danced in the breeze, comfort is hand between the eyes. Helka was loathe to disturb the elder again, but the omens seemed insistent, so she did, again disturbing the elder who demanded, WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THAT? Helka began to explain omens to the beast, before realizing she would not understand, and instead answered in a way that may make sense to the elder beast, "I did as the spirits asked, for they spoke to me and asked me to comfort you with my hand."
The Great Mother raised her snout into the sky and let forth a bellow of such loss that it shocked Helka - with her beastkin senses, she could tell that it was a very old loss, akin to the loss of a mate or offspring that may still live but cannot be found.
Her glowing orange eyes filled with such sadness and loss, Kapatep sent, HAS YOUR KIND FORGOTTEN OUR PAST? WE ARE EXPELLED FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD. WE CANNOT COMMUNE WITH THE SPIRITS. YOU MOCK ME WITH YOUR ABILITY TO HEAR THEM.
Helka recalled the legends of the bodop:  that the first bodop were earth spirits, jealous of the wind, seeking the highest places where they could touch the sky. It is said they know many secrets, for they see much from their high places, but she never considered that if they were earth spirits, perhaps the elders came from the spirit world.
The bodop elder lay her head down once more and Helka was loathe to disturb her, yet the omens persisted, comfort is hand between the eyes. Helka could not accept that the spirits wished her to torment the elder more. In desperation, she went among the other bodop, touching their snouts as they mourned the impending loss of their Great Mother, but still the omens spoke in the grass and wind, over and over again.
So long did Helka not heed the signs that the elder nearly passed before she finally relented to the omens, and lay her hand once more on the snout of Kapatep. Once more the glowing orange eyes opened, in surprise. WHY? the elder sent, but then a dawning realization bloomed in her features, and her sorrow became tinged with hope.
IS THAT YOU, MY FRIEND? ... ONLY YOU WOULD BE SO PERSISTANT .... I MISS YOU MOST, MY BELOVED .... IT IS NICE .... KNOWING YOU .... ARE HERE WITH ME ... AT THE END.
Helka continued to lay her hand on the snout of the elder, stroking softly, as her eyes closed for the last time.
With a soft sigh, the Great Mother expelled her last breath and settled into death. Motes and sparkles of light began to flicker, first along the outer edges of her horns, then spreading until her entire body was twinkling like a dense cloud of tiny stars. With a flare so bright that Helka had to shield her face, the body vanished, leaving a depression of springy, lush flowers where the bodop elder had lain.
The bodop around her cried out in their grief, inconsolable, but Helka had one more detail to share - she had been touching the elder until the end, and after she had vanished, Helka noticed some of the motes of light were twinkling on her palm, then watched astonished as they vanished into her flesh.

Speartooth Horde

Her tale told, Helka donned the armor Slin had made for her and took her place among the ohba warriors, taking charge of them. Hours passed as the warriors continued to grumble doubts while the moon crept ever closer to the horizon, shadows dark as pitch growing in the low places. Krodd ordered the first three bonfires lit, and their light kept the shadows from becoming absolute.
When the moon set and the darkness of night became complete, save for your small islands of firelight, some of the warriors cried out in alarm, pointing, and they began to murmer among themselves. The enemy approached, so stealthy and quiet that a chill ran up your spines, their positions in the dark intermittently given away by over a hundred sets of large, feline eyes reflecting the firelight. Towering above the others was one giant set of red eyes that occasionally flared brightly with anger, briefly lighting a nightmarish face, like a demonic speartooth giant.
With a roar that shook the mountain, the speartooth elder ordered his clan to attack, bobbing sets of reflective eyes merging with large forms as they entered the firelight. Amongst the horde of snarling, berserker speartooth, you saw the elder at the lead with four grizzled speartooth at his side, their poise grim but calm, the intelligence glimmering in their gaze daunting.
Sensing he could end the battle with a lucky shot, Krodd ordered all of his tribemates to concentrate on the elder, and they rained spear-sized arrows down from above, on the upper ledge of the switchback overlooking the defenses manned by the other tribes. Sadly, though the elder was soon peppered with great arrows, they apparently bothered him no more than a twig tangled in fur.
Funneled into the narrow defenses, the elder fought alongside two ravening hordes of speartooth, forty in all, against a hundred ohba (led by Helka), a hundred yasitch, and a few yasitch veterans led by Alfra. another hundred or so speartooth waiting behind the front lines of attacking speartooth. For an hour they charged the defenses, warriors fighting to hold position. The yasitch did well, goading the speartooth into their defenses and slaughtering them, and out of twenty speartooth who assaulted the yasitch, only five were left when they fled.
The ohba did not do as well, and when the elder stormed their defenses, slaughtering twenty warriors like a cat in a troth of lame mice, they lost their courage and fled, leaving that path open up the mountain. Helka ran after them, seeking to rally them, while Slin decided to take charge.
He has a plan, pull your forces back behind the path of the boulder and unleash it on the horde.

Day 97 (Summer Season)

It was past midnight, very early in the morning of day 6 of the Summer Season. As the ohba fled the elder, Helka ran with them, shouting to rally the warriors into a second line of defense, following the strategy Slin set out.
Alfra, leading a squad of yasitch veterans, retreated to the 10-pace-wide boulder perched at the top of incline the speartooth horde was climbing, and began work to trigger the boulder into rolling down the natural ramp, over their enemies. On Slin's orders, ohba and yasitch pulled back to hold the top along the edge of the boulder's path as the speartooth crashed into them. A small band of grizzled speartooth sought to turn the tide, but Krodd directed the sumatai to drop great arrows upon them, pushing the grizzled ones to flee under the onslaught.
As the battled raged while Alfra worked furiously to trigger the trap, the yasitch began suffering heavy losses, so Slin ordered a retreat. Hungry for blood, the speartooth pursued, but the yasitch were clever in their retreat, inflicting casualties upon their overeager foes. With a frightened yell, Alfra and his aiders dove for safety as the gargantuan boulder shattered its remaining supports and began rolling - it looked as though Alfra was crushed, but he had dove into a crevice in the earth, escaping injuring, though the veterans with him suffered grevious wounds.
The speartooth were unprepared for the seemingly natural disaster - though they had keen reflexes and a primed survival instinct, the horde's cohesion was broken as the boulder plowed downhill, leaving a trench three paces wide as speartooth scattered to avoid it. At least 10 of the big cats were crushed. As the enemy rallied in the wake of the trap, the urnothi retreated further up the hill, to their next line of defense on the next incline above  the last fight.
The speartooth elder surveyed your defenses, noting another gargantuan boulder on a cliff overlooking their front lines, and his glowing-red eyes narrowed in suspicion. He sent his speartooth into another frontal assault while he lingered back, keeping an eye on the boulder.
The fighting was vicious, and many of you distinguished yourselves in the battle. Leading the wounded vets in a skirmish, Alfra managed to kill a few speartooth himself, inspiring the warriors. Leading another small group of vets, Eesh carried herself well, wounding a number of the enemy with her staff. Slin fought on the front lines, wounding many speartooth, while Krodd inspired the other archers with his skill with the giant bow.
One of the big packs of speartooth had to retreat under the withering fire of the sumatai, but their combined casualties meant only a few speartooth survived. Alfra pivoted his skirmishers to another group of speartooth, dealing impressive wounds on the foe before slipping back behind the safety of his own lines. The yasitch warriors were being savaged by another horde, but Eesh was able to inflict losses on their flanks. The yasitch nearly broke under the stress, but Slin was able to rally them.
During the fighting, you heard the roar of Kapatep, the Great Mother. You watched in astonishment as Helka vanished in a flare of light as bright as the sun, countless stars bursting forth from her to coalesce into the form of the bodop elder. Like a phantom or ghost, the ethereal Kapatep shook the world with her roar, then the brightness faded as the tiny lights that made her dimmed, collapsing back into Helka who stood tall, her eyes wild as her nostrils flared. She fought with the strength of a giant, the speartooth before her frightened and confused.
The speartooth retreated, leaving their dead behind. The speartooth elder roared, shaking the mountains, frightening the urnothi as the beastkin among you interpreted his message.
WHY DO YOU HOLD THE BREATH OF KAPATEP, the elder demanded of Helka.
Helka insisted it was a gift, given to her by the bodop elder. The enemy elder seemed confused and angry at this.
YOU HAVE MADE AN ENEMY OF THE GRODASHA CLAN, BEASTKIN, the elder replied, and you then knew who this elder was: Grodasha.
He left the battlefield, the speartooth horde falling in behind him, and disappeared into the darkness of the pass below the lit fields. You watched Helka, creeped out by the changes in her. Her body language was altered, and she carried herself like a great beast, belligerent, powerful, her nostrils flaring and eyes wild. Once you were certain that the speartooth would fight no more this night, she released whatever it was that bewitched her, and Helka collapsed into sleep on the spot.
Exhausted, you settled to get some sleep after ordering your forces to settle in, set watch, and rest, dawn just a few hours away.