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Chapter 29

Makura Bay

Makura Bay was nothing special to the eye; forty or so huts, so alike that they might have been made by the same craftsman.

“What type of wood is that?” Kismet asked.

“Palm tree or coconut.” I said. “Hard to tell from here.”

“Hm. I’d like a coconut, if one’s available.” She said.

.....

“We ought to be able to get a few of them.” Gamilla said.

We got into the long boat, and sailed toward the beach.

“Someone tell me if the crackers are paying us any untoward mind.” One of our rowers said.

They weren’t. They were moving occasionally, but it didn’t look like we were of any concern to them.

“There are so many of them!” Kismet said.

“Indeed, what do they eat?” Madonna asked.

“Us, if we don’t watch ourselves.” Narces said.

“We’ll behave ourselves.” I said.

And we did. We let the villagers come to us, speak to us in their own language.

“I speak that. Shall I tell them to bow before you?” Madonna said.

“Not just yet. Greet them and tell them that we bring a gift of blankets, with more to trade if they desire them.”

“They accept your gift, but say they’ve nothing to trade but coconuts and plantains.”

“Plantains?” I asked.

“They’re a local kind of fruit.” Gamilla said. “Can’t survive the journey back home.”

“Tell them that Gamilla will be discussing trading with their women.”

“They want to know what those of you with dangling genitalia are doing on the island.”

“We’re looking for large night-cats, black of fur and about as tall as a man at the shoulder.”

The native women made the sign of the cross. How had they learned that?

“They say all their cats are orange in color with black circles.”

“Leopards?” I asked.

“Jaguar.” Kismet said. “Vicious hunters, carnivores, usually loners, but they’ll sometimes team up to take down a man. Usually hunt around dawn and dusk.”

“I hadn’t heard that about them.” Narces said.

She shrugged. “I’ll bet you could tell us a lot about lizards and gators, couldn’t you, Rhishi?”

“Not a lot.” I admitted. “They taste a lot like chicken, but not much about their life habits.”

“How do you know so little?” she asked. “Oh, that’s right. You’re going to say you’re just two, aren’t you?”

“Until I turn three.” I said. “I wasn’t born knowing any of this stuff, and I’ve been doing things other than naturalism for over three fourths of my life.”

“Really?” asked Madonna. “You’ve wasted a quarter of your life learning about the habits of animals? Not even Aware ones, just normal animals?”

The natives apparently wanted their turn to talk. “They want to know if you can just go back onto your boat now?”

“They seem kinda insistent we do that.” Narces said. “Why?”

“They worry that if the Makura see too many people on the beach, they’ll come to collect the village’s eldest.”

“So, they want us to go into the jungle?” I asked.

“They say, yes, please.”

#

So it was that the women got to stay in the village, and Narces and I got to wander into the jungle.

“I hate jungles.” He reminded me. “They’re full of bugs and spiders and other kinds of things that bite.”

“We have a stream right here, and free insects, and a variety of tasty plants.” I popped an insect into my mouth to emphasize my point.

“Yeah, that’s great for you. You can eat anything. I can’t, I need... what?”

“What?”

“You got that look on your face, like something has one of those traits you can develop.”

“Yes, but I’m wondering why an insect needs a resistance to acid.”

“Maybe it’s something other bugs use against it?”

“Possibly.” I said. “But I’m tempted to wander up the mountainside and see if that offers any insights. If there’s a natural acid here, it’s something the natives don’t care about. We could get it cheaply.”

“And why do we want acids, boss?”

“Tanning of hides, etching of metals, and removing ammonia flavor from fish, to name three.” I said.

I munched on various insects as we worked our way inland, noticing a number of resistances and abilities that were just ...

“Narces, what is a narcotic? Is it a type of toxin?”

“I guess. First I’ve heard of them.”

“Those red insects gain extra nutrition from them.”

A tiny island pig squealed, and fled into the foliage ahead of us.

Narces smacked his lips. “Now THAT looks like food to me.”

We chased it down, and Narces began butchering it while I gathered firewood.

I eventually became frustrated, and let my System auto-gather while I paid attention to other things.

“Narces.” I called out, careful not to use more volume than needed and to keep my tone level, neutral.

“Yeah, what? Busy here.”

“Narces, slice off a good chunk of that for each of us and leave the rest.”

Narces looked at me like I was growing a second head.

“Don’t look now, but there is a rather sizeable jungle cat over your left shoulder. We don’t need all that meat.”

“What a waste.” He griped, but did so.

We walked downstream, and the jaguar advanced from the foliage.

it sent.

He roared at us to emphasize his point.

“Holy. Gods. If we run, it’ll just eat us?”

“Just walk, Narces. He’s Awakened. He’s just upset that we’re in his hunting grounds.”

“I’m not happy about that myself.”

“If you want to give him back your slice of ham...”

“Nope. Nope, you can stop that crazy talk. I hunted this ham, we’re cooking it and I’m eating my piece.”

Perhaps because of the adrenaline, it was easy to Commune With Nature, and find the limits of his hunting grounds, clearly marked to one who could sense urine and scat.

“It’s not far. This way.”

#

And we joked about how scared we were, there while the meat cooked, wrapped in lilypad leaves.

The scent drew an entirely different feline to our camp.

“Oho, and here I was worried that you and Narces might be going hungry.” Kismet said. “Swap you half a coconut for half your meat?”

.....

“Not until it’s cooked.” I said. I could dissolve parasites like ringworms, tapeworms, and bloodworms, but I wasn’t going to risk letting those things into my companions.

“Aww, you darn near burn it. Juicy juices are part of meat, too.”

“Okay, I’ll show you how to cook the meat in a way that keeps those.”

“Yum, yum. Show me, cooking teacher.” She said to just show her, but it wasn’t long before she was twirling the meat, eagerly poking it as though that would cause the meat to cook faster. Maybe it did.

“Let me show you where the visitor’s hut is.” She said.

It was further from the water, raised slightly on stilts.

“Oh, that’s to help keep bugs and snakes and stuff out of the hut.” She said.

Narces insisted I engage in a thorough and vigorous sweeping of the hut before he would set foot in it. We were suspended well above any potential invaders in hammocks, which suited him just fine.

We did have one invader I had to deal with. “Husband.”

“No. Just let me sleep.” Narces said.

“Okay.” I plopped to the floor, stalked off outside the hut with the stealthy clomping one associates with the half-asleep.

“What?” I asked.

“The natives have this poisonous berry, and I want to know just how poisonous it is. Would you eat just one?”

“What?” I thought surely I must still be asleep.

“I mean it’s okay if your immune system can’t handle poisons.” She said. “I just figured someone with as much of a divisor as you did must have some resistance...”

“Give me the berry.” I said, extending my palm. She poured several into my hand, and I popped one into my mouth. I spat it out. “It’s a four, possibly a five. How are your hands?”

“Heh. I... wait, I can’t feel my hands.”

“It’s already inside you, then.”

“Whawhat? Fires, children of the hell flame, hear me, fear me, obey! Scour clean my hands with your flames. Grasp of the Purifier!” Her hands lit up to the elbow with orange and red flames.

“I can’t feel my hands! I can see them burning, but I can’t feel my hands!”

I reached out, grasped her elbows. “I have an idea,” I said, “but this is going to hurt.”

“Do ya promise?”

I slashed both her palms. “Blood of my betrothed, of my devil-pacted, hear me and obey! I am your owner, your master, Rhishisikk, and I command you purge her body of toxins. Bloodletting!”

[You are not attuned to Blood Magic; you do not know this spell; improvised spell usage has failed.]

[New condtion: Bleeding 4, has been acquired.]

I coughed up blood. Not quite what I had intended. Have I mentioned that magic WANTS to kill you?

#