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We are still weary about Koru, but she seem to be completely honest in her pledge and intentions. I don't want to order Koru to always be truthful to me, as that might misfire badly. Koru actually seem somewhat pleased to have lost in what she considers a fair fight and that we ambushed their ambush, and that she have joined the winning team. She didn't actually lose-lose like in death. She lost after giving a good fight against a superior team that even knew that blood in the water would attract sharks, and now she have joined that superior team, so she kind of won. Oath bounding is a detail and just a small price. We might be a small team with physically weak members, but we completely bested her group, and they were some of the strongest deadliest warriors in King's camp. Even Four Armed Rivke was utterly defeated - who surprisingly was also a woman. Koru respected Rivke, but seems to feel utter contempt for her former commander 'King' and some of her old companions. Climber Gjurl was one of them, and Koru enjoyed his misfortune and ripping out that thorny branch, and she is pleased that she gave him a very undignified death as a meat shield.
Koru tells us about the history of her camp and the whole Raider attack on what they call Lake Camp, as Koru remember seeing Reiley there and heard 'dark lines' and 'pink hair' fled in a canoe across the lake.
Her former commander King - who insist on being called King - wants to accumulate power and have claimed the upriver area as his Kingdom. King knew about the large dangerous predator dinosaurs in the lowland towards the coast, and King with two other chosen who are 'ass-licking morons' had banded together, and they found a natural fortress island cliff poking up from a section of rapids. The river splits around the cliff and it is a fairly large island with some trees and grass and mostly steep and 3 to 10 meter high cliff sides. So a fallen tree was the only way out to the island, and the vicious smaller predators didn't really try to attack over the log. Eventually they built a proper draw bridge that could be raised, and slowly managed to 'recruit' people in one way or the other, and they started to build proper houses. More people were found, or found the camp, and was convinced to join. Like Koru did five weeks ago.
Honestly, it's a very smart idea to light a big smoking fire during Rings of light days to attract newly awoken to the camp, but only once you have a good defensive camp and are enough people in it. The big downside with that camp in a river surrounded by rapids, is that it must be noisy, which Koru confirms. It might look cool and be good for overall defence, but the background noise will hide sounds for approaching animals or enemies, and someone swimming will be able to reach that island fairly hidden from view and sound.
Anyway, the island camp grew and improved. Better and more houses were built. Another longer bridge was built over the wider rapids to the other side of the river and they had easy access to both sides of the river. Gate towers were built and manned, and so was a watchtower in a big tree on a much higher point half a kilometer away from the camp.
Koru say that once King's Camp had 4 people in it for a week, they received a Star Fall with a tool or a package of something useful each week, and after the group had 16 people, they got two per week. As everyone here they have a serious lack of metal to make things with, but some brought a knife, axe or other weapons or tools with them and they did make stone tools. But some don't, and stuff like water bottles and blankets are appreciated and common, and they got a couple of Star Falls with salt. Many know how to make pots, waterskins or other water carriers, but they need material and time. Pottery isn't that easy to do and fragile. Leather and something like bees wax or tree resin to waterproof, or trying to use an animal bladder, is a lot of work or time for something that might have other issues.
King's Camp have a scout who is pretty much transparent, especially when sleeping, who is a good climber with back facing claws on fingers and feet. Small and quite slow and not much use in a fight, but hard to find. Distant smoke lead that scout to discovered the valley and Lake Camp, and King with his closest cronies decided to attack as King's Camp needed more workers, skilled crafts people and any good equipment or Star Fall Lake Camp had. Plus he wanted that valley to eventually be part of his Kingdom and for Lake Camp to surrender to his rule. Koru didn't like the plan but didn't have much choice. Or so she claim. They moved through the nature without really running into the 'wolf pack' dinosaurs, since they had understood what sanctuary flowers did, and used it a bit like we planned, but not as carefully. The harvesting for the attack took all the flowers from a recently discovered large patch, so as far as Koru knows, King's Camp can't really repeat that attack and tactic, and it was a bad tactic. They didn't think about using nose clamps or nose plugs, and there were issues with using the flowers. Two were allergic and couldn't take part. Some managed to endure it while others relieved themselves one way or another. One man died from death by snu-snu from Rivke who eventually becomes aggressively horny and violent by sanctuary flowers. It was a bad tactic, especially as they were limited by different paces and endurances and had to stay together, but they reached their target after two bad days.
The attack started fairly well, and some shouted threats off surrender or be sacrificed to the dark spirits, were partially to scare the defenders to surrender and submit to King's command, but Koru firmly believes that some absolute would sacrifice others in the hopes of gaining favours from the spirits. There had been talk about doing it in the hope of winning favour with the spirits, and King have sacrificed one just to try, and partly to make that threat real. Most of the Lake Camp defenders drew back to their tower, and they had only manage to capture one wounded while two fled in a canoe. As I already know, the tower lowest floor and a bit above were brick, but the rest were wood, so they tried to threaten with setting the tower on fire, and did set a house on fire to scare the defenders. It was a bit of a stalemate as King wanted their surrender or people, goods and resources. All of which would burn if they set fire to the tower. So the setting fire plan was bad, and the defenders had several bows and enough arrows. Several wannabe leaders or just raiders ignoring orders made the situation worse.
And then a pack of those vicious dinosaurs attacked from behind.
They had opened the gate and not closed it behind them, and the dinosaur pack lured by noise, violence and blood noticed. Of course the Lake Camp defenders in the tower didn't warn them. So they lost three to the dinosaurs before barricading in another building. Two raider had surrendered and was hoisted up in the tower. In the end they decided to cut their losses and return to Kings camp with what they had. So 18 people left King's Camp. 10 returned and several of them wounded. 1 dead from the journey. 2 died in the attack. 3 more lost to dinosaurs. 2 were hoisted up in the tower. And they only captured 1 enemy and some low value goods and animals, while loosing weapons and a couple of Star Fall items. Going for plants or herbs was not on their agenda, but King's Camp already had made some crop fields. King was not happy and blamed the warriors that returned, like Koru, Gjurl and Rivke. The captured man Bhiq was interrogated and oath bound to be a slave. Bhiq can't hurt anyone or leave without specific orders, and he have to work and do as he is told by the camp leaders. Bhiq told about the Lake Camp people, their visions and Star Falls and other equipment. And about the Salt Boon, and the safety of water travel.
A new chosen had arrived during the raid and they were 20 in King's Camp after the raid, but another raid was obviously not an option, and when Koru left two were really sick from their wounds. They were praying and hoping for a Star Fall with some help. King's Camp didn't have canoes, but they were already working on two dugouts from big trees as they knew there was a sea and they wanted to get far more salt and not have to get it in Star Falls. Those dugouts and paddles took almost a week, but Koru's group left the day before the next Pillars of light, which they call 'Rings of light' since apparently it's a wide glowing ring on the ground with the sleeping person in the middle. Koru was in charge of the expedition since even King knew the other three wasn't fit to be it, and beside general exploration, their goal was to find Tiola's river; find the Salt Boon and bring back plenty of salt after waiting for a few days in an ambush; and generally try to capture other people, goods and so on. There might be other camps. There were talk about slowly weakening Lake Camp by trying to ambush and preferably capture people going to the Salt Boon, and eventually maybe do a new attack by using the rivers. King's Camp should be working on more dugouts.
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Koru was happy to be away from King and the camp for a week, but Gjurl and Rivke was loyal to King, and leaving on her own wasn't really an option in this dangerous world, and they had heard about the terrifying dinosaurs down here. They happened upon a newly awoken person the first day, but the person fled and they wasted a bit of time trying to track the person, but approaching dinosaurs made them hurry back to the dugouts. That person might be waiting for them as they shouted that they would be back, and a week in the wilderness might make the person motivated to join their group. They continued down river. On the way to the sea, they surprised another person trying to fish in the river and managed to capture her, but bringing a captured person to the ambush and being a burden was a bad idea, so they oath-bound Kima to wait at the dinosaur safe cliff in a river bend where they found her, for anyone of them to return to release her from that oath. Kima can fish and drink water and so on, but have to stay within a certain distance or she will die. So it's good that Koru is alive to release Kima, as otherwise Kima would be stuck there for the rest of her life. I really hate those oaths. Koru will have to travel back there and get her. Koru's description of Kima is she kind of looks like me or Reiley with two arms and just slightly smaller, but more like Rivke in overall look except smoother skin, and brown and strangely patterned with a weird face. Rivke is Four Arms and the walking crocodile like lizard, so I guess Kima is lizard like too. Anyway, they reached the Salt Boon and the rest we know. They didn't know about us, and sure didn't notice Xuela spying on them. Or Reiley.
As we have worked to clear away and hide any trace of what happened, Koru seems to have become more pleased as she have understood exactly how much weaker King's Camp has become from this mornings event, and that we deliberately attacked to weaken the threat King's Camp is, without our enemy even knowing we exist. Strategically we are way ahead of King's plans, and Koru agree that we will be attacked as soon as King finds out about us, especially if they figure out that we're a small group. That prospect doesn't seem to worry Koru, and she expect us to win and that it will be glorious. Yeah, we might be a small team now, but Koru seems almost giddy with our potential and enjoy King's failure and set backs now that she isn't part of King's command. It's kind of obvious that Koru dislike weak stupid leaders and bad warriors, so we have all gained points and respect, and she especially liked all the traps and the fire weapon. We fight smart, devious and well, and our ambush was way better than theirs.
Her size, body, breast and voice means it is hard to not see Koru as some kind of girlish Orch even though she haven't got tusks and isn't green, but Koru's species doesn't actually have men or women, although they have a form of group marriages. They need to be two to make children, but every one can give birth and usually both do. Some are just better prepared for it, ie the huge breasts which Koru is proud off since her children will be big and strong. Koru doesn't have a vagina as her species apparently have sex with their mouths and poop out one to three eggs, crack them open, and the two biggest hatchlings attach to the breasts until they have become big enough to move and eat on their own, which takes about a quarter of a year. Bigger breasts mean Koru's children will grow bigger and stronger. Taking care of children is a group thing, but children have to start to be useful their second year, and is considered an adult that have to fend for themselves once they become about four years old. Keeping track of days and years isn't really a thing for her kind. Koru saying she think she recently became 11 years old, quickly becomes the usual hours-per-year conversion, but since a year is 'a bit more than three dozen' of 'one and a half dozen days' weeks, and length of day difference doesn't matter to her since 'a morning is a morning, and a day is a day', her age compared to the rest of us is fuzzy at best, but a year seems to be a very long 670ish days, so Koru is probably 20-24 in human years. Like most here, Koru isn't really stupid, she is just uneducated in science related things. From counting on her fingers and their segments on her big but fairly human looking hands, except her pinky that is almost like another thumb, her culture seem to have base 12 maths, which makes sense due to me hearing her referring to and counting in dozen. But maths is not a big thing and dividing is made with whole fingers, segments or physical objects in piles. There is no written language, but some glyphs have meanings, and people and groups mark their things with their own glyph.
Her kind don't really have sex for pleasure, and Koru don't get the concept even though the other intelligent species of her planet seem to have sex for pleasure. Two intelligent species and very different cultures on one world is kind of cool, but seems messy, and it is not surprising that they fight a lot. Basically; attack on sight if the odds are in your favour, and bring back their heads to prove the kills. So Koru wasn't surprised by us removing Gjurl, Ylla and Rivke's heads, and hadn't considered is was to make sure they stayed dead. Her tattoo's are 'permanent warpaint' she earned as a warrior. If you've done well in a big fight you will be rewarded with tattoos on one body part. Koru understand the problem with language that evolved in species with two sexes, and she prefer being referred to as a 'she' since women that have children are obviously much better than men that can't. No offence towards me. Most people here have two sexes, but that small transparent scout was another unisex species.
Of course we all look weird to Koru, and Koru doesn't know why she have violet skin, but several common plants where Koru lived have violet leaves, and Koru doesn't think she stand out much here. It's very likely that the leaves might have other colours for me or others since it's quite obvious that Koru's species have a strange colour vision over a very wide spectrum. My guess is one colour over the whole blue-green spectrum, and another colour far higher up in the infrared, and I believe its more in the short wave infrared area since Koru don't find fog or distant haze to be a problem, and a clear blue sky is fairly dark to her. Apparently the other intelligent species on her homeworld see things different from her kind, so it's tricky to fight them. I will heat up metal and see when Koru say it's starting to glow. Koru finds it interesting that I'm interested in how she sees the world, and that I sort of understand her vision and respect her ways. There have been quite a lot of confusion and nagging in King's Camp over stuff like different vision. What is nice to know is that our camouflage blends in quite well in Koru's vision, and far better than naked skin, although Koru really likes our war paint and Reiley's natural tiger stripe obviously mark her kind as born warriors. Koru doesn't have a problem with sunburn, but her violet skin might reflect UV light well, or just be dark in it. The sanctuary flowers don't have any effect on Koru at all, but her sense of smell seem bad too, and she will need start bathing regularly. With soap.
Koru have two Spirit given 'visions'. What I call Direction seems to quite common, and Koru got Direction the last Pillars of light, probably as a result of her raid journey to the Lake Camp as Rivke, Gjurl and others got that too. But Koru also have what she call Track. She whispered 'Might Spirits, Track that person' while looking at me through the gaps in the stones, since I had the strange crossbow that she assumed had hurt both of her legs, and she didn't noticed Xuela until later. Which made her curse. Xuela is a very useful scout and danger, and she didn't know there was flying people. She hadn't even considered the possibility. Partially she stayed under water because she had no idea where me and Reiley were. During her time under water she saw a weird broken 'green' arrow in the bottom of her view, so I guess Track doesn't work under water. Which makes sense if it is low power high frequency radio based. Usually the arrow points in the targets direction. As long as she see the person to track while setting it, and the distance doesn't become more than something like 5 kilometers away, that arrow will keep pointing towards the target, and it still points to me. It will do so for half a day, and she cannot Track again until tomorrow. That is a hell of a thing, and proves that we're all tracked with some kind of GPS and there is a radio network. I kind of want a weak spark gap transmitter just to act as jamming, but then again, that might make the receiver in my head explode without hurting the transmitter. So yeah. Bad idea. Track also have an update frequency, so it's for tracking in nature, and not in a fight. Koru had hoped to get away and either follow or loose us. Koru don't know how she got Track, but she did spend several days tracking other people by sight before approaching King's Camp as she didn't see any better option. She have not shared details of Track before, and just pretended that she did it by pure skill. It was common in her camp to not share vision details, and getting one didn't seem that common, so some bragged about their Spirit given vision skills like Pray.
With the rest of my group deliberately not here and watching, I have Koru opening up Gjurl and Rivke's skulls, and to no surprise we finds something tiny and high tech attached to one eye and the ears in each head, but it looks like the damn alien bastards decided to activate the self-destruct as they died. Or it's automatic. Yeah, automatic seems likely. But it proves that we are rigged, and the location of tech remnants gives away some of the functions. There seem to be more than one antenna and obviously something in the torso by the heart, but the tech is very small. Koru understand that she too have similar stuff in her head and body, and it impress Koru that I suspected and is from one of the really advanced cultures. And that it haven't made me pathetic. I have Koru wash the stuff and I will save it. It wouldn't surprise me if it starts to quickly decompose once exposed to atmosphere or something.
The damn alien bastards are sneaky.
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