An Excerpt from Haja, The Explorer Journal:

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Entry March 15th 334 RPT:

Expenditures: 115 pieces of tapestry, all colors.

The tapestries were sold with 20% of discount due to the unusual nature of incident.

After comparing the cost of 35 Yar per piece and their estimated value of 62 Yar per piece(paid in

animal furs and meat) Hawkinson Company should have made roughly 30 Yar per piece so roughly 30

Yan worth of profit. The estimates line up with our recounts.

Today I saw something scary; a natural disaster beyond human might:

…

It was noon. The bright daylight shone on our horses as I was relaxing and steering them with one

hand. The other hand was occupied with doing whatever it wanted at whatever point of time and place.

We were about 5 hours worth distant from visiting the town, that was next on our agenda: Luchos,

Springtown of all warriors.

Since the Luchos villagers were supposed to celebrate a fighting festival during this time of the year,

we updated our stock with three fifth tapestry and textiles from Leffejim, one fifth of intoxicants we

recently resupplied from Chansa and an additional fifth of miscellaneous goods.

Uncle Raylon was busy training his vitality in the back of our carriage when I noticed a faint smell of

powdered wood drifting through the air. Since Uncle was occupied I just gave the horses a sign to take

care of the carriage by themselves and went ahead to see what had happened(Sorry Uncle, I won’t

leave the horses alone again.).

As I arrived on scene, what greeted my eyes were not the intricately designed wooden homes of

coziness and frugality, I had been informed about beforehand, but a large collection of piles of wood

and cellulose.

My first thoughts upon seeing that scenery were those of a graveyard of houses as I watched the

wooden frames on the ground being contorted and littered with holes akin to bite marks from giant

worms.

The low-lying parts on the ground had already devolved into a fine light-brown powder, while the parts

that still showed some stability were surrounded by small what seemed like small insects.

Inside my ears there was a high-pitched sound like a combination of small growls and vibrating

frequencies as my eyes were trying to zoom in on these small animals from afar.

…

A villager noticed my presence and informed me of the situation:

A swarm of Achipokkah had appeared and devoured their village.

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Achipokkah are small and Grey creatures with two large eyes on their face and grotesque uneven balls

of meat as their bodies. Their skin is covered by multiple bubbly warts.

Achipokkah use their two large hind-legs with flat soles to quickly chain a series of low-altitude-jumps

together as their preferred form of movement.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Achipokkah can mean fright behind wood or fright behind farmland and they are infamous for their

dietary habits of devouring any and all human-made/altered inventions.

Their origin is shrouded in veils of mystery and their rate and area of appearance seems to be random

as well, which is why these animals are titled natural disasters.

There is historical evidence of the humanitarian sage of peace called them ‘those, who passed through

the forbidden door.’.

Some research has been done around that statement but ultimately due to the rarity of Achipokkah’s

appearance they were abolished by most and continued by few.

-Most Achipokkah-Outbreaks seem to quickly die down within weeks

-Achipokkah are edible though most people would prefer literally anything else over Achipokkah-meat

-There exist species related to Achipokkah in structure and behavior in different places of Gaia

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It was a sad scene to see but at least these beasts did not attack the people and ‘only’ cared for their

homes.

First order of business was running back to the carriage, informing Uncle Raylon about my findings

and keeping our wooden carriage away from the village.

I have to revise that last part: According to Uncle Raylon this carriage has been enchanted to keep away

most animals dining on wood and such with the help of some intricate runework underneath its body.

This prevention effect is apparently supposed to include Achipokkahs, so we ventured into the village

with everything included in our luggage.

Our first impulse was to charitably donate a portion of our stock as resources for the villagers to get

their feet back on the ground like tapestry for warmth and tools for general use.

Apparently however this tribe did not accept our help.

Their reasoning went along the lines of ‘Luchos does not need help from anybody but themselves’ or

something. I don’t get it and Uncle just told me not to worry about it so I guess it’s fine.

Instead we were able to convince these brutes to trade their services of hunting for our tapestry and that

seemed to have done the trick.

Luckily for us, the Jehobos and Kakakas around here do not wear any insulating fur, which is how we

could trade two pieces of fur for one piece of tapestry.

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Jehobos:

A small to medium sized herbivore with dark-Grey curved horns and brown fur. The fur itself is very

smooth and sought out by many nobles for its almost silk-like texture and natural look but its ability to

insulate Jehobos from climate and weather is rather low.

Jehobos mostly survive by eating grasses and wild bushes to build up adequate amounts of fat and

otherwise using their horns to dig small lairs underneath the ground.

Their saliva has adhesive properties when collected and prepared with greenery though Jehobos mainly

use the to spit on their lair walls. Mud and dirt in this region reacts chemically with the liquid and

makes the targeted rock formation harden and stabilize, while also slightly compressing itself.

-Some people once used Jehobos spit and mud as a torture method for prisoners and war-

criminals. By inserting a wedge in the right spot of their construction they could at any point in

time break open the rock formation to free the prisoner from suffocating to death. Actual time it

would take for a prisoner to suffocate: 4 days

-Most prisoners died from dehydration before the 4 days were over

-Jehobos have grown exceedingly rare outside of Estica, where they are still plentiful. Within #

the next 10 years they might be driven to extinction.

-Jehobos can grow to be a hundred years old if they are left undisturbed. Their breeding

capability is relatively decent

-The name Jehobos originates from the high-pitched ‘Jeho’-sound, which is their way of

communication and the word 'bos', which can be translated to something similar to horns.

-This species did not originate from Estica

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Kakaka:

A medium sized carnivore with curved claws and crooked teeth. Their hunting pattern consists of

driving their prey to a corner and attacking them in packs. Kakakas’ prey typically consists of Jehobos

and smaller herbivores.

This species eats by grinding their crooked teeth against the dead prey and ripping open their flesh.

This method creates large puddles of blood and flesh, which makes them easy to track down.

Kakakas typically are active during night and sleep by flattening their bodies to the ground.

Their backs have a similar color to spotted dirt and there have been many incidents, where humans

accidentally stepped on one of those enemies and got hurt in the process.

By their ability to flatten themselves they were supposed to have very elastic skeletal frames but once

they were hunted it turned out that Kakakas’ bones are actually very sturdy. Their method of flattening

them is currently hypothesized to be similar to compression rather than flattening and their prey of

choice seems to be directly related to these abilities.

-Kakaka are widely considered to be among the unsightliest species originating from Estica

-The name Kakaka originates from the sound these beasts make while eating

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Since we were already there, we also made another huge trade with the Luchos-people:

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Ranga-Gallbladder:

A Gallbladder from one of the Range-Species of Gaia

Due to their innate ability to produce their own greenhouses coated in a toxin, that deters enemies from

attacking, their Gallbladder contains a serum that, when combined with water, can create said poison.

The Gallbladder is typically dried up and lightly pressured from outside so that its inside gains a mushy

texture and then stored in multiple within a jar for transportation.

-Burns quite well and releases poisonous fumes that deter animals and intoxicate humans as a

drug

-can be prepared in combination with medicinal herbs to create various mixtures related to

detoxification and wound antiseptics

-Some specific animals are attracted to the Ranga-Poison and will thus gather around the area of

release.

-Animals in the vicinity of this powder are typically inedible unless properly cooked and

dried for around two days

-Attracts the Achipokkah

- reason unknown

-quite valuable

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By using 10 of our Lopez-Gallbladders as bait we lured a large amount of Achipokkah to a designated

spot, that functioned as a shallow hole and then burying them in an artificial avalanche we were able to

get rid of most of these insects. Hawkinson-Company also provided additional material for keeping a

large fire and burning the eggs those things laid within the village’s remains.

In exchange for doing only that much we were given exclusive rights for trading prices around Luchos

village for the next 2 years. This would mean, that Hawkinson company could gain the commercial

backing of an entire village behind them, though it would be a poor village. My personal estimations

say, that we can earn a profit equaling about 900 Yan worth based on a trading frequency of 30 trades

and today’s earnings used on rehabilitating the village. My master is thinking that the price might

fluctuate greatly to its upper boundary, though he has expressed his concerns and proposed forsaking

some of the profits for integrity and such.

Apparently I do not understand what it means to be a merchant...

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Inside of the neatly packed logbook there are neatly constructed info-cards glued to the pages like

snippets of information.

These cards were mostly made by Haja, who had in turn been inspired

by his late grandfather Hamish to create them.

Inside of this book there were the texts, thoughts, stories and more from inside of Haja’s mind.