By morning, they had all but abandoned civilization. The carriage threaded itself between thin pine trees as the mountain grew steeper, and what looked like a shy stream eventually became a deep pool of sea water, lurking below the giant cliffs like a water serpent. Akemi held on tightly to the carriage door as she gazed down, feeling her lungs tighten.

So this is a fjord.

At noon they made camp by the cliffside, eating leftovers from their shopping in Kerbos. Small meat pies with kimchi and crushed peas. They ate with haphazardly crafted wooden utensils, terrible to hold and worse to use, and Bamo got another sliver of timber stuck between his teeth.

“Splinter-teeth,” Akemi teased.

“Insane… woman,” he muttered back.

“Wow. Amazing material. How did you come up with that so quickly?”

He grumbled and clawed at his teeth. Mutt, who hadn’t stretched his legs in days, begged at Bamo’s feet for his food scraps. The bat kicked the pika away noncommittally.

“Akemi fed you like fifty chickens,” he said, accusatory. “How are you still hungry?”

“Eep.”

Akemi flourished Kobe’s map in front of her and trailed her finger upward from Grimguard, dodging lakes and rivers and heroic settlements until she landed where they were just now, at the border of a drotling enclave. This specific enclave was labeled Mir’dal on the map.

“Yo, bat,” Akemi interjected, interrupting a thrilling game of tag between Mutt and what was left of Bamo’s breakfast. “Do you know anything about drotlings? It looks like our treasure is buried inside of one of their enclaves. Anything I should prepare ahead of time?”

Bamo looked stricken. “You mean you intend to go in there?”

He was gesturing to a crop of pine trees in the distance, to the west of the road. They didn’t look particularly remarkable except for how densely the trees were packed, and how orderly they were aligned, almost like a naturally occurring fence. Also, birds of all kinds seemed unnaturally attracted to the area. Bluejays and ravens and woodpeckers alike all sat perched on the pines’ branches, just watching. It was strange, but not off-putting enough to make her reconsider.

“I sure do,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “What’s the problem, scaredy-cat?”

“Of course you do. Great.”

He gave up and threw his last meat pie to Mutt, who swallowed it whole.

“Drotlings are fleshfiends,” he said, disgusted. “No fur. Barely any skin. They look like small human children at a first glance, but don’t be deceived by that illusion. That’s just how they present to outsiders to avoid attacks on their enclaves. No one wants to hurt a kid, right? But take away their magic, and they’re deadly bundles of organs covered in mud and leaves.”

As Bamo talked, Akemi filled a small water basin, washing her hands of the sticky meat pastries. She could see her reflection in it, pale skin tinted kimchi red. Blood in the water.

“So it’s basically a gang of jungle kids?” she replied, dumping the water into the grass. Mutt immediately started lapping it up. “Doesn’t sound scary to me.”

“They’re not actually kids. They’re hundreds of years old. Can’t be trusted.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“So they’re ancient flesh bags that masquerade as children to emotionally manipulate outsiders,” Akemi said, biting the edge of her glove as she slipped it onto her arm. “Eh. No worse than a species of talking bats that are obsessed with lace and perfume.”

Bamo groaned. Akemi smirked, and stood from the ground, dusting off her hands.

“Alright. Let’s get serious. According to my map, the part of the Moonlit Fjord we need to get to is only accessible from inside the enclave,”—she hoisted the paper up in front of Bamo’s eyes, close enough that he didn’t have to squint—“how would you propose we sweet talk these forest kids into letting us get close enough?”

When Bamo just glared at her, she cast her Orb of Pestilent Bloodlust, hovering it by his face. The hornets gnashed their ugly fangs at the tip of his button nose. He fell off the log of wood he was seated on and scrambled backward in the grass, terrified.

“Get that thing away from me!” he barked.

“Oh,”—she looked at the orb innocently, waving it in the air—“this old thing? Sorry. Was just trying to think of ideas, since you seem to be out of them. What am I paying you for again?”

“Fine. Fine. Just dispel it, please. It gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

Akemi snorted, but complied. He let out a breath of relief as soon as the insects evaporated.

“Look,” he said, after regaining his composure. “Drotlings are pretty docile as long as you don’t piss them off. So I’d just be as honest as possible about your intentions. Then you can probably, with a strong emphasis on probably, broker a deal.”

“And if we can’t? If they turn down my terms?”

“Then we by no means barge in,” he pressed. “They outnumber us in droves. And, Akemi, I’m serious—they are not pretty when the illusion fades.”

Akemi hummed, unconvinced.

She’d see about that.

—

The thicket of trees was, as she suspected, a fence. The pines were so tall that she couldn’t see over them, but she could make out slivers of fire and smoke escaping through the branches. She could smell it, too, the obvious signs of civilization—the sweet scent of vegetables cooking on a fire spit. It made her stomach gnaw for more food; the few meat pies shared between them was hardly enough food for a growing bat boy and an ambitious young woman.

“How do we get in?” she asked, pressing her hand to the bark of the trees. “Do we… knock?”

“Why would I know? Go for it. But, politely—”

Akemi knocked hard on the bark, and yelled, “Hello there!”

Silence. No response. Bamo covered his ears and hissed.

“You are a public menace.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she sighed. “Alright, I didn’t want to have to do this, but I’m going to get on your back, and then you’ll fly us over the top—”

Akemi was cut short as a door, appearing magically out of the pine bark, yawned backward. A small boy who looked around the age of nine, with dusty blonde hair and freckles, dressed in overalls and a flower crown, stared back at them with large, vacant eyes.

Mort | Level 7 Drotling Scavenger

“Hello there,” the boy said neutrally. “Is there a reason you are vandalizing our door repeatedly with your fist?”

Akemi laughed. Bamo looked immediately stressed.

“Ah. My bad,” she said, amused. “It was just that I didn’t know it was a door I was vandalizing. I thought it was just an everyday tree.”

The boy seemed to consider this, then nodded. “That is reasonable, but I would suggest that you treat all trees with respect, regardless of their status as doors.” He paused, pursing his lips. “Well, now that you know that you’ve discovered that it’s a door, do you plan on leaving, or do you plan on hitting it again?”

Akemi’s amusement grew. These drotlings were a very straightforward people.

“Hm. Neither,” she said, and placed her hand on the bark-door, preventing him from closing it. His eyes apathetically followed the motion. “I’m interested in coming inside. If you all…”—she steeled herself, gathering her entire (very limited) capacity for polite manners—“wouldn’t mind.”

He studied her for a moment, his lips parting slightly.

“You speak our language. You speak Rotlish.”

Akemi narrowed her eyes. She hadn’t noticed him—or herself—change language, but she supposed it was possible. As Pyre had explained to her, the moment someone else spoke a language, their otherworlder skill allowed them to copy it flawlessly.

“Sure do,” she answered, noticing now the way her voice became low and staccato, like a string instrument whose lowest notes were being plucked slowly by careful fingers. “So, are you going to let me in? Since we’re language buddies and all?”

The little boy went silent for a moment, blinking.

Persuasion Check (Hard)

Multiplier Applied: [Shared Language]

Success!

“Okay,” he said, with a shrug, and stood to the side. “But we will be watching you.”

Akemi laughed, startled by her own success.

I actually passed a persuasion roll. The universe must really love me today.

She strolled in, an equally stunned Bamo in tow, and the door of pines slammed shut behind her.