“It’s just rude to take things for granted when you can help out, honestly.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.

At dawn the next day, Aideen’s group joined a group of around fifteen of Ibonua’s hunters and went out to the forest to scavenge and hunt for food. Wiro also went along as their guide.

Given the lack of communication with the rest of the world – messenger birds most definitely did not fare well in the jungle – the goblins had no idea that they were coming, so the usual welcome feast was not held during the first night. In fact, the hunters and scavengers they were going with were going out to look for some delicacies for the planned feast later that evening.

Aideen felt it would be rude not to lend a hand to their hosts, and besides she also wanted to see more of the deeper reaches of the jungle. They had mostly followed the tributary along the way in and avoided the deeper jungles that way, which was safer and faster, but also limited what they got to discover along the way as well.

Two-thirds of the goblins carried large bags that were larger than their own torsos with them, ones that contained all sorts of tools for both the hunting and the gathering. Aideen’s offer to carry it for them in her storage ring was warmly welcomed and the goblins that were previously encumbered by the heavy bags walked with a bit of a skip to their steps after they were relieved of their burden.

They had only walked around fifteen minutes away from the village when the goblins made the first stop at a grove of fibrous trees that reminded Aideen of palm fronds, albeit short ones as the tallest of the trees were barely a head taller than herself. The odd trees were spaced rather sparsely from one another, with several visible oddly short rotted stalks that remained in the gaps.

The goblins asked for two of the bags they entrusted to Aideen and pulled out machetes from one of the bags. The machetes had heavy blades of sharpened stone – metal was rare and precious amongst the goblins of the jungle as well – and while usable as weapons, were likely worse in that role compared to the spears and knives that the goblins carried with them.

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One of the older goblins went around and inspected the trees, knocking at some a finger and sniffing at a few of them, before he seemed to have made his decision and pointed at a half dozen of the trees in the grove. The younger goblins immediately went to the chosen trees and used their machetes to hack down the upper half of the trees, leaving only the fibrous trunks to a height of a goblin’s chest.

Then they packed the machetes back into the bag it was in and used their knives to smooth out the cut until it was flat and tidy, before they used a stone-tipped wooden tool to dig a deep groove into the center of the trunk, extending a good two-thirds of its height from the the cut line. The removed inner parts of the trunk were then minced roughly by some of the other goblins, until there was only a rather thin wall left on the outermost, harder layer of the trunk.

After that, the goblins packed the minced bits of the tree’s inner layers back where they used to be,followed by crushing them vigorously in the trunk containers using long wooden pestles. While most of the goblins – two to a trunk – busied themselves with mashing the fibrous bits of trunk into a pulp, the other three climbed up some nearby trees that had large brown fruits about the size of human heads.

By the time the goblins were done with their work, the mass of tree pulp had been compacted to around half its original size. The three goblins that climbed the trees had also picked over a dozen of the large brown fruits, and the older goblin that picked the trees carefully carved a hole through the hard, shell-like exterior of the fruits. Then he carefully sniffed the opening and tilted the fruit back so that a trickle of clear liquid dripped into his open mouth.

The old goblin smacked his tongue a couple times with satisfaction before handing the fruit over to the younger goblins, who proceeded to pour the clear juice inside the fruit into one of the hollowed out trunks now half-filled with the pulp they just mashed. While the youngsters did that – taking care not to spill the juice – the old goblin repeated his work on the rest of the fruits, discarding a couple that likely failed to meet his criteria.

Finally, the goblins carefully wrapped up the open end of the trunks using cloth that seemed to have been made from woven grass, sealing the opening tightly and securing the cloth in place using some cords. The whole process had not taken long, perhaps only thirty minutes or so, and Aideen’s group looked curiously at at. From the way Wiro’s face lit up though, they could guess that it was likely related to some sort of local delicacy unique to the place.

Three of the younger goblins remained in the grove to guard the place, while the remaining twelve continued their trek with Aideen’s group deeper into the jungle. The sun was still rather low in the sky, and since they traveled with the rising sun behind their backs, the light that managed to pass through the jungle’s dense canopy helped enlighten their way forward.

It also made for a rather breathtaking scene, the way the pillars of sunlight cut through the darkness of the jungle and illuminated the vibrant wildlife that covered the place. All around them, the jungle seemed to awaken from its sleep, as small creatures emerged from their nests and hideouts and started scurrying about. The chirping of birds and buzzing of insects started to blend into an ambient noise, one that made it clear just how vast the natural world around them was.