[Kiyonai Forests] The Valley of Fire

Qin Feng leaned silently against a tree with his eyes closed, bow slung over his shoulder and his cloak unceremoniously dumped on the ground next to his feet in what seemed to be some sort of makeshift bedroll. His arms were crossed over his chest, his right hand lightly gripping the hilt of one of his dual swords, and he gently breathed in the misty air as he tried to detect any distinct magical traces, a habit of his when all other senses had failed him.

Unfortunately, the scent of nature magic was overpowering and mostly cloaked any other traces that could've been picked up, but he did discern a few fleeting whiffs of magic belonging to some of the animals that lived in the forest before it could be masked by the forest.

A single ray hit the gold engravings on his boots, and Qin Fen knew it was time to move.  The sun was already beginning to break the horizon, and he had rested enough. He sighed gently as he grabbed his cowl, kicked dirt over the smoldering remains of last night fire, and began to quietly make his way deeper into the forest.

In the distance, just barely visible in the space over Wuppo's shoulder, was a pale figure with her legs swung over a branch, eying them both. With careful inspection from so far away, it was almost evident to be the shape of a woman.

She did nothing, for now. Just watched.

In truth, it was not entirely like Wuppo to confront a human directly. His dealings with them were almost always hostile, and up until recently he'd been keeping away from them. But it appeared that the combination of hunger, the perception of a ruined hunt, and the close proximity to his home in the mountains had agitated the ogre enough that he would have a word with the human. After all, he'd been granted protection by the head of the ruling clan of the province. It didn't enter his mind that a complete stranger to the region wouldn't know this already.

Wuppo looked at the half pheasant on the end of the sword. He sniffed it, and with some reluctance reached out his giant hand to pluck the cooked bird off of the weapon with his thumb and forefinger.

"Wuppo not like da pointy bits." he said, suspicious of the human. Wuppo popped the flavorful morsel into his mouth, bones included, and with a little crunch he ate the entire half pheasant.

"Why you'z 'ere so close to Wuppo cave? Dem wiff da pointy bits not come 'ere! Dem stay in dem.. Dem house! Wiff daze pointy bits!" Wuppo at times seemed to be searching for words, still reasonably agitated. The half pheasant was tasty, but given his size he could likely eat a small flock of pheasants.

The ogre looked down at Qin, and squinted slightly.

No sooner had she been spotted did the figure drop from the branch, turning with a moon-eyed glance at both the man and the ogre before vanishing through the brush, leaving a sweet hum for both of them to listen to.

The wind picked up. It whistled through the trees and pushed them gently in her direction.

Qin had not thought of that, but Wuppo's explanation made sense. The still lingering smell of the cooked pheasant must have attracted the spirit, like an offering at a shrine.

He had felt the wind pick up gently, and it seemed to be pushing them closer to the spirit. It seemed peaceful, but Qin cautiously kept one hand near his bow. Hopefully there wouldn't be conflict, but years of training had drilled absolute vigilance into him. Always better to be safe than sorry, if anything went south.

Wuppo sniffed the air around him again and gazed through the trees that surrounded Qin and him. He could smell incense and the sweet odor of freshly burned wax, but that was all. The ogre still appeared confused.

"Wuppo good at smell!" he announced to Qin. "Wuppo smell da burny bits, an' da melty bits, an' you'z on you ranfe busyness." Wuppo moved one of his hands up to his face, and used his index finger to scratch the area between the two twisted and knotted strands of hair that was his beard. He remained pensive.

"Wuppo not smell him wiff da burny bits, an' dem melty bits. Wuppo fink dis spiffrit! But spiffrit not in big tree! I'z come big tree long time, an' der no spiffrit 'ere!"

It was quite the puzzle. How did the smell of wax and incense get in the middle of the Valley of Fire with no other people around? After a long pause, Wuppo suddenly began looking around on the ground. He used his ogre-sized foot and kicked a bit of the underbrush around, and finally bent down and began digging at the dirt with his fingers.

"Spiffrit lost!" he told Qin as he straightened his back again, now holding two dirt encrusted rocks - one in each hand. Wuppo began smacking the rocks together in his hands arrhythmically, like a toddler would knock two sticks together.

"Spiffrit!" he shouted. "You'z come wiff Wuppo! Wuppo brings you dem special house! What dem in da village make for spiffrit! You happy der! You see!"

"'Ere!" Wuppo said as he shoved the rocks at Qin's chest. The rocks that looked small in Wuppo's hands were in reality quite large and heavy for a person's hands. If the ranger chose not to take them, he would certainly want to move his feet as to avoid the falling hunks of solid earth.

"You'z play rock. Jus' like Wuppo! You see Wuppo. Rock make spiffrit happy, an' spiffrit come wiff Wuppo to special house! Das where dem spiffrit need go."

Expecting that his new compatriot in the spirit relocating business would gladly welcome the chance to smack two rocks together, Wuppo turned away and began following the scent of freshly burned incense through the forest of giant Tawakoshi maples. Every few steps, Wuppo would call out and reinstate his promise to take the spirit to the special spirit domicile, and how pleasant it was there for spirits.

As the two pressed forward, they would catch glimpses of the woman here and there through the trees. It was always only for a second, and never for long enough to get a good look at her. Sometimes horns sprouted from her head. Other times, the auburn leaves of the maples surrounding them adorned her body. She was never quite the same twice.

The beginning of their trip was reasonably easygoing. As the sun peaked over the mountains, turning from a dense starry sky into a wave of violet, the mood began to change. The soft pitpat of dewdrops halted. The chatter of birds became silent. The air was suddenly thick enough that it felt like breathing underwater. Wuppo and Qin Feng might have noticed that their footfalls took just a little more time to hit the ground than usual, like wading through a river.

Their path would not continue to be so kind. The brush closed in on them, choking out any semblance of a path. It was no challenge to the ogre's impressive stature, though Qin Feng might have had a harder time wading through the debris left behind in his wake.

They would soon come to a steep slope that descended into a narrow but swiftly flowing river. On the other side, the woman could be seen sitting on a rock with her back turned. Her hair was a black curtain drooping into the river, blending with its depths.

It was a good twenty feet deep, that slope. A hurdle even for Wuppo, not to mention the much shorter human at his side.

Pulling out a rope from one of the hidden pockets a long rope, Qin used one of the blades to cut the rope into pieces, before grabbing a few arrows and snapping them in half. Grabbing the broken half arrows, he began to wrap the rope around his hands, form a pair of makeshift picks.

Gingerly, Qin jabbed the arrow heads into the ground, and pulled. There was a little movement, but the pick seemed to hold. Perfect. Winking at Wuppo, he backflipped off the edge of the cliff and slammed both picks onto the side, digging his heels onto the slope to get some purchase. For a second he feared that the picks would break, but they managed to bear Qin’s weight. The ranger slowly made his way down the cliff until he was almost at the bottom of the river, his cape just slightly above the roaring waters. Tensing his muscles, Qin kicked off hard from the slope, vaulted over the narrow river and landed safely to the other side.

Grabbing the remaining rope, Qin quickly tied a few loops around the sturdiest tree he could find, before tying the other end onto an arrow and firing into the cliff. It hit about halfway up, making a thunking sound as the arrowhead buried itself deeply. He waved at Wuppo to use the rope as a way to get across the river, then sat down and closed his eyes to meditate, waiting for something to happen.

Wuppo watched with curiosity as Qin made his preparations for crossing the river; cutting the rope produced from a secret pocket, and cleanly snapping a couple of his arrows in half. Qin started his crawl down the cliffside with a wink and rather showy backflip, and once nearer the river vaulted acrobatically across the river. Wuppo watched, and was greatly entertained.

"Huh-huh-huuhh! Him fly! Him fly good! Dat good!" the ogre laughed in his deep gravely voice, and clapped happily at the stunt. In Wuppo's experience, the fighting class of Tawakoshi was rarely so ostentatious. The flamboyant display seemed to be quite the treat for Wuppo as he now stood alone on the other side of the river from Qin and the spirit.

Looking down the steep incline, Wuppo's big happy smile slowly turned into a lowered brow of contemplation. There was a problem. Qin's arrow had hit its mark about half way up the cliffside, and 20 feet of cliffside meant the arrow as firmly embedded about 10 feet down from where Wuppo was standing. He bent down, and even though his arms were long (even for his body size), he was unable to come close to grabbing the rope. Wuppo laid flat on the ground, and on his stomach he inched over the cliffside and reached down again. This got him closer, but being only 10ft tall himself he was still not anywhere near being able to grab the rope.

Wuppo inched over the side a bit more, and a bit more still, coming closer and closer to being able to grab the rope - reaching his hand down and stretching to attempt to get it. Finally, enough of his weight was shifted forward over the incline that he was unable to keep himself from falling. Gravity ripped Wuppo over the edge, and before he could stop himself he was tumbling down the embankment. On his way to the ground, he collided with the rope Qin had shot over to him. Under the ogre's tremendous falling weight the arrow snapped like a dried twig, and Wuppo tumbled to the ground and rolled into the rushing water.