A poisonous tradition

Did I ever tell you about that one time I turned a whole village against me and then accidentally saved it? No? Well, it wasn't my brightest moment... It all happened during one of my first journeys, in the year 811. Earlier during that trip, I came into contact with an early cartographer called Hakkan Eikyera, a very intelligent Meti elf. He had agreed that I would travel with him to map the Meti Isles, even though I was not half the cartographer that I am today. That was never possible given the methods that were available at the time... However, I thought otherwise...

'I can't wait! You taught me so much and now I can finally use it all to make the best maps ever', I said, bouncing across the deck of our little sailboat. 'You know that we aren't going to make any maps anytime soon, right?' Hakkan asked me with a sideways glance. 'Especially not now that there is literally no wind and we are left to the currents...' 'And that seems to be going to take a while as well,' the only other person on board responded. Grahm, our 'boatswain and protector' as he called himself, looked up at me and shook his head as I completely ignored him and shot to the other side of the boat. 'The Meti Isles will soon be mapped completely,' I muttered to myself. 'The maps of Eikyera and Ayirii, uh... Khal, will be praised throughout Everia.' I could already imagine it and smiled happily at the idea. At the time, there was still a great lack of good maps in Everia and getting from one place to another... Well... That was quite a problem, especially if you had a specific location in mind. I knew that in many cases it didn't really matter where I went, but I was still irritated by the lack of a good map. Often the best map available consisted of just some loose lines, the names of a few villages and a poorly drawn building or something like that as a landmark... You couldn't navigate on badly drawn buildings! I could immediately get mad about it again.

When the vessel all of a sudden shook heavily, I barely managed to avoid going overboard and ended up in the front of the boat. A sudden strong wind drew the sail and set the boat in motion. Grahm jumped to the helm at lightning speed, hoping to keep control, but slammed into the bottom of the boat before he could get his hands on the helm. Hakkan was also brought out of balance and had to cling to the side. I don't remember exactly what happened next, because it happened so quickly that I simply closed my eyes and braced myself for what was going to happen. I only remember that after a moment I heard a very loud cracking noise, after which we came to a halt with a bang and I was thrown overboard. Not much later I woke up on a bed of green plants with one of my feet in the water. 'Gross, gross, very gross! I hate wet feet...' I grumbled as I dragged myself out of the water and stood up with a sigh. When I looked around, I saw that Hakkan and Grahm were still in the boat, meanwhile back on their feet, and I realized where the cracking sound had come from... There was a big hole in the hull... 'Now you guys are definitely not making maps anytime soon,' Grahm grinned sourly. 'Are you okay, Hakkan?' 'Yes.' 'And Sayara?' That was the name I had been using for a while now. Sayara Kahl, the young travelling elf who grew up on Erun. Of course, I was not really an elf and my name was Savi Ayirii, but I had learned by now that I had to hide my true identity as much as possible. 'Yeah. Outside of a wet foot, nothing to worry about. But what about the boat and all our stuff?' I called to Grahm. He gave Hakkan a hand to get on shore and then put his hands on his hips. I knew by now that he did that when he was thinking...and most of the times it meant bad news. 'Hmm... We may have to look for a village to find all the supplies we need to repair the boat... But the good news is, your materials are apparently undamaged and we still have our food supplies. Provided we take them off the ship now...' Grahm picked up a bag with a grin that was slightly too big, on which we started unloading the boat.

Even though we were in an area where no good maps were available, we were not on uninhabited terrain as far as we knew. To our luck, that assumption turned out to be true when we arrived in a village after a few hours and a lot of lugging. However, it seemed that the villagers were in the middle of some kind of festivity, so Hakkan and I decided it was a good idea to find out what was going on before looking for materials for our boat. Maybe we could learn something that way. We followed the sound of the crowd and ended up in a small square in the centre of the village. 'What's going on over there?' I asked, trying to look past the people in front of me. I might have taken the form of an elf, but I was still not very tall. 'How about you jump? You might see it then,' Grahm said with a crooked grin. I glared at him and tried to squeeze further through the crowd. When Hakkan stopped me and offered to go first, it suddenly became a lot easier and we managed to get to the front. 'It seems to be some kind of worshipping ritual. Maybe of a local goddess, given the statue? And those baskets seem to be filled to the brim with some kind of food,' Hakkan observed in a whispering voice, so that he would not interrupt the monologue that was held. I nodded and looked at the scene in amazement. A life-sized stone statue of a female figure with a snake at her feet stood behind the speaker, apparently a spiritual leader. He wore a long, light-coloured robe and had a torch in his hand. Between him and the statue lay large baskets on a bed of straw filled with food that resembled pasties. I felt my stomach growl at the sight of the food. When I heard Grahm's stomach do the same, we exchanged a look and laughed.