Shadows of the Past

After the break, Mahuizoh leads you and Atl further into the twisting ruins while the huntress goes off on her own. You are hardly moving very fast, for he regularly makes you stop among the shrubbery on the wayside and even leads you into some broken houses now and then to finish the impromptu lesson he had started on the march. He points to this plant and that, always quizzing one of you to name it and know which parts of it to harvest before showing you how to do it first hand. While you expected him to just cut and pluck the herbs he needs, the old man shows much caution and steady hands as he carefully pries flowers from their stalks and gently pulls roots out between the cracks. It's quite a lot of effort needed to not ruin the plants, or worse, cause them to release sap or pollen that is apparently quite dangerous for the poor sod who does it.

After a while, you reach a small clearing in between the ruins, which looks rather out of place in between the sea of buildings. While it does remind you of a field, it seems rather small to feed more than a few people. While most of it is covered in grass growing up to your chest, a veritable wall of trees rises in the last stretch of it. While the rather sudden end of the jungle didn't seem strange to you on the way into the ruins, seeing the same invisible border between the thick brush and the grassy field is rather odd. Maybe this too was the work of spirits? But why would they want a neat line between the trees and the old city? And why draw it in the middle of the buildings instead of farther out?

The clatter of clay jars tears you back out of your thoughts, and you know the less interesting part of the day is about to begin. Mahuizoh has set down his pack again and is laying out jars and pots of various sizes into three neat rows. "Well then, it is time for us to get to work. I'm afraid that I won't be able to help you two as much as I would like. We have to do the work of five men today, so I will have you both go off on your own into the ruins. Don't venture farther than ten houses out from this field, lest you get lost. I will accompany you for a bit and then gather among the trees, but I'm sure you wont need much help with how well you listened to my prattling all day."


You nod curtly at that statement. Not quite as confidently as you'd like, but at least you are fairly sure you won't embarrass yourself. As you steal a glance at Atl, though, he looks a bit pale around the ears all of the sudden, which isn't lost on Mahuizoh. "Yaxkin? You can start over there. There are usually some blue poinsettia flowering in these two houses around this time of the year. Keep an eye out for the thorns. I will be with Atl first."

As the two depart in the opposite direction, you let your gaze wander a bit while walking to the houses the shaman had pointed out. While it's a bit harder to see from the ground than from a pile of rubble, it's also hard to miss the four-men-high mansion jutting into the sky at the edge of the forest. Compared to the other mansions you've seen, this one looks nearly pristine. A large tree hangs precariously out of one of the windows in the upper parts, but apart from that it looks like the owner had just left.

For a long moment you stand in between the two houses you are supposed to go into and stare at the magnificent building. If the view from the pile was already great, what must this city look like from up there? And what might you be able to find in its walls? But in the end, you tear you gaze away. You promised your father to be on your best behavior should he talk with the old shaman to take you along for this. Running off all on your own instead of doing the work you came for would hardly be something he would approve of. So you step into the first house and into a field of vibrant blue leaves. Stretching from wall to wall, the poinsettia covers every bit of the room, and it's easy to spot the wicked barbs on their stems.


At first you are worried quite a bit about looking as if a Jaguar chewed on you when you leave this place again. After a bit of careful prodding, though, you quickly notice that the thorns don't really hurt at all if you are just careful and move slowly. It probably looks a bit silly how you wade through the tender bushes as if they were knee deep mud, but there's nobody here to see you and it becomes quite easy to spot the tiny blossoms amidst the blue leaves if you can get that close to them. After what feels like no time at all, you walk back out with nary a nick and large pot full of the blossoms.

And then you nearly drop it as you notice the smiling old man waiting in the doorway for you. "My, my. And here I was expecting that I would need a poultice for you and do the second house myself." He carefully takes the full vessel from you and puts on the lid before binding it in place. "That should be quite enough to last us a while. No need to do the other one. Let's see what else we can find, shall we?"


Working directly with Mahuizoh is rather nice actually. Given his lectures during the march, you expected him to hover behind you and watch your steps like a hawk. Instead he just points you to the interesting plants and offers the occasional bit of advice while letting you work mostly on your own. In between he chatters on about what he will use this and that for, which was mostly glossed over by him so far. It would be quite nice to go on like this for a while, but from one moment to the next, the huntress suddenly re-appears. A few short whispers between her and the shaman later and they both dash off in the direction of the field again, leaving you with a curt order to finish up and head back too with the jars.

What you find when coming back is at once both worse then hoped and much better then feared. Atl is sitting with his back leaned against a wall and cries furiously. His eyes are completely swollen shut, while his mouth hangs open bonelessly. The shaman is sitting next to him with a lot of open pots and furiously grinding something in a small mortar he apparently brought on the trip. Furiously is probably too mild a word, for as you come closer, you notice that his face is positively thunderous. The huntress meanwhile stands above Atl with a damp strip of bark and drips some liquid into his throat now and then.

You carefully approach her instead of Mahuizoh, since it seems rather unwise to interrupt him. "What happened? Is he...?"

"Not dying if that's what you think. His jaw is just numb from the oil I'm giving him. Keeps the swelling from getting worse."

"But what did he do?"

"Ate some yellow plant. No idea what exactly. Ask the old coot once he is done with the antidote."

You blink as you think about what might have possessed Atl to stuff some random plant into his month as slowly, ever so slowy, you realize what it probably was.

"But why..."

"I'm pretty sure Mahuizoh will ask him the same once he can speak again. Probably just a wee bit louder then you just did." For the first time, you saw the woman grin as she looked at the still working man. "Might involve his shaman stick and the boys head for good measure."

---

In the end, the trip had to end right there. You where a bit sad that you wouldn't get to see whatever the old shaman wanted to show you after the work was done, but Atls health had priority. While the swelling had gone down after the he got the antidote, he was barely capable of staying awake anymore and was still running a slight fever. Once the packs where filled again, the huntress had grabbed him and was now hauling him like a bag of grain over her shoulder on the way back. Which was probably a bit unkind of her to handle him like that, but him drooling down her back wasn't any better. This was probably one of those things you never spoke of ever again you sometimes heard you parents talk about.

Mahuizoh was walking with you a few steps behind them. His mood had taken a good while to get better again and you had nearly passed half the march in silence before he looked calmer again and spoke to you again.

"The boy is my apprentice, did you know? The chief was quite insistent that I take him on, since I have no successor yet."

"Successor?"

"The next shaman. Someone to follow in my footsteps once I die. My hair is nearly all gray by now and my face mostly wrinkles upon wrinkles. These old bones still have a few years in them, but I won't live forever."

You didn't look at him after that for a while. People dying in the tribe was not that uncommon. The life of a hunter was dangerous and even if you stuck to the safe parts of the jungle, there was always a risk that something might lurk there that was missed by the scouts. To say nothing about mishaps like the one that befell Atl. Still. It was kind of off-putting to think about Mahuizoh dying.

"I'm sure he will make a fine shaman." Your heart really wasn't in that statement, but it felt kind of the right thing to say. Better then the silence at least.

The response came a lot quicker, but you didn't quite expect it to be an amused snort. "You should be a honest girl Yaxkin. Lying isn't one of your strengths." He just shook his head when he looked at Atl again. "The boy has been with me for two moons now. And what does he do when I turn my back? Stuff something into his mouth because it smells like sweet fruits. I have you with me for but one day and you are doing a finer job than some of the dullards the chief saddles me with whenever I need a hand for something."

"Can't you... un-apprentice him again? I mean, he probably could do something else. Maybe this is just not his work."

"Sadly not. This is still a while off for you, but apprentices are nothing you can undo. For good or ill, I will teach him as long as I can."

Another lapse into silence follows. You haven't had much time at all to talk to Atl and never spoke to him in the camp either, but he didn't strike you as a bad sort. He was just... not terribly a terribly shaman-y person. Mahuizoh might be able to fix that with some time and patience.

"However..." You hadn't even noticed as the old man came to walk a bit closer to you. He was leaning down to you and whispering as if sharing a great secret. "There are no rules that forbid me from taking two apprentices. Maybe a bit of competition would help him even."

You nearly stumble over a tree root at that. While you don't know much about trades and apprenticeships, one thing you know for sure. They are entered when a child is counting ten years. While there have been cases of some doing so early, it's still rare and likely to garner you much attention, especially if you are the apprentice of the shaman of all people.

Do you accept Mahuizohs offer to become his apprentice beside Atl?

[] Yes, become his apprentice right now.

[] Not now, but you want to become his apprentice in two years if the offer still stands.

[] No, you wish to follow a different path.
-[] Become an apprentice among the scouts and hunters.
-[] Learn among the woodcarvers and tanners.
-[] Write-In

---

AN: The first official dice rolls of this quest are already temperamental. I wanted to do one more scene in the ruins that had to be axed due to becoming illogical with Atls mishap and wanted then to time-skip two years so that you can pick a profession to learn. The main benefit of working diligently for the shaman was supposed to be that you could apprentice under him, which would otherwise have been closed off.

Since you made a rather impressive showing here, Mahuizoh is offering to take you early and thus I folded that part into this chapter.