Nature's Bounty

by **Razkar** on February 9th, 2013, 9:38 pm

72nd of Winter, 509AV
The Garrison
11th Bell

"This is not what I was expecting."

Erama's eyes slid over to the male as they walked. His words were not said with rejection or resignation, she noticed. They were more... airy. Appraising. Maybe even expectant. She did not often hear that tone from him. Razkar was a serious little male and approached his training with the same intensity. Mayhap he was looking forward to his more sedate studies.

"You don't sound all that disappointed."

Razkar smiled thinly. He, however, did expect that from her. Not only because the taller, stronger female was insightful beyond her years, but because she was indeed female.

Thus, attempting to hide anything from her was an exercise in abject futility.

"It will be an interesting break from the usual regimen."

Erama growled softly, attracting a strange look from a pair of males that passed them going the other way. Her cobalt eyes flashed to them and they looked away so fast Razkar was sure he heard their necks crack.

"I would prefer we were honing our martial skills."

"These are our martial skills."

Now the female snorted as they passed from the sun-bathed courtyard and into one of the longhouses making up the Garrison. The heat was a little better inside, oddly enough, but Razkar had long marveled at the construction of the buildings in their sacred capital. Ancient beyond measure, and yet even those far-distant ancestors had raised structures that seemed to... breath. He assumed it was something to do with the stones, or perhaps their shape?

Either way, when they stepped inside, they felt the heat lessen. Doors lined the hallway, and classroom of intent or chattering Myrians was in each one.

"I'm surprised you think that."

"Why?"

"Well, after last week..."

Razkar groaned and rolled his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time. He massaged his closed eye but all that did was refresh his memory, and he saw himself stuttering and hesitating and "um"-ing in front of the class when instructor Cerkila questioned him on Myri's campaign against the Northern Clans.

"How many times, I'm not strategic, I'm-"

"-tactical, yeah, we heard it last time. I don't see the difference."

"Yes, you do."

"Yeah, I know, but it's more fun to pretend I don't."

Alright, Razkar had to admit, that was pretty funny, and he stifled a guffaw that nevertheless echoed slightly around the stone corridor. It was just the way he was, apparently. Show him an ambush, a skirmish, even a battle, and he could grasp it fairly quickly. The fluidity and brutality of combat seemed natural to him, like most Myrians. But put a map of a nation in front of him, covered in little flags, each one representing hundred, even thousands of men? He wouldn't know where to start.

"This could be very tactical."

"What makes you think that?"

They came to their classroom, and immediately the smell hit them. Burning wood and smoke. Bubbling liquids and the dry, dusty smell of embalming. Nearly a dozen Myrians - the rest of their fang - were already seated. A tall, older but still erect and vital female was standing at their head, face already a mask of sternness at their tardiness.

"Poisons, Erama," Razkar whispered as they took their seats, "Could give one quite an edge..."

by **Razkar** on February 10th, 2013, 7:24 am

"Now that you are all here, we can begin."

Razkar caught the barbs directed at him and Erama with painful clarity, daring not to meet the elder Myrian's eyes. Their seats scraped lightly against the stone floor and, eventually, he had to.

She was older than his mother was when she died, by the lines on her face. She still carried herself, though, with a vigor that belied her years. Lined and greying though it was, their teacher's face still shone with wisdom and a determination to lead and instruct.

Within a few chimes, Razkar would discover the other thing that kept her youthful. Passion.

"My name is Ramzei of the Golden Frog." Her cool and piercing gaze swept the room, searching each face decades younger than her own. A tiny smile alighted her face. "Does anyone find the name amusing?"

Well, you can guess how many of Razkar's fang were brave or stupid enough to answer that with a positive. Carefully respectful stares answered it instead, along with some shaking heads for good measure. Ramzei nodded slowly, not believing for a moment, and continued her pacing.

"Well, a truly inclusive bunch of students I have today. Such a rarity. It will, of course, shock you that some have found the name of my clan amusing. Even ridiculed us for it. A golden frog? Hardly the Quick Jaws, or Shadow Claws, or Shorn Skulls."

Each name was directed at a seated Myrian, the last one aimed at Razkar. Her gaze impaled him for a moment, but he knew better than to react. Of course she knew their names: she was their instructor.

"But then, people discover the reason for our name. They learn, sometimes painfully and fatally, that the Golden Frog is just as deadly as a Myrian Tiger when it needs to be. And it was the fortune of Caiyha and the wisdom of Myri that made us so."

She stopped pacing and leaned against her desk at the head of the classroom, arms folded over her chest.

"Can anyone tell me why? No? No clan scholars among you? I know it is something of a hobby among some..."

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Razkar raised his hand. Ramzei nodded sharply and he spoke.

"Is it some-"

"Stand when you address me, Razkar."

He did so, and resumed, perhaps a little more flustered than before, especially when the other eleven of his fang turned around to regard him.

"Is it something to do with poison, ma'am?"

"Ah!" She clapped her hands once and Razkar knew right away it was a parody of amusement, but not a truly vicious one. "Never be afraid to state the obvious, boy. You come to learn about poisons and my first words are about a frog, so you assume they are connected. You are correct. Sit down."

Ramzei began pacing again and the whole class followed her with their eyes. Razkar had to admit, she had a way of speaking that was impressive. Not condescending or superior like many instructors. Her style rambled somewhat, more gentle and colloquial than the harsh, dry lessons from others. But she was a font of wisdom, and she dispensed it in a way that suited her and, more importantly, ensured it was retained by her listeners.

"There is a toxin, found in the jungle not far from this city, that if coated on an arrow head or a blow dart, will kill a deer or a boar mere moments of striking it, regardless of where it lands. Not bells, not chimes... heartbeats. I have seen a poison-soaked dart take a monkey in the leg, and it had but enough time to squeal in agony, and then fell from its perch stone dead. How long do you imagine it would take for such an amended arrow to kill a Myrian?"

Silence, but it was a question she intended to answer anyway. The pause merely helped to emphasize it.

"Less than a chime. Half of one, perhaps. Half a chime, give or take, and even the staunchest and deadliest Myrian will be cooling on the jungle floor. For humans, it takes about the same. Even the ferocious and massive Dhani are not immune to this poison, lasting a mere handful of chimes from the effects of one coated arrow."

Ramzei smiled again, and Razkar saw steel in it. This woman was speaking from experience. Her arms were not as muscled as Rehkuna's, she may not have been as swift as Erama or had Razkar's fiery lust for combat... but he had no doubt that she knew exactly how to apply the knowledge in her head to best any of them.

All with one dart, and the right poison.

"Now, can any of you guess... where this poison is found?"

The class's confidence seemed to swell slightly, bolstered by her words and Razkar's example. Oxil's hand shot in the air, and at Ramzei's nod, he stood and cleared his throat.

"In a golden frog, ma'am?"

"Another bright spark. Two in one class, I am truly blessed. Sit." Oxil did so to the murmur of chuckling that had even Ramzei smiling. But Razkar's face was set, fixed on the woman with a head full of secrets that he already yearned to know. "It is indeed found with a golden frog, but on it, not inside it. There are dozens, perhaps even hundreds of poisons and toxins to be found in our jungle. Mostly in plants, but also in the fangs of snakes and the stings of insects."

She kept talking as she moved behind her desk and pulled on a pair of thick leather gloves that came up to her elbows. Razkar frowned as she reached under it and then realized what that strange, repetitive sound was that he'd been only just hearing the whole time.

"But one of the deadliest is found with the golden frogs of my clan's homeland."

Ramzei placed a wooden box on the desk. The box was ribbiting.

"These frogs, as a matter of fact..."

by **Razkar** on February 10th, 2013, 7:08 pm

Something this dangerous shoul not be so... so...

"Cute, aren't they?" Ramzei held the tiny, squirming frog between now-bulbous leather fingers. No larger than her thumb, it seemed to glow as if painted with gold in the sunlight. The classroom of Myrians were now clustered around her desk. "Who could believe, eh? Such a tiny, adorable creature... and yet, such venom."

There were half a dozen similar amphibians inside the box, which had been lovingly outfitted with leaves and a small bowl of water. Razkar saw green and blacks, purples and oranges, but the golden frog was the one that his instructor had chosen.

"The skin. That is where the poison lies, my students. The frog secretes a coating of venom from within its own body, and it oozes out onto the surface. Any predator that attempts to eat it immediately finds it unpalatable and disgusting. It spits the frog out. And then, moments later, it dies."

She drew the frog a little closer so her students could see every detail.

"You will see several different breeds in the box. All are poisonous, but to differing degrees. Some will cause intense pain and lethargy. Some will induce blisters and sickness. But the golden frog... its poison the fastest and most sure."

She was lot in remembrance now, Razkar realized. Seeing the deaths of countless creatures all over again, and recounting them.

"It creates a... discord, between the mind and the body. The subtle muscles are overwhelmed and turn traitor. Those that control your lungs. Your heart. Your limbs. Within moments of the poison touching your skin or tasting your blood, it begins to work its will. Your limbs will ignore your commands. Your lungs will forget how to breathe. And your heart will sputter and cease... and then you shall die."

A respectful hush fell over the room. Myrians instinctively respected anything that could deal death with such chillingly efficiency. That this "thing" was the liquid covering a frog was unusual for them, but no less worthy of their respect.

"Is that why it's so brightly colored?" Erama said with a permenant frown. Book-learning was not her forte, but her curiosity did the place of education credit. "Because it's... proud?"

There was a rippling titter of amusement from the students, but Ramzei just smiled softly.

"Now, now. No stupid questions in here, my students... unless you ask it twice, after getting the answer. Pride, Erama? I know not if a frog could even feel such an emotion. Perhaps... but unlikely. What is more likely is that they are so bright and obvious to warn their enemies of what they are."

Erama nodded slowly, digesting this information slowly. Razkar kept his eyes fixed on the wriggling little frog, bulbous and vaguely bored eyes casting around in impossible angles. Clearly it was not the first time he'd been dragged out from his nice, warm little home to be gawked at by stinking bipeds.

"Do they make poison all the time?"

"Yes and no." Ramzei said with another smile, then reached down into the box with her free hand to show them a pile of wriggling beetles and grubs. Razkar recognized some of them from his own clan lands. "We thought the same thing, many years ago. But when we took the frogs from their lakes and rivers and kept them in cages, while they lived, they stopped producing their venom. Can anyone guess why?"

Now, Razkar is far from a stupid man (or boy, as he was back then) but some things do not come quickly to him. So he frowned and stared at the wriggling handful of chitinous answers until someone else put it together for him.

"It was what they ate?"

"Yes!" Ramzei said with a bright smile, nodding at Zuran who was likewise beaming. "It is their diet. We don't know how, exactly, but the certain grubs and worms and beetles they consume seem to give them the ability to produce their deadly poison. Once they are forced to subsist on other varieties, this poisonous boon vanishes."

Ramzei's eyes glittered as a murmur of understanding and revelation passed through her students. Well, some of them, anyway. The young ones she faced now were budding warriors, soldiers, men and women who had little time for education. But there was more to the ways of war than steel and muscle. She had learned that the hard way, and was determined that other Children of Myri would share her lesson.

"The poison coats their skin, but it is a thin coating." As she spoke she carried the small frog to the fire burning in one corner of the room. Her students shuffled after her, keeping a respectful distance and watching as she slowly extended it towards the flame. "But... once it is exposed to heat... watch..."

Razkar felt a pang of pity for the tiny thing as it began to panic, squirming and wriggling even faster as the heat increased. But he could not look away as it began to... shine...

"Do you see? It excretes more and more of its venom, increasing its defenses, as it were." Without looking away she dropped the handful of larvae and instead picked up an arrow, broken off halfway up its shaft. Her thick leather fingers were amazingly dextrous, deftly turning the frog over to expose its belly. "Now is when we can use it properly..."

Razkar watched as she gently rubbed one side of the arrowhead against the frogs sticky, slimy belly... then turned it over and did the same to the other side. Once that was done, she held it up to the light. All could see the sticky, gleaming wetness now covering the arrowhead. Ramzei's words were whispered, almost reverent when she spoke again.

"This poison... properly applied... will remain potent on this tiny piece of metal for over six months." She looked around at the impressed faces. "Yes, indeed. Keep it covered and protected, so it does not touch your skin nor you mar its... and cycles of the moon will come and go, but it will be no less deadly."

Ramzei took the little frog back to its box and let it hop gratefully away, smiling gently down at it. "You performed well, little one." She said softly, then closed the box. Razkar noticed that she was careful to take her gloves off from the top, and turn them inside out. Seeing this, he spoke.

"Where do you find them?"

Ramzei nodded curtly again and replied, ushering the students back to their seats with a wave of her hand.

"The rivers and creeks of my clan lands have ever spawned these little creatures. There are other places, true, but the golden frogs seem to clustered around that area in particular. They are not hard to catch, not as tentative or fearful as other amphibians. Can you guess why?"

This time Razkar was a little faster: "Because nothing dares to hunt them?"

"Correct. You may sit." Her eyes gazed over the assembled recruits and she cocked a wry eyebrow, slight smile playing at her lips. "Now, what is the most pertinent question regarding this frog and its poison, now you know what it does, how to use it and where it is found?"

There was a long and reflective pause. The students were not used to questions being leveled at them, and that seemed to be Ramzei's style of teaching: have them form their own answers around the facts. But eventually, Oxil of all people raised a hesitant hand.

"Er... Ma'am?"

"Yes, Oxil?"

"Is there a cure for it?"

"Very good!" Oxil's face flushed with pride and he sat, all of them watching the healer retrieve a small vial from her desk. She held it up to the light, and an ember liquid sloshed silently behind the glass. "There is but one animal that preys upon the Golden Frog. The Iron Snake, so-called because of its grey scales. Even they may be susceptible to a particularly venomous amphibian, but mostly, they can eat the frog without any sickness or fatality."

She placed the vial onto the desk and the tiny tink! of glass on wood still resounded throughout the room like a thunderclap. Death in one case, life in another, Razkar thought. Is this how this female lives?

"The stomach of this snake, where the venom of the Golden Frog can gain no purchase and, indeed, is broken up and digested with everything else, is where the key to a cure lies. If the stomach is cut from the snake, boiled and liquefied... it may save you."

"May?"

Ramzei's sharp eyes slid over to where Razkar had hastily risen and put his hand up, but only after his word had hit the breeze. Still, she smiled at his pragmatic question and nodded slowly, dark amusement in her eyes.

"Only the immortality of the gods or a lifetime building an immunity can truly save you from the venom of the Golden Frog and its brethren. This is a tonic for those who are poisoned without such preparations or gifts... but even then, with only a chime to take it, how useful is such a tonic? One would need to down this entire vial mere moments after being struck by the toxin. Such speed and wherewithal is... unlikely. The best cure, Razkar and Oxil, is simply not to come into contact with it."

Another long pause, this one much more uncomfortable. But Razkar knew now, he was forewarned and that was half the point of his lessons here. He understood, too, why the Myrians so jealously guarded their Jungle. It was not merely pride of ownership or bloody-minded aggression. If the wider world gained knowledge that such deathly power was in Caiyha's Jungle... how long would it take for them to raze swathes of it to find such a boon?

That could not be allowed.

Ramzei took a breath and gathered her thoughts, the full concentration of the class now focused on her. She had hoped it would be thus. Her smile was bright once again, but her eyes glinted with that familiar red lust that Razkar knew very well.

"Warriors, are you not? Some of you may even be marked by the Goddess-Queen. All of you are Children of Myri, and thus bred and built to shed blood in clashes of arms. Now imagine the boon that poisoned arrows or darts could give you in such clashes.

A shower of arrows that could kill or incapacitate regardless of where they hit their mark. Volleys from massed ranks that could sweep an entire army away with one venomous blow.

Harrying strikes from the hidden jungle that could kill a mighty enemy leader or champion with a dart the size of my finger, from a frog even smaller that that. Blades soaked in the juice of the golden frog that could pierce a chink of armor and slay an iron-clad rival with a scratch.

Imagine the terror you could instill within a foe's breast with proper application of this poison. Darts from the foliage that kill within moments. Enemy leaders of healers of mages wiped from the face of battle by unseen enemies. Use of our beloved jungle, stealth, a healthy dash of common sense, accuracy with your weapon of choice... fine things. Essential things. But with that little frog's slime, they become the means to put fear in your enemy's that can break their will to fight and send them howling away from you.

The Children of Myri are fierce warriors. Our martial skills are second to none. But our wits, our ingenuity, or use of the bounty that Caiyha had blessed us with... that is what makes us masters of our jungle. In your clan lands, all of you, are plants and animals that carry the potent venoms of the Goddess of Nature.

I urge you all to seek them out, with caution and with respect, but with determination. For if you master them, you will wield weapons imbued with the strength of Dira herself."

Another hush and Ramzei felt that swell of satisfied pride that she always did when her lessons were complete. A bell tolled from outside and above the Garrison, sounding the bell was complete. She stood straight and nodded once again to them.

"Class dismissed."

by **Razkar** on February 10th, 2013, 7:38 pm

"See? I told you it would give us an edge."

Erama just grunted, antagonistic and stubborn as always. They had left the training class behind and were heading to something much more of her liking: unarmed combat.

"It is an interesting addendum, true, but a sure and quick blade is more valuable to me that slime coating it. I need only one solid strike to kill an enemy."

"And what about their use in hunting?"

"Very useful. But battle is too fast and fluid for such poisons, fast-working though they may be. A chime to kill an enemy? Half of one, even? Still plenty of time for him to cut you down..."

Razkar did not answer that time. She did raise good points, but the sight of that tiny, lethal little creature did not leave his eyes, nor the impassioned words of Ramzei cease to rattle around his skull. As far as he knew his own clan lands had their share of venomous creatures. His father had told him of a viper that could paralyze a man with one bite, and a mushroom that even the boars and goats dared not eat, for it would drive them to frothing madness and then death within a day.

He had never thought much on them before. Better to trust to your blades than anything else, that was what he thought.

But now...

Razkar pondered on Caiyha's bounty throughout the rest of the day. The knowledge would stay, he hoped, for years to come, and he resolved to explore elsewhere for such boons that he could use. It may be long and ardous, as all investigations were, bt the benefits would be worth it.

If only to make it so I don't have to spend two bells chasing down a damned wounded deer.

"Anyway!" Erama finally said, cracking her knuckles and stepping into the training yards that were bathed in golden light, instructor Herliz grinning at them with undisguised sadism. "Back to proper martial studies!"

"As you say, Erama."

"Oh, I do indeed, little male..."

by **Magpie** on February 19th, 2013, 5:20 pm

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Razkar :

Notes :

If you have any questions or concerns about what was awarded, please don't hesitate to PM me.
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