Bear Tribe

Eight days into their long journey, Iris arrived at the border of the bear tribe. Iris had all of her tribe mates make camp in the forest bordering the tribe despite it only being afternoon. Iris wanted the females to have a chance to freshen up in the nearby pond before meeting the bear tribe.

It was also important to hunt food and refill everyone's waterskins. If the bear tribe agreed to the meet and greet today, it was important for Iris's tribe to show goodwill by providing their own food and accommodations.

Iris brought all three of her mates with her to greet the bear tribe. When they got close to the mountain, one of the males guarding the entrance approached them while the other ran inside, likely to fetch the tribe leader and witch doctor.

When the guard got close enough, he began to feel intimidated by the three strong males in front of him. He gulped nervously as he stated

"Please state your business with the bear tribe."

Iris wanted to step forward, but was kept back by Ember. Instead, Caspian stepped forward to answer

"Hello, we are from a mixed tribe who happens to be traveling through the area. This is our witch doctor, Basil, and best warrior, Ember. My name is Caspian and I am the tribal leader. This is our mate.

We are here to talk with your tribal leader about potentially trading for supplies and possibly arrange for a meet and greet for our females."

The guard nodded in understanding, practically sighing in relief. He had been concerned when seeing such powerful beasts that perhaps a strong tribe wanted to wage war with them. Who would have expected that they were merely the tribe elders who were there for friendly reasons?

Soon the tribe leader and witch doctor came out. Iris took note that everyone in the bear tribe seemed to have either black or brown hair with amber, hazel, or brown eyes. Very befitting of a tribe full of bears.

The tribal leader heard the guard's report before sending him off to arrange the matters while he addressed their guests.

"Hello, welcome to the bear tribe. I am tribe leader Greg and this is our witch doctor Benjamin. I hear you are a traveling mixed tribe who wishes to trade with us? Is there something in particular you are looking for?"

Basil stepped forward to address Greg and Benjamin.

"I'm Basil, our tribe's witch doctor. I'd like to purchase herbs as well as any goat or sheep hides you might have. We've got crystals to trade in return if that is acceptable?"

Benjamin nodded and had Basil leave with him to bring him back to his home. That just left the three of them with Greg. Caspian was unsure what else his little mate might want so he turned to Iris expectantly.

"Well, we could likely purchase any excess stone they have. We will need a lot of stone for building when we get to our new home. I want to build a town similar to the beast cities before we even think about touching the mountain interior. I'll need time to plan out how to build the interior of the mountain in an efficient manner that benefits the entire tribe.

Besides that, if they have any extra honey, beast skins, sinew, animal fat, or plants; those could be useful. We always need more food for our tribe mates and we can always use beast skins for numerous things."

As Greg heard much of what the female in front of him said, he just acted polite in addressing Caspian when Iris finished speaking. Greg did not want to anger such powerful beasts by making them think he was interested in their mate, after all.

"Honey is a bit rare, even if our tribe can more easily collect it than most. I can ask the tribe to trade some, but they'll likely ask a high price for it.

Stone, sinew, animal fat, and beast skins are pretty much a dime a dozen so I'm sure we have plenty of that stuff lying around.

As for plants, we have some berries that grow around here alongside clovers and dandelions. However, we don't tend to have extra gathered and lying around. You might be able to pay a few of our tribesmen to show you around and help you gather the food, though.

Since you want to have a meet and greet, I've sent my tribesman to gather all the single males. When he returns, I'll let him know what items you are interested in trading for and send him to you three personally. Just, don't let any of your tribesmen enter the mountain. I'll let your witch doctor pass this once, since Benjamin agreed, but that's it."

With the agreement of both sides, Caspian went off to arrange things with their tribemates. Iris spread beast skins out for the females to rest while meeting the single males and then stood off to one side with Ember.

Basil ended up returning before Caspian and sheepishly explained

"I need about twenty uncolored crystals for the herbs, wool, moss, and skins that I want to purchase. I forgot to ask before I left...."

Iris smiled at Basil's forgetfulness. Her sweet fox truly did get forgetful of the finer details when it came to his passions. Iris easily handed Basil the crystals and watched as he ran back off. Basil was happy he spent so long mining previously as so many crystals would normally be too much for one family to spend.

It was only because blood moss, wool, goat and sheep skin, and some of the herbs were considered limited specialty resources which made them expensive. Well, that and Basil was purchasing a rather large amount of everything. Since Iris could store goods without them spoiling or taking up added weight and space, Basil wanted to take the chance to stock up.

The rainy season through early harvest season was when most females went through heat so it was necessary to have supplies for such matters. Having additional water skins crafted and stored in Iris's bag would also help cut down on dehydration issues as well.

When Caspian returned to Iris's side, all of the females and their mates trailed in behind him. They were happy at already having a place prepared to sit and eagerly waited for the single males from the bear tribe to approach them.

Iris smiled as she took in the bear beastmens' surprised expressions. Iris felt proud as the half-orcs in her tribe were the prettiest and best groomed around. Iris was the only complete female to have left the Arctic Wolf Tribe. This was largely because half-orc females were more used to harsh travel and were sick of being treated poorly by Ivy. Why wouldn't they choose Iris who often was kind and looked out for their best interests instead of bullying them and acting spoiled?

When Caspian reached Iris's side, he explained

"The single males are going to guard camp until the females return. Since the bear tribe isn't sending out their females to find mates, they have no interest in joining anyhow.

I've set them to work hunting, fishing, and gathering cattails. They'll smoke the excess meat tonight. This is likely the best time to stock up since we might not see another tribe for a while."

Iris nodded in agreement. Soon Basil also returned to her side. Since Benjamin had already been packing up the goods, Basil only needed to exchange the crystals and return to Iris's side. Basil gave Iris the herbs, moss, and wool to put away before excusing himself again. He planned to get the goat and sheepskin tanned so they could be turned into waterskins in a few days.

It took a while after the single males began to mingle with their tribe for anyone to approach Iris and her mates to trade. Ember would glower at anyone who looked like they were more interested in mating than trading, which quickly scared them away. Who would want to live with such a scary male and share a female with him?

When a large group of males came together towards Iris's family, Caspian smiled as he explained

"These should be the ones who want to trade goods with us. I'll sort them out so that we can do the trades in a more efficient order."

Since stone was often piled up outside the mountain and was heavy, it wasn't efficient to carry it over all at once. The plants would also require time to go and collect. Thus, Caspian had those with sinew, animal fat, hides, and honey go first.

Only three beastmen were willing to trade a small box of honey away at an entire two crystals each. Most males saved such a treasure to impress females and would not want to trade it away. Iris accepted the trade but also offered to pay extra to anyone who could show her to a hive to harvest the honey herself. None of those selling honey were interested, but one of those offering to help collect berries was willing.

Next, Iris bought nearly a hundred beast skins of decent quality at a rate of ten hides per crystal. Animal fat was generally considered useless, but a few beasts had fresh prey they could harvest fat and sinew from. Thus Iris bought all they had for rather cheap.

Finally, Iris and her mates were led to a huge pile of stone. The stones had been piled up high over the years as the mountain was carved out to house beastmen. Iris had Caspian negotiate with the group to break the rocks into more suitable-sized pieces.

Caspian offered to buy the whole lot including their labor for twenty-five uncolored crystals, which was enough for each of the five to earn five crystals each that night. For an otherwise mostly useless resource at that! They all eagerly accepted the deal with the promise to finish the work by sunset.

With that; Iris, Ember, and Caspian followed ten beastmen into the forest. As it was the hot season there were many places hidden throughout the forest where gooseberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries grew. There were also many patches filled with clovers that had a few clover flowers and many places where dandelions grew in abundance.

Iris agreed to pay six beastmen to collect berries at a rate of five uncolored crystals per large fifty-pound bag of berries. This was quite a bit of money for a day's worth of labor, but Iris also had to pay for their knowledge and purchase food that would benefit their tribe.

Next, Iris paid the other three beastmen to collect white and red clover flowers and dandelions that still had yellow petals including their roots. The roots could be brewed similarly to tea to make a drink that resembled coffee.

The final beastman was in charge of showing them to the beehives. When they reached the first hive, Iris had Ember set up a campfire below it to smoke out the bees. This put the bees to sleep and made it quite easy to harvest the honey. Iris had Caspian carefully remove a portion of the hive, leaving just enough to ensure the bees would still use the hive in the future. The honey and comb were then wrapped in water-resistant leaves and placed inside one of the stone boxes that already contained honey.

The bear beastman who watched all of this unfold felt speechless as he watched. However, after watching it happen a second time at another bee hive, he couldn't help but exclaim

"This is incredible! Usually, it's quite dangerous to collect honey, but the bees seem so tame like this. Do you mind if I use this knowledge going forward? You don't even have to pay me today, this knowledge is worth more than the pay!"

Iris nodded and the beastman grinned ecstatic. Caspian explained how to start a fire and collect firewood on their way to the third and last beehive. Since most beastmen wouldn't have a fire element, it was necessary to teach the knowledge of how to start a fire and safely manage it.