It took roughly a break before Kisaik arrived at the banks of the island the Willow stood upon. Before he was even a hundred yards out from it, he could hear the frogs clicking and croaking. He was determined to make this harvest a good one. On his back, was slung a waterskin for the purposes of this harvest. It was large for him, but he was confident he could float it back to where he came from. He cocked his head to the side on his approach to the willow. He saw all manner of plants that had been eaten by the creatures living in and around the tree. These he would collect as well, because the food source of these frogs might well be a source of the properties that Gwenum was after.
He dragged his raft onto the dry soil of the island, settling it into the earth so that it wouldn't be disturbed or pushed into the waters by a straw breeze. Then he turned his attention to the tree. As he walked up to it's base, he undid his gauntlets. Metal on wood wasn't ideal for climbing, while the bare scratchy bark of his hands was ideally suited to scaling almost any surface. Tunawa were also lighter in weight. Kisaik even with his load of a waterskin, could easily make this climb. He was born to trees.
The ambient noises of animals nearby cricked and neeked and breeked. Tree Talk wasn't just for the birds. THere were dialects that Kisaik knew that resembled frog-noises, and even some cat noises. He sang to his tree-friends as he scaled the boughs of the tree. "Don't worry friends, I would be so grateful if you let me clean the slime off your backs! And also take some of this delicious herbs you've been eating..."
A few of the frogs, their curiosity perhaps stirred by this intrusion, hopped about the tree branches. Their tongues snapped out, snatching little bugs and beetles that crawled along the bark of the Willow. Kisaik smiled at them as he came to a stop on top of a branch. "That looks delicious. Sorry Mister Beetles... Frogs need to eat as well!"
Soon enough, the frogs let him get close enough that he could almost touch them. Kisaik didn't approach yet, but sat on the base of the branch that the tree frogs sat upon.
He gave them time to get used to his presence, before making his move.
The tunawa crawled up to one of the larger frogs, and began petting his back to make sure the slime was there. Then he tasted the ichorous goo. It tasted like dreams.
"That's some great product you're sporting, froggo. Mind if I take a bit off of you?" So saying, he laid some soggy fly bodies from his satchel, and laid them down on the branch in front of the frog as an offering of trade.
Within moments, he was scraping the goo from the frog's back. The trade and process he repeated with several other frogs until the waterskin was replete with the slime of the frogs.
He put an arm to his brow, to cover from the light of the moon as he stared back toward his raft. Nothing out of the ordinary there. He climbed down the tree, and after a few trills, managed to get to the base of it with the waterskin on his back.
He jogged over toward the raft, and placed it once more on the water. That done, he pushed off with a large branch he'd borrowed from the willow tree with his pruning knife. The willow stick was sturdier than the one he'd drifted in with.
The rest of his rafting excursion went by without much incident. A couple breaks, and he found himself back around where he had left Slate. Kisaik couldn't see him anywhere, though, but he could hear the cat's meows in the distance.
He followed these cat-calls, abandoning his raft to the elements.
The tunawa followed the sound, while putting his hands to his mouth and shouting, "Slate! I'm here! Come to heel my friend!"
Within a few trills, the two were reunited, and Kisaik mounted up onto Slate.
They rode for a break or more, until arriving back at the eastern gate of Yaralon. Once there, Kisaik showed his mark, which stood out on his chest. Not that he needed to. Yari didn't much care about stragglers coming and going randomly, much less put them to a question. Tunawa were something of an oddity, small and slight of frame, weak of arm, yet the Yari had learned to respect the crafty tree folk fo rtheir ingenuity with poisons and other crafts.
He rode through the gate, and headed for the tree burho, where he would go to his home laboratory to see these materials processed into a weak curare poison.
His slingshot was tied to the side of his steed, the weapon he would be making use of for the purposes of defending himself. He had the poison, that was the difficult part. The next step, after refining the Curare poison, would be to get some ammunition for that slingshot.
He knew just the place to get that ammunition. A tree full of castor beans and other nuts had hard shells that were ideal for delivery of toxins, while the innards could be harvested and sold to Gwenum for more of the same. The ricin within the castor beans was terribly deadly. Kisaik had no interest in inflicting that poison upon any being, living or otherwise.
What Gwenum did with it, however, was her matter. It wasn't for Kisaik to question her motives.
A few more breaks of running through the streets on the top of his steed, and Kisaik slowed him to a trot as their home came into view.
Kisaik scratched the cat behind the ears, and then slipped off the saddle, and onto the ground. From there, he entered his little burrow, where all his chemistry equipment and poison refining tools were stored.
He had a long night ahead of him.style]
