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Iris Cake
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In the evening, loud cheering could be heard throughout the camp. Team Yellow has finally retuned! The tired men are embosomed by their wives, but they quickly make their way to the central tent, for they have much to tell.
“We travelled north and came across the spot where the camp was located four days ago. Wild animals seemed to have roamed the place, but we saw nothing of them except their tracks.
We reached the river and readied our canoe. The current was quite slow, but it was still faster than marching (and also easier). Another river, coming from the north, merged with the stream we travelled on and we decided to explore it. The current of this sidearm was even slower and we could travel upstream almost effortlessly.
Unfortunately we encountered we encountered a waterfall, thus we could not continue. We returned to the main river and reached the big lake we already knew of.
The lake was really enormous and we wanted to follow its shore in our canoe.
In the south of the lake was another waterfall and we had no chance to climb down the cliffs. But we just did not want to simply turn around, so we decided to explore the east a bit, travelling on foot and leaving our canoe behind.
The trees of the forest here were gigantic.
After marching on a while, we saw some high hills in the distance and we wanted to get to the top to look around. The hills are not very steep, thus we made quick progress.
The peak offered a spectacular view. Far, far in the north, we could see the sea! Not a lake, but an actual ocean! It was probably a day’s worth of travel away, but we decided not to go there, because we wanted to have enough provisions left for going home.
To the west we could see that the forest changed its look. While in the south it was a mixed forest, in the northwest it became a coniferous forest.
To the east we saw plains and some mountains behind.
To the south we could see the river going southeast and huge mountains with snow at their peaks behind it.
We stayed on top of the hills for the night and decided to begin our journey back home the next day.
In the morning, the light of the sun showed us something twinkling lying on the ground. As one of our men took a closer look at what seemed to be at first glance a simple stone, he discovered that it contained a vein of silver! We brought the stone with us as proof. Maybe in the future, we can find more silver there.
We descended and reached the forest. Everything was going smooth, but suddenly, we had the feeling of being followed. After hearing some suspicious noises, we readied ourselves for combat, standing shoulder to shoulder.
One cannot imagine our surprise!
A predatory animal lunged at us, and it came from nowhere! It was lightning fast.
Sheer luck saved our lives: The animal jumped, attacked the swordsman and impaled itself on his sword. He was only slightly injured by falling on his back.
We made sure the predator was dead and took a closer look. And now we understood why we did not see it coming! Its fur was green, with some black and grey dots, but mostly very green. I have not seen something like this before. A green furred animal, a perfectly disguised predator in the woods!
Its body reminded us of a mixture of a wolf and a cat, although at second thought it was more similar to a cat than anything else.
We flayed its skin and carried it back with us. You can look at it, if you like, it’s in the canoe.
Afterwards, we returned to our canoe, circled the lake and began to travel home. Nothing unusual happened then and I will describe the landscape later to the cartographer. Now we need some rest.”
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