The Island of Wak-Wak

Away to the South and East of most of Rabiah's mainland, so far away it was once considered a myth, is a land of flying men and speaking fruits called Wak-Wak. Accounts of this magical land can be found in records dating back thousands of years, often from rare oceanic expeditions funded by bored empires hoping to expand their territories. Stories of Wak-wak seem so incredible that even in modern times they are hard to believe, but advances in alchemical artifice have made the island much easier to access, leading to new, more complete tales of the island, though these are by no means less fanciful.    The main preoccupation for most of Wak-wak's visitors are the native people, a variant strain of average humans who have grown small wings in their time spent separated from the rest of the world. These wings are small, barely spanning the width of an islander's shoulders, but still allow for a magical form of flight, which is the main method of travel for natives of Wak-wak. The "island" of Wak-wak is actually an archipelago, a chain of islands clustered close together, leading the Wak people to often fly between islands for personal business.    The culture of the Wak people is very subdued, with an intricate system of rules and gestures, and an inherent air of politeness in all interactions. Natives of Wak do not hold foreign visitors to these same ideals, but taking the time and care to learn the basics of these rules greatly impresses native Wak islanders. Strangely mercantile by nature, much of the business between the islands of Wak deals with bargaining for and transporting natural resources, with each island in the chain having different resources in abundance. One island has great quantities of ebony, while another has large jewel mines, and yet another has an abundance of gold. Despite the natural difference between the islands, the people all share one culture, and lack a strong method of currency, instead using a work and barter system to obtain all of their goods.    The most sought after resources of the Wak-wak island is a semi-rare fruit, from which grow just inland from Wak-wak's sandy shores, with heavy blue-green fronds and trunks that almost never grow past a few feet high. These trees bear fruit like coconuts, growing where the fronds connects to the trunk- but rather than the yellow-brown of coconuts, the Wak-wak fruit is of a bluish tinge, and grows in the shape of human heads. Roughly the same size, and marked with variant faces, when ripe the mouths of the Wak-wak fruits actually make the noise "wak". Striding by stands of these trees in midsummer, when the fruit is heaviest, a constant chorus of "wak wak wak wak" can be heard. These fruits hold some significance to the culture of the Wak people, grown and harvested in abundance for food and gifts.    Alchemical studies of the fruit have given a good reason for this, as the Wak-wak fruit can be used as a replacement for dozens of important alchemical ingredients in any number of potions. More uses for the Wak-wak fruit are discovered each year by alchemists, and the fruit itself seems to be some sort of miracle ingredient. While these discoveries have brought some troubles to Wak-wak, the people there are often willing to barter the fruit for other goods and services not easily obtained on the island, or even outside alchemical knowledge of other uses of the fruit itself.    The most obvious use of the fruit is consuming it directly, which for natives of Wak vastly increases the speed of their flight, and allowing more acrobatic aerial stunts. Outsiders are not immune to this influence, and eating a Wak-wak fruit, raw or cooked, allows non-Wak to magically fly, at roughly the same speed as the Wak themselves normally enjoy. In fact, consumption of the Wak-wak fruit is the only method of flying available on the Wak-wak islands-other spells and alchemical items that normally allow for flight cease functioning just off of Wak-wak's coast. Even natural fliers aren't immune to these issues. and the island chain has no flying birds or insects, only ones that run or burrow into ground.    Studies to determine the source of this issue indicate it is likely the result of ancient alchemical rituals, thousands of years old and spanning the whole archipelago. Why someone would go to the trouble of stopping flight on an island with fruit that allows for the same is an interesting question, and some alchemical scholars theorize that the fruit itself, given its strange properties, may also be an unnatural; quality of the same spell craft meant to originally bind the island to the ground.