Three hundred paces to the left, up the slope. Watch the ledge and go another fifty paces up. Exactly.
— Sha'n, Kaia-Ahere
Kaia-Ahere are
Kaia tasked with both finding and marking the path that the Kaia take on their expeditions. Scholars as well as explorers, Kaia-Ahere make maps, remember paths and make sure the Kaia do not take a right when they should've taken a left.
Responsibilities
Cartographers, navigators and explorers, it is the Kaia-Ahere that record the steps taken by the Kaia and what they have seen. They need to be skilled enough artists to make accurate depictions of what they see as well as sound enough mathematicians to make correct guesses of distance, size and other factors. The best Kaia-Ahere can judge distance with astonishing accuracy, with or without tools. With the winding, vertical nature of the caverns they often traverse, the craft of a cartographer can demand some imaginative representation.
In most Kaia teams, it is the Kaia-Ahere who decide what path they should take and how they should take it. All the considerations of a Kaia team must be accounted for when the journey begins, from the amount of supplies to any condition or injuries accrued during the expedition. They also mark the path taken, usually by engraving the Kaia team's symbol or a crude representation of it into the stone. They include information such as what direction they came from, how many they were and other factors that might become necessary not only for them but any who come looking should they end up in trouble. Needless to say, defacing such symbols is not taken lightly.
If that really was a shortcut, we'd be taking it. Trust me.
— Sha'n, Kaia-Ahere
I feel like you're really flexing some mastery and comfort with these short articles more and more—they've got a great blend of quote and information to build a lot of picture in a little space. My only critique would be that their main title in their native tongue is hard to remember, but you offset that nicely by having the profession as part of the title as well. I'd ask if there's any good stories about bad pathfinders, but I guess bad pathfinders probably don't have survivors left over to tell the story of their failures...
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Thanks! I'm glad you like them! Yeah, there are: I was considering adding some stories like that, but maybe that's for a second article instead of extending this one :) "Tales of failed Kaia" maybe
Creator of Araea, Megacorpolis, and many others.
A little anthology of those sounds wonderful.
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