Making a cave that has reflective stone surfaces to funnel sunlight into it isn't jumping through hoops?
Anyways, I THINK that Ondu is to the South East of Akoum, but that isn't for certain. I know Akoum is pretty far north at least. Affa Town is pretty far deep in Akoum.

Oh, so one would have to travel from Affa through Akoum headed South-East to reach Ondu? Only other idea I have to bounce is, the notion that while I have a main character who has enough funds for the expedition, but I as the writer do not want the group to simply rent a bunch of griffins or something, how might you advise someone go about doing that?

Well, there are a few ways to go about this that can help make the story pretty interesting. My mind immediately jumped to your main character being frustratingly stingy and miserly. Sure, the character CAN afford it, but simply doesn't want to. If that doesn't work for you, there are simple plot things you can do, like there being no place that has them available, or is willing to rent or sell them, or something like that. Or, I suppose you can go ahead and have them rent some griffins or something, only to be pitched from the saddles a ways down the road and have to cut their losses and move on.

Also, many writers will simply not mention that sort of thing. There will always be a certain degree of suspension of disbelief that your readers bring to your work. Now, you can't push that TOO far, of course, but if you never mention that there IS any easier way to travel, it usually won't bother people. Now, if you call attention to it, that's a problem. If your character, ah, Mike, walks up to, um, Bob, and says, "Hey, Bob, there's a guy who rents griffins like, right there, and we know you can afford it. Should we go do that?" and Bob says..."Uh...no. Let's get walking." That's a problem. But, if Mike says "hey, should we get going?" and Bob says "Yeah, we've got a long way to go, and it won't be easy. Best get going." Most of your readers will be alright with it. Some might not be, admittedly, but if it's well written, I think most people are fine with the understanding that the journey itself is important.

Oh, okay, while stingy is possible, I also do like the possibility that they try it, but one of the obstacles I drop in their midst makes trouble for them, causing them to lose/abandon their transports. Before the advice, all I had was perhaps that he had an extreme fear of flights, though that sounded odd to me. I could see (comically I might add) a Griffin distributor being annoyingly overpriced being equally as plausible as the leader of the expedition being cheap. So many options, but thank you for those.

For the sake of full disclosure, nobody in that area raises griffins.
Griffins are only really native in Ondu and Tazeem.

That's a little odd since the Planeswalker's Guide to Zendikar (more specifically Akoum) says thus:

"A small settlement of explorers can be found high in the Teeth. It's a small training camp founded and led by the vampire known as Anowon, the Ruin Sage. The League of Anowon trains dungeoneering mages, or as they prefer to call themselves (with a touch of irony in their voices), "liberators"—mages taught acrobatics and "extractive archaeology" in order to best survive ancient ruins and bring home items of magical importance. A fully trained mage of the League of Anowon can make an easy living freelance or as a mage-for-hire. Reaching the camp is no small task, and usually involves taking a griffin from the town of Affa below."

I think we're looking at the idea vs the execution in that case, because in practical terms, that sort of thing never appeared on the cards or in the lore.

I'm sorry to say I got so busy with work that I'm going to have to pass on continuing to write the story onto someone else. It makes me sad but I don't want to keep you waiting on something I can not deliver. And Zendikar is my favorite plane too!
But I have more pressing responsibilities. Maybe in the future I'll be fortunate enough to submit something. But today is not that day. >_<

Good luck!

I myself am just having some writer's block, I do already have characters and a basic plot, so I'm too far to quit now, but I must say I'm dragging my feet due to a mix of responsibilities and diverging projects, but I am building towards this story. I didn't get this in the Planeswalker's Guide, but I saw it in Zendikar's page on the official wizards-magic site that Ondu has a specialty for healing magic, so it suddenly makes sense for my adventurers to trek to and through Ondu for the Sunspring. The main obstacles have been locations, regional threats, and the actual pen-and-paper writing process.

Don't count me out just yet

Question, how do Goblins (esp Zendikari goblins) speak?

With their mouths?
Most of them are perfectly capable of normal speech.
We've seen a handful of times when they had stunted or broken speech, but they kind of stand out.

In what way do they speak? As their dialogue would be written, what is their manner of speech? Do they talk like this? Doo zay talk liek dis? Is tis da way how dey talk?

It's just like we told Reality Glitch when he was still writing around here.
Do not try to write accents.
It rarely ever pays off, it confuses non-english readers, and a lot of times it comes across as a little offensive.

How would it be offensive for a goblin to talk the way a goblin talks?

Because goblins don't have real speech patterns, so that means that chances are you're going to borrow from an existing accent to build upon, which can be a pretty bad mistake.
It's best to just not try to use accents. The cons outweigh the pros by a weight class.

Well either way, what I've got now is the main character: a human and amateur healer named Mory with his xurrently unnamed son who is dying of illness uses a large portion of his fortune (he inherited from his father who had been fairly lucky in amassing treasure before his luck ran out and his wealth passed onto Mory) to independantly hire a number of adventurers to help him find and exploit the Sunspring (most likely somewhere in Ondu) Fayer, a dismembered human lullmage, a goblin named Boomer, a vampire guide + sellsword named Ma-rik, and Launa; an elderly human woman druid. Big problems in the way are where they go, which direction, how far, obstructed by what, etc. Only decision is that the spring would not be accessible at night. Any thoughts moving forward?

Also, do Zendikari vampires mate with one another?

I have the inclination to say "no" on that. I always got the feeling that those urges would ultimately be sublimated into a different outlet.

What do you mean exactly? You mean that they sort treat each other like family, despite them all having simply been turned into vampires? Because I wanted to write Ma-rik as a vampire who's father (in any sense) was a slaveowner (as info about Affa mentions vampires sometimes practicing slavery to keep their own human cattle for food supply) and he or she did not approve of this and one day saved one of these slaves, which resulted in that slave killing his/her father. (Even deeper I imagined the possibility of that would-be slave being Mory's father) and Ma-rik decided to be a semi-pacifistic vampire sellsword who would charge blood instead of money for his/her services, which also resulted in Ma-rik gauging his/her clients' resolve when they agreed to his/her price.

Fayer would have lost some things (perhaps a hand, an eye, etc) in his not-so-successful adventures, increasing his willingness to find the sunspring in the hopes of becoming whole again. Launa would, somewhere in the story, mention envying the elves for their longer lifespans (as she is quite old despite her abilities)

One minute I'm having trouble conceiving characters and their characteristics and plots, the next I have a disciplined vampire, a man became a healer when his faith in other healers to cure his son nor his wealth was not enough, a lullmage with a bad attitude; eyepatch, Kor hook-with-chain-for-a-hand, and a 'pet' Walking Atlas created and formerly owned by his former mentor; a wise but cranky old Druid woman, and an exciteable goblin.

Now is just some better understanding of the everchanging geography between Affa and Ondu where the spring *could* be, and the proper creatures and phenomena to make the journey more difficult.

Dude, the only way new vampires get made are by the Bloodchief. Everyone else creates nulls.
I'm saying they probably have no libido, that those desires have been fed into the desire to feed.

I was generally meaning do they have a concept of family? Mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter?