Zerua Unchained

Chapter Nine

  As the evening approaches, the group makes camp. FRIEND and Henrik make their way around the perimeter of the camp to put the anti-predator gel on the trees to keep beasts away. Selro and Mikaela take the first watch together. They hear the sound of a campfire nearby, like wood crackling from the fire. They realize that it is the fire that Joel was talking about. As Mikaela focuses on the area where she hears the fire crackling, she notices that the smoke is turning from charcoal gray to a lighter gray, knowing that the fire is burning out. She finds this unusual as fire like what the Phoenix created should be melting the entire forest down but it is not. Looking between the trees, Mikaela then sees a shambling bipedal form patrolling in the radius of where the fire is.

"Selro," Mikaela whispers. "Do you see that?"

Selro turns to where she's pointing and nods his head.

"What do you think it is?" Mikaela asks.

"Not sure. It's not coming this way though," Selro says. "Better keep an eye on it. I'm not going out there to investigate it tonight."

"Yeah, you took that damage from that bow from me, I appreciate that," Mikaela giggles.

After a few hours, Mikaela and Selro wake up FRIEND. Selro taps on his armor.

"What?" FRIEND looks at him warily.

"It's your turn to watch," Selro whispers.

Mikaela informs him of the figure they saw near the fire and to keep an eye on it. FRIEND nods his head and begins his watch for the night. Baldo, the halfling guard, watches with him and FRIEND notices that he seems a bit restless as he moves around the camp keeping watch. He then turns to find William standing about 5 inches away from him. He is leaning so that he is closer to FRIEND and as FRIEND turns, William turns towards the same direction. In the air, FRIEND smells the nostalgic scent of burning wood that reminds him of home. But as he takes another whiff, he smells a distinct scent of burning flesh. Something he is unfortunately also very family with.

Once his watch is over, he shakes Orielle awake who gets up and takes the last watch of the evening. Jenshi, the tabaxi guard, acknowledges her as they make their way to their positions. As morning comes, Jenshi tells Orielle that there was a large scaled predator that was on the outskirts of the forest. A Komodo dragon-like creature that stayed away from the camp, whether it was because of the gel or the fire.

Somewhere in the forest a dark figure sits upon a tree branch keeping an eye on the forest surrounding her. Further away, she sees a Komodo dragon-like creature that is pacing on the outskirts of the trees but does not come any closer. She stares at the edge of the burning fire as the night continues, nothing else in sight.

Once everyone is awake, Selro lets everyone know of the shambling creature that was patrolling around the fire.

"Was it a large figure?" Orielle asks.

"It was a bipod so it wasn't huge. Couldn't really make it out. Humanoid, maybe?" Selro shrugs.

"I did not see this creature," pipes up FRIEND. "But I did smell burning flesh during my watch."

"Like steak or human steak?" Selro questions with his eyebrow raised.

"Intelligent life," FRIEND answers. "Like a person, I don't know what race."

"Like somebody got caught in the fire?" Mikaela asks worriedly.

"Something or someone," FRIEND nods.

Mikaela glances over towards the fire. It looks as if the smoke has receded and the only smoke she sees is coming from the center. There was no longer a fire burning, but she saw crispy embers on the horizon. After eating some breakfast, the group notices Imbrose, Ember, Joel, and Colton standing about 100 feet away, close to the perimeter of the burned out fire, having a discussion. Genevieve and her crew start setting up a camp for the non-combatants.