The Lumberjacks traveled all through the next day, following the trail that the Dwarves had suggested. The old trail lead westward past several settlements which had been reduced to nothing but stone or concrete foundations and overtaken by weeds generations earlier. By midday, they picked up a trail in the form of horse hoofs with robotic consistency. The trail and the marks of the robot horses lead them westward farther. By the afternoon, exhaustion on the part of the mules forced them to make camp early in the light woods. That night passed uneventfully.

The next day they rode harder and pushed their animals in order to gain ground until sundown. Thankfully, a full moon provided plenty of light for a night watch in hostile territory. The reddish glow of the low moon seemed mildly ominous though. They camped in a small clearing with a running stream to their northern side.

Shortly before midnight, Nyx awoke with a start. His sixth sense was tingling to the points of his ears. A large cat, a jaguar, approached the camp from upwind. Who else is awake and on watch?

Kalista also has 6th sense.

Polkitain is probably on watch when Doc is so is probably sleeping in his normal form away from the donkeys so they can get a restful sleep.

 Arulas would take the graveyard watch.

Sixth Sense is the single most used Psi power. I got it too.

Ethan’s body had been changed by the passage through the rift that had deposited him three hundred years in the future in many different ways. Outwardly he appeared more or less as he had before, perhaps a little bit fitter though as a NEMA Combat Medic, he had been in fairly good shape already. The mutations his body had gone through however had included accelerating his metabolism to the point where he could heal from almost any wound and as an additional side effect, his muscles never got tired, no matter how hard or long he exerted himself.

His mind on the other hand, had been affected the least by the strange interdimensional energies. While a full quarter of humanity, so far as he could determine, now possessed psychic abilities, he was not part of that twenty five percent. While gaining still more abilities might have been nice, Ethan was more than pleased with the abilities he had gained, especially in light of the fact his appearance hadn’t changed for the worse as was often the case with uncontrolled mutations.

The lack of mutation in his brain, bedsides not having gained any psychic powers, also meant he still very much needed to sleep. His muscles could perform tirelessly for hours at peak performance but his brain still needed the regular release of REM sleep. So it was that the combat medic was sleeping peacefully and soundly, completely oblivious to whatever had aroused his psychic companions or his wife.

OOC – I figure someone has to be sleeping and with Ethan’s abilities, it would make more sense to put him on last watch, the watch that just wakes up a couple hours early and stays awake until its bed time again.

Okay, Ethan and the mules are asleep. Polkatain was already awake. Nyx was the closest to the approaching creature, so his sixth sense triggered first. Then Arulas and Kalista awoke from their own Psychic prodding. Doc might also be asleep, that's up to him. Either way, I will try to keep this part short.

The wild figure halted when several eyes locked onto it. Polkatain has the best nightvision probably and might recognize the figure as the same cat from the tree which they passed while traveling alongside the river. The jaguar stood on its hind legs and morphed into the appearance of a rugged and muscular woman. The woman held up two empty hands, palms out. In rough Spanish, she spoke, "We have the same enemy. You followed the prints of the machines here, did you not? I have been tracking the riders by scent, the scent of the blood they drink. They are very close."

Hearing a strange voice, Doc stirred, he didn't make any obvious moves to show his wakefulness, but his pistols were in his hands, he listened carefully.

Polkitain yawned and plucked up a cactus to scratch his back with.

"Whoah ! is that what I look like when I change ?" he said to himself and scampered closer.

"Very nice cat costume. Yes were following the deep hoofs." he inhaled deeply to see if he could smell what she could.

Kalista translated the woman's words as she nudged her husband Awake.

Ethan was a soldier and a combat veteran at that. As a consequence, he had long ago become accustomed to sleeping just about anywhere, soundly but able to wake up fully, near instantly. That is why he was immediately alert and processing the words of Kalista the moment he felt her gentle touch.

"Very close?" he repeated softly. "Ask her if they are getting closer or moving away," he says to his wife. He was keeping his voice down and staying off of the radio. If the vampires were using robot horses, there was no reason they couldn't have radios too.

Kalista offered her husband's words in reply translating as he spoke them.

 Arulas simply chuckles. "Shifter? Well this gets interesting."

The woman who was a feline just seconds before stands still. Her eyes lock on the pistols in Doc's hands.In a few breaths, everyone is awake and staring at the strange woman.

She first turns towards Polkatain and answers, "Scaley one, my fur is no costume. What you saw was my true self."

She turns her attention to the group as a whole and continues in Spanish in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear her, "The blood drinkers split their group into two on the trail. One half went westward, and I intend to continue tracking them. The other half remains nearby. They have a lair to the south in the metal house to the west just over the next hill. Hunting them at night is dangerous, but they keep a prisoner inside. The prisoner smells still alive to me, but I do not know how long he will survive. If you move immediately -- well, I make no promises."

"Now, I will continue my hunt."

When someone inevitably looks over the see to see the metal house, this is what is seen (only at night under a red-brown moonlight). There is no body of water anywhere within sight.

"I thought well, I guess I was wrong. Your not a goat sucker are you ? My friends have warned me about them."

nice

"I eat the whole goat, stomach and all."

Polkitain isn't sure if that is better but it is more natural.

Good, that is something more like a normal predator would do. Thank you for the warning and letting us know about the prisoner."

Polkitain takes the silver ax from it's strap and looks off towards this metal house.

Kalista had been translating the owrds of the shapeshifter. When it seemed she had reached the end of her story Kalista finally spoke for herself, first in Spanish and the translating her own words. "Your hunt might cross our path. Is there some way we might identify you and any you hunt with as friendly?"

Doc relaxed his grip on his pistols, hands still near enough someone as fast as Doc could draw and fire easily. "Can't be too careful these days."

“I really have to speak with the rest of the team about dialing back on messing with the baby dragon. Sooner or later it’s going to cause serious trouble,” he thought as Polk mentioned ‘Goat Suckers’. The Combat Medic then carefully peeked over the hill to look at the ‘metal house’ and was as surprised as anyone to find a boat sitting in the middle of dry land. He wondered how the boat had gotten there. Was it a simple case of being dropped off by a random rift or was it a survivor of the Coming of the Rifts? Had one of the massive storms that wracked the land at that time deposited it here on the back of some mammoth wave? “Probably never know” he thought, then returned to his comrades to discuss what to do next.

“So we can attack it now, fighting vampires at night again and maybe save someone or wait for dawn and maybe we won’t save someone but the risk for us drops,” he says, summing up the problem they faced neatly. It was the kind of tactical problem he had always hated for it pitted the safety of his own soldiers against the desire to save civilian lives. He knew some people would argue to charge in, risks be damned. Those were usually the people not in charge for they wouldn’t have to look friends and family in the eyes to explain how their decision had cost the lives of their loved ones. The counter argument, attacking when they had the tactical advantage, daylight in this case, meant lowering the chance they could rescue the prisoner. Then they would have to explain why they hadn’t taken the risk to that person’s loved ones. Yah, he hated this type of tactical problem.

He looked at the cat lady, thankful most of her naked body was covered in fur. As odd as it sounded, it was less distracting that way. “You know the prisoner is a he,” he started, “but can you tell us anything else? Young, old, human, D-Bee, anything else that might help us?” He points to the Caduceus on the left shoulder of his body armor. “I’m a fair healer but if you could let me know what I might be having to fix up in a little bit, that would be a big help. What is a medicine to one is a poison to another,” he says.

Ethan wanted to ask more questions, like how many vampires did the cat lady think were down there but he didn’t want to bombard her with everything at once. He just hoped that he super nose knew the answer to the question.

 " Ethan you are asking the wrong question. It isn't a question of when do we attack, but rather of how do we attack." he simply looks at the twins, Polk, and Kalista. Hoping they understand while knowing that they do. "We go in to that boat as soon as we have a plan. Doc I have a pistol you might want as a backup." he holds his Thundergun out to the less exotic, but no less deadly for lack of psionics. He pats his rifle if the gunslinger asks about what he plans while range. "I won't leave someone to vampires."

Polkitain nodded to Sir Arulas and he showed his Ax.

Doc shrugs, "Silver works good, but if you don't want that fancy pistol, I'll sure use it buddy. More bullets the better."

"I can charge it up for you Doc, just let me know."

 "Not about not wanting it Doc. Just think it might give you an advantage when you need it. Plus I tend to think in there I won't be using guns very much. The fight will be close and personal."

Doc grinned, "Right, and you got your mind sword thing... I can teach you to use the pistol up close too, time permitting." Doc turned to Polk and smiled, "If I need it charged, you're gonna have to stick close buddy. Think you can keep up with Nyx and I?"

"I think so, I am a fast sprinter."

"Should we tear at the metal to get in Doc ?"

Polk realized some of the cactus was still stuck in his back and plucked it out and tossed it aside.  "Those things make good back scratchers but they are so clingy."

Doc shook his head, "Hopin' they leave us a ladder or somethin'... tearin' in would make a lot of noise. Like when Arulas snores Polk... too loud."

"My snoring?" he says incredulously as if that never happened. "Oh let us not start on your snoring sir. You snore so loud you woke a zombie the other day after it had been the second time. But you still aren't as bad as Kalista." he says with a smirk.

Polk blinks and looks back and forth between his friends, "Do I snore ?"

Doc grinned, "Better watch what you say buddy, she may try to smite you or something... Polk, I don't think you do. I'd be afraid you'd breathe fire or somethin' if you did."

While waiting for the mysterious cat woman to answer his question, Ethan more or less ignored the banter of his comrades as it mostly seemed to center around playing yet another joke on the baby dragon. His attention was on the still unnamed cat woman for in addition to wanting his question to be answered, a disturbing thought had occurred to Ethan. “What if there are no vampires in the ‘metal house’? What if it is the rest of her pack trying to bait us into a trap? Or there are vampires over there but again, she is part of a trap?”

Ethan hated to think ill of this woman they didn’t even know the name of and had been in the company of for barely a minute but the harsh reality of this world gone mad had wrought changes within his mindset. He wanted to take her and her claim at face value but he was no stranger to treachery. He had encountered more than his share of villainous backstabbers and that had been before the Coming of the Rifts. The addition of to actual monsters to the human variety had done nothing to assuage his sense of caution when dealing with completely unknown and potentially deadly persons.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:41, Mon 25 Dec 2017.

Polk smiled Yeah that's probably true.

Polkitain crouched low and moved over to stand beside Doc.

The predator answered the questions put before her to the best of her ability. "The prisoner is male but not human. I have never encountered the scent of his kind. His odor is most like that of a this young dragon here but more -- earthy? Yes, earthy like a faerir or. These spoken words do not have words for accurate scents. When I was nearby, a few of the blood drinkers were gathered inside the metal house, no less than five. Their horses are inside the metal house also. These blood drinkers are armed unlike the feral and stupid beasts that you put down at the village."

"I have no name in your tongue, but the birds call me Gibbus. If you are in my territory, you will know it by the scemt maps which I leave on the trees." She scratches a fallen branch with a sharp claw.

Polk let his senses go out to see if he could sense another dragon.

Kalista again speaks the were-woman's words in English.

"Thank you, oh wise one. Gibbus, we will take care of the vampires in the metal house. They will no longer plague your lands." She repeated this, in case the others wished to add to her gratitude.

Polk seemed very distracted with what he was doing. Very rarely did he ignore his friends but at the moment he seemed to be ignoring everything around him something primal and instinctual taking over.

Awake but still, Nyx had remained quiet whilst the were-creature spun its tail - hands close to his pistols but only the twitching of his little fingers betraying any tension. When she finally spoke her name, he moved them slowly and fluidly to the other brace beneath his pillow. These he drew slowly, a pair of pre-Rifts replica six-shooters, spinning the barrels to check the silver load out

OCC: Apologies, rubbish internet connection

With his question having been answered by the mysterious Gibbus, Ethan changed the focus of his attention. He readied himself for the impending attack, whatever form it took, by checking on his equipment. He checked that his silver knife was in its sheath on his left hip, that his First Aid bag was filled and everything properly stowed in it. He had slept in the armored boots of his full environmental armor but had shucked the rest of the suit in favor of sleeping on only the moisture whisking under-suit. Now he strapped the segments of armor on to his body and made sure all the connections were secured tightly.

When all of his pre-combat checks were completed, he looked at his companions and gave a thumbs up, indicating that he was ready to move out. “Now we just need a plan,” he thought, waiting for the tactical leaders of the group to workout the details of their assault.

Polkatain does not feel nor smell the presence of another dragon, but he has not really been around another dragon before as far as he knows. Things might change when he gets closer.

Gibbus the were-jaguar turns to leave. If no one stops her, she does leave.

Polk returns to his good natured self.

"I sensed no other dragon. Which is good but now I am curuos what you meant Gibbus by smelling something like me but earthier."

Doc pauses, hoping the cat lady would answer Polks question.

"I cannot say because words are not smells. I've already used the best words I know. You must smell for yourself."

Polk nods slowly, "very well, thank you."

Having been tricked once by the fake egg he was now dubious of such things.

How should we approach ?" he asked Kalista.

Kalista shrugged, "Carefully, cautiously, and with as much stealth as we can manage."

Polkitain nodded and handed the Ax to his best pal Doc.

He then changed into a bat.

"Ok stealth mode."

Kalista spoke again, "A bat may not be the best option. Vampires can assume that form, and would sense you are not one of them. Perhaps a bird? A sparrow or nightingale?"

"Ok, I can also blend in real well."

Polk tried to turn into a Grackle (a Southwest bird looks like a small crow) and used his chameleon ability.

Doc nodded, "Sneak in, kill em fast, take anything worth anything and move along."

"I am more interested in rescuing their prisoner.  Should I scout and let you know or should we go in together ?"

“Scout ahead, then report back”, suggested Nyx firmly even as he quested ahead with his own supernatural senses

Using his psi power, Sense Evil

Polk nodded and flitted ahead to scout most definitely using his chameleon power and getting more stealthy the closer he got and looking for opening and listening for sounds with his enhanced hearing.