You wake thrilled.  Your body wants to jump up and run ten miles.  The air is thick, heavy, redolent with a hundred smells.  Each breath is like eating a chocolate sundae.

Dripping vines hang over you, and ferns shadow your face from the clouded sky.  Gravity feels normal, although its kinda hard to say what with the energy surging through you, begging you to run, run...

But caution keeps you steady, and you look about to see an oak and a palm and a fir, all bedecked with vines, on which grow other tendrils, and the ground is thick with moss.  Nearby you can hear the burble of a stream. A brilliant pink macaw?? is scolding you in words that your mind does not know, but your heart does.

"Thief! Scum! Go away."

Its no language you've ever heard, and it has strange contours to it, but you understand it somehow.
This message was last updated by the GM at 19:29, Wed 09 July 2014.

   I feel great.  This definitely beats waking up on a pile of trash bags.  The energy coursing through my body and the way I'm feeling, makes me insure that my adrino booster is actually turned off.

   I don't recognize the vines or the ferns but that isn't news to me.  I could be in the middle of a botanical garden or a jungle world.  I'll figure it out.  That's what I do.  I am a detective, even after all that has happened.  The sort of talking pink bird was different, but as long as it wasn't attacking, I didn't have a problem with it.  I had things to do.

   With what has become standard procedure, I check around for my equipment and for other versers.  Ummm... I think this hospital gown has got to go first thing.  Well maybe not first thing.  I'll wait until I find my backpack to change into my blue jeans, black T-shirt, and crosstrainers.  I'm also not sure the reason I feel almost naked is the paper hospital gown I'm wearing or the weapon harness I'm not wearing.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the GM at 19:29, Wed 09 July 2014.

The adreno booster is off, although indeed the feelings are somewhat similar.  This has less wrath tho'...less of a metalic taste in your mouth as well.

You find no other versers, but you do get a vector on your equipment.  It leads you under the fir tree, past a green apple tree, down a short slope cleared by a true giant of the forrest, a sequoyah, amidst a horde of small maples regrowing and here a boa, a rather large specimen slides by your path.

Even from here, you can see the sky is clouded, but with a bit of shininess to it, a sparkle. The macaw follows you this far, shouting 'more wine, more wine, thief, scum, money, more wine, more wine', and as you go on it gives a satisfied squawk likes its chased you off.

You have to go farther to your right than you'd like to get to the point where the sequayah is only ten feet thick, and easily climbable. You startle up a cloud of butterflies of gold, and purple, green, and orange.  From there its a hike back up hill through a patch of giant ferns forty feet tall and dotted with snails.  And despite all this, you're not eve the tiniest bit out of breath.

Piled up in a neat rectangle is your gear, right next to a small tree stump. As you get closer, you see a dragonfly fanning its wings as it rests upon, and samples your backpack.  Its sixteen inches across.
This message was last updated by the GM at 19:29, Wed 09 July 2014.

   The view here is incredible.  All the colors, the diversity of life, the richness that you can taste on your tongue.  I wondered how much of it was poisonous.

   The macaw had to have come upon those terms it had been spouting in a tavern or bar somewhere near here.  That means people.  That means I need my stuff.  I couldn't remember if dragonflies were poisonous, but it didn't really matter.  The dragonflies I couldn't recall weren't the dragonflies that lived here.  I didn't have anywhere to go.  I didn't have anyone to meet.  So, in a conversational voice, I spoke up, "Hello, Mister Dragonfly.  Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?"

It turns and faces you,and then leaps into the air, its wings buzzing furiously.  It dives at you, and you duck, and it spins on past leaving the air vibrating in its wake.  But its gone.

And in a trice, you're dressed, and loaded up with your weapons.

Doing anything with the paper gown?

   Given the looks of this place, I half expected the dragonfly to say something in return.  Maybe he and the macaw discussed philosophy when nobody else was around.  Or, maybe not.

   I felt a lot better being dressed, in both ways.  I left the take down rifle on my pack.  I wasn't planning on doing any hunting.  I left the blaster pistol in the pack, too.  There just wasn't enough space to carry everything in the ready position.

   I looked at the dress.  It wasn't anything I would ever want to wear again, but I might find a use for it later.  What was it that my Grandmother used to say...  Oh yeah.  Waste not. Want not.  She might not have been a verser or an ecology type, but she made sense then and it still makes sense now.  I stuffed the dress into my pack.

   I didn't have any specific direction in mind, so I started heading downhill.  Supposedly, civilization could be found down hills and down streams.  I've liked most civilizations I've visited, so downhill it is.

OOC: There was that Bird of Paradise that was a demigod of Faerie in one story...

Turning about, you head downhill thru the giant ferns.  Passing beyond them into a dense overcover of some type of wickedly thorned tree, spikes four to five inches long, among which hides shy, little monkeys with cute cream colored faces.

Hopping an eight foot wide ravine, you hear beneath you the grunt and squeal of piglets. And then a deeper, thunderous grunt.

A steeper slope is covered by giant hickory with nuts aplenty underfoot, many with signs of being munched on. Below that windy, cooler avenues, the land flattens out, and sogs up, and bamboo makes an appearance.  You can hear water moving ahead.  Unfortunately, you can also see four bamboo stalks, a foot wide that look like they've been chomped off at four foot high.  The bamboo forrest is thirty to fifty feet tall in places.  And down in it, there is no wind.

   As I look at the stand of bamboo, I'm trying to think of what might bite off the foot wide bamboo stalks leaving four foot remnants.  The only animal that comes to mind is a giant panda from China, or maybe in this case a really gigantic panda from who knows where.  I'm pretty sure that I don't want to meet this guy if I go into the bamboo.  Logic tells me that some other creature might also eat foot wide bamboo stalks.  Common sense suggests I don't want to run into them either.

   I swing wide around the bamboo stand and keep going.  I'm moving more carefully now.  In this place, I don't appear to be anywhere close to the top of the food chain.

You  step back up into the edge of the hickories, and go around to the left until you reach a granite hill about four hundred feet tall.  Beyond it are marshes of cattails, so you climb.

The view stretches out in front of you as you stand under a grove of palm trees near the edge of a two hundred foot cliff face.  You're on one of the highest areas round about.

To your left, the river you're trying to get too turns into a swamp. And you spot something move in the swamp, not clearly, but you think it was at least elephant size.  Ahead of you the cattail marshes are about two hundred yards thick.  On the far side of the bamboo, to your right, is mangroves.  And beyond that is a river bend going back your way, and more cattails, and finally around the bend a blackened area of land with charcoaled sticks of trees that leads down to the river.

In the distance you see a small flock of giant birds beyond the river.  The river itself looks about forty feet wide.

   "Where is Marlin Perkins when you need him?"  I pulled my multivisor from my pack put it on and dialed it to telescopic.  I took a long look about.  I'm looking for some signs of human habitation.  I'm also checking out the wildlife.  Also looking for a way down might be a good thing.  I munch out on a peanut butter energy bar as I watch.

Across the river is a stream, and laying across it are two adjacent logs of about the same size, and stripped of branches.  It could be accident....

Glancing high, you're bedazzled by something shiny in the sky.

Lookin further, you track a flock of large fliers, and catch a glimpse of leathery wing as they all suddenly dive, and dissappear into the forrest.

Looking up river, you see some crocs in the water, but something odd about them....they all move in unison.

Nessie.

No couldn't be.

And its gone.

A search of bamboo reveals a rhinoceros on a scale to match an elephant in mass.  This huge beast is methodically snapping off, and then eating chunk by chunk a forty foot long bamboo stalk like you would eat a peanut butter protein bar.

Looking upriver to the burned spot, you see what looks like a catamaran in very primitive form.  Something intelligent built it.

   ...or a bridge.  And a bridge is usually part of a trail from one place to another.  This bears investigation and I've been my own best client of late.  I removed and powered off the multivisor, then replaced it in my pack.  I never drew a paycheck from the Bethany Mission, but they did have nice gear.

   Bird packs that dive like a flight of Stukas... Crocodiles into synchronized swimming... Rhinophants...  I'm not sure where I was, but I know I've never been here before.

   The animals movements looked somehow choreographed.  That implied an artificial environment waaaaay beyond what Walt Disney ever produced.  I thought for the briefest moment about taking a shot at Mister Rhinophant, but the biggest caliber I had was .30-06.  It's a good caliber for deer, but almost useless for that guy.  I'm not even sure that a Holland and Holland double rifle in .700 Nitro Express would do much to hurt it.

   Of course, I didn't have an H&H double rifle.  I saw some of them once in a factory gun room in The Big Apple.  It was on a bodyguard run for a Chicago based big game hunter.  His specialty was African jungles.  Mine was urban jungles.  He treated me like his guide and gun bearer, and the pay almost made up for it.  I might have been able to buy one of their double rifles if I had sold everything I owned except for the clothes on my back... and gotten a good sized bank loan... and then robbed the bank.  Did I mention that the rifles were kind of pricy?

   Nothing was happening up here, so I made myself a short mental to do list.  "First, don't get eaten.  Second, follow trail from bridge.  Third, find out just what was going on."   It was time to get started on my list.

The problem with the bridge?? is that its on the other side of the river.  And you've yet to even get to the river.

You think Mr. BigShot Game Hunter could have tagged it with an H&H because as he somewhat condescendingly explained its not ALL about the calibre.  He'd met a man who had killed an elephant with a .357 magnum pistol.  You just had to know exactly where to put the bullet, and then Not Miss. Because otherwise you were going to be a funny story for the natives at campfire that night.

You've got a small animal trail down the granite hill which is the same you came up.  And despite all this exercise, you're feeling energetic.  Sweating like a pig in the humidity, but you haven't yet had to take a break.

OOC: I never said it was a complete list.

   I took a healthy swig of water from my solar canteen to avoid dehydration before heading down the game trail.  I didn't know what was in the air that had me so pumped up, but I did remember basic workout guidelines.  Stay hydrated was right up there with avoid muscle-bound jocks who could bench press a Volkswagen Beetle.

   I flipped the selector switch on the PDW to full auto, then replaced it back in the holster.  It might not do much good against Rhinophant, but I felt better doing it.

After thinking about it, you realize the air fills thick, heavy, but not in a smothering sense.  Your lungs don't burn, and you've not felt oxygen debt.  It might be like those basketball players who stick their head in an air tent to oxygenate their blood.

Scrambling down, you knock loose a few rocks, scare a foot long chameleon that was stalking an oversized fly, and arrive at the bottom of the hill.  And you scare up hundreds of pigeons who thunder into the air around you, and for a second you're surrounded by white and pale blue feathers before the flock reaches tree height, circles once, and lands in a tall maple halfway up the hill.

Considering the amount of undergrowth, and how easy something the size of a cougar could hide within ten feet of you, keeping the PDW ready seems sensible.

Where too now?

   This place was both amazing and scarey.  Speaking of scarey, I began to wonder what the side effects were from breathing an elevated level of oxygen.  Everyone knows that you can die from insufficient oxygen.  I hoped I wouldn't have to find out what happens from too much oxygen.

   I recalled the burned area with the boat.  Maybe I could find something there to help me figure a few things out.

the cattails, and the bamboo, and more cattails as you go around the bend in the river, and here you see a dozen blue pelicans take flight, calmly, majestically.  A large beaver?? walks across the path in front of you, gives you one quick look and dives into the marsh with a splashW

A swarm of gnats decides to try Misty Tartare.  You saw one get killed by an enormous six inch wide mosquito hawk, and you're half sure the marble sized gnat dissappeared, but it was out of the corner of your eye.

With relief you venture on to the burnt ground. Charcoaled trees have fallen, although some bits of others still stand.  New greenery is poking up through the black.
And you're finally able to get to the river, which is fifty feet wide here.  And you look down at something that looks back up at you.

Its got a jaw that even in normal size would be outrageous.  Here, the alligator gar fish is fifteen feet long, and its mouth is five feet long.  It turns away, and another brother to the first swims by.

You see a very crude catamaran fit for one or two people.  Its burnt out hulls of tree branches, vines for rope, and some sort of flat sail of undyed hemp.  It has a thirty foot long bamboo pole near it.

A shadow passes overhead, and a pteradactyl hits the ground, talons first thirty feet from you.  It leaps back into the air, holding a limp four legged furred something.

   Someone built this boat.  They probably wouldn't have chosen a spot too far from their home or base camp or whatever as a build site.  This cat probably took a while to build.  That would mean multiple trips to and fro.  That could create a trail.  The fire would have obliterated any traces of a trail here.  I'm thinking walking the edge of the burned area to look for that trail might be a good idea.  I'm also thinking about swapping out my .30-06 for something in a bigger caliber very soon.  Since I can't see any gun shops from here, I head to the edge of the burned area to look for that possible trail as my next best option.

It takes an hour of searching, and you go past it twice, but a small bush with too few berries catches your eye. Then you see a small footprint, baked, as if from heat next to it, and from there you're able to begin to decipher a very faint trail, as if created by one person.

He or she has some woods talent.

You follow it under some spiketrees, and then flame trees?? with brilliant foiliage of white, red, and orange. And then you smell cooking meat.

OOC: I called the big critter a Rhinophant after rejecting my first idea.  What was it?  Ellifino.

   With weapons ready but not in hand, I move closer as quietly as I can to scope out the place ahead of me.

I liked the name.  It was just an outsized rhino.

You spot a small campfire, well arranged, and something the size of a dog, roasting on a spit above the campfire. You can also see a rock amidst the coals at the fire's edge, and on it are some tubers and green, red, and purple plants.

You can smell honey, mint, and something sort of like a cross between potato and caulliflower that is baking.

A simple lean-to of branches faces the fire.  A small trail leads away a few feet, and instead of the spring you expected, you see a small mine, and veins of gold come to the surface.

   Might as well say hello to show that I'm friendly.  I stand up and call out, "Hello, the camp!  May I share your fire?"  My hands are out, far enough away from my weapons to hopefully not seem threatening.

You hear a splash about twenty feet away to your right.  And you hear light feet climb up into a tree that way.

Then ten feet away and to your right, you see a young girl with a finely crafted spear in hand.  Her dress is well decorated in beads and threadwork of simple, but elegant design, and the hemp is of better quality and stained green.

She's at most two feet six inches.

And then you catch a look at her face.  Give her four feet, and she'd be Elle McPherson and Mila Kunis a run for the cover of the top fashion magazines.  Her head is a bit large for her body, and her neck thicker to support it, but it doesn't matter, she's beautiful in a way that the sunrise is.

So when she says...

"Ugly, mean, war monster killer giant thing." It hurts.  You heard her voice as that of the odd macaw.  The words made no sense to your head, but you still understood them.  And one word seemed vaguely familiar to the head....nephili.

And in her left hand is another tunic, this one a bit wet.  Evidently she was down at the creek washing her spare dress.

   I might be a giant war monster killer, but ugly?  That's just unkind.  I sit on the ground to try to not look so tall and menacing.  Next, I point to myself and as I say each word, I also try to think the word.  "Misty.  Friend.  Traveler."