Joat stops and listens to his seskii, "Boy, what do you hear? He stops and gets down. He looks around the ground for tracks or any other signs of what may be causing Rusky to act this way. "Mourne keep your ears open, and Rusky, show me what you see," and Joat looks at Rusky, watching his every move.

Joat can make out the tracks of abhumans in the brush.  Some deliberate effort was made to obscure them, but a few escaped notice.  There are some limbs deliberately cut in some of the trees to the west and north and the area looks ripe for an ambush.  The safest path of escape is nearly directly southeast.  No trace of the predators is visible there, and Joat and his companions do not seem to have triggered any notice just yet.

Joat whispers to his companions, "Boys this seems to be dangerous area, follow me carefully and be quiet." He raises his finger to his mouth and shushes his animals. He carefully leads them to the southeast as quickly and quietly as he can.

The woods to the southeast seem free of immediate dangers.  The land begins to slope and glide in low hills, with streams cutting the occasional path.  The ground is clearer here, as the larger trees shade out more of the light.  Both of Joat's companions seem quite happy with the change in direction.

Joat smiles as they continue to move along the easier trail. "Boys, things seem better do they, I'm glad. Now let's see if we can find what we are looking for." As they continue Joat starts looking for signs of humans, either tracks, or a trail, or even just evidence that they have been in the area.

After several miles of peaceable travel, Joat comes across the remains of a small settlement.  Buildings, seemingly long abandoned, loom as low shadows on the forest floor.

Joat is curious about the long abandoned settlement, he climbs down off Mourne and starts looking through the old buildings seeing if he can find anything of interest. <Dark green>"Keep an eye out for trouble boys but we can't overlook the opportunity to learn about other humans like me."</dark green>

The buildings seem to be part of a homestead, similar to Joat's own, although larger and long-abandoned.  Judging by the moss and plant growth, the site's four buildings have not been inhabited for a decade or more.  In rummaging through the ruins, Joat finds a small crystal oddity, but little else of value.  There are no clues, either, as to why the previous residents are gone.  Any number of creatures, storms, and other destructive forces have reduced to interiors to little more than piles of decaying wood and rust.

Perhaps the site could be salvaged for building materials, like stones, if one had the time and inclination.

Mourne grazes in the low growth by the buildings while the seskii sniff around beside the curious explorer.

Many days later ...

The forest is noisy in its quiet way, and still in its busy way.  Small animals scurry among the dead leaves on the ground.  Birds chirp as they flit from branch to branch.  Each breeze brings a susurration in the canopy, a rumor passing by.

Nearby, the small community is active, people and animals coming and going, doing their daily chores.  And someone is observing them, out of sight behind the massive tree trunks.

Joat settles into his little camp now that he has a small fire going. Rusky the Seskii is sitting tied to a stick drove into the ground a few feet away, small enough that he could pull it out with ease but just there to make sure he behaves not running off to the other Seskii's Joat saw as he scouted the community, still you can see his ears move and perk up every time he hears something in the distance Joat does not. Joat sits down leaning on Mourn the large Aneen as it sleeps tired from the journey. "Okay boys, we'll wait here and see if anybody comes to see us, if not we'll walk up to the gates tomorrow." He pulls out a small piece of dried meat he had in his pocket, breaking it in half he throws half to Rusky while he starts to gnaw on the other, mostly for something to occupy his mind.

Mhari rode upon Z'Dakk's back in quiet telepathic conversation with the Z-Drake... trying to explain to him the concept of possessions amused with the Z-Drake's views that nothing is actually 'owned' other than oneself.

Then he spots the small campfire below on the way to the Forest... mentally urging Z'Dakk the asure quadra-winged drake swooped in to land a good 100'ft from the camp... obvious so as not to spook the tethered beasts.

Mhari dismounted and patting Z'Dakk on his shoulder the Z-Drake took flight to soar high and away... circling on the breeze high above the campsite so.. Mhari's companions can see where he is - having told them should they see Z-Dakk circling high above some location Mhari had dismounted and was below him having discovered something.

Walking forward Mhari address the man at the campsite, "Hail traveler!  I am Mhari, mind if I share your camp a bit for some travel news to share?"

Joat watches the great flying creature land with his passenger. Watching curiously as the beast flies back up into the air and begins to circle. He stands before the man gets to the campfire, and pulls a small log over to the far side of the campfire.

Mourn snores and opens his right eye, seeing the visitor he slowly stands up and shakes. Rusky's tail starts to wag having seen few people up close other than Joat in a long time. Joat walks over and pets the Seskii.

"Hail and well met. I am Joat, this is Rusky and this is Mourn. Joat pets Rusky as he speaks his name and points to the Aneen when he names Mourn. "Honestly I have little news, but would love the company. Please share my fire." Joat points towards the stump for Mhari to take a seat as he sits cross-legged across the fire from the stump.

It is at this point that Alberic and Zalbane hove into view. Alberic gives a cheery wave of his hand as they approach, and removes his pipes from his mouth. "Ahoy, Mahri! I see you've found company! May we join you?"

Mhari smiles, "Thank you for your kindness!"

He takes a seat on the stump unslinging his scabbarded crystal yatagan to set it down next to him for comfort.

"I'm a Glaive part of the defense for a newly establishing Clave. My companions and I are scouting the surrounding terrain in hopes to tame its less obvious threats."

"Currently, we were looking for signs of some large lumbering creature whose tracks are frightening the newly arrived farmer families.  You would not have happened across any large strange tracks in your travel hereabouts?"

At the hail from Alberic, Mhari waves, and addresses Joat, "..my companions.  Wrights by profession."
This message was last edited by the player at 14:27, Wed 27 Jan 2021.

Joat smiles at Mhari's kindness but as Alberic approaches he starts to squirm uncomfortably. "I apologize that we have no more seats to offer you, please sit by the fire." He gestures to the bare ground all around. He removes the tie from Rusky but the Seskii stays by his side, wagging his tail but otherwise sitting completely still.

Joat takes a deep breath, "How many of you are there, we am unused to crowds? He wipes a bit of sweat from his brow, "Actually we have been following your newcomers for the past few days, we were so focused on them not seeing us we never paid much mind to signs of another beast. Truth is we have been alone for some time and did not wish to approach such a group. Maybe we can help you out though, I am decent tracker and good with animals if that is what your creature be. Rusky may even be able to help if he can get the smell of the creature."

Zalbane nods warmly at Joat, knowing her rather hideous appearance can cause consternation.  "Well met, Joat.  I'm Zalbane, and that's Alberic.  There's a clave of us nearby, small enough for now, but we hope to expand as we become more familiar with the area.  We're out exploring around here.  One of our herders said there was something to the west that was causing some trouble with our herd, so we came to check that out before we went to explore some ruins I saw a bit of a distance away.  We also wanted to figure out, well...  I saw some evidence of creatures being in the ruins recently, but also some of the odd swaths of newer greenery?  I think something made those, and we're trying to map where those areas are and which ones have the newest plants, to see if we can figure out what's going on," she explains.  She doesn't give their exact numbers or location away quite yet; while Joat seems like one of those lone hunter or hermit types, he could just as easily be a scout for a bandit troop or worse.  Hopefully that wasn't the case here, but a dash of caution was needed when encountering strangers in the woods.

Alberic gives a cheerful wave as Zalbane introduces him, and accepts Joat's offer, crouching by the fire.

Joat crinkles his brow at Zalbane, Joat had seen many creatures but he appearance did give him a start, still he strived to be polite. "Lady, would you like to sit by our fire or Mourne could give you a seat. I wish I had more to offer you, let me think on this." He stood up and walked over to take Mourns reigns leading the beast to Zalbane, he offers her the reigns.

Rusky walks over to Mhari and tries to smell his hands, wagging his tail.

A few moments later Joat speaks again, “We do know of the strange greenery, We even followed some on our way here but we haven’t seen any cause for it that we recognize.”
This message was last edited by the player at 22:04, Sun 31 Jan 2021.

"Was the greenery you followed native to the forest?" Alberic asks, grimacing as he blows out a cloud of gray and unpleasantly cinder-scented smoke. "I mean, is it is just younger growth of plants you might expect to find here? Or are they plants that must have come from elesewhere?"

He fiddles with his pipe, and adds apologetically: "I, er, don't know a lot about plants."

Mhari smiles at Rusky, careful to show no teeth, and slowly offers his hand for the creature to get his scent.

Replying to Joat, "There are several families in our growing community... going to need more storehouses soon with all that fieldwork the farms are going to be bringing in!"

He chuckles, "Hahaha.. My 'creature' is named Z'DAKK, he's no 'creature' but highly intelligent... though he does not completely understand our 'bi-ped, wingless' ways... mostly not understanding why we cover our bodies with 'artificial skins' or our insistence on 'possessions', and his strange interest in our... aheh, mating/courtship rituals!  He is a 'Zap-Drake', what they call themselves cannot be expressed in words.. they usually spend their existence flying high in sky following stormclouds as they are Electrovores... mostly they 'eat' electrical current.  I meet him in the past when I was a crewman on an airship... Z-Drakes can bond with other sentients.  He's no pet.. he's my travel companion.  I've been told by the Order of Light, that his species is a variant of the more common Xi-Drakes... though they are universally white skinned, unlike his azure blue and slightly bigger.  But similar to the Xi-Drakes, Zap-Drakes are also touch-telepaths.  Though he does perfectly understand spoken common tongue.  He's quite intelligent... if sometimes cryptic."

Joat looked to the seskii and squinted in thought, “Rusky we saw only the same plants right? One or two years of growth.” Rusky tilts his head looking back at Joat.

He nodded his head and turned back to Alberic, “Yeah, all local plants far as I saw. Like a huge scar in the ground was ripped up and is filling itself back in.”

Zalbane will pet Mourne and then move towards the fire to sit and relax for a bit.  "We were wondering if something cut the plants down or dug them up or some other sort of thing, and wanted to find the 'youngest' plants so we could follow them to the source of... whatever is going on.  And then take a look around at the ruins over yonder to see if there's anything useful for the clave in there."

Based on observations by Joat and Zalbane (and anyone else thinking hard about the tracks they observed), following any particular path of new growth could easily be a day's journey unto itself, assuming nothing was encountered to delay pursuit.  Also, the growth in any given area was uniform enough that it is not clear which direction (if any) the cause may have traveled.  It is possible that some pattern may be discerned from traveling along a swath, though.

"I could send the Eyebug ahead to scout, but it only runs for an hour. That'll bearly scratch the surface of the new growth." Alberic sighs. "I guess we will have to head in ourselves."

Joat smiled, "We don't mind travelling along ahead a bit and see what we can see, we've travelled this far alone, we would feel much safer with others with us. Only an hour in a single direction will not be enough to tell, we traveled farther then that though it isn't what we looked for. We didn't see any blow downs full of dead plant life that we remember so probably this isn't natural. Too uniform too." He walks over and climbs up on Mourn and rides him back to his original spot. Rusky runs behind him and wags his tail ready to go. "If you wish to go just let us know the direction.