Hawaii:Sessions:19910427:The Journey
THE JOURNEY
So at about 1:35 PM everything was packed up, and the team left Lomat. They headed south in the following travel order: Sukor, Xumbala, and Hyllar taking the lead; Brodie next, followed closely by Gerret, Thurladeem, Black, and Laura; Brandon, Jake, and Darr brought up the rear. As they traveled south, the temperature dropped quickly as they passed the five-mile point from Lomat. After about thirty minutes of travel, they turned east and started heading toward the mountains.
ELSEWHERE
In the distance to the west, she could see the black speck in the sky grow closer. It was too far away to identify clearly. But it was getting closer. She would wait.
The trip toward the mountain took them gradually upward. They were now above the snow line and beginning the long approach to the pass. Sukor's falcon, ranging ahead of the team by several hundred yards, suddenly was face-to-face with a nasty-looking condor-sized flying creature (later identified as a Raptor). Darr saw this just as the falcon folded its wings and dropped. Darr slung his M-16 around and took aim. Jake then un-slung his shotgun. Darr released three shots at the Raptor, scoring two hits, but it kept coming so he put another three-shot burst into it. The shots took out each of the creature's wings so it dropped like a rock. Hyllar and Sukor identified it as a Raptor, which was often used as a scout for the Shadow.
ELSEWHERE
She could now see the group approaching. There appeared to be around a dozen of them. She even began hearing a little bit of their chatter. As she witnessed their encounter with the flying creature, she winced with the sound of the shots. However, a quick look around verified that no avalanche of snow had occurred. She continued to watch their approach.
The team continued to move forward. After a few minutes of rest, the falcon took back to the air. It had barely gotten back to observation height when it detected something ahead in the pass. It was a gray something. The falcon reported back to Sukor, who reported this back to the rest of the team. Hyllar slipped off of his horse after giving its reins to Gerret. He moved off about fifteen feet and changed into a leopard. Then he surged forward to check out the person or thing ahead. Xumbala took out after him. Hyllar pulled ahead due to the chancy footing and the curving nature of the trail.
Hyllar arrived at the stranger's location first. He shifted back to his human form and greeted the person. It was a humanoid of average height, standing in front of a fine-looking horse. Hyllar could not make out any of the individual's features because the hood of the loose gray robe it wore was pulled up and covered the head and completely obscured the face. When the stranger replied politely to Hyllar's greeting, Hyllar decided that the muffled voice belonged to a female. After Hyllar introduced himself, the stranger identified herself as Durithil. She identified herself as an agent of Enigma, and said she was looking for one named Xumbala. In an example of perfect timing, Xumbala arrived upon the scene at just that moment. Introductions were completed and her identify confirmed as an Enigma agent before the rest of the team, with Brodie in the lead, arrived.
After the rest of the introductions were made, Darr asked Durithil if she had a communicator. Since Darr didn't recognize the name, he was surprised when she answered that she did have one. Darr said that that was just as well, since they didn't need to take time for him to put up his lack Hole to get one of his spares. She repeated the words 'Black Hole' but didn't react much more than that. The trek resumed, with Durithil taking up a position near Hyllar, who filled her in on more details of the group as they moved on.
Finally they were over the top and heading down again. The trail was taking them through a narrow slot. From his position near the rear, Jake noted the movement of something above them on a ledge. A longer look revealed it to be a white snow leopard. Jake quickly looked forward and did an inventory of all the team members that he knew could change shape. He saw all of them, but then decided not to take a shot at the leopard after all. However, he did inform the rest of the team about it over the net. Upon hearing this, Thurladeem did a 'Summon' of the leopard. As they exited the narrow gap, Hyllar, who was back in the lead at this point, was face-to-face with a snow cat. Hyllar kept his horse calm and cast 'Beast Speech' and began talking to the cat. It asked why it had been summoned; Hyllar said it had been a mistake and apologized. The cat indicated that it had just eaten and had just been watching out of curiosity. Hyllar took the opportunity to see if it knew of anything unusual going on. It indicated that something was going on to the west. Hyllar thanked it and it headed back up the pass. The team then continued on down the pass. About an hour after they passed the snow line, Sukor said it was time for him to head back. Since they had by now turned north, he gave them some general directions to where they wished to go. Hyllar wished him well and told him it was safe (at least the area where the cat was because it was full). By now it was about 4:30 in the afternoon. The team traveled on a little farther until they found a place which would serve as a good campsite.
As the team set up camp and Brandon and Gerret took up guard positions, Darr got Brodie to help him survey the lay of the area. They had just completed their survey when four shots were heard. Several team members rushed to where the shots came from. They found Brandon down on the ground with a large rat-like creature on top of him. Fleeing from the area were four more of the creatures, two breaking to the left and two to the right. Jake stopped to pull the thing off of Brandon. Darr stopped next to him and took aim on the two pulling off to the right. Darr aimed and hit one, but it did a forward roll and kept going. Hyllar and Xumbala cut after the two on the left. Thurladeem arrived to help Jake as the other three killed all of the four remaining creatures.
Brandon was hurt hardly at all. He had fired the 9mm through his own armor. Jake went off on a little further exploration, and because of some noises he heard, he was able to center in on the creatures' nest in a hollow tree. Darr, who had followed, also saw it. Jake had discovered dozens of newborn rat creatures. He threw the body of one of the adult creatures into the nest, then he and Darr left the babies to survive or not.
Once they got back to the camp, Darr talked to everyone and then set up the night's watch schedule as follows:
- First: Laura, Hyllar, Gerret
- Second: Brodie, Jake, Brandon
- Third: Xumbala, Durithil
- Fourth: Thurladeem, Black, Darr
Once the watches were assigned, Jake caught Brandon trying to dry his new gun in the fire. It seems he'd washed it in the nearby stream. Jake, seeing that what Brandon did not know about the gun could kill him, began giving him instruction. Darr made sure that Gerret came over and participated in the lesson. After everyone had eaten, watch began as everyone settled down to sleep.
The first watch passed uneventfully. When the time came to wake up the second watch, Hyllar suggested to Laura and Gerret that they clear out while he woke up Jake. As Hyllar approached Jake, he woke up Daisy whose growls woke up Jake. At just that time Laura, who had climbed the tree to the limb on which Durithil was sleeping, felt something in her hair. She brushed it out and a bug began to fall, creating the sound of an incoming artillery round. Jake, who had encountered and detested the bug on Gaea, drew his weapon and blew the bug out of the air. This awoke Darr and Thurladeem and several others, who went back to sleep after seeing that nothing was wrong. The rest of the night's watches passed without any problems.
As everyone started getting up, Darr maintained perimeter guard while Jake began preparing breakfast for everyone. Darr greeted Durithil with a 'good morning' as she took the horses down to the stream for water. Hyllar, in leopard form, was fishing for his breakfast. After the oukry were watered and breakfast finished, the team saddled up and began heading north-northeast.