The Phoenix Colony

"Alright, then we'll go in that direction." says Britney as she gives Kat's hand another little tug. Britney begins to smell the scent as they reach the trees. She looks around, and eventually sees a group of flowers at the base of a nearby tree. "There are some really beautiful purple flowers here." says Britney.

 

Derek smiled back. His heart was racing. He wasn't sure what the implication of the hug would be, but he was sure that nothing bad could come of it. He smiled so hard for so long he was sure he looked like an idiot, but then he snapped himself back into reality.

"Thanks. I'll try to keep arguments with Chad at a minimum. As for defense, we should get started tomorrow." Derek looked up at the sky, it was approaching evening. "For now, we need to rest. I guess the best we could do for defense is set up a torch outside so that I can keep watch -yes me. I don't think I'd be able to sleep tonight anyways, I've got a lot to think about." He smiled at her, and he thought he felt his cheeks flush a bit with color.

 

Chrys leands down to the sound of Britney's voice, "Don't eat them. They smell odd up close...like appleseeds. Don't appleseeds have a poison in them naturally?" Chrys asks, pulling Britney away from the flowers, "I think I can find something better."

Her nose to the wind, Chrys miles, "Yes, the scent I smelled before, follow me." SHe says, tugging Britney behind her as she bounds for the aroma of maple and sugar cane farther into the trees.

 

"There they are sir," whispered Dwayne, pointing one massive finger at a tiny lean-to at the base of a gigantic tree. "I think the four of them are present, so what is the plan?"

The seven men crouched along a ridge back in the forest lands, things were warm there, why Frank was sweating so much he swore he'd been swimming. From their high ground they could see the tiny structure easily, which stuck out painfully. Four pairs of feet stuck out from under the rickity-**** hovel.

"Why my dear idiot, we get down real close, close enough to here them snoring, and then we rush them." Frank began to creep down the edge of the slope, trying desperately to control his breathing. He took one shaky breath after another, his heart racing from the journey there. Come on Frank, you were never this out of shape, keep on moving, keep it steady. With extreme effort, he managed to get close enough, and so did his boys.

With a wave of the hand they descended on the Lean-to. Each of them drew their axe and began to tear at the thing ripping it to pieces and grabbing the people inside. In less than a minute they dragged the four up to Frank, their legs cracking branches and displacing dirt as they scraped across the ground.

Frank put a hand on his chin and in a sarcastic voice he said, "Well well well, sorry to wake you fine people, but we need to talk." He looked over them, two women and two men. One of the men looked like he was about to cry, his face flustered and his lips quivering. He looked up to the man holding him and nodded. A second later an axe met the back of his neck. One of the women screamed as his dead body landed on the ground. Frank nodded at her carrier and so she joined her old acquaintance.

"It appears two of you have a pair," his eyes passed over the women and he said, "Correction, one of you has a pair, the other has a spine. Let's see how strong that spine is."

 

As Britney follows Kat, she asks "Why do you think I would try to eat the flowers?"

Also while she follows, she thinks to herself, "And why am I following a blind person."

 

Chrys, half following the scent, and trying to concentrte on Britney, "Oh, you were too close to them, I was just being careful."

Chrys continued to follow the scent, eventually being enveloped by it, and stopping. "WHat don't I see?"

 

Smith looked at the inside of the door thoughtfully. He was trying to think of a way to strengthen it. He scowled at the door, he wasn't good at this kind of thing, he could lead, he could fight, but other than a few ideas he'd had recently he usually looked to someone else to come up with the awnser to the how of the what he'd come up with.

"F&(^ it." He said finaly and walked out side and sat next to the entrence. He had the rifle ready and could at least keep watch while he thought. Derek came to mind. The man was infuriating, doesn't come up with better sugestions, wants a school yard rules? How childish, how stupid, how infuriating. Stop thinking about him, think of ways to strengthen the door, he told himself.

 

Raylene stood up. She gone mostly unnoticed by everyone for the morning. She'd been working on blocking out the voices and trying to focus on one at a time. That constant chatter made it difficult, but she was getting really good at controlling her own mind. She walked outside to where Derek and Reva were talking.

"Reva, I have full trust in your ability to make this work." She put her hand out to shake Reva's. "Can I borrow your spear? I really need something other than fruit right now. I think I can find us some meat. I just don't know if I'll be able to kill anything big enough for all of us. Someone with hunting abilities would be really helpful. Too bad he was banished. Derek, how are you at hunting?"

 

Britney looks around to see where the scent could be coming from. Eventually she sees some sap coming out of a tree. She walks over to it and gets some on her finger. After tasting it, she says "Wow, this is really good. Hey this tree is leaking maple syrup."

 

"THat would be where natural syrup comes from. But that doesn't explain the can scent that I detect. Climb the tree and see if you find either a nut of an edible flower, or even a fruit. Something in this areahas a high sugar content." Chrys sadi, walking over to wear she heard Britney's voice.

As she neared her, Chrys felt something brush her leg, then she hit the ground, "Ooph!" She braced herself for the ground.

 

"I'm pretty good." Derek responded. "It's gettin' kinda late to hunt though, how about you do that tomorrow?"

 

Raylene groans. "I don't think fruit will sustain us very well until tomorrow. Especially if those thugs come back. We need all the strength we can get. I'm so hungry lately. It's like I can't eat enough. I'll go out by myself if I have to, and find something easy to catch, but I'd really like to haul in something large. I can hear the animals. I can hear their thoughts. Some of them, I can't understand, but I don't have to understand them to kill them and eat them." She knows Derek won't believe her. Really, no one believes her, except for Fox. She knows she will just have to prove it to them.

 

Britney looks up into the tree. "Hey, there is some fruit up there. It looks like a pineapple. Except that its red. That must be what you smell." says Britney as she begins to climb the tree. She goes up it grabbing each branch at its base so it doesn't break on her. She sees that this fruit grows in bunches of ten. She breaks the branch where one bunch was attached. It lands about five feet from Kat. She does the same with another bunch. It lands about two feet to the left of the original bunch.

After she climbs down, she says "That should be enough for now. Also tomorrow, we should get some of the sap in a container. We can eat it, or use it like glue."

 

Chrys heard the falling fruit as it landed near her, she stooped down and felt for the bundles. "These are solid, ain't they." She commented, lifting a bunch on to each arm. What are you going to use as a container?"

 

"If we cut the pineapples in half horizantaly, we can use the bottom half as cups. Which would be good for water, or sap." says Britney.

As Fox continues to focus on the movements, her body finally gives out. She falls over and lets out a painfull grunt.

 

"Good point, but let's just get this back for now." Chrys said, slowly trying to find the scent of the campfire back at the cave.

After a few paces, she stopped. "Could you mess with fire without anger?" She said, turning to Britney.

 

"Yeah I can. I've gotten to beable to bend fire whichever way I want it to. I can make it grow more intense, and if I concentrate, I can create fire balls. Oh, and I'm capable of creating heat aswell. Its just that my power becomes really strong and uncontrolable when I get upset." says Britney.

 

"Good," Chrys purred, i have an idea. I have to admit something though, I'm a bit of a pyro, it might be because I grew up around bullets."

 

Raylene doesn't wait for a response and picks up the spear and trudges through the snow into the treeline. It's very slow going as with each step, she sinks into the snow to her knees. She takes a left once she's fully within the trees and starts searching for tracks.

She sits on a boulder and waits. She consentrates on her surroundings, listening for even the slightest sound. There are birds chirping somewhere in the distance. Down in the valley, she can hear the calls of the Hell Deer. It must be mating season. She listens harder and finally hears a noise close by. She doesn't move.

An animal walks into the clearing in front of her. It is covered in spotted fur, like a baby deer would have before it matures, it has tusks and a curly tail like a wild boar. It is grunting and rooting through the snow, trying to find anything worth eating. Raylene stands and quickly aims the spear and lunges forward, tossing it directly at it's heart. The spear finds it's target and the animal lets out a ghastly scream.

 

Time: 7:30 PM Weather: Clear and just below freezing

*** Time Advancement ***​

Time: 7:30 PM, after sundown
Conditions: Clear, just below freezing, light steady wind


Please assume your character is inside unless you're on watch (Derek) or on your way out for some other reason (Fox, Britney(?), Chrys) or are out there somewhere (Ben).


Reva sat with the other tribe members at the fire, sorting the food gathered during the day, remaining meat from the evening meal set to the side to be sliced and dried. A few of the tribe members had fallen asleep already.

"We will all take turns taking a watch," she said, shelling yet more of the pod-beans as she spoke and occasionally flipping one to the little Roo,"me, too. I think it would be wise to have two people on every watch. Derek is on watch right now and he insisted on being alone but two on every watch after this."

She hid her worry about the Gang and the Beast but she had to finally tell the others what she and Derek had been through that day. So she told them about the encounter with the thing that moved only as shapes of nothingness, realizing that it sounded far-fetched even as she told the tale.

"The fact is," she said, finishing the story, "we aren't sure what it was or why it didn't eat us. The snapping sound was teeth closing together, I'm sure of it. The helicopter sound later may have been a tail swishing over our heads. Whatever it is, it's big and it's invisible."

 

While on her way back to the cave Britney said "Wow, I swear, just about everyone on this planet must of had a bad childhood. Raylene had horrible parents, Fox's dad was arrested and her mom was killed right in front of her, and now I find out that you grew up around bullets"

Time advancement

Fox watches the fire. "A giant beast huh. Sounds interesting." thinks Fox. She notices that they used up more fire wood than expected. She walks over to Kat and Britney. "Hey do you guys want to go get some fire wood with me? We don't have enough to make it through the night." says Fox.

Britney says "Sure, I'll go with you."

 

"I wouldn't call it bad per se. My father was an idiot is all...MY FATHER!" Chrys dropped the pineapples, and yanked the locket from her pocket with one hand, her lighter with the other. "Oh, what good is that, I can't see it?!" She shreiked, putting them away and grabbing the fruit, and charging back to the camp."

She felt the glow of the fire. "Where is CHad?!"

THe glow of the fire softened Reva's words, there's something out there..Maybe that's the predator scent I've been feeling since I got here.

"It's invisible." Reva's words broke in, Invisble? Hrm...

Fox's words broke in afterwards, "Ohh, I can go, but I have to have a word with Chad real quick."

 

Raylene had practically frozen herself to death in a snow drift but came into the cave as the light fell, bent double from the weight of the mongo huge boar and sneezing her head off.

Now she sat at the fire and began using the knife she had borrowed from Fox to cut the remains of the boar into thin strips for drying.

((Thanks Foxee for writing this for me!))

 

Fox says "We'll wait for you at the entrance." as her and Britney head for the front of the cave.

Britney asks, "Are you sure we'll be safe out side, at night?"

Fox says "Don't worry about it. Your fire and heat should scare most animals away."

 

You know what, it an wait...

Chrys walked to the enterance of the cave, "I think we should heed Reva's warning,she was pretty freaked by whatever it was that her and Derek encountered."

Chrys rubbed her eyes, they had suddenly began to sting. The stinging became incessant... This **** hurts!She began to whimper.