Firestar76 wrote:
Uruka suggests resting for the night as they have already done much.
After an hour or so listening for signs of pursuit and finding none, the trio decides ( very bravely) to bivouac for the night against one of the larger trees in the jungle beyond the cleared area.
Taking first watch Kuublu steels himself amongst the cacophany of insect and frog noise, trying to pick up hints of movement or the sounds of larger creatures through the din. Though a large number of creatures move through the area nothing dangerous occurs and he wakes Chiemeka for his watch.
Chiemeka spends much of his watch trying to follow the movements of something large and foul smelling that was padding heavily around them about 50m out, after three hours of the dreadful things presence it apparently smelt something more interesting and crashed off through the jungle and away. Nothing more than snakes and the occasional monkey-lizard disturbed his watch.
Uruka took last watch and it was anything but peaceful, as dawn grew closer he was able to see more and more and realised that what he'd taken for a stand of bamboo was actually a large group of long legged ( 4m tall ) birds with metre long sharp bills and naked heads and necks who were silently picking off lizards, frogs and anything else on a lower limb or trunk. They began to stalk slowly towards the camp but stopped about 40m out and then scattered in panic into the jungle as a great winged form crashed down from the canopy above...grabbed one in its talons, snapped its neck and then flew heavily back into the branches above....it was not a great eagle but something like the misbegotten spawn of bat and a naked mole rat. He started watching above more often....as the sun rose ( though he could not see it), a great chorus of morning calls and hoots and cries went up from the jungle around him. Among it all he almost din't notice at first when the pivot gate of the compound began to open.....