The team headed east into the jungle bordering Kazin's farm, following the serpent person tracks. "We'll follow these for a half hour, no more," said Ralph. "We still have to deal with that Haftorang device at some point."
Ralph took point with Maddie and Don Juan behind, while Colt and Vivienne brought up the rear. After about 15 minutes the jungle began to subtly change - leaves became larger and more colorful, a handful of previously unseen plants poked up from the ground, and the smell of overripe fruit intensified.
Minutes later Vivienne uttered, "Oh no..." Turning to look Ralph and Maddie saw six creatures dart out of the jungle from either side of them, three going for Vivienne and another three rushing at Colt. They looked like giant rats, perhaps 30 pounds or so, with tentacled faces and mouths.
Colt yelped in horror as they tried to latch onto him, dancing about madly as if he was possessed. They were unable to get a solid grip upon him, though they did land some lashing bows to his legs. Vivienne dodged one, but two others grabbed onto her legs. She launched one with a kick, sending it careening off into a bolder which it struck with a cracking splat, its limp body sliding back to the ground. She managed to shake the other loose and pushed it back a few feet.
Ralph calmly put a bullet into the creature Vivienne had just shed, while Ralph blasted one of those attacking him with his .38 revolver. Don Juan leapt from Maddie's shoulder onto another of the abominations, clubbing at its head and riding it like a bucking bronco as it thrashed about trying to dislodge the monkey. Meanwhile, Maddie put her shotgun right up against one of the things worrying at Colt's leg and blew it apart in a spray of gore reminiscent of a Jackson Pollock painting. With that the remaining beasts scurried off back into the jungle, Don Juan jumping off the one he was riding.
Maddie applied some first aid to Vivienne and Colt and they continued on, albeit more cautiously now. The jungle was getting stranger - greens giving way to purples and pinks, the jungle taking on the look of some kind of hallucinatory landscape.
They stopped at a small clearing. The serpent person tracks continued east, but now a second set of tracks revealed themselves. Whatever made them appeared to be bipedal, with hoof-like feet, and there were definitely more of them, perhaps a half dozen or so. Their tracks seemed to come from the east to this spot, then turn north. And by the looks of it, they were going back and forth along these paths.
Ralph turned back to the group. "Should we keep going?" he asked.
But before he could answer a cloud-like shape launched out of the jungle, hitting him and pushing him back against a tree. It appeared he was covered in some kind of massive spider web.
And then the creature that launched that web emerged from the trees 10 meters away. It was a massive spider, as big as a truck.
Maddie tossed a grenade as Colt ran over to help Ralph. The explosion tore through parts of the underside of the spider, but it was clearly still in fighting shape as it lurched forward.
Vivienne was about to blast it with her shotgun when a tickle of warning at the back of her neck prompted her to look over her shoulder just in time to see another spider emerge behind them. She was able to sidestep the sticky goo it launched at her, firing off both barrels of her shotgun into the thing, taking a huge chunk out of it.
Colt helped Ralph out of the web just as the spider pounced. Colt jumped back and Ralph fell to the ground in a ball. Amazingly the spider caught on of it's fangs on a tree branch as it was attempting to impale Ralph, and he began to roll as he pulled his pistols.
Don Juan had leapt from Maddie's shoulder and climbed a nearby tree. What no one realized, however, is that the monkey as holding a grenade. It pulled the pin and tried to toss it off to the side of the spider away from the two heroes, but its aim was poor and the grenade exploded harmlessly in the trees off to the left. Colt and Ralph blasted away with their pistols, taking the creature down.
Vivienne was not so fortunate. After taking a second shotgun blast courtesy of Maddie, the remaining spider staggered at Vivienne as she tried to reload her shotgun. One of it's arm-length fangs pierced her left shoulder, pinning her to the ground in agony. The only thing that saved her life was the fang went straight through her, the spider's venom injecting itself into the ground instead of her body (Game note - Vivienne had to expend all her Luck points to stave off what should have been an immediately fatal blow). As it brought it's face closer to her, she still had enough wherewithal to reach up and shove her right hand into one of its massive eyes, killing the already near-dead spider.
Maddie helped Vivienne as best she could. The farm girl had a lot of experience tending to severe injuries, and Vivienne was patched up well enough to at least be mobile, though she was definitely in rough shape. Maddie also collected some of the spider venom in vial, wondering out loud to herself if she could somehow make venom-infused shotgun shells. Ralph made note of this as he immediately had a sense as to how this could be done.
The took a moment to debate their course of action. They were curious to see where these hoofed and serpent person prints went, but recognized too that Vivienne was not in great shape. She assured them that she could continue, however, so they agreed to continue east for a few more minutes.
And that's all it took for them to come to another clearing, this one with four holes in the ground. They looked to be a few feet in diameter and to have been dug out by some kind of creature. Maddie communicated something to Don Juan, and he climbed off her shoulder and scurried over to one of the holes, then disappeared inside. Returning a few minutes later the monkey and Maddie looked each other in the eyes intently for a few moments.
"The tunnel goes down at an angle before opening up in to a massive, circular tunnel that seemed to be cut right into the rock," she said. "He didn't see any creatures, though."
Despite the lack of any obvious threat, they decided to return to the farm. Shapiro's first analyses should be done by time they got back, and they still hadn't visited the survey camp.
Upon returning to the farm, things seemed just as they had left them. They headed over to the tent Shapiro had commandeered, and Ralph and Colt went inside. A set of numbers was flashing on the viral analyzer, and one of the massive tomes that came with it was open on the table.
Ralph noted a few drops of blood on a trunk next to the table. Opening it cautiously, he was taken aback. Ralph had seen dead bodies before. Hell, he'd made some of them dead. But this, this was.... something different. The trunk was filled with what appeared to be human bones, still glistening wetly, and a skull. There were no signs of any clothing or anything else that might identify who the person was.
From the edge of the shanty Kazin's voice boomed. "You have returned. Are you back to remove the white surveyors from their camp?"
Colt and Ralph emerged from the tent and told the ladies what they had seen. Vivienne and Maddie went into the tent to see if they could make sense of the analyzer results while Ralph and Colt stood watch outside. The book was indeed open to the page associated with the number show on the Viral Analyzer.
Yellow Death.
The facts looked grim. No cure. Death in less than 48 hours.
The book did provide instructions for making a serum, however, and the ingredients seemed to be available in the kit. But it would only make a dozen or so doses, and they would only slow down the effects.
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