Quoted By:
^
>Crossing DMZ
>100
>Reward later, along with Degrees of Success Total
>Crossing treeline
>+1 Degree Success
Flushing smoke through the chimneyholes has two effects: immediately, it puts the Bugz on alert so that they watch the area the smoke's coming from, thinking the Rheas will come out from there. With this distraction, the Rheas could appear another place with less notice, OR, waste the Bugz time and energy then appear close by, when they've assumed that the Rheas already snuck through.
The delayed effect was, the smoke had hotty peppery stuff mixed in that made your eyes water. As it drifted with the wind into the forest, the Bugz stationed in there get hazed.
It does some good: some of the Bugz have moved higher up the trees or away from your point of entry, and quite a few of the ones left expose themselves when they periodically sputter their wings; Buggy sneezing.
You want to kill a few eazy ones, 3v1, but the Scouts say best not. Hive types and certain beetl n carrion types can mist stink when they die messy; it gets the rest of their type that's close by riled to swarm. You'll have to get your kills later, when you have them all together.
°°°
>Bug Patrols
>+3 Degrees of Success
The Scouts want to move by day, so that they can see the Bugz just as well as the Bugz can see back. You accommodate, for now; they think YOUre just a Rhea Reffijjee with Turns. You're not about to spoil a lie that took so much effort to make, least ways when your Dark-Peek's not absolutely needed.
You watch the Scouts take point, picking up what they do. They listen more than look: for fast rustles in the leaf litter, for the thrum of wings. It's an iffy way to go about things; while the wind is carrying your way you use your schnozz.
Bugz have another kind of smell entirely, pretty noticeable, all over the place in this forest. It smells like roaches and cracked ants a little, a bit waxy like good candles. You can pick out the big concentrations fairly easily; you steer the Scouts away from them, no explanations. After a look between themselves they accept your input, make detours.
Your advice pays off: far off behind, the place you marked, there's a crash and at least two voices trill-screeching. Bugz; hunting or squabbling. The Scouts take your call-outs seriously after that.
After some hours you're at a staging point: a fallen hollow tree, with one end sunk into a pocket lake, stuck in the mud.
The Scouts skip stones across the water; a Rhea game, looks like. Then there's a dim light coming out from the sunken end of the tree. You're hustled into it: a sloshy sewerage along the riverbed with some headroom for air, leading into a waterlogged cavern of spell-shaped stone.
A smuggler's harbor.
A short rest later, you get the map drawn out for you, with the smuggler's harbor as the starting landmark.
The Scouts will be heading back. The Drood that keeps this place will be station here.
After this you're on your own.
>cont in 14hrs
