>>5731751“Got it.” You start walk over to 19 and Giru, but as you do, you focus on your sense of smell, too. While you didn’t really take note of it at first, with most of the scents tending towards metallic and dusty and just the slightest hint of ozone, there is a curious… fish oil-like scent? Glancing in the direction of where it’s strongest, you notice a small puddle of some kind of fluid underneath the remnants of a large alien vehicle. Approaching, you see that the puddle is the result of a leak from some it… yet this becomes significantly more ominous as the hole the leak is coming from looks like it was torn, almost… bitten, open? If you were to guess, you might even say it looks like something delivered by some large predator.
That’s… not good. Clear implication is that something might try to go after vehicles for their fuel, or something. ‘Ghost Pepper to Momma Bird. Someone should keep an eye on the ships, just in case any of the wildlife here attempts to use them as new chewtoys. Over.’
‘Copy that, Ghost Pepper. Just-’
The stronger Ki signature you felt before is on the move. Not quite headed towards you all just yet, but it IS trying to get closer, circling over in a different direction, and then stopping. You and Maple share a glance, then a nod, and you sneak off in the thing’s direction. Crossing elevated streets and tall buildings, you get to an area near the edge of a ruined section of the city, a crater in the distance. Flying low and keeping to stealth, you finally catch glimpse of the thing you’d been sensing.
A mechanical life form like the birds you saw just a bit ago, but with black, almost bat-like wings attached to a black, purple, and silver body, four sturdy legs with very large claws on them, head with prominent “ears” of a sort that lean into the bat-like wings, but the noticeable tail almost bringing it closer to that of a… dragon, kinda. It first slowly walks on four legs, but then leans up onto two and places its left front limb on the side of a building. Its head tilts with curiosity in the direction of the landing site, and it brings its other limb close to it, tapping its chin with one of its claws. It… vocalizes something, but the vocalization comes off more like a series of beeps and static rather than any words as you can recognize.
Still. This bat-dragon-bot thing is showing clear intelligence, but nothing resembling malice, at least not initially. Do you risk attempting to contact it yourself? Or just relay everything back to Maple? Or… maybe you can keep yourself hidden and observe some more, see what it’s planning.
(cont.)
