[color=ed1c24][center][h2]Akeno[/h2][/center][/color]

Sometimes you could look at something and it would just scream ‘danger’ to you. Maybe it was fear, maybe it was instinct, or maybe it was just plain common sense, as much as people seemed to lack the latter at times; you would just look at something and that little lizard part of your brain at the base of your skull would tell you to stay away.

That’s how Akeno felt looking at the entrance to the cave.

And as much as she wanted to claim it was due to some special instinct of her part, she was pretty sure this was one of those times when it was just common sense.

Why they were walking all this way to try and hunt something they knew nothing about besides a cryptic warning when there were plenty of easier things to hunt closer to camp she didn’t know. It hadn’t been her choice to do so and she had long passed over any chance to voice a proper opposition to the idea by now. Esfir was leading this party and the old Orc had decided they were going to do this, so Akeno had to abide by that for now. They were going to split their group of five into teams, search the area and ambush anything they found; meanwhile, Esfir was going to cover their backs?

Sure.

Akeno looked towards the cave again, the very ominous, dark and imposing cave, and let out a sigh. [color=ed1c24]“Okay. If we’re really doing this and if there really is something in there for us to fight, then I can only see two ways of going about this. Either we go into the dark were [i]it[/i] is…”[/color] She raised a hand and extended a finger to point directly at the mouth of the cave. [color=ed1c24]“… or we lure it out to where [i]we[/i] are.”[/color] The Orc jabbed her finger towards the ground in front of her. [color=ed1c24]“I vote for the second one.”[/color]

Lowering her hand, Akeno looked around at the others to gauge their reactions. [color=ed1c24]“Even if it’s asleep right now we still need to light torches so we can see and if that doesn’t wake them then the five of us stumbling around will.”[/color] Her old body had been athletic and with that she supposed came a certain amount of coordination, but that didn’t mean she trusted herself to be able sneak around in the dark without making a sound. Her [i]new[/i] body was not athletic and she was sure she would make some noise if she tried.

She didn’t even bother to ask if the others thought they could.

[color=ed1c24]“Even if we could sneak up on it, we don’t know what [i]it[/i] is, how many there are or if we could kill it before it wakes up. If things go bad, there’s only one way out and we’d have to hope it isn’t faster than us. But if we can set up an ambush out here and then lure it out into the open, we can at least see what we’re fighting and it’ll be up to us where and when we fight. [i]And[/i] we’ll have an easier time escaping if we need to run.”[/color]

Somewhere in the middle of her proposal a new message appeared in whatever video game-esque system they were working with. They’d levelled up; some combination of the fight, learning a new skill and maybe exploring new areas had given them enough experience to hit a new milestone. Looking over the options presented, Akeno weighed her choice before committing to one.

[color=ed1c24][i]I’ll take the stamina upgrade. It’ll let me use my skills for longer and maybe it’ll help me run away when this mess goes bad.[/i][/color]

[@Zeroth][@Unkown58][@Lucius Cypher][@Kazemitsu][@Crusader Lord]