[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/h5xf31C.png[/img][/center][hr][i][b]//Day 3 | Location:[/b] Nameless Forest - Lakeside Camp[/i]
[sub][@AThousandCurses][@Yankee][/sub]
Shun returned without much aplomb, though a couple waved at her when she emerged from the brush. The beginnings of a second shelter was being built now, supervised by Mayumi. No doubt, gender-segregated shelters were going to be a necessity moving forward, in order to prevent the group of students from devolving into unchaste barbarism. Others fashioned together new tools, weaving nets to more efficiently catch fish or watching Hana as she demonstrated the basics of setting up a snare trap. While they were good on food for the time being after Kumi had spent a night cooking up all the monster meat, having more sources was never a bad thing.

And having a chance of stalling a monster, perhaps, wasn’t too bad either.

That, of course, was only one monster though. When Shun marched up to the center of camp and announced the presence of an even larger group of monsters than before, however? The chaos wasn’t instant, but the trepidation was palatable. There were only [i]half[/i] the Awakened in the camp presently, after all. Oros had disappeared, and Asahi and Duncan were both off towards the mountain. With such great numbers…

[b]“A plan’s not going to be enough,”[/b] Hiroshi said, matter-of-factly. [b]“We should act immediately on this. Preparations only matter when the foundations have been laid beforehand.”[/b]

[b]“Isn’t the lake the best we got?”[/b] Ayano spoke up. [b]“If we run away, they’ll just find us again! We can’t even really hide from them, because, you know…”[/b]

They all knew, of course. None of them (except maybe Hana) was a covert specialist. Just by living, by making a fire and building a shelter and cooking food they were attracting attention.

Sohei turned to the sole member of the Aeronautics club, and the girl who was the camp’s principal architect. [b]“Rin, could we build a fort with what we have?”[/b]

She looked at the rest of them, then shrugged. Lifting up a thick log that had been cut for the new shelter, the girl lifted it up and then cracked it over her knee. It splintered, broke, and fell to two halves after a couple attempts.

[b]“A no, then,”[/b] Daisuke said, folding his arms. [b]“We could call back Asahi and Duncan. Shore up our defenses. Then when the monsters come,”[/b] he smacked his fists together, [b]“we give them a reason to leave us well alone.”[/b]

[b]“‘We’? You mean like, five people at best, right?”[/b] Masami was skeptical. [b]“Don’t know if you forgot, but Yuki died because of one of those monsters. And that was when literally every boy in the class was trying to hold it down! What the hell are we going to do when there’s more of them than there are of us?!”[/b]

Daisuke scowled, but Maki stepped on his foot before he could say something he'd regret.

[i]“I don’t want to leave here.”[/i] Yukiko’s own voice was quiet, scarcely heard, overshadowed by Sasuke’s calm tone as he spoke up. [b]“We have enough cooked food to last, and we can bottle up water as well. There’s nothing wrong with breaking camp if the conditions do not favour us.”[/b]

[b]“Christ, you're all making something outta nothing.”[/b] Akito folded his arms, having drifted back to camp after seeing the commotion. [b]“If those monsters were the man-eating type, they’d have attacked last night, right?”[/b]

Mayumi fixed him with a hard stare, then abruptly turned towards Masato. The student council president had been quiet for much of last evening and this morning, no doubt lost in thought regarding matters of leadership, of Oros, of keeping the group together. But if he was going to use his authority, this was perhaps the best time to do it, or everyone was more liable to talk and discuss rather than act.

[b]“Masato? What do you think?”[/b]
[hr][i][b]//Day 3 | Location:[/b] Expedition Through the Nameless Forest[/i]
[sub][@Nakushita][@Vertigo][@baraquiel][/sub]
In truth, none of the trio really understood how things happened.

Certainly, there was no trust between Asahi and Oros, and on the other hand, Duncan was caught between wanting to return to Haruko and wanting to do some generic manly thing so she wouldn’t be disappointed in him. The mountain awaited them all, but it wasn’t as if it would disappear the next day either. With only three Awakened back in camp now, the ‘defenses’ present felt less and less secure. Shun was flighty, no one knew what Rin’s thought process was, and Masato didn’t have any ‘real’ powers outside of his body.

And yet, despite all this, they continued on, conversation fading away as they powered through the wilderness. Forced to go along with Asahi’s pace, being the slowest but most sharp-minded individual in the party, the group navigated through the roots and the dense foliage, their shoes leaving imprints upon the dark soil. There was a musky, earthy scent in the air now, coupled by the sounds of strange animals too distant and distorted to tell the direction of. On occasion, one of the trio had to climb up a tree in order to reorientate the groups direction, keeping an eye on that fang-like mountain in the distance, but while their surroundings continued to take on a gloomier atmosphere…nothing attacked them.

They were alone, indeed, within this forest. Left alone by whatever creatures dwelled within, as they continued to advance for an hour unimpeded, stopping only when a sweet smell entered the air.

Only when ‘forwards’ was blocked not by a wall, but a dense, [i]yellow[/i] fog that smelled of honey and daisies.

Monsters based off of mutated animals were understandable. The Otherside had simultaneously popularized and made taboo such topics, after all. But what on earth was this? Was it safe to breathe? Should they advance, when they would be entirely blinded by it? Was this another monster, or was this a phenomenon of weather in an alien world?