Ambrosia took a deep breath in to steady herself. Ved was right, panicking would not solve the fact that Jessica appeared to be missing, nor would shouting. And Punch had seen her since they arrived back, so she couldn't be too far from camp. Ambrosia slapped her own cheeks hard enough to leave red marks as she prepared herself for what was to come.

Without further preamble, she fetched her crossbow from her tent and her quiver of arrows. [color=#bf9a42][b]“We're going to sweep our boundaries, just like Ved said, but we don't know what's out there so stay within earshot of each other. Every moment is time we lose in finding out if Jay is okay.”[/b][/color] She counted Cash out of the running, considering that he had a pharmacy worth of drugs in his tent and was probably on something at this very moment. Having somebody blundering around in the forest while on drugs, not to mention somebody as gun-happy as Cash, was asking for disaster so he'd have to stay here.

She assumed whoever was going to follow her would as she made her way into the forest methodically. There were many tracks that their group had left in their usual patrols, but she was looking for signs of something more unusual having been in the area. It wasn't long, perhaps a minute or two, before she bent down next to a tree. [color=#bf9a42][b]“Somebody sat here recently. Probably Jay.”[/b][/color] She announced, but the rest of the information she found was concerning. If anyone else were to look, they'd see the obvious tracks of something being dragged through the grass and off into the forest, not hard to miss. Oddly, the fish-line trap she had put up in between the trees in this area was intact, meaning something had managed to circumvent it [i]while[/i] taking Jessica. [color=#bf9a42][b]“The trail leads this way. Be careful.”[/b][/color]

She ducked under the fish line and peered ahead. The path had broken branches, and the grass was flattened where Jessica was being dragged but something seemed off to Ambrosia. The tracks of whatever had Jessica were not readily apparent, save for three odd indentations to each side about five feet away that would sometimes disappear altogether when the gap between trees became closer together. The only thing she knew of that could make tracks like that were usually … much, MUCH smaller in size, at least before the calamity of the mutated monsters made earth a living hell. The thought made her insides churn uneasily. 

Her fears were confirmed when the trees ahead became laden with a sticky white substance. She turned to whoever was following her, and held out a hand for them to stop. [color=#bf9a42][b]“Don't touch the webs. Do not shout. I assume our shouting and arguments led them to our camp where one of them got Jay.”[/b][/color] The webs seemed to lead directly to a large cave about fifty yards down the path, where the density of the webs made the area into a large cocoon-like structure instead of a dirt and rock. She put a hand to her chin, analyzing the situation.

[color=#bf9a42][b]“Anyone got any ideas how to deal with giant mutated spiders? ….And what appears to be a nest of them?”[/b][/color]

The whole trip took perhaps eight minutes tops, yet she was surprised they had never noticed the infestation here. [color=#bf9a42][b][i]“If anything happens to her, I'll never forgive myself.”[/i][/b][/color] Ambrosia whispered as she stared at the monstrous nest of webs before them.