As Rho-Hux confronted the Sect group, the offensive through the woods raged on. Off in the distance a section of the woods burned an angry, weltering orange as vehicular weaponry and shrieking mortar shells devoured foliage and infantry forces alike. The dialogue between purple, yellow, and white weapon flashes against the blue, green and orange had momentary stalled as a partially scourged open stretch of the woods became the site of another massive firefight. Gourlan’s advance had stalled but the woods weren’t any less alive with activity than they were before. 

Through the shaded paths winding deeper into the heart of the Sprawls, the parasitic drones sent Zsresrinn found a foreboding, maze-like path where the mist hung heavy and the light barely reached. Bumpy and uneven terrain forced them to travel up and down an irregular topography defined by dense roots that crept over the path and sudden ditches in the earth. Footsteps and the scents associated with them could be detected; primarily troops from what could be discerned but a closer look revealed those of indigenous life forms – clearly making usage of a pathway that was increasingly revealing itself as a connecting pathway to other hideouts in the Sprawl.

Advancing further would cause the shared sensory link with the parasites to blur; a static not electric but somatic, causing the link between creator and drone to weaken as they neared the edges of control range. It couldn’t be said that was entirely the reason as to why however. A piercing, synthetic shriek roared through the thick foliage and the vision and hearing of the creatures momentarily blanked from a bright blue-white flash of light, silhouetting trees and leaves in a bright flash. Chitters, roars, and crumpling leaves could be heard in their wake as wiry, serpent-like shapes scattered through the woods, running towards and over the parasites in a wild, frenetic stampede.  The sound of the unseen weapon firing was audible and visible from the distance; an angry burst of light that crept out of the depths of the Sprawl’s darker pathways yet did not truly leave it.

The creatures however, were unheard and unseen amidst the radiance. Most of the parasites sent out by Zsresrinn had been crushed in their frenetic stampede yet it is one that was impossible to hear over the monstrous, roar. It wasn’t what most would pay attention to. 

Breaking from the tree cover, an enormous globule of radiant angry blue-white soared overhead. It seemed almost liquid like, a gigantic raindrop-like mass of coalescing, fleshy, warping energy not of this world. A distant chill crept across skin and carapace alike as distant waves of ethereal radiation washed over them; not enough to be dangerous but it seemed to caress them with a tender, hungry lustfulness as the globule descended towards the armoured column.

An explosion just a little less radiant than the burst that had sent it forward erupted in the woods, flattening trees and swallowing the flashing lights of weaponfire in a horrific bluish-white. Drifting clouds of an algae-like foggy blue hung as sporadic, intermittent weapons fire from the insurgents kicked up.

Their coms began to buzz, static washing through but not overwhelming the voice calling.

[color=f7941d]<How quaint; the very void-howitzers the League sold to us are now being turned on us.>[/color] A cruel laugh broke out from Gourlan, followed by a shrieking series of weapon discharge. [color=f7941d]<I hate to demand this of our guests, but would you mind dealing with this hopefully trivial matter?>[/color]

As the wash of spectrometric strangeness began to die down, the remaining two parasite-drones would have their psycho-somatic link re-established and repaired to Zsresrinn. As the stampede had ended, sight though not scent of the strange, unidentified creatures had been lost as they scattered into the woods. Yet they weren’t the only ones moving; air pressure sensors and their other longer-distance detection measures would notice other shapes moving in the wood. Yet they only needed their eyes to see something larger and multi-limbed shambling across the hill over which the void-howitzer had fired. It was too dark to make out its particular shape, too well hidden even in this frenzied moment, but a particular fresh, wet smell reeked from its body. 

More importantly, the drones had established at least the rough general location of where the howitzer likely was and as they were still active, could keep an eye on the area for beast or soldier within the area. They hadn’t been detected, at least, not the living ones.