Rho-Hux had taken the lead as he swung into the treetops, swallowed by the cluttered bramble above and the thick shadows cast into the undergrowth the rest of the team crept and trundled. The day was not a bright one and the sunlight that did peek through had a faint, almost silvery colour to it as it peeked through the dense leaves. The ground below was its own maze but the treetops could not be said to be any better. Branches overlapped branches, bushy clusters of fuzzball like flowers competed for the thin beams of light, and dense moss and creeping vegetation colonizes where any rot on wood crept. Progress might be faster through such a path but the treacherous nature of the Sprawls spared through from its obfuscating grasp. 

Traveling through the trees, a particular sensation began to creep and tug at the geatirocht’s senses. Like a faint electrical current that was woven through the air, the residual ether from the howitzer swamped the region around the heavy weapon’s firing pit, densest on the ground as Silver, Paris, and Zsresrinn moved through. Mere tendrils as opposed to the enveloping heat-wave like miasma occupied the upper levels of the wood, whispering the un-logic driven nonsense of the Abzu into quiet, unsuspecting corners of the mind. Below, the afterwash effect was fading but the three-person team, quiet as they were, would not be able to shake the feeling of the seeping, skin-crawling otherworldly power washing over them. 

It was thick enough that Silver’s cloaking system was starting to gather it across his body. Invisible to sight but he would be able to feel it clinging to his armour – patches of piercing cold that dug into the skin and seemed to hum to his head. His armour naturally shielded him, even as the ether in the air slowly waned, but his cloaking system might not shroud him as much as he thought.

To anyone with sufficiently advanced scanning modules for their visors, it would appear that clumps of supernatural waste byproduct were gradually concentrating around an unseen, indefinite shape. That is not what the enormous creature on the ground noticed first however. 

From his perch up high, Rho-Hux would be able to see the enormous predator – low to the ground like a crocodile slithering slowly, its gnarled arms thickening with bony outgrowths and muscle past the elbow as a squirming leech-like creature feebly thrashed against the leaves and the dirt. Gaseous hissing exited its tendril-lined maw, slithering head and serrated paddle tail writhing angrily against rows of interlocking triangular teeth slowly soaking in the blue-green of its blood. It was a large beast, not as dense as Zsresrinn but its body long and streamlined with powerful, brutish muscle and clustered of bony armour-like growth, like some enormous semi-reptilian creature.



[hider=Plough Head]
[img]https://i.ibb.co/86bJy1j/duncanmonstera-by-stephen-0akley-ddut2j0.jpg[/img]
[/hider]


[hider=Leafslither]
[img]https://i.ibb.co/jLJdggm/greybog-leech-by-halycon450-dd4iryy.jpg[/img]
[/hider]


The gealtirocht remained unseen to the creature as its attention turned towards the largest member of the party - Zsresrinn. For a split second, its jaws froze and its long tail with its four gore-drenched tips would rise over it almost snakelike, flickers of flashing red membrane around its four tooth-like prongs flashing at the approaching vrexul. Slowly it began to drag itself backwards, audibly scraping across the leaves and roots as the mechanical clunking of Paris neared.

Subtly, movement could be seen in the bushes. A scent unlike the raw and dry earthiness of the plough-head, wet and slimy like the creature trapped in its jaws. If she or the others could scan the foliage opposite to the plough-head, it was clear that its captive had not been abandoned. Clusters of quiet and creeping leafslithers lay hiding and still, their sickle like claws scraping against the ground as eyeless faces watched the grim spectacle play out before them. The dense ether in the air had marked them out, painting their skin in hues of light blue and yellow that those touched by the Abzu could easily see even through the miasmatic fog.

Were they frightened or were they enraged? They were not leaving one way or the other. 

To the plough head, the Sect team wasn’t a random encounter – these were predators every bit as savage in tooth and claw as any dweller of the forest deep. The meat in its mouth, small as it was, remained its brutal livelihood; the iron-giant that stomped behind the enormous arthropod made it clear these two were in league with one another. It could feel a third, its void-receptive sensory glands detecting a shrouded presence causing its frill-plates around its head and neck to rise.

A deep, sonorous growl began to emerge from its throat, drowning the cries of its victim. Like a faulty heating unit it groaned, morphing ominously into a phlegmy, dragging growl. Too deep to merely be emerging from its mouth but radiating from its heavy body as its tail’s pincer grips grated across tree bark and its mid-limbs gripped into the dirt. It might be stepping back but with its hind legs coiled and tensed, there was no telling how it might react.

This prompted rustling in the leaves above, subtle but unheard amidst the plough head’s defensive response. Rho-Hux would hear the movements then see the leaves shift a few feet ahead of him. More leafslithers – slender bodies snaking through the clutter of branches and leaves, positioning themselves above and around the far larger predator below. One of them rose its head and froze. It did not need eyes for the gealtirocht to tell that it was looking his way, frozen still as if by command as its compatriots paused, hesitating at the sight of an unexpected presence up in the tree tops with them.

As this was ongoing, the surviving drone, re-entering the control range of Zsresrinn, had slowly hovered over the nearby hill. Image quality from the somatic link was erratic but not beyond salvation, even as it neared where the concentration was at its deepest. Sight of the insurgent howitzer pit was achieved – a deep wide depression in the earth, dug into the top of the hill and flattened out with wooden panels and morphic fungal planks. It was quite wide and large, connected to what appeared to be a small shack of some sort, quickly made with rapidly grown and maintain tarrhaidim biomass padding and infested plasteel, sporting a series of small antennae emerging from its slanted rooftop. A few trenches could be spotted around the sides that stretched off across the elevated ground to defensive positions, collapsed tents as well further to the heart of the emplacement. 

The centrepiece however was the void-howitzer itself. The pit was deep enough to support this enormous, semi-cylindrical monstrosity. Its barrel had square-like protrusions apart of a normally cylindrical frame, lined with specialized ether-filtering grates that stopped an inch or so short of its wide mouth. Pointed prong-like appendages stretched out from a few inches behind, stopping over its top and lightly glowing in the dim aftermath of its recent burst. Energy modulation and projectile shaper attachments – high end equipment innocuous at first but capable of turning mere high explosive globs fired from a single charge to a hellish rain of smaller, rapidly launched shells. High tech equipment – a fairly recent invention but not the sort that typically ends up in insurgent hands.

Before the drone slipped away, it could tell that the small artillery position was on alert. A tall, powerful celaderaka encased in metal-laced carapace growled something out and a few tarrhaidim troopers got off of the artillery platform, leaving its computer systems and targeting attachments in exchange for picking up their bioelectric auto-rifles. Two more celaderaka were seen – unlike their leader hefting along what seemed to be an autocannon-derived battle rifle, these two had large and sickle-like blades attached over their left shoulders and dark green camo-patterned armour. Heavy duty shotguns were slung over their shoulders as they cackled and spoke – one of them had a bandolier of heavy duty slugs on his chest, the sort that you didn’t use for hunting, not game animals anyways.

A group of  humans, roughly 12 or so, could be seen, lightly armoured by comparison (reconnaissance or security type armour, little augmentation capability) and with smaller calibre older generation rifles. Most were sitting in a circle around the artillery piece at the bottom of the pit and draped in sweat. A few were popping qillatu-diminisher pills or running checks on the still hot, smoking supernatural howitzer. Around where they were mostly concentrated were a few crates with a peculiar symbol on them – a U-shaped magnet with red and blue tips with a bullet piercing through its lowest end. A few of them were eating some sort of nutrient paste-gruel and one with a notably advanced looking visor, League tech by the looks of it, was moving over to the shed. 

The growl from the plough-head had caught their attention and just before Zsresrinn’s drone vanished, the four tarrhaidim troopers had crept up over the top, rifles raised as they began to slowly advance down the hilltop. The heavy Kevlar like armour they wore and the exoskeletal servos across their arms and legs made it clear they could move quickly and hit hard if they wanted. Yet sharp as they were, the foliage was still thick enough they hadn’t caught sight of the standoff happening down below. 

Given by the size of their rifles and the quiet, professional way they moved from cover to cover, always having one keep an eye out as the other three moved, it was clear it might not be long before they approach. The plough head seemed to notice but it had stopped, frozen in place, huffing coming from behind its jaws as it began to realize what was happening.

The window of opportunity was starting to diminish for the Sect team. Would they take the initiative, fall back, conceal themselves?