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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Warbringer" data-source="post: 3569208" data-attributes="member: 14391">Prelude - Hunting PartyRe'laak'hak snaked silently through the undergrowth, barely disturbing the ferns and giant broad leaves of the jungle floor. Nearby, almost invisible as himself, six of his hatch-brothers stalked prey with him. The brood was hungry, with over two hundred new ravenous mouths to feed. The hatchings would grow quickly, becoming strong warriors before ten seasons of the eternal rain. Not that many of them would live anywhere near that long; it was not an uncommon practice for the lizardfolk to eat there young when food was scare. But, for now, food was readily available: puma, the birds with the colorful plumes, the small dinosaurs that followed the flowing river, even a stray dark skinned drow had fed the brood this hatching season. The shaman had indeed performed the breeding rituals well this year and The Hunger had as yet not come.The lizardman paused, his swishing tale signaling the others to do likewise. The smells were strange, not of the jungle. Some smells reminded him of the dark skinned ones that claimed the jungle their own, other smells told of humans that came from the broken city on the edge of jungle on the edge of the river that never ends. But the strongest smell, a smell like hard wet stone after a storm overpowered them all. The smell spoke of killing and death without reason. Re'laak'hak was almost back from his turn on the hunt. He could see the clearing just beyond the great broad leaves and the ancient ruins that housed the brood. He considered just sprinting across the clearing; he could possibly cross the open distance and warn the others, but he could not take the risk. The smell of the death must be stopped; it must not find the brood. Even ones that smelled like the drow were attempting to flank the ruins didn?t matter; only the smell of death.With a flick of his great tail, he signaled ambush, and silently three of his brothers dropped to the jungle floor, shifting in color form muddy brown to avocado green and disappearing into the jungle floor. Beside him his hatch brothers took their positions about him, like the points of an arrow head, with Re?laak?hak in its center. Following his lead, his other brothers took advance positions from the arrowhead and shifted in color, but before they vanished, they quickly set in place invisible trip wires at the center of the ambush.Re'lakk'hak and his brothers reached into their quivers and pulled out two quall'th each; the quall'th were killing arrows, rather than hunting arrows, their tips covered with the poison of the spotted toadstool that the shaman harvested. The arrows were good only for killing, the venom powerful enough to fell the largest of prey, but the toxin toughened the meat and caused it taste bad. No, thought the Re'lakk'hak as he notched an arrow, the quall'th were only good for killing.Towards them, death walked to its doom.</blockquote>

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