“Sounds like Dean’s got a handle on things,” you say.
Tom Tenth still isn’t happy, but he relents. He brings the shield closer to land, and he and Jackson get off. You and Mary pull down your goggles, since the extended vision won’t do you much good in the underbrush.
It’s much as Dean said; the few animals you see are tiny, and they flee deeper into the brush when they spot. There are still a fair number of mangled carcasses scattered around, but Dean glances at a few and concludes they’re victims of the rain.
It unsettles you a little how readily everyone avoids saying “spawn”.
Still, the trip is generally uneventful… until you find the carcass of a significantly larger animal. Tom Tenth is more than a little unnerved.
“Dean,” he says. “Are you going to tell me that’s not unusual?”
“It certainly is,” Dean says. “As best as I can tell, this is some kind of bear corpse. But that’s odd, there aren’t any bear species in the swamp…”
“We should get out of here,” Tom says.
“Well, it seems to be another victim of the rain. It’s odd that it’s here, but it doesn’t really indicate any particular danger…”
“What if there’s more of them around? We don’t know how this one got here, what if more of them came after the rain stopped?”
“Gonna have to go with Tom here,” Walter says. “I don’t think we can take a bear down quietly.”
“Well, let’s see what we’re dealing with if we leave before we make that decision,” Mary says, putting her goggles back in place and poking her head out into the swamp. You follow her lead and see what you can spot.
What do you see?
Suggestions:
shit! the marshguards are right there! they didn’t see you, so you slink back into the brush holding a finger to your mouth to signal the others.
It’s a small group, 3-4 scouting for you guys possibly…it might be to your advantage if you could take them out. You don’t want too much noise, but having a group not check in could help pull attention away from a possible attack on the base.