Settlement in the wilds! Who wants to go?

[Speeder]

"Yes please. If I used my water move, we could kiss the village goodbye!"

[Nasari]

((Speeder, Nasari is currently an hour away from the settlement! How would you find her and the lizard-person so fast?))

"Thanks. Haven't had a drink in two weeks, and I'm feeling a little thirsty. Yeah, I said two weeks. My kind gets most of their water from their food."

Nasari telekinetically took the canteen and took a swig.

"I'm also a little hungry. I brought a bag full of candied woodbeetle larvae if you want some. Careful, they're extremely sugary and a little messy. They've been gutted, filled with fruit preserves, and coated with melted and hardened sugar. Here, have a grape one."

She took out a grape-flavored larva and tossed it to the lizard-man, and then she took out an orange flavored one for herself.

[the Drazilim]

"Why, thank you," the Drazil said.

He takes the food item, and smells it to detect if there are any poisons or toxins in it. In his head he hears, "It analyses out OK, #3. by the way, #1 says to find out what it is and to learn what you can about the surroundings, but above all, lead it away without raising suspicions.)

The Drazil eats the candied woodbeetle larvae . He enjoys the taste, The Central Mother shares the taste and enjoyment with the whole colony.

The strong, dark Drazil says to Nasari: "I do not wish to be rude, but I would really prefer it if you would be willing to leave this area. My family and I have set up a little homestead not far from here and we are concerned for the safety of our young. We are very private, and strangers make our kind uncomfortable. Your presence would make my children very upset. If I walked with you a ways, perhaps you could share with me a little about yourself, and about this part of the forest, and then I would know where you lived, and maybe we could come and visit you sometimes."

He stands up and starts to indicate to Nasari the direction they should walk.

Inside, at Comm/Ops, there is much laughter, as #6 has taken a still photo of #3's dorsal vent as he stoop up from on top of the environmental viewer. Enlargements, will undoubtedly adorn the bulletin board near the workout gym area when #3 returns from his patrol shift.

"Perhaps we could start with introductions, I am Trece, who and what are you?"

#3 walks a couple of steps and encourages Nasari to follow.

Three unseen observation cameras, a remotely targetable disruptor cannon, and two sets of unseen eyes follow after them, without moving visibly.

(Colony communications have taken place via sub-space biologically based dimensional carrier wave, and are not detectable by "telepathy", and vice versa.)

[Nasari]

"Well, to start with, my name is Nasari. I am a sentient kind of wasp called a Kihunter. The majority of another sentient race, called humans, generally are pretty leery of my species. Probably because we have abilities that most of them would deem rather.... bizarre. Not to mention that to them, we look pretty scary. They aren't familiar with talking to four foot long insects with poisonous stingers and huge claws."

Nasari's wings began to cramp up, and she flapped them, forgetting about her injury to one of them. Her wing began to burn like fire. She hissed in pain.

"Oww... Don't worry about me, that should heal in about three days. Anyway, I'm getting hungry for some real food. I'll go pick some fruit, and in the meantime, show you which fruits and stuff to stay away from and what's safe."

She walked over to a bluish-leaved bush with fat pink round berries.

"Yeah, they look tempting, but DO NOT EAT THEM UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. The juice is almost purely made up of a chemical found here called alcohol, and just one of these can cause erratic behavior and clouded judgement just with the juice. We call that state 'drunk'."

[the Drazilim]

Op/Comm center passed the info about the berries on to the rest of the colony.

Several chants of "Woo Woo Woo" went up from the Soldier/workers in the training gym as the availability of booze in this world was revealed.

Not the reaction #3 might have hoped for...

Outside

"Trece" (a name he had made up on the spot) continued to walk with Nasari
"What about those little brown and tan birds, are they sentient? We try not to feed on sentient beings.

They keep on walking

[Nasari]

"Oh, sparrows? Nah, they're not sentient. Tasty, but not very filling. Now you see that animal over there?"

Nasari pointed to a deer.

"Those guys are delicious. They're common game here. Only problem is their senses of hearing and smell. Deer are next to impossible to sneak up on. You're gonna need a gun or bow to get one."

Soon Nasari heard whimpering. She looked in its direction and saw a wolf lying on the ground with a gunshot wound to the stomach. There were two pups nearby. She was dying. Luckily, Nasari had not lost her ability to communicate with other animals, like humans did.
[]=Nasari
{}=Wolf

[What happened?]

{That does not matter. What does matter is that this has been my fate for many years. I had dreamt of this day since I was young. I had also dreamt that two kind souls would look after my pups. This is the day that my dreams come true...}

Those were the mother's last words. After saying her piece, she was gone. Nasari hung her head.

"We need to take the babies. She said that she saw two people in her dreams that would take them and raise them. Both are females."

She picked up one and placed her on her back.

[the Drazilim]

The information about the "sparrow" bird was relayed to a group of the "young" for a training exercise. Seeing as Nasari had not commented about it, perhaps he did not see it, but a few moments after the comment was made and as the two walked on towards the deer and then the wolves, a barely visible camoflaged shadow of a small lizard, shot from a nearby tree branch and bit the sparrow in the back of the neck, snapping it's neck cleanly. There was a flurry of skink lizard sillouettes attacking the sparrow body from all sides, and devouring the flesh. As scrap flesh and bones began to fall, other small lizard silhouettes with wing webbing stretched teradactyl like from their forelimbs shot from nearby trees and intercepted much of it and disappeared. What made it to the ground was quickly set upon and consumed by a couple of other skink lizard shadows. In about three seconds, every indication that there had ever been a bird there at all was gone. Suddenly, a small lizard was visible standing where the sparrow had been, then just as suddenly, it shape shifted into a "sparrow", replaceing the earlier one. It flew off and as it passed by a neighboring tree, it disappeared from view.

The training exercise was over-

"Very good in general. good swift kill, point man. but, What was that supposed to be, shifter, you were clearly visible before the shift was made, how many times do I have to tell you, you have to be faster about that. You shift at the exact moment you drop your chamoflage, you can't be seen or you will give everything away. Work on that"

Similarly the info about the deer had been passed along and a group of soldier/workers were already planning strategy for a hunt.

#3 watched Nasari with the pup. His first thought was about the taste of tender flesh. However, realizing that the young animal was definately a predatory one, he thought that perhaps it could be trained into something useful.

"I guess that I could take one too." He said "She looks wild, but do you think that I could train it to protect my wife and family?

Internally, #3 heard:
"Coil doors established and mapped, sir, considering that this location has been compromised, we had to reverse terminus. Head quarters has already been relocated to the other end of the coil. It is about a half a click from a very large city. When you return you will be able to detect the "door" location, you know how to activate it, and we will keep on monitoring you, but we are currently receiving a transmission from the home world which we are still processing. Our arrival here was not an accident. I'll fill you in on the details when you get back."

Giving no outward indication he had heard any message, #3 went over to the she-wolf pup and began to scratch it's neck.

"Oh, little one, your life is about to become very different"

[Nasari]

"Yeah, you can tame these guys. Humans did it thousands of years ago. You're gonna have to keep her occupied, it's in her DNA to be playful and social."

Nasari's stomach rumbled.

"I'm hungry for some meat. I'm gonna see if I can get us a deer or something."

Nasari walked away from Trece, until she found a deer. She silently climbed a tree nearby and crawled from tree to tree until she was directly above the young buck. Then she dropped down, decapitating it in one swift stroke of a claw. She picked it up and slung it over her back. She began the trek back to Trece.

"I'm baaack! Miss me?"

Nasari dumped the carcass on the ground.

"Want some? Hope you don't mind it raw, 'cuz that's how we're gonna eat it."

[the Drazilim]

"Raw is my favorite" #3 replied, "Mind if I tear off a leg? my saliva is highly infectious, and we shouldn't share directly.

He does so, with his claws, and tears off a piece for his wolf cub, shreads the meat finely and feeds her (quite caringly for a species that often seems so brutal.)

"Are there other sentient species in these woods? Perhaps after our meal, you could take me to meet some of your friends,... or," with a leering smile, "or, your enemies..."