"What's going on?" asked Pagan once he caught up to Lucius.
"Security threat," Lucius replied, his eyes scanning the forest for any trace of Alpha and his squad.
"Are they the ones from the old camp?" Pagan responded, suddenly on high alert as he began looking around as if to see whether they were already closing in on them.
"No, something else. We've never encountered anything like this before. But they're capable of flight, so they're probably going to be harder to deal with," Lucius replied.
"They? How many did you find?" Pagan asked, already wheezing from exhaustion.
~He's going to be the first to evolve but even Ghost has more stamina than him,~ Lucius noted, side-eying Pagan as he spoke.
"I only saw one. But it's safe to assume that there are more of them close by. That's why I want all of you to hide while I deal with them," he responded, zipping past a cluster of bushes.
"You...you think you can take them all by yourself?" Pagan asked, practically gasping for air.
[+3 Stamina.]
"I don't know yet, but it's safer if I approach them alone."
After searching for several minutes, they finally found the group resting a few meters away from the river.
"Oh, it's you, Captain. We were wondering what was approaching," said Alpha once Lucius and Pagan arrived in front of the group, his body visibly relaxing.
"I spotted a creature west of the camp, I need you guys to return while I do a thorough search of the area," Lucius replied.
"A creature? We've been searching around here since yesterday, quite thoroughly in fact. And we haven't come across anything," Alpha responded, already on high alert.
"Since yesterday?"
"Yeah. I couldn't fall asleep without making sure that we were safe. So while we were on guard duty last night, we did a search. I'm not going to let things repeat themself," he said, a fierce look in his eyes. "But if you spotted a creature, then maybe we did miss something," he continued.
"Hmm, then that means it really did fly here. Then it's probably alone I suppose. But we should still head back to the camp in case," Luicius proposed.
The group ran back to the camp posthaste. Once they got back, they found the leaflings grouped up a bit in front of the shed. Whispering excitedly amongst themselves.
"What are you guys doi-"
"Lighted One, look. It's injured," one of the leaflings shouted out once it noticed Lucius and the rest of the group emerging from the forest.
Lucius was dumbstruck. Just how in the world.
"Get away from it!" he shouted, running in front of the group before standing between them and the thing they were surrounding. It was the insectoid, it must've followed him back to the camp.
"Alpha, take the leaflings into the forest. This camp isn't safe anymore," Lucius ordered, however, Alpha didn't move, for some reason, he was frozen still.
"Alpha!"
"It's friendly," one of the leafings tried protesting, but Lucius wasn't having any of it. Just how did they get 'friendly' out of an unknown creature? You'd think that their first instinct would be to run once they came across it.
"Captain, they're right. It's not hostile," Alpha whispered after a moment.
"How can you be so sure?" Lucius asked, still on high alert.
"These things come around once a year to bless the pods. They are... they help with the birth of new leaflings," Pagan answered instead, walking past Lucius to get a closer look at it.
"Exxor," the creature said as Pagan approached it.
"We must help it Lighted One," Pagan said, turning to look at Lucius.
~What?~
Lucius stopped to look around him for a moment and found that everyone seemed to be relatively calm about it. Ghost, Alpha, and Pagan in particular seemed to be quite comfortable going up to the creature.
"You've seen it before?" he asked, after calming down.
"Only from afar, I've never been this close to one. But I can assure you that it means us no harm," Pagan replied as he inspected its wound.
"So what? It's like a pollinator? Is that how leaflings are born?" Lucius asked in confusion, getting a little closer as well.
"Ahh, not exactly," Alpha responded, his facial expression showing that he was a little uncomfortable.
"It's going to die if we don't do something," Pagan interrupted before Alpha could give a proper response. And he was right, the creature was hardly moving right now, and its feelers were drooped to the ground.
~But even if it's not hostile, how are we gonna save it? I'm no insect doctor,~ he thought to himself. However, it seemed the leaflings would not accept that as an answer, as they stared at him with pleading eyes.
"Okay get back, I'll see what I can do."
Lucius rushed to grab a blade of grass from the supplies area before quickly tearing off a piece of leaf from a nearby shrub. Once he returned to the creature, he slowly placed the leaf on the site of the wound, to which it stuck like glue due to the hemolymph.
The creature's feelers shot up, and it jerked back in response, but quickly calmed down once it saw the alert expression on Lucius's face. Regardless of what the leaflings said, he still didn't properly trust the thing.
"Calm down now, let's not make things too difficult. I'm just trying to help," he said slowly, before pressing the piece of leaf flat on the wound.
"Peroc," the creature replied, its body easing down.
"Good. Now I'm doing this to stop the... bleeding? Whatever you call this. I don't know if it will work-" as he said this he began to tear the blade of grass into smaller strips, "but I might as well try," he continued, before tying the smaller strips around the leaf to create a makeshift bandage.
"There," he sighed once he was done. It worked well enough as the liquid stopped pouring out of its thorax, however, the creature still looked weak. If he left it like this it would probably still meet its fate.
"Water, I need water," he realized, looking around for anything he could carry water in.
"How the hell am I gonna give it water?" he wondered, before looking back at the creature.
"Ugh," he sighed reluctantly, rushing to retrieve a sled.
"I'm going to take you to the river, just bare with me," he said slowly, before carefully trying to lift the creature off the ground.
~It's pretty light for its size,~ he thought to himself as he hauled the creature off the ground. The creature's body tensed up in response, perhaps due to the sudden jolt of pain. But once it was on the sled it calmed down again, and stared at Lucius as if waiting for more instructions.
"Here we go," he huffed, tugging at the rope and pulling as carefully as he could.
"Ederr," the creature screamed. The forest floor was not exactly a smooth road, so as Lucius pulled the sled it bounced up and down, probably causing the creature some discomfort.
"You're light, but not light enough to carry till the river mate. You'll just have to tough it out." Lucius said in a sort of soothing tone.
The leaflings followed close behind him, offering words of encouragement to the insectoid.
~Why are they acting like best friends?~ Lucius wondered to himself. It all felt unnatural. The fact that they were so easily accepting of a creature they hardly knew. However, he did wonder if perhaps his old memories and knowledge were interfering with his natural instinct to be accepting of the creature.
*
"Okay, here we are," Lucius sighed, his arms and legs burning from the mini-workout.
[+10 Stamina.]
[+19 Strength.]
"Take a sip," he said after stretching his arms a little. However the creature just stared at him, a sort of helpless gleam in its eyes.
"Drink. Don't you drink water?" he asked, however, the creature did not even respond.
He had assumed that since it was an insect-based creature, it would require water. After all, it only made sense that water could help it replace its lost hemolymph. But maybe he was wrong.
~Maybe it's too weak to get the water on its own?~ he assumed, before dipping his hands into the gushing river.
"Ooop," he whispered, quickly catching himself from nearly being dragged along with the current. For a moment he had forgotten just how light he really was. He tried again, this time faster, and managed to scoop out a handful of water before quickly offering it to the creature.
The creature accepted the gesture, opening its mouth before a tongue-like mouthpiece emerged and sucked down the water.
"Entor," the creature said after it was finished. Lucius assumed that it wanted more and scooped out yet another handful. This went on several more times until the creature stopped sucking the water, at which point he assumed it was satisfied.
