TIME Early August, deep in Green Hell LOCATION The jungle trail south of Last Hope
BACKGROUND:
Saul had them moving south into the deep jungle at a steady pace, fatigued, insect-bitten, and-so far-in one piece.
That didn’t last.
WHAT HAPPENED
A pair of hooded figures leading heavily laden mules crossed their path at one point – drug runners, Saul reckoned, from the smell of spearmint masking something worse and the V-shaped cuts in nearby trees used to bleed them for Basura, the raw, concentrated precursor to Twitch.
Nobody wanted the confrontation; both parties gave each other a wide, wary berth and kept moving.
Saul peeled off from the group for a minute, unbothered.
“I’ll need to take a break – fertilise the plants. The Cutters Inn has a fine spicy enchilada. Had too many. Just stick to the trail, it’s fine for the next mile or so. I’ll catch up.”
A fallen tree blocked the trail not long after – too big to climb, too wide to easily go around.
While Saul scouted a way past it, a wild boar burst out of the undergrowth, gored Raven in passing, and barrelled into a bear trap hidden in the brush beyond.
Saul drew his machete and moved in to put the animal out of its misery.
“Better end its misery – also good for dinner, I think”
was as far as he got before a wall of fog rolled up out of nowhere and swallowed him whole, his voice cut off mid-word.
What came out of the fog for Raven was worse than anything in the trap: an 8′ hag, iron teeth bared, claws already slick with blood that wasn’t hers.
It raked her once, badly, and vanished back into the fog before she could land a return blow – carrying Saul’s limp body with it.
Krusha pushed into the fog after her and found a half-eaten corpse – not Saul, something that had been there a while, gutted and refilled with animal viscera as some kind of lure. Raven, following close behind, put her own foot straight into a second bear trap and went down hard, only for Krusha to shatter the trap’s jaws open with a word of KemerLexi’s power before the hag could circle back.
There was no sign of Saul beyond drag marks and the sound of something large retreating deeper into the jungle.
Whatever had taken him wasn’t coming back for a second course tonight.
The Agents made the hard call, gathered what was left of the mule train, and moved on without their guide – if he wasn’t already dead, he’d have to make his own way out.
That evening brought a storm unlike any of them had seen – lightning flashing an unmistakable purple-amethyst, the mules half-mad with fear, the jungle’s whole chorus of animals shrieking along with the thunder.
Ash felt something under the strange light she couldn’t quite name – anger, danger, and a kind of invigorating vitality all at once.
Barking dogs led them to a village showing no light at all except one flickering, hastily extinguished window – Kenbro, a settlement of storm-battered zealots who didn’t seem thrilled to have visitors, but let them in out of the rain regardless.
EXTRAS.
OPEN THREADS
- Saul is gone – taken by a hag deep in the jungle. Fate unknown.
- Purple lightning, seen once before over the Kenbro region, now confirmed real and not a trick of the canopy.