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The group had slowed to a stop and dispersed, but Lani couldn’t find hide nor hair of the old monkey. In the chaos she’d been separated from her little pack of wild dog. She was surrounded by lions. The handful of leopards set her teeth on edge even worse. She wanted nothing to do with the thicket of trees. Searching for the other canines was her only priority now, bugger the clues!

Lani slunk between the lions, keeping low in attempt to seem unnoticeable. A difficult thing to do with such a bright pelt. But her ears were back and her tail tucked. If anyone glanced at her, she’d seem as nonthreatening as absolutely possible. If the monster appeared, though…

Something slithered across her paw.

Lani yipped in surprise and leapt back,” The monster!”

No. No. It was just a snake.

Lani grinned sheepishly and ducked her head,” Thank the stars.”

As Margulis approached the small crease in the tree, it became apparent it was hiding something. There seemed to be a rather large shape wedged into the cracks, preventing light from hitting the other side of the trunk. But as her paw moved around, trying to fish the object out, a second thing became clear: it was alive.

As soon as one of her claws brushed against the blockage, a little shriek called out and old Ngdere darted from his hiding spot. Seeing that the mob of people had followed him, his eyes went wide and he moved back to his hiding spot. But that wouldn't do either, so he settled on clutching to the green lioness's paws and shivering.

"There he is," Veru chimed, nodding his head in the direction of the lioness who had found him. Unfortunately it wasn't the only secret this thicket held, and several voices were making discoveries all at once.

"Its old blood, calm down," An cautioned Jahina, who had wailed about the splatters. The blonde lioness dropped her nose to the ground, trying to better estimate what sort of blood it was. Time had ruined most of the key identifiers, but it didn't seem to be lion's blood. Her eyes followed the blood trail, watching it splash up the side of one of the trees were a particularly deep gash was made. "Looks like the monster hurt himself thrashing around like that."

"I'll say," Veru whistled, looking at the destruction. "I'm guessing its safe to say that there's only a handful of animals who can make this sort of damage. No of which are particularly ideal to fight."

An flattened her ears, a low sigh escaping her throat. That was for sure. And of these giant animals, almost all of them came armed. Not with teeth or claws, but tusks and horns. Not to mention the size to crush them. Was a small army enough to deal with something like that?

She turned to Veru, but found he was already distracted. He was moving towards Baatar, who claimed to have found some sort of bone. "What is it?"

"A bone," Veru said, restating the obvious. Only the top portion of the white shape could be seen, and after a few hits with his paws it became clear it was not going to easily dislodge from the earth. Veru sighed. At this rate, the kind of bath he was going to need would be legendary.

"Help me dig this thing up," he said to anyone close to him.

Ngdere clutched closer to Margulis's fur. "No, no, no..."

arrow Dig, dig, dig!

Whilst Endesha didn't join in with the actual digging - since there were already two strapping males doing that job she busied herself with spreading the soil they were unearthing out over the ground. If the beast that had caused this destruction wandered back the last thing they wanted was to scramble over piles of soft earth.

She paused to watch Kimaji and gave a small shake of her head. The cub was adventurous. Just like she had been at a youth. She wondered, though, where her parents were. Was she all alone? Still...she seemed in good health and certainly had enough energy to keep up with them all. Whatever her situation was she clearly wasn't suffering for it.

A clod of earth smacked her in the face and she shook the clods free, curling a lip. "Be careful where you're kicking that!"

--

Jemadari sloped closer, moving around the clearing to inspect the broken trees. It was as if a storm had ripped through this section of the trees. He swallowed down his nervousness as he pictured what it could be. Huge, bulky creatures with thick skin and short tempers.

And this damage...

It didn't really look like the type of thing they wanted to be involved in. "Surely something this big wouldn't be comfortable living here," He said after a moment.

Margulis craddled the monkey in close to her as she fell back on her haunches. Of all the things she had thought might be hidden in the tree the monkey was certainly not one of them. She was glad in a way, it meant he was safe at least. Someone else had found bone buried in the site. With chills running down her spine she scooted closer to watch the digging, keeping Ngdere close to calm his protests. "Be careful over there," she warned, "Ngdere seems to think it's dangerous." Of course the monkey was so shaken up she wasn't sure he wouldn't find a butterfly dangerous.

While he was no competition for a pair of strapping male lions, Tahir sauntered his way over to the jutting bone and put his feet to the earth. Those overgrown claws of his made quick work gouging out soil. He was not particularly fond of digging, but the dark lioness seemed uninterested in him, and he’d lost track of Mura while searching for clues. The fog did a terrible job covering scents as well.

He had to do something to prove himself useful to this group and worthy of protection. Tahir would not, could not, fight. Especially not against the creature that did this. Elephant or rhinoceros was a hefty step up from a troupe of baboons. But it was not a “monster.”

No, Tahir was still certain there was nothing supernatural about the goings on, here. Something highly unusual for certain, but this murderer had to be something, something, recognizable.

So Tahir lowered his head and raked furiously at the dirt. The sooner this was over with, the better.

[I'm a newbie]
(( if it's too late to jump in, just let me know and I'll delete my post <3 ))

Saiorse had heard the whispers, the roumers, and the lioness couldn't help but like the idea of testing her mettel against something that sounded straight out of a fairytale. What she hadn't been prepared for was exactly how many others there would be. She had followed along quietly, watching the others, wary and untrusting, but watching was boring. The lioness spat, and made her way toward the group. Dirt was flying everywhere, and soon the hot pink lioness joined in the fray, digging away at the gods only knew what. She prayed that she wouldn't have to talk to anyone, there were far too many men here for her liking. She wasn't exactly a social butterfly, so to speak, but some part of the lioness hoped that someone might say something, at least notice she was there.

Haki ran over and dug furiously at the ground under his feet. Occitionally he'd turn his head towards the leopard that had just decided to pop up near him; but his main attention was on unearthing the bone imbedded in the dirt. So now his paws were not only red, but brown as well? Fun. But at least at the end of the day he'd get to have a nice bath to wash all the muck and grime off his fur. After they found the monster it would be a well deserved bath indeed.

That is, if they survived after finding the monster. Haki shook his head, he couldn't afford to be negitive now. They were getting closer and closer to finding the beast around here and being a scaredy-cat wasn't going to help anyone.