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"M'kay..." Shouyin cocked his brow a little but figured things safe enough to slip the pistol back into its holster. He still held the knife in his left, but now that was a just a safety precaution in case they got jumped. He'd move to her left side, starting off in the direction of the Field of Stumps before pausing and turning back to her.

"D'you need a hand or anything?"

[From: Lower Dam, several hours ago.]
It was dark. Physical nightime, chilly air: but where Jacob Bails lay now, there was no light at all. The wind whispered in his face and ears, and the only noise was an occasional groaning.

He noticed his lower half was wet, freezing cold water. That worried him, because he destinctly remembered something huge charging him, while he stood like an idiot in front of a several hundred foot tall wooden dam. On his side, it was perfectly dry, the wood of the dam barely soaked.

The next two minutes came back in unsteady blocks, assembling like a poor game of tetris. It came right at him, alright, and he-- along with several other men-- had been pitched clear into the air by its murderous charge. He'd seen and felt blood at the time. That was the memory which made him sit up, and hit his head on the heavy wooden piece which was above him and blocking out the night. It was a few more moments before he hauled himself out from under the improvised lean-to, stood, and checked himself over.

Largely, he was fine. All his equipment for battle was physically strapped to him. His only firearm fired sealed ammunition, so it being soaked didn't largely matter. The radio was toasted... but he knew exactly where he was.

A dump-truck, twisted over on its side, was nestled in the trees not far away, where the driver had left it. That man was probably dead.

Jacob sighed, and started on the long walk home. Hopefully the main camp and fuel depot had faired better.
[To: Fuel Depot (Ruins)]

"You want me to drive through that?"

"Yep."

"Insane ******** yes, but you're still going to do it."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Never said you had to."

"To hell with you."

They had drove along a path that the lumbers would have taken to cut down trees when they came to the river. It was no longer dried out, no, instead it was filled with water and some debre had fallen. Thankfully most of it had flooded away while others had piled up and formed a sort of make shift dam. Nothing large like the previous, nor strong enough to hold back water; but it did slow it down and calm the river.

Shaking his head the driver rumbled in with a splash as the front end dipped into the river. The engine coughed and sputtered for a moment before the dumptruck was fully in the water and it's engine totally not flooded.

[Clearcut]
It started out as not too bad: Jacob had gotten to know the very, very general geography of the place in his decent amount of time spent sludging through it before...
but then it got soggy. The dirtbike squealed and lost traction, and all Jacob had time to shout was "The fu--!?"
Then he was in the air, unable to stop before coming out over a slope. When he landed, his a** collapsed into muck. It's soft collapse didn't injure him, it was in ways a blessing considering his lack of a helmet, but it meant the bike would be useless (at least for now). Even its sizeable tires would just churn muck.

Furthermore, his heavy brown coat was no covered with something that was on its way to, like all swamps, smelling strongly of s**t. Unfortunately, he reminded himself, his path would take him through worse.

And, so, Jacob started to move through the literal sludge, holding the bike up at his side. That was the other reason for using it.

He quickly came to the conclusion that now was not the time for stealth- there were too many factors that counted against it. He didn't know if he had comrades that needed help in obtaining the artifact- nor did he know if the opposition already had a hold of it.

One big smokey explosion later he was off on dragonback, flying low and fast towards the feild of stumps.

"Well ********, just what I need more trees. Oh, and what's this? A bog too? Two for one special at nature world."

He was a bit miffed, despite the combat he'd seen he had still not gotten the chance to just let loose.

"Moving on!"

And so they did. Straight to the Fuel Depot.

"Tch," he said as he brushed a bug away from his face.
He still had the keys to that jeep, he'd have to remember it was at the base of the Northern Climb.

Destination Next: Twilight Woods