It was easy enough to find a pce to bathe, having followed the river she had drank from earlier in the day to a pond at the base of a steep Rocky incline. It begged the question, how big is this pce? She saw some rge catfish swimming around in the shallows of the pond, and she couldn't help the drool come to her face as she imagined getting a big pot of oil and frying the fish up.

  But such a thing was beyond what she could do at the moment. She sighed and started to wade into the deeper part of the pond and groaned as the cool waters washed over her sweaty body. She curled her fingers and scrubbed with her knuckles conscious that her nails could rip her skin to shreds.

  God, she wished she had soap.

  After soaking for a bit, Hanna sighs as she slowly makes her way back to her camp, the sun finally, finally dipping behind the canopy and letting darkness pervade this forest.

  Unfortunately rest doesn't come to our heroine as she finds an intruder in her hollow! Her vision enhanced to the point where seeing in the dark is child's py, she saw a furry bipedal feline going through the small pile of bones she left.

  The creature's hearing sharper than she initially thought, Hanna found the bck and white fuzzball darting off into the canopy above, and she stood there, dumbfounded. It was the first creature of its size that she found didn't immediately attack her so she was at a loss. To be fair though, it WAS only the second creature of its size she had ever seen.

  Well, it's a problem for ter. She crawled into her sleeping space and fought to get comfortable on the bare vines and branches.

  The sleep was restless.

  __________________

  The field team leader Hakuro was following a trail, the scoutflies picking up a trail, their blue light telling a concerning tale. He comes to the spot there his Palico had indicated and knelt his fingers trailing what looked like a human footprint. To his well-trained eyes, he notices the footprints sank deep into the earth, maybe three inches at most, indicating either a heavy individual...or an abnormally powerful person. And based on the spacing between each regur sized track, the tter was more believable.

  He frowned. The Guild doesn't like private ventures into the New World, and given that it's pretty much a global force, no one goes against it, and everyone back at Astera logs their comings and goings within the base.

  Hakuro could surmise this means one of two things. Either someone has snuck out of Astera for whatever reason, or there's a new species of monster around.

  The blood chilling roar that broke the air had him believing in the tter. It sounded human, but at the same time, so visceral and wild that he refused to believe it. He whistled, recalling his Palico and returned to Astera.

  He had to let the commander know.