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Success! See, Roihu actually was good at his job. But he nodded in consent to Kiowaa's words and backed off. He agreed that it would probably be best to keep a medic with the rest of the group and not split up, despite his earlier misgivings. So he followed the rest out of the wards, being sure to collect what medical supplies he could find there - which still wasn't that much.

Kiberiti hissed out a whine as they were once again swallowed by the rain. The snake had remained mostly quiet for the whole of the hyena's affair. He was typically Roihu's only helper when it came to mending others, but there was a large crowd around, and he felt out of place. But one thing was certain - he did not like rain. It was so, so cold, made even colder by the increasingly strong gusts of wind, and he gripped the thick fur of Roihu's mane even tighter as the lion ran with the others.

The sight of the apathetic Nergui prisoner was altogether unsettling. Roihu couldn't tell if the lion knew something, or was simply a watchful eye on the behalf of the Nergui. Even a prisoner could feed secrets... but no one seemed pressed to try. He half-shrugged, half-shuddered at the dark, eerie lion, and followed the rest through the maze of twisting rocks.

But he recognized a scattered trail of certain plants and otherwise....leading up to a pile of medical supplies! It looked like Kosuke had already discovered the pile, mysteriously abandoned in the midst of sorting. The medic in him badly wanted to gather some of the precious items into his pouch, but his eyes looked around for approval first. There weren't many medics left with the group who would know how to use the supplies.

"Oh!" Vesta squeaked. "Okay! I can call you, Mat. My name is Vesta. I'm a water-seeker."

"So this is her speciality." Fia grumped, setting her paws deep into the sand and heaving great swaths of it back out of the hole. She could certainly dig as well as the best of them when she put her mind to it. "And I'm Fia." She replied. "The cranky Historian."

Vesta giggled lightly at that. "Ignore her. She's not all that cranky." Although, to be fair, Fia's mood recently had certainly not been good. The death of Karana'mzaana had hit her hard. Still, one just had to look at little Keegan to realise that the old female was not truly gone. Her children were here, living on for her.

"I am." Fia snapped back. "So you kids better watch out." She paused in her work. "Hm, how's this looking?"

"You're all doing a fantastic job!" Vesta declared, just as one side of the newly dug hole began to cave in...

Another loud boom of thunder rolled across the sky, and Miah seemed to hardly flinch. His strange eyes focused upon Morag, who had spoken to him. It seemed to take a long time for him to speak. When he did, it was in his usual flat monotone. Niether morose, nor pleased. Articulated like reading lines off a script. "Yes. I saw the nohoi."

Having not been prompted to elaborate further, he sunk back into the crevasse of the rock. The rain continued to pound overhead, and the spot was hardly a shelter. Although he had neglected to say, it was clear that most of the other hongshan had evacuated to one of the sandstorm refuges in the main pride. Or were else otherwise occupied in the desperate struggle to keep the trenches filled and stable.

He watched quietly, perhaps expecting more questions.

---

In her exploration of the various twists and turns, Elcca had fallen in with Roihu and Kosuke. The missing medical supplies was a good find, one that indicated they were on the right path. Like before, some of them had bites taken out of them. Were they testing each of them, tasting for what variety of herb it was? She sniffed at one, and rolled it to its side. The smell was sour.

"If I am not mistaken, this is whisker-root," she said. Not that the great Elcca could ever be mistaken! "Used for curing stomach aches. And this, this is shrew-mane, eaten for headaches. It looks like they were looking for a specific cure."

She pursed her lips, sorting through her own memories. And perhaps elsewhere too. "Assuming that the majority of our stock originates from the desert, whatever was taken must not be in season. Or, foreign from this desert."

As for what that could be, she wasn't sure. What was clear was that they were still looking for whatever this cure was. Otherwise, they wouldn't have wasted the time tasting the others.

arrow If you are a medic:

There are three possibilites for the rare herb. Dried fang cactus, whiproot, and bittergrain.

Dried fang cactus: Used to increase strength. Can be consumed to stop hunger pains. Useful for long trips. A supplement.
Whiproot: A difficult to harvest root that grows on cliffs. Can be a cure for fever.
Bittergrain: Used to quickly expel various poisons and illnesses from the body. Comes from the bonelands outpost. Also a laxative.

"Vesta," Mat repeated, glancing up from the hole by one of Fia's hind legs. "Okay! And Fia...that's right...mom was talking about you a few times," she said with a little nod. Now she could kind of remember...it was usually with other lions and muffled a bit because it was outside the den.

She turned back to help, pushing some loose dirt up to the top of the hole. "I wanna be a soldier when I can train," she said, not afraid to make conversation with the adults. "And maybe a battlemaster! Or a brigadier like mom," she added, standing a bit taller before going back to work. She had been taught the different ranks recently and now she had huge dreams for the future.

"You don't scare me, cranky Historian," Mat said with a grin, giving a little growl that sounded pretty impressive down in the hole. To her, at least. "But I bet the ground is pretty terrified right no-ah!" She was cut off as a large pile of sand slid down the walls, landing on her head and her back. She shook herself off, spitting out the mouthful she got. "Yuck!"

Miah blinked his eyes slowly, listening. He broke eye contact once to shield his head from another buffet of water and sand. When he returned, he spoke with little urgency: "They walked through these alcoves not long ago. The rain should have only just filled their paw-prints."

There was another long pause. Then, as if rehearsing the question in his mind, he continued. "They carried twigs and roots, but dropped them when they left. They should still be here, if the storm did not...carry them away."

"I saw only that. They saw me, but did not fight. Or maybe they did not," he continued. "They were arguing with the doctor."

As usual, he didn't elaborate.

-----

Elcca squinted, listening to the list. As a matter of fact, she didn't know all of this! Elcca had a longstanding desire to know just about everything she could get her paws on, but specifics she often lacked. She was no true medic, but her study of magic often had roots in medicine. As he recounted the various possibilities, she stored it all in her head quietly.

She hadn't thought of the connection between the pride with the plague and the missing medicine. But there were some snags. Wouldn't the pride have used the cure long ago if one existed? Then again, there was a religious component to it...

One thing she could comment on, however. "I don't think we should speculate on nergui involvement until we are certain. There's no evidence to suggest it except our current conflict- and we may miss something important limiting our field of vision in such a way."

She liked to think the nergui thought their plans out better. But who knows, perhaps this was all part of it. It was a dangerous thing, overestimating your enemy.

Or underestimating. She picked up one of the roots in her mouth, grimacing. "No sense letting them be lost to the storm."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Azar interupted moving closer to the other lions and then looking at Miah. Her ear's were perked and a confused look was on her face. "They were with the doctor?" She asked curiously, Azar wanted to know how they were with her. Was Ea just following them? "What was she arguing with them about? If you heard anything." She was hoping that the male would give her a good answer. She was hoping that he would have an answer in general honestly. She was afraid that he wouldn't have one for her.That idea sounded weird to Azar. She didn't quite understand. Was her sister just following the group of hyenas. What was she trying to do? Azar was pretty lost of what to think or what to do. But as the group talked about where to go next she turned. "I guess the next place they would be is the training grounds?" She asked curiously to the rest of the group hoping that they would start moving quickly.





Aithne nodded at Yayuka she agreed wholeheartedly they probably should get going if they wanted to meet up with the others. Like that she was off, she was moving as quickly as she could. "I think I hear voices in the quarters." She said simply nodding to her mate before moving as quickly as she could toward the group of lions. She listened in on the end of the conversation, hoping she could get some hints on what was going on, keeping close to her mate as she did.

To say Miah seemed surprised would have been a vast overstatement. He simply didn't have that emotional capacity. But he did seem...alerted by Morag and Azar's sudden approach. He lifted his head, face dripping with water and watching her in a strange, studying manner. "I do not know the doctor," he said, like he didn't understand why he was being asked.

He probably would have left it at that, but their close proximity drew a little more out of him. "She was angry, she left. The others did not drag her. Perhaps she went willingly. But there are more ways than force to keep one captive," he said.

Perhaps knowing as only a nergui might.

Elcca arrived on scene just as Morag shouted the order to look for tracks. With her ankles deep in sandy mud, that wasn't a pleasant prospect. She set the root down on one of the rocky stones, pushing it into the cracks to be found for later. "Judging by the look on your faces, I will assume we have learned something."

arrow Find the trail!

Roll a dice, 1-20.

The first person to roll over 16 will find some dog-shape footprints in the mud. Closely behind them, those of a large lioness. They lead out towards the larger desert.

Roihu frowned slightly at Elcca's words. She was right that it was best not to jump to conclusions, but he didn't want his idea to be forgotten due to the urgency of their current situation. He didn't exactly know the Nergui plans, but he didn't trust them. They could be his scapegoat if he very well wanted them to be... but bias could be blinding, as she had noted.

So he took her lead in gathering some of the whisker-root and shrew-mane. There wasn't going to be much room left in his pouch if he continued to fill it with all of these missing supplies, and it seemed like the hyenas had already passed through the area. But he kept a few small fragments of each, just in case. If he ever needed to stock up his stores, he would have to save it for a more suitable time. These small pieces would be for any strange event that might fall upon the group as they investigated the intrusion... which he hoped wouldn't have to happen. The rest he crammed in the crevices and cracks of the walls to be kept away from the rain. Was it still raining? He couldn't remember a time when the Firekin had such a deluge.

Following raised voices, he found Morag and the rest of the group - the strange Nergui lion was clearly being harassed in some way, but showed no true sign of emotion. Do these lions even have emotions? Or are they just dark pits of mystery? Roihu couldn't be bothered to tell. Clearly he had revealed something, because everyone was on the move again, leaving him behind. Alya led the way. Roihu wasn't very familiar with the lioness, but he was quickly catching the names of those he didn't know very well.

More hyena tracks, it sounded like... and Firekin? "Ea's?" he asked hopefully. They had already found the supplies. If they were on their way to the missing doctor, perhaps the cubs wouldn't be too far.