Damn Alien Bastards, day 29
The sound of a rattle
"Arne! Arne!"
"What?" Reiley keep pushing me awake. "What?!" It is still dark outside and it's raining. Again. What is that rattling donking noise? Shit! That's the alarm! The community hut rattle is rattling! Reiley grab the alarm cord to respond that we're awake, and we quickly put on our coveralls, boots and hats before we grab our weapons and the flashlights while looking at the front door and windows. We can't see anything there or hear anything out of the ordinary, but it is raining. When we're both ready, we make our way up to the balcony. Xuela is a heavy sleeper, and she is still sleeping, but up here the wind and the rain would have drowned out the alarm rattle, and it's not like Xuela ever bother to close the window shutters. Reiley quickly wake her up with a hand over her mouth to inform her of the alarm, while I look out to check if I see anything. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it is a dark rainy night. Not bad weather for a surprise attack. At least if enemies stay on the ridge as the low land is dangerous as hell.
"Arne! Reiley! Xuela!" We hear Bokyli's whisper from the door leading to the path over the cliff.
I whisperingly reply, "All awake and ready!" as I open the door to let her in. Bokyli gracefully sneaks in and whisper:
"Kima have caught a flying woman who landed on the cliff with drawn weapons. She doesn't look like Xuela's kind. We don't know if she is alone or a vanguard. Kima hit her with a venom tipped throwing tooth, and the woman is alive, breathing and tied up under Vekalie and Queral's guard in the community hut. Kima is up at the lookout, and Koru is guarding towards the ridge trail and the path here."
"Shit." Reiley and I are synchronized and on the same level.
"Reiley, guard here with Xuela and be ready. I will talk with Kima in the lookout and check the prisoner. Enemies could be hiding in the terrain just waiting for a sign to attack. Bokyli, stay with Koru. You all got bows or crossbows, and tell Vekalie to use the last body armour vest if she isn't already wearing it. Just start shooting and shout information if anyone see anything moving below the cliff, or anywhere else that isn't along the paths over the cliffs. We will stay on the paths. Inform everyone to stay on the paths."
Xuela is awake and seems terrified as she ready her crossbow. I just give Reiley a kiss, before leaving with Bokyli. Koru hasn't said anything about her old camp having a flyer, and they shouldn't have been able to get here this fast anyway, so this might be an unknown force. Shit! Bokyli grabs my neck and kiss me before she leaps down to join Koru, and I get back to high alert as I quickly climb the stairs to the lookout. I reach the lookout and find Kima where I expect her to be.
"Lord Arne! Kima thought flying dinosaur was hiding under bushes. On that cliff a few hundred meters away. Woman flew. Kima realised it was a person. Woman circled around. Kima lost sight of woman from lookout. Kima quietly climbed to hut belonging to Xuela Yge no Zhara. Woman had landed there hidden and quiet with sword drawn. Kima think it was to see if anyone had noticed woman's arrival. Kima hit woman beside throat with throwing tooth. Throwing tooth had low dose finger venom. Woman paralysed fast. Kima had another throwing tooth ready plus teeth sword, if venom not work. Kima made sure woman was paralysed, but breathing. Kima tied woman up. Kima hurried to lookout and used the community hut alarm rattle. Lady Bokyli came hurrying to lookout. Kima told Lady Bokyli. Warrior Koru came and fetched woman. Kima saw Lady Bokyli fetch Lord Arne. Kima have not seen any other movement. Kima see no bright bodies out there."
"Just stay in the lookout and guard. They might be very well hidden, or out of sight and waiting for a signal or the woman's return. The rain will help hide them from your heat vision, or it might be people that have the same body temperature as the surroundings, so they are invisible to that vision. Use rattle if you suspect anything, or just leave to get a better look. Stay on the paths so we can assume anything not on the path is an enemy."
"Yes, Lord Arne!"
I try to be quiet and careful as I hurry down to the community hut. It's just damn luck that we have Kima on night watch. Two nights ago we wouldn't have had any, and the attacker could have done a lot of damage. Especially Xuela could have been quietly killed since she doesn't even close the window shutters at night, and taking her out should be a priority for any smart enemy. I have to get her to close them, as what's the point of having noise makers on the window shutters, if Xuela doesn't close them!? I really should have used that Warning Vision, and I should have activated it each day and now, but that feels like giving up, and whisperingly I let the damn alien bastards know it. I really hope I don't regret this decision. I reach the community area and Koru and Bokyli is guarding and looking out for trouble. Even with heavy rain clouds and rain, the night never gets truly pitch black, and I see them hiding amongst the vegetation, but they're damn hard to see, especially Koru who is using one of the camouflage capes, which feels good to know as I have a coverall and hat in that camouflage. Which also feels worrying as similar camouflage makes the enemy harder to see. Bokyli blends in okay in her natural colour and that corset actually helps, and the camouflaged on her hat works really well.
Stolen story; please report.
I sneak into the community hut, and in the shielded light from the lantern, I see Vekalie, Queral and Nilma guarding a tied up person lying hogtied sideways on the ground. They are relieved to see me and Vekalie inform that Koru tied up the prisoner extra well, and after removing the prisoners clothes and weapon, also tied her to one of the roof support beams, put a gag in her mouth and wrap over her eyes. I see that Koru have used the special leather pouch gloves around each fisted hands we made after the Salt boon ambush, and it should make trying to escape harder even with claws or super dexterous fingers. The prisoner have green-brown spotted skin in a form of natural camouflage, and big leathery bat wings folded up and tied together on her back. The only visible body part not in that camouflage is a hair braid and the back facing curved horns on her head. I get why they call her a woman, as she is quite human woman looking especially body wise, and basically looks like some movie fantasy demon or Sci-Fi alien by latex add-ons, although her back seems to have serious muscles I assume is due to the wings. Still, tits and lack of a penis doesn't mean much in this world. Koru proved that. Reiley and Bokyli have proven that women kick ass and goes to war, and the prisoner have natural camouflage. Kima proved that anyone can be venomous or truly strange vision, so we can't take stupid chances with the prisoner. Who knows what she is capable of, including producing toxic gas, natural projectile weapons or even fire. The 'woman' is breathing, and I don't want to kill her before I've tried to interrogate her. The prisoners stuff is on the table, and her clothes are decorated but discretely coloured pants and V necked backless top that have just a strap behind the neck and tied around the lower back. There is also a short armed leather armour in a similar fashion and knee high leather boots. Her weapons are a matching set of a knife and a sword. They are nicely decorated and look like they too must have been brought to this world. Beside a leather bag with cord, a camouflage tarp, blanket, dried meat and two of those Star Fall water bottles, there is also what looks like a very nice telescopic spyglass that must have been brought here. Guess she have been keeping her eyes on us. Shit. I try to be careful as I search through the clothes, boots and equipment for hidden weapons, and I find a knife in each of the boots, plus what I think are lockpicks. I would like to search her strange hair braid too, but it is a risk to do. For all I know it might be tentacle like with hidden barbs.
So we keep our distance and just wait.
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The rain stops after an hour, and I make a round to talk with the others. If there are enemies out there ready to attack, they should know something have gone wrong and their vanguard is dead or captured. They have lost the element of surprise. So, they might be ready for an attack, or they're going to wait until daylight. We can't all be zombies, and we need to keep watch from the lookout and the balcony, so I order that we group up with one in the lookout, one where Koru is at the community area, and two in the balcony, and two in the community hut who will try to get some sleep. Queral will just try to get a good night sleep since she is night blind, and she have an almost paralysing fear of the dark. It doesn't help that Kima is somewhere out there in the dark, and Queral know there might be more Kima's. Nilma might as well just sleep as I sure don't trust her to guard or use violence if needed, and she is tired from being out in the wild. The last person will guard the prisoner tied up to a tree by the lookout stairs on the cliff, and also help watch over the community area and the person guarding the path and ravine. So five guarding, while three sleeping. After three hours, two will change place and try to get some sleep, but neither me nor Kima will sleep. This will be a long night and morning, where a battle might break out at any moment.
I have activated that 'Warning of the unknown' simply because it is damn stupid to not to use it. If anyone of us dies that 'warning' could have prevented? Yeah. That would be bad. I just hope I will get a warning of anyone other than our prisoner being close, because I have the occasional orange marker in the corner of my view telling me I have an unknown in that eight part of a circle sector. The range is divided into four sectors, and the closest range sector seem to be 40ish meters. I sure won't be sleeping as long as that is active and there is a unknown chosen close by as that view pulse orange along with a 'boop' sound every 45.8 seconds, which I think is the 'unknown person position' update frequency. That sound is getting on my nerves, and I should have realised that there would be some downside to that Vision. This waiting and annoying 'boops', have given me time to figure out that 45.8 multiplied by 2048, which is binary 2^11, is pretty much exactly 26 hours and 3 minutes, which is the length of the day. I only figured that out because I timed it over way too long and calculated how many of those 'boops' I would have to listen to over a whole day. The DAB's sure got a thing for binary.
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I quietly talk with Reiley as we keep watch. I need her input and I need the damn alien bastards to hear what I say, without making that obvious. Having a prisoner will be a heck of a lot of problem, and so will interrogation. But we have very limited options. The simple and efficient option is to interrogate, and likely kill her. But it is not a good option and it have plenty of bad sides, depending on if she is alone or with a group, and with what group. Is she a new member belonging to Reiley's old Lake Camp? King's Camp? Who and what have she told about us? How will they react? How would we be sure of that, and so on. So the interrogation will have to start nicely, and without leaving permanent marks. I kind of wish I had some kind of truth serum or something.
If she or her group doesn't know about oaths, I don't want to use that if she have to live and be returned, but oaths are also very limited if the oath bound see death as a preferable option. Having our prisoner swear an oath, might mean she have a way out if torture or such becomes too much, as she might be able to quickly kill herself by just saying words. If she is brave, defiant or stupid, an oath is just not a good option. Trying to keep a slave with oaths are also a bad idea for similar reasons. The oath will punish them with death, but basically only after a deed is done. Oaths are mostly useful on someone that really wants to live, and will accept much before choosing a likely quick and painless death. It is possible that oaths can have other options than death, but trying that is dangerous and I wouldn't want to suggest that. Sure, I can order Koru, Kima or Queral to swear oaths, but that is a step I don't want to take. I won't even suggest it, as they might.
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