The snake had bitten off more than it could chew, luckily for Sarah. As it tried to lift her off the ground, it only managed a few inches of clearance before she proved either too heavily or wiggly. Perhaps worse for it, was the fact that it gave Erik and Marcus time to react. Which the T-rex juvenile did by charging forward, jumping up and wrapping its powerful mouth around the snake's neck. Marcus dangled for a second, like a small dog playing tug of war, and then from within his mouth came a loud crack that made Eriks skin prickle uneasily. The large snake died, and the three of them all fell to the ground, the snake uncoiling from the branches above.

It took Marcus and Sarah several seconds to fully disentangle themselves from its body, at which point Sarah hissed, baring her teeth at the snake's corpse, in an uncharacteristic show of anger. Then she bit into it, ripping chunks off with a vindictive air.

“Breakfast is served I guess,” Marcus said, giving the T-rex version of a grimace before he too began to dig into the snake. As they ate, Marcus looked up and asked. “Do you think it was poisonous?”

“Venomous,” Erik corrected, “and no. It’s a constrictor.” Though the question did bring Erik’s attention to the large bite mark down the center of Sarah’s back. “Does it hurt?”

“Not really,” Sarah said before shearing some more flesh away from the monstrous serpent. “It’s that tingly feeling like when your foot goes to sleep, but that’s fading pretty quick.” That was consistent with Erik’s experience of pain in the game as well. It wasn’t that it was absent, because that just didn’t work, but it was more like everything felt like a minor scrape or cut that quickly faded to be replaced by the prickly sensation that Sarah described, and then that too would fade, regardless of if the injury was still present. It was like the brain needed to recognize the injury and then there was an adjustment period before sensation around the injury could be turned off. All attempts at circumventing this reaction had unfavorable results.

Erik checked Sarah’s status screen to make sure she didn’t have any debuffs, which she thankfully didn’t. Constrictors weren’t venomous exactly, but it wasn’t unheard of for them to transmit bacteria with their bites. He was fairly certain the game would handle an infection as a debuff, and likely the game would apply it immediately after being bitten, rather than simulate it to the degree of waiting for symptoms to manifest.

Unable to partake of their snake breakfast, Erik decided to keep an eye out instead, looking around the immediate area of their little swamp island, and doing his best to check the trees for more lurking predators. Though his efforts were limited by the way his frill bumped against his back when he tried to tip his head up. That and he had to admit triceratops were just not designed for staring up at the sky.

The mud squashed beneath his feet as he made a circle around, and he was already tired of everything being constantly wet. Almost as soon as he had the thought, the world began to grow dark as the sun passed behind some thick clouds, plunging the foggy swamp into a state of semi-darkness, and before Erik even had a chance to groan, thunder rumbled in the distance.

By the time his friends had finished eating their snake, rain had begun to fall; fat drops hitting his frill and scattering merrily across his head, and the darkness only deepened with the rainfall. By the time they were read to carry on, visibility was pretty much nothing. When they approached the edge of their small island, looking for the next spit of land to wander towards in their southerly course, they couldn’t see anything. Nothing but a sheet of falling water blanketing the horizon.

Rain hit the water like tiny meteorites, cratering the surface a million million times, and making a sound like a lake sized piece of bacon, sizzling on the world's largest flat top grill.

“So what’re we gonna do?” Marcus asked, and for once Erik wasn’t concerned about him being overheard. Not with the rain pounding at such a volume.

“I vote we carry on,” Sarah said, “We can’t afford to stop progressing every time the game becomes inconvenient.”

“I agree.” Erik turned his head, scanning the battered surface of the water as far as he could see. “Sarah, you take the lead and we’ll follow behind. Perhaps your Keen Senses ability will make it easier.” Her raptors head bobbed up and down and she set off into the knee deep water, Erik and Marcus following in a single file line.

“So much for killing a sub-boss today.” Marcus grumbled, and Erik shook his head, not in denial but in an effort to clear the flow of rainwater that kept getting in his eyes.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

They travelled like that for several minutes, Sarah leading them in a straight line, moving almost straight south and Erik wondered if she really did have some sense of where they were going. A few minutes more answered his question as dark shapes loomed out of the rain, revealed to be another island in the murky swamp. They stomped there way unto the muddy shore, and entered the vegetation, where luckily Erik was able to locate a plant he could eat.

It was strange because every plant he’d eaten so far was predatory, and quite hostile. This one however behaved exactly as you’d expect from a plant. It was squat, and it had wide fern-like leaves. Its only significant feature was that it was purple instead of green, and despite the fact he could eat it, his identity ability pulled up nothing. Tentatively at first he bit, and after nothing happened for several seconds he chomped away at the leaves, until his food meter was full.

“Uh, guys.” Marcus said, hsi voice reaching Erik over the telepathy-whisper system, since he’d wandered towards the small islands centers while Erik ate. “There’s a nest or something over here, but it’s really weird.”

Erik trotted towards Marcus’s dot on his game map, to find Sarah already arrived and the pair of them looking down at what was clearly a nest. Raised slightly above the swampy ground, it resembled a low, flat hill. Unlike the typical bowl-shaped nests Erik had seen in documentaries, this one was unusual: the center was level with the edges, forming a circular platform. An inner ring, like the rim of an eye, encircled the middle. Within the ring, a shallow depression cradled what must have once been a clutch of eggs. Now, every single one was destroyed. Jagged fragments of shell littered the nest, scattered and smeared with a dark, dried residue.

“What is that stuff?” Sarah asked, tipping a piece of shell over with her nose to reveal the curve interior, coated in a dark gooey substance.

“I’m not sure.” Erik said, trying to get a better look at it.

“You know,” Marcus said looking around, his rex hunched as if trying to appear small, “it’s possible this is exactly where we don’t want to be standing when whatever made this nest shows up.” Erik and Sarah both stopped their investigation to share a glance before straightening up.

“I’d hate to say that Marcus has a point, it sets a bad precedent, but-” Sarah’s joke died in the air as a soft trilling reached their ears. It was a calm sound, soothing almost. Like the sound of songbirds as they zipped around outside your bedroom window, singing to the sunrise.

The triling came again, louder and more resonant and Erik thought he could hear splashing in the distance, even over the rain.

“I think the game just set us up,” Sarah said, turning her head in the direction of the sound, “I bet whatever it is was just standing out there waiting for one of us to invoke Murphy’s Law.”

“Shouldn’t we run?” Marcus asked, turning his whole body to face the direction fo the sound.

“No,” Erik said as whatever it was made a hooting sound, with the volume of an owl the size of a car, “If we go running off it'll hear us, and we’ll just end up fighting it in the water or when we’re split up.”

The creature's silhouette loomed large in the gray rain soaked air, and it paused. Even Indistinct as it was, Erik saw it raise its head and heard it take great big sniffs, as if trying to pull all the oxygen from the air. It was taller than any of them, but smaller than the Cerato had been, if he had to guess. That was only a little comforting since they had no idea what it was.

The silhouette paused for a long, long moment before suddenly whipping around on the spot and sprinting away, vanishing from sight with an eerie lack of sound.

“It didn’t go into the water.” Sarah called out, pivoting slowly on the spot, and Erik realized she was correct. Whatever it was doing.

The songbird call came again, from further away but this time it was joined by another. The two sounds intermingling in the rain. As they began to sync up, forming a strange sort of harmony, it became impossible to tell which direction they were coming from, the sound seeming to come from all around them.

“Well, this is gonna suck.” Marcus said.

“Yeah,” Erik agreed, readying himself for a fight.