The cacocphany of the jungle surrounding me had long since faded to the background of my mind. My ears were perked up still, and a small part of me was paying attention for any variation of the song of the wild that I found myself enveloped in, in case a hungry beast decided that I looked like a tasty snack.

I'm sure I looked terrible, goodness knows I felt terrible. My explorer's outfit, bought new at the Alta Minas outpost only two weeks ago, was torn and ragged. Sap, leaves, and branches were stuck to it, my normally red fur tinged green and matted from the sticky substance. Even my poor tail, my poor beautiful fluffy tail, looked a far cry from its glorious true form, a pale shadow of the volume it normally held.

I swear by all that is holy, if I have to be shaved down to the skin at the end of this trip, I will be peeved.

Yet all of that is but a small fleeting thought in the back of my head as my blacked-furred paws clench the pen and journal I'm furiously taking notes in, my green eyes flicking back and forth at the object of my attention. My hands pause for a moment and I quizzicly look down to notice I ran out of room, and turned to the next page on the journal and went back to taking my notes.

Notifications kept coming up as I worked but I mindlessly minimized them, ignoring them much as I did the ache from holding my crouched position building up in my lanky body. I didn't want to be distracted and miss a single important detail. 

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Soon enough, I finished noting down everything of import I could spot from this vantage point, gently secured my journal to my belt, then stretched as I got up from my crouched position. My heart was thudding, and even matted as it was my tail was wagging with excitement.

Two weeks from the edge of the explored world, where no records of anything of note were found, the crumbled remains of stone buildings, overgrown roads, and even the rise of what had to be a temple lay partially covered by the fecund embrace of the jungle.

A grin slowly grew on my face, my upper lips lifting as I bared my muzzle in vulpine joy. Two weeks traveling to the arse end of Koraanda, then another two weeks traveling through the blasted jungle following a hunch and the hint of what could have been a map, and I found something that no player or Native had found before, what many thought was just a wild good chase.

I had found an actual Precursor ruin.

The feeling within me built up high and I let my instincts go, letting out a high pitched bark of cheer and victory. Ending it with a laugh, I grabbed my pack and slung it over my shoulder, preparing to approach the ruins for a closer look when suddenly I realized the jungle had gone quiet.

Ears starting to fold against my skull, my tail starting to droop, I turned my head about, gazing with my eyes and sniffing with my nose. The fur on the back of my neck suddenly poofed up as I heard a low growl coming from behind me.

As my paw slowly reached for the handle of my machete, two thoughts went through my mind.

First, that the victory bark was probably not the best of ideas.

And secondly, that I really needed to knee Marcus in the balls for all of this. If I survived.