Chapter 94: Ryan “Irwin” Hunter, Animal Detective
William, Marc and Phillipus joined him when he was nearly done devouring a truly massive T-Bone steak, with corn on the knob and zucchini as sides. The trio patiently waited while he mopped up the last bits of gravy and gnawed the bone clean. Marc looked as if he wanted to interrupt the latter, but William just shot him a look and the brawny fellow huffed and settled down again. Ryan silently thanked his little brother who truly understood the enjoyment Ryan found in cleaning up a bone.
Once Ryan was done William quickly took reign of the conversation and asked why Ryan had asked to meet them. Being as concise as he could Ryan described his observations during the afternoon but neglected to lay out his conclusions.
‘What do you think?” Ryan asked the group once he was done.
Marc immediately piped up: “We can’t take on the Rhinos, yet.” he explained. “I doubt even my Nitro will penetrate the armour you described.”
Phillipus nodded and William added his 5 cent. “From the description I suspect that the bare patches are impact sites. The Rhino’s charge at an antagonist and when they hit, either the target or a solid obstruction their armour fragments violently. Peppering the area with shrapnel. We’d need to see that in action before we even consider taking them on.”
“Your conclusions match with mine. Anything to add on the second area?” Ryan prompted.
“I suspect it’s a territory held by a predator or a pack of predators.” Marc’s statement confirmed Ryan’s suspicion. “A marked lack of wildlife and probable signs of recent conflict with the adjoining territory leads me to believe the presumed predator overhunted the area and is trying to branch out into the neighbouring area. You’d have to find the other boundaries of the area to see if that conjecture holds. Or identify the species reigning in that area. My money is on a pack predator.”
William looked sceptical. “Why do you think that?”
“Lack of clear sign in the area such as trails or destroyed vegetation. No corpse or corpses in the barren areas in the Rhino territory. Marked lack of even smaller wildlife. It all points to a pack of predators that probably have a lower level individually. A larger solo predator would probably be able to take on the Rhinos or pass through their territory. Pack tactics would work fantastically in dodging a Rhino’s charge but they’re clearly unable to get through the armour. Clearing the menu in their area is also a likely indication for a pack predator, a solo predator won’t be as efficient. But what do I know? I used to do this for a living, but the System truly messed up what I have always known to be correct.”
“Wilde hond of hiëna of jakkals.” Phillipus contributed to the discussion for the first time.
Marc looked at his tracker and nodded. “Probably. Might also be something else after the System messed with our biosphere.”
Ryan’s conclusions were in line with Marc’s and so he just nodded and asked. “So, you agree that it’d probably be a good area to grind?”
Marc just nodded but William added: ‘As long as you can identify what we are dealing with. Levels included. If we can bait a hungry predator to attack us in a position of our choosing we can most likely deal with it as safely as reasonably possible. We’ll reconvene once you know more and once the other scouts report back from the plains.”
“Miguel and Carsten already left?” Ryan wondered.
‘No, they’ll leave first thing in the morning. Mike, Tanya and Jaco will visit Resolute’s lodge and then set up a temporary base in the plains. You okay with scouting the plateau?” William asked.
“Sure. Best to send me. I’ll be able to stay safe. I’ll head off to bed now and get an early start tomorrow. If it’s hyenas or jackals I’ll need to be there during dawn or dusk, they’re mainly nocturnal. African wild dog will be busy during the day so I should know by late afternoon what we’re dealing with.”
“One last thing,” William added, “before you go. Alexis asked to remind you that you promised to see her for a follow up scan to see if she can determine how well your mutations have integrated.”
“Damn, always one more thing to do.” Ryan complained before he stuttered and continued lamely. “Not that I don’t want to see her but I was really looking forward to my cot.”
Ryan awkwardly excused himself after William’s barely suppressed snigger and went looking for the healer. After a quick search in her usual haunts that failed to show any results, he sent her a message that he expected to be back for a check-up the next afternoon and headed to his cot. Fury, lazy feline that she was, was already draped over her own cot next to his and probably dreaming if her twitching paws were any indication. Ryan refrained from peeking into her mindscape, he’d learned his lesson. Feline dreams were violent and sadistic and there was no need to mess with the chance for a good night’s sleep.
The first tentative rays of a new dawn were gracing the eastern horizon when a grumpily mumbling Ryan and a yawning Fury crossed the boundary into the territory the two needed to scout. The morning jog up the plateau had been bracing but the lack of coffee wasn’t conducive to Ryan’s mood. While he pictured his group of friends joyously consuming a mug of the elixir and jovially gossiping about the idiot that had to start the day without it his mood plunged further into the abyss.
“God damn imbecile.” he chided himself. “Why’d you volunteer as a scout?” Fury tilted her head and gave him an inquisitive stare.
“Yeah, yeah. I know. Doesn’t make it right that nobody had the decency to get up before me and brew me a mug.”
Leaving well enough alone the lioness decided to ignore his incessant grumbling and with a mental nudge to remind him to keep his head in the game disappeared into the thick undergrowth ahead.
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Ryan shifted his full attention onto Predator’s awareness and followed suit a few moments later. It was a struggle. The bush was so thick, dense and entwined that even he, as adroit as he normally was, struggled to make appreciable progress. Step by laborious step, inching sideways and backtracking often, he headed deeper into the dense gloom. Fury, by now only slightly smaller than he was, struggled too. Stealth was simply impossible by any reasonable means of the definition Ryan considered as he found himself unable to avoid making noise. Because he could barely see more than a metre ahead of himself Ryan soon called his soulbond back to his side and extricated himself. Dimensional Shift, which he relied on for safety, could only return the duo to his Anchor in this sort of terrain if they effectively wanted to escape an ambush. A new approach was called for, which, unfortunately, meant that they had to wait until he could clearly inspect the area from a position of greater elevation.
There were no convenient Ficus trees in the area which could provide a commanding view and their most reasonable prospect was a rocky tower that poked out of the dense vegetation a bit further into the warren of ravines. It wasn’t unlikely that this feature housed his targets, Ryan feared, and decided not to blow caution to the wind and Shift there immediately. Better safe than sorry he decided as he settled on a slightly elevated bluff to keep the tower under observation.
Twenty uneventful minutes of observation later Ryan’s patience was running thin. He had to force himself to acknowledge that his shorter temper was likely due to a lack of caffeine and that he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to responsibly scout the area. Still, he managed to reign himself in and continued his vigil. Once another quarter of an hour had passed he gave up. After warning Fury he engaged his Refractive Shield and Shifted them to the highest point of the tower. Predator’s awareness, strained to the maximum, failed to pick up on any threats and Ryan eventually took a deep breath. He regretted it a moment later as the acrid stench hit his olfactory organ. While his tension slowly ebbed Ryan had a look around and confirmed what the stench told him.
Streaks of calcified urine and mounds of small pellets were immediately apparent. A substantial collection of larger, furry turds, dark grey and full of white shards, told him about the fate of the colony of Rock Hyrax that clearly used to occupy the area. Bones, fur and all, they had been devoured and digested right were he now stood. It must have been some time ago because the turds were already bleached by the sun, slowly crumbling into their constituent parts. Their smell was barely noticeable, overpowered by the sum of decades if not centuries of Rock Hyrax ablutions. Any tracks on the mixture of hard rocky ground or compacted earth had long since eroded.
Ryan had to re-assess the conclusions he had drawn only yesterday. In light of this discovery, he highly doubted that they were dealing with Hyenas or wild dogs. The turds were too small, and it was unlikely to the extreme that the Rock Hyrax colony had been so comprehensively wiped out by the larger predators. The agile animals were quick to hide in the multitude of crags and crannies of their rocky homes and unlikely to venture forth if they perceived a threat. Whatever had wiped out the colony must have been a smaller predator, able to follow them into their hidden retreats. He still believed that it was a pack of predators because he deemed it unlikely that a solo predator had so thoroughly cleaned out this entire area.
That conclusion however was as far as he got. He was baffled. None of the smaller pack predators that he knew of were capable of this, at least none that commonly occurred in the area. He had to assume that a mutation to one of these had resulted in what he was observing but, for the life of him, he couldn’t narrow it down beyond more than a few potential suspects. It was also possible that an herbivore pack had mutated to such an extent that meat was now on the menu. Irrespective of their origin however, the nature of his new targets greatly complicated the situation he faced. The fact that they were likely small, rendered Predator’s Awareness, at least in respect of Graviton Perception, useless and they’d more easily avoid detection in the thick tangle of vegetation. On top of that, the thick vegetation would prove far less of a hindrance to their smaller stature. Facing them in combat, whether alone or as a group would also be more difficult. All in all, Ryan was less than pleased.
Following along his original plan of action he took out his binoculars and started scanning his surroundings. Fury, in the meantime, ghosted around the bottom fringes of the tower, keeping to somewhat more open areas under the cover of her Refractive Shield. His search was less than unsuccessful, and it was the lioness who, possibly, found the first indication of their target. After a few insistent nudges impacted on his mindscape he relented and focused on her sending. She made an effort to share only what her eyes were seeing and, by now more accustomed to the weird impressions of her sense of sight, Ryan decoded the image as that of a small pawprint.
It took him a minute of careful climbing to reach her position so that he could inspect the clue himself. Fury communicated a sense of bafflement along with her discovery and Ryan understood that she couldn’t make sense of the print. On first observation, neither could he. In the fine, moist sand beneath an arch formed by a dead log an elongated print of a slender paw with distinct indentations of claws present was protected from the environment. Neither wind nor rain could have easily disturbed it and its age was indeterminable. Its originator wasn’t easily identifiable either. Its shape contained slight hints of mongoose, but its size went counter to everything Ryan knew. At around 4 centimetres long it was beyond impressive. Still, with the advent of the System, Ryan accepted that a member of the mongoose family could probably reach this size. Still, one print alone wasn’t sufficient evidence of his target, and they’d need to find further proof.
‘Easier said than done.’ Ryan thought as he climbed back to his perch. Still, now that he knew what he had to look for he focused his efforts. If, as he now suspected, the predator devastating the area, belonged to the mongoose family, he’d have to look for evidence of burrows. Only two species were prevalent in the area while presence of a third species was possible. The meerkat and the yellow mongoose comprised the former while the latter, the banded mongoose, was the unlikely outlier. All three species formed large packs and made their home in a variety of burrows, and it was the indications of these that Ryan was searching for. While the meerkat usually preferred more open areas and less woody vegetation the other two were at home in this terrain, so Ryan was deeply surprised when he spotted the distinct shape of a meerkat standing sentry on a branch adjoining on of the more open areas.
Still, it took him a long two hours to find the few entrances to the complex of burrows that were partially hidden in a tumble of rocks. He knew there’d be more that he couldn’t spot but those were enough for now. His only problem, for the moment, was figuring out how he could get close enough to Identify a target and get an indication of their level range. It was safe to assume, Ryan surmised, that the pack hadn’t lost their instinctual habit to post a number of sentries to keep watch for any approaching prey or predator. Ryan also knew, that should he be spotted, the entire pack would quickly be alerted to his presence. The highly social animals could communicate a surprisingly wide variety of meanings via their calls and would act in concert to address any situation threatening the pack. While he was determinedly bashing his brains against the problem, he continued scanning the area, finding three more visible sentries and eventually deciding on a method of an approach. It would suck, but it was the only solution Ryan could figure out.