Risen World

Chapter 577: Ambushed at Night Part 1

After leaving the pool in the marsh area the group spent the rest of the day pushing further into the marshlands while making sure to give a wide enough birth to any pools of water that looked big enough to be a resting place for one of the vipers. It wasn't certain if there were any vipers in the water, but Joshua was being safe just in case while he would give pools that set off Celia's danger sensing ability an even wider birth. He didn't know if the snake was willing to come out of the water to try to chase Momo down as she ran across the marsh. Momo was able to move at a decent pace, but all the mud was slowing her down a bit since she couldn't nearly as good footing in this area of the prairie.

Throughout the day the group did come across more groups of prairie chickens and they took them down in the same fashion that they had done earlier to success most of the time. Occasionally they ran into a group that would survive the initial onslaught and they would have to move over to plan B which would finish them off. Although the prairie chickens were by far the most common creatures that they came across while moving through both the marsh and the tall grass in this area of the prairie, there was another creature that they frequently came across as well.

The frogs that they had seen earlier at the pool where the viper was resting were almost as common a sight to see as the prairie chickens. The frogs were easy to spot since they were about twice as tall as the grass and couldn't hide from view, but one thing the group learned about the frogs was that they were extremely aggressive when away from a water source. There were several times when they would pass by a frog while still being on the back of Momo and it would leap through the air and land in front of them to cut them off. Joshua would always be the first one to jump off so that the frog wouldn't get a chance to attack the group while they were still on the ferret.

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The frogs tended to attack with their long tongues first which were fast and had a strong grip so trying to block such attacks would be foolish. After all the toad would just grab your weapon and pull it back towards its mouth whether you were holding onto it or not. Either way the results of such attack would be bad, so Joshua always dodged and cut at the location he was standing. This way not only would he avoid the attack but he would also cut off the tongue before it could grab up anyone else and become a problem that way. Overall the frogs weren't all that threatening in a fight for several reasons.

The first reason why the frogs were easy to handle was that they were extremely predictable. They weren't all that much smarter than the prairie chickens, but at the same time they didn't group up together and have an ability that used in mass could destroy much larger beast. Their lack of intelligence made it so that they were aggressive against anything that was either smaller than it or around the same size. Joshua had already seen a few frogs that were dumb enough to try to attack a group of prairie chickens. Some were wise enough to just grab one with their long tongue and then hop away while most of them would mess this up and get spotted by the prairie chickens beforehand. That situation always ended with the frog turned into a pile of mush by several sonic screeches.

The next big weakness the toad had was the fact that they didn't hunt in groups. Usually this wouldn't be a problem for beast of a certain size. They were usually strong enough offensively to put up a fight with other creatures, but outside of its ability to use its tongue from a long distance the frogs didn't really have any offensive abilities. They had the toxins in their skin that could create a poisonous fog, but that was more of a defensive measure and would be useless against most other beast in the marshlands. The snake was immune and just attacked anyway, while the prairie chickens could attack from a distance. In the case of the owl it could kill the frog with its giant feathers if it wanted to. The frogs were clearly the bottom of the pecking order when it came to strength and the fact that they didn't work together to strengthen themselves was a huge mistake.

The last glaring weakness that Joshua noticed right away was the fact that their strongest ability of creating poison to protect themselves had a huge problem. That problem was the fact that the fog of poison was extremely flammable. This was the reason why even after Joshua jumped down to fight the frog he knew he wasn't going to be the one to kill it. There was no reason to risk getting poisoned and worry about the possibility of the poison being strong enough that the healers would have trouble dealing with it. Instead of rushing in all Joshua had to do was spike his aura and the frog would react defensively spraying out the toxins from its body to protect itself. After that either Laura, Julia, or Ariel would send over a small fireball that would ignite the poison into a large explosion that would put the frog on deaths door.

Just about every time they came across these frogs this was the eventual outcome. Sometimes the frogs would die from the explosion giving everyone a little bit of experience, while other times they'd survive and Lily would tame them to put in the stables. She already had a far more powerful frog with more abilities so these frogs she was taming exclusively for defending the territory. Thomas didn't seem to have any link to the frogs so he didn't even try to tame any of them, but Joshua highly doubted Thomas would actually use one in battle with how little the amount of potential for growth these frogs had.

Outside of prairie chickens and frogs Joshua group did see some more herds of bison or deer and outside of glancing in their direction as Momo ran by the herds didn't seem to care all that much about them. They just ignored them and went back to moving through the area. As night began to approach Joshua looked for a good spot that was decently isolated from any pools of water and was also already cleared out by prairie chickens. Such a location would be perfect for avoiding any trouble throughout the night in such a dangerous area, especially when they didn't know all the ends and outs of it just yet.

After finding a nice spot to rest they all worked together to cut down a bit more grass to widen the space out a little, so they'd all have room to rest while there would still be enough room for some of Lily's and Thomas's beast companions to come out and eat for the night. Lily also brought out what looked like a large tub filled with water from her inventory that all the beast could drink from if they wanted. There was no reason to have to risk them going to the pools of water especially late at night.

The group decided not to put up a fire for the night since they were in a new territory and didn't know if the smoke from it would attract attention towards them. In this portion of the prairie there was no spot where they could gain a high vantage point so it was much more difficult to get a visual eye on the surroundings and that would cause issues that could only be made worse by the smoke coming from a fire. Every beast in the area would know something was going on in their direction which couldn't be a good thing.

After a quick meal and a few hours talking the group finally decided to rest up for the night. Since they were in such a dangerous area Lily kept Cinder out through the night while Thomas left Imperia out as well. Both beast were great at hiding their presence so they wouldn't attract any attention even with their size. Cinder wasn't currently at her full size however she was still around the size of the frogs they had been coming across. Joshua saw that the eager spider was currently creating thin strings of web that connected to the grass all around the area. It was all tied back to one string that the spider kept attached to her leg and if any beast touched a single string then Cinder would feel it.

For the first wave of night watch both Joshua and Celia were currently up alongside the pair of beast companions. Most beast in the area didn't seem to be nocturnal like the owls were so the first stretch of night watch was the most important. It was half way through their watch that Celia suddenly seemed to be on edge. Her danger sense was going off and Joshua knew that meant something was nearby. He spread out his aura sense trying to get a lock on whatever was coming and trying to attack them, but he couldn't spot it anywhere and that meant the beast was adapt at hiding its aura. Joshua looked towards the sky to see if he could spot an owl or a vulture, but there was nothing their either.

It was while Joshua was trying his best to try to find the beast that Cinder suddenly rose up and looked in a certain direction Celia and Joshua following suit. Joshua looked towards the thread connected to Cinder's leg and could see that it was currently vibrating. Imperia also seemed to have notice something as she was flying around in the sky in a small circle above a certain spot. Joshua knew something was aiming to take them by surprise in the night..