More time passed as the expedition went further inland. Around the third month in the new lands, they started seeing evidence of people once being around.
Every now and then, they found arrows whose wood shows age from being exposed to the elements for a very long period of time and were using both stone and copper as arrowheads with the former being in the vast majority.
The other things they found along the way were old broken spears, rotten baskets, and element-worn carvings.
All this eventually led to their first big finding.
Grud's team, despite being made up of the least experienced hunters in the beginning, quickly accumulated experience in the field, became more competent, and was able to eventually keep up with the other teams.
The way Grud managed to whip this bunch of hunters into shape was mainly thanks to the elder hunter attached to his team to guide them in hunting tactics. Grud's main job was to scout ahead and point the team to encounter threats that he thought were slightly above the level the team could handle without help.
Eventually, through multiple encounters, the team of hunters worked like a well-oiled machine, were able to engage threats as a team, and knew when to retreat when needed.
Seeing these hunters turn from inexperienced whelps to proper hunters made Grud's heart swell with pride and he could not wait for his own children to become old enough to go out on proper hunts so we could teach them as well.
As his team became more competent, Grud eventually allowed them to send out scouts of their own.
It was on one sunny afternoon that a pair of scouts ran back to the group with news. It was a big find. Apparently, they found what appeared to be an abandoned tribe ground.
When the team made it to the abandoned tribe ground, there was no doubt that it was man-made. In a clearing, there was a wall of dilapidated wood with two big openings, one of which did not look deliberate.
Beyond the wall were still standing wood and mud huts but the whole place had been taken over by nature and all the structures were covered in moss and vines.
After checking the area to make sure that no beast had taken up residence in the ruin, the team explored the area around the ruin before calling it a day and returning to the nearest outpost to report their finding and rest.
When word of the discovered ruin spread to other outposts, all nearby teams with shamans attached started swarming the ruin like flies to shit.
After having a good look around, they found that alot of the buildings, tools, and decorations looked very similar to what they knew back home. After coming upon too many things that looked too familiar, they decided to call in the remembrancer they left at the first outpost to study items to study.
After a few days of escorting the remembrancer to the ruins, the remembrancer eventually came to the conclusion that these designs were from countless generations ago and the only places these designs are seen on the mainland are very old abandoned tribes.
When news of the ruins reached Chiefren Dhun, he pulled exploration teams from other areas to concentrate on the path where the ruins were.
Within days, more evidence of habitation was found. Some were in woodland clearings, others in caves or along rockfaces, and after investigating, all of them seemed to have one thing in common. A big hole in their wall/defenses wide enough for four men to stand shoulder to shoulder.
The only relief the expedition could take from the results of the investigation was that the plant growth and decomposition of the wood used for houses suggested that these tribes were abandoned for quite a few generations, and they hoped that whatever made those holes either moved on far away from them or died.
—
As the expedition was spreading further inland in all directions, the hunters encountered all kinds of new creatures, one of those creatures was ants.
Ants can be found all over the place, wherever there is life and death there are bound to be ants.
At the moment, a team of hunters was looking at five ants crawling around and using their antennae to tippy-tap everything in front of them.
Hunter 1: you are seeing what I am seeing, right?
Hunter 2: Yup.
Hunter 1: Just in case, we are seeing different things… are those ants?
Hunter 2: Uh-huh.
Hunter 1: not just any tiny ant, but ants the size of young wolves.
Hunter 2: Yes… we both see it and we are not crazy… but you know what, what are the chances that anyone has seen giant ants before?
Hunter 1: … I don't think anyone has.
Hunter 2: You know what that means right? We kill it, we get to name it.
With that statement, all the hunters in the team had a grin on their faces. A good number of the expedition teams had slain new beasts and got to name them, and now was their turn to have that honor.
As the hunters closed in and surrounded the five ants, the ants suddenly stopped and raised their antennae into the air and waved them around.
After a few seconds of antennae waving, a sharp whistle sounded, and throwing spears flew out and struck the ants.
The ants snapped their mandibles in anger and even with throwing spears sticking out of the ants' bodies, they charged toward where the spears came from with no apparent signs of even being injured, only to meet two hunters each.
As the ants closed in on their targets, a few of the hunters almost got caught in the mandibles of the ants when they executed a dash at the last second, the only thing that saved them was their spears which out-ranged the ants.
On the first ant dash, two of the ants had their heads impaled by the spears, but when the hunters expected the ants with an impaled head to die on the spot, the ants just kept charging forward, the only noticeable difference being the irregular twitching of its six legs and being unable to walk straight.
As for the other hunters, they managed to dodge or smack the ants off course. That was when some of the ants displayed a new weapon, one of the ants lifted itself higher and brought its abdomen under itself, the tip of the abdomen pointing at a pair of hunters and then, "Pssshhh"
A spray of liquid splashed on the two hunters as they turned their heads away so that whatever came at them did not hit them in the eyes. At first, the two men felt nothing and they charged the ant and speared it in the head and body, making it lose control and running off in a random direction and crashing into a tree.
Less than five seconds after spearing the giant ant, they started feeling a prickling sensation on their skin which swiftly turned to a burning sensation, making them scream in pain as the acid sprayed from the now-dying ant ate at their skin.
"The beast's juice, we need to wash it off!" one of the affected hunters shouted to his partner. They quickly took their waterskin and doused themself to wash away the acid.
By the time the other hunters were done with their ants, one other hunter was caught by an acid spray and the rest of the hunters had to empty their water skins to wash off the acid from the three men.
By the time they were done washing off as much acid as they could, the areas of the three men's skin that were burned by the acid were red and puffy, and some parts where the skin was eaten away by the acid.
The three men were in no condition to move and had to be carried. As for their prize, the hunters picked two of the ants that looked to be in the best condition and made their way back to the nearest outpost.
What the hunters did not know, was that the ants carcasses that they were bringing back to the outpost was their death warrant.
As they dragged the ant carcasses along, a pheromone trail that could be only be sensed by certain creatures, for example, ants, was being left in their wake.
—
Grud was currently taking it easy. He had been rotated out to take a break and be on standby in case any emergencies happened.
He was cuddling with Mita in his tent after lunch, as they talked about the newest discoveries of the expedition had recently made.
As they were doing so, Grud was fiddling with two changes that happened to Mita ever since she got her flesh and blood body.
The first change was her hair, in the span of a month her dark brown hair started turning shades lighter. At first, this was a cause for concern for both of them, but after monitoring her health, nothing seemed to be wrong.
The next change was her ears, her cute round ears started to become sharper and longer, they are now half times longer than normal ears, and do not seem to stop growing. This abnormality does not seem to affect her health so we left it be.
Although the one upside to her new ears was their sensitivity, Grud found out that if he played with them just right, they became an erogenous zone for Mita.
But as Grud was gently nibbling Mita's ear, there seemed to be some shouting outside which seemed urgent. He sighed, put on some clothes, and went out to see what the ruckus was.
At the entrance of the outpost was an injured man who collapsed on the ground, and was being tended to by the outpost's medicine man.
When Grud got closer to see the wounds, it looked weird. It looked like burn wounds yet it was not.
Then he heard the man repeatedly mumble something while shivering "The swarm… they come… they come…"
'Nothing that can do that to a person that is described as "The swarm" can be good.' Grud thought to himself as he started barking orders for scouts to search the area.