We both jumped off the rock, our feet making a quick succession of thuds upon the ground. We made our way across area 1, cutting across the shallow water gathered in the chasm of the rock surface, i felt the water rise to my ankles and wet my leather boots but that didn't stop me. "Hmm... something's up. The Scoutflies are gathering." The handler told me with a small curious look. I approached her, she had stopped in front of a flower of sorts rising from the ground, it was almost as tall as us, it had a simple green stalk, a few leaves protruding from them, and at the top, two white flowers that as I soon found it, when struck released a burst of green smoke that immediately gave me the feeling that I had more strength. It appears these particular white flowers were called Vitalily, close to its name and given good reason, grants the received a boost of vitality.
I followed the handler across the deeper stretch of water as she studied these plants, they seemed to be cropping up everywhere. "What a weird plant." I heard her call from further up, it seemed her excitement made her a faster walker than me. We kept on walking, a few colourful birds catching my eye, one flying off to cross in front of me, the tips of their long wings were white and their body had a soft red glow, their face either a blue or light purple, that's all I was able to see before it vanished from sight, there would be plenty of time to study them later. "There's one over here, too." The handler said as she approached the familiar Vitalily, though this time she didn't stop, she kept on going, deeper into this Ancient Forest as it was called, the dirt path beneath us turning to bright green grass. "C'mon!!8 think I found the way back to base!" She said and carried on, me at her heels.
"I had the Scoutflies memorise my scent earlier." The handler saw fit to tell me, having the glowing flies were pretty useful though I had to admit and knew they could only be an helpful tool. "If you lose sight of me, just follow the Scoutflies and they'll lead you right to me!" She explained as we began to adventure deeper into the ancient forest. I could tell we were getting deeper in, the space was less open, more and more trees and bushes coming into view. I panted slightly as I jogged down some stone steps down a slope, to another entrance into a thicker section of the forest, the same vines hanging over this one as the ones back at camp in section 1. Though there was an entrance, as I looked down, I saw thicker vines slightly blocking the entrance, I wasn't left wondering how to get through them for long as the handler spoke up. "We can push our way through these vines." She explained as she bent over slightly to take a closer look.
I overtook her, of course as an A-lister this was my job and not hers. I turned my body sideways slightly, planting my feet firmly on the ground and placed my right hand on one of the vines, my left hand on the vines to the other side, and using as much force as I could, pushed them apart, it was a little easier than expected so I wasn't complaining. I shifted my body sideways, shoving my shoulder into the gap I had created and repeated this process until I was through to the other side. We were met with a very dense forest area, only some of the stone ground out to see, the rest covered in grass and bushes that had large leaves and were a hunt if yellow, there was a huge wooden structure in the centre that had leaves and other green things growing from it and draping off the edges, it looked as if someone had cut down a very thick tree and then someone had built a very intricately crafted wooden bridge across it made clearly from the wood of the trees, though I couldn't see if that's what it was or a joining of thick tree roots all tangled together to create the structure.
Without waiting the handler dropped down of the little platform into this new area, as always me close behind, looking around in awe, it was beautiful and definitely belonged to the New World. There was a hiss in the distance that caught my attention, my eyes snapped to the Monster I could see coming from the bushes, and the worst part of all was that it was right in front of the handler, it's yellow eyes fixed on her as it continued hissing and creeping closer to her. They greatly resembled and iguana, but much bigger, it's large clawed feet sinking into the grass covered floor. Most of their body were covered in light green scales and this one particular had a blend of blue and green stripes, though I suspected that the stripes could be a number of colours, much like the Vitalily, they could be researched later, and once the handler was safe, I couldn't very well let my partner get eaten by a fierce overgrown iguana now could I.
The Monster growled, more like screeched, long enough for me to see the sharp teeth it had and the pink inside its mouth. The handler took a cautious step back, she didn't want to upset the creature anymore. I quickly placed myself at her side and held my arm out in front of her, it seemed like this type of monster wasn't as peaceful as the Aptonoth back in section one. It slowly walked towards us, me and the handler backing up one step at a time, matching the steps the beast took towards us. It stopped walking for a moment and my hopes raised as I thought it would turn away and leave us alone. No such luck.
The creature roared up on two legs, it's long claws dangling in front of it, the monsters head snapped to the right and he let out a loud screech, then snapped his head to the left and made the same awful cry. It roared back for a second before coming back down on all fours, it's yellow eyes with thin black slit like pupils studying us as if we'd be it's next meal. Then...I realised it wasn't the only one there, the screech seemed to alert others of the same monster to our presence, and now we were surely overrun with the iguana looking creatures. They emerged from places I couldn't see, one seemingly just appearing from one of the large bushes and a few more came as they slowly gathered towards us. They circled us eventually, me and the handler almost pressed back to back. "Woah... easy there." The handler said, it was the first time I'd ever heard slight uncertainty in her voice, and that was enough to terrify me.
"Don't pick a fight if you don't have a weapon! We need to hide! C'mon, this way!" She said. With that she turned and quickly ran to a ledge of a raised surface, a little higher above the ground we both now ran across hoping that we were quick enough to get away. "Hurry up! This way!" We both grabbed onto the ledge and hauled ourselves up, my eyes immediately landed on the large yellow tinted bushes I saw earlier and they looked big enough to hide me, I wasn't sure where the handler was but before I could stand there asking too many questions i crouched into the bush, the thick leaves that hung slightly down to the earth covering me. She followed me after a moment, crouching down into the same bush as I did.
Through the leaves I could see the Monsters following us, though I wasn't sure if they had spotted me or the handler before we had a chance to hide ourselves. They paused, looking around, head snapping side to side so quick in unison that I was amazing they didn't get whiplash, perhaps that didn't exist in the New World. The growled lowly, the sound all but filling the part of the forest we were in, but after a few seconds, thankfully they ran off past us, not detecting us in the bush they passed. I could see the others scampering off in the distance, their green scales shining slightly as they retreated.
"Ok, the coast is clear. Let's get going while we still can." The handler said as she noticed that the only sounds we could hear were our own heavy breathing and still the sound of water from the section slightly behind us. She stood and began to walk off up the little elevated path that we had climbed onto, she was right though, we didn't want to stick around here for long, especially as I didn't have a weapon yet. It was time to find this research headquarters and get the hell out of the Ancient Forest, for now.