The shadowy figure suddenly vanishes completely, with a small flurry of shadowy particles that vanish nearly as quickly.

His eyes go wide for a moment. What the Kriff. And he slowly makes his way to the spot that it dissapeared.

"Hello?... uh... we come in peace?"

Come in peace? What a stupid thing to say. Idiot .

Rakan looks around trying to find any sign of its whereabouts or perhaps if it left anything behind, tracks... anything. After a brief few moments he find nothing of the sort. Whatever it was it seemed to just vanish into thin air.

What he did find though was a small rodent creature of some kind. Dead, with similar wounds to the other creature. Strange. He picked it up and made his way back to camp. Keeping his eyes open for the remainder of his watch.

He made it back to camp without further incident and spent the next few hours on higher alert, especially when he found out the lifeform scanner wasnt being powered by the Fusion Lantern because the Lantern had died, bloody thing. Evemtually he felt himself feeling drowsy, and he was contemplating hitting up another dose of Glitter.

Thankfully, Mel Ashen approached to take the next watch and he showed her the animal he had recovered and told her what he saw and that she should be vigilant.

"I'll have my comm. with me, don't hesitate to rouse me if you need. I'm a light sleeper."

With that, he went to his make-shift sleeping arrangements. And after about another half hour, sleep finally found him.

Part Two: Rakan Kowl
Chapter Two: Monster of the Mists.
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The rest of the night passes without incident. In the morning after everyone has eaten, everyone who went on watch reports to Rakan that they saw nothing. Then he is approached by Kerrick Breshenal, "Did you see anything last night? Did anyone else see anything last night?"

"Nothing of real interest." Rakan replies plainly. Not wanting to talk about seeing the shadowy figure again. He wasnt in the mood to go a round with Breshenal for no reason, and the morning wouldn't be a good time for it, Rakan was not a morning person.

"However, I found that small rodent creature. Torn up pretty oddly. Yet not to be eaten. Something killed it for sport I think. Likely the same story with the larger feline creature too."

Rakan looked at Breshenal squarely. "There is something more dangerous out there, I advise conducting all research with extra caution."

"Good." Breshenal said simply. "I'll make sure to alert everyone to take precautions."

He summons everyone to give them the plan, "Doctor Juna, you take Rakan, and be on the lookout for his bogeyman. Sorotai, I'll come along with you and your crew. Shapris, you look after the camp." He pulls up an aerial holomap of the surrounding terrain, and gestures to show the amount he wants mapped. "Because of the thick tree cover blocking our ship's sensors, we'll have to do it the old fashioned way. We'll start over here and work our way out and around toward the river. Shouldn't take us more than a couple days, but it depends on this fog storm." He zooms out the map showing them a nearby fog storm, "Like I said earlier, we don't have an understanding of what exactly causes these, but be prepared for it to get a whole lot more damp. This'll be here in about six hours, and we're not sure how long it'll be before it lets up." He sighs, and then continues, "I'm not being entirely fair to Rakan. While we have no evidence of what he claims to have seen, we have found a couple corpses that have injuries we can't explain. Be on the lookout for it, whatever it is. Stick close, no wandering off. Stay within earshot at all times, and try to maintain line-of-sight. Any questions?"

Shapris speaks up, "Yeah, I've got one. Who in blazes is going to be driving?"

Breshenal gives him a look, "Me. Why do you ask?"

Shapris shrugs reluctantly "Nevermind."

Rakan listened the sort-of apology from Breshenal, and while not endearing, was better than nothing. He relaxed his muscles a little. He didn't get much sleep, and what he did was very light, so he wasn't feeling amazing. The dose of Glitterstim he took shortly after waking up had helped though.

"Looks like your have a personal bodyguard, Juna." He said, giving the Pantoran a nod.

He wasn't entirely sure why Breshenal wasnt going to let the driver... drive. But he wasn't going to pick another battle. He loaded up his equipment, checked his weaponry and effects and prepped for the expedition, hoping Breshenal was wrong about the storm but knowing he wasn't.

"Looks like I do. No offense, but I'd probably trade you for a coolant backpack right now." She cracked a rare joke and gave a weak grin, wiping the sweat off her forehead again. "Let's go look for the herd you saw earlier."

"Hah. We'll see if you still say that by days end." He said with what he would consider a smile, and then pointed in a direction and started walking.

"Herd was this way."

When you get close to the location, you see that all of them are gone, except for one: another corpse. Even the most untrained eye can see that the rest left in a significant hurry.

"Well, Kriff..."

Rakan muttered, approaching the corpse. Dead as dead can get. He looked around, a full three-sixty, scanning the distance slowly.

"What do you think, Nadriana?"

She knelt by the creature, pulling out her datapad and handscanner as she did so. "Much like the others, I'm afraid. Look how effortlessly it pierced the thick hide! The cuts are less deep though..." She batted at a couple bugs that flew up off the animal, then stood up and walked around the corpse while still talking, "I ran some simple tests on the tissue and blood samples from the first corpse, and I don't think that there was any sort of toxin. I can't understand it. I've never seen anything like it." She points out a small cluster of holes just under the bony prominence, "I think it died instantly, it looks like those wounds went straight to its brain and out the other side." She shakes her head, "Like the first one, I'd say it died sometime last night. It probably didn't even have a chance. Look how its lying, it probably never even twitched. What do you think this predator is?"

"Never seen anything like it. " Rakan admitted. "I wonder why it killed it though, does it seem to have taken anything? Or is the beast still completely intact?"

"Not that I can tell. Of course there is some tissue missing, but not more than could be expected for a wound like this." She said, shaking her head. "It isn't like that rodent you found."

"Not sure what to say, Nadriana. The holes might be from a high powered rifle perhaps, if not a creature." Rakan suggested, "But I'm not sure. Other than that, who knows, you're the expert here."

He began pacing around the area while the Pantoran worked. Keeping an eye out for anything, in the canopy or through the forest.

"And I am not even an expert." she sighed. "Let's move on, we've got work to do."

The expedition proceeds without incident. They track down the herd easily enough, and Doctor Juna got some good data. She also observed and cataloged several other species as they continued to explore before the fog storm came up. With her datapad in hand, she led them back to the camp, following the homing beacon. The fog was quite thick, and no matter how hard Rakan peered, he couldn’t see anything following them. With the conditions as they were, however, he couldn’t tell if that meant nothing was there, or that whatever was there was lurking just outside his sight range, using the fog to its advantage. However, the Glitterstim helped his eyes adjust to the fog. As time went on, he started to see more clearly, even though Juna assured him that there had been no change in the conditions.

They got back to camp ahead of the others, and found Shapris waiting with a glow rod in one hand and a pistol in the other. "Rake? Nadj? That you?"

Doctor Juna sighs in frustration, "We're back Mr. Shapris."

"Yes, it's us." Rakan replies, walking up to the man and looking about the base camp. Trying to see.

"Anything crazy happen?" He nods to the blaster. "You good?"

He holsters the pistol, "Yeah, I'm fine. The others should be back soon. I've got a pot of caf on, if you'd like some."

"I'll take some. But I want to do a perimeter check first." Rakan said. He made or motion with his head to Nadriana. "Take some rest."

The Wolf-man prowled the perimeter of the camp, looking for anything out of place or any sign of the rest returning.

Rakan sees nothing, but hears something else: A distant distressed whine from Epimetheus, rapidly approaching. Shapris stands, muttering, "Sweet mother of chaos… What’s Kerrick doing?" After a couple minutes, the speeder comes into sight range. It’s moving quickly, but not as fast as the sound of the stressed repulsorlift would suggest. As it approaches the camp, it doesn’t seem to be slowing until it reaches the camp and slams to a stop, "Emperor’s ghost, Breshenal, where’d you learn to drive? The drunken mynock school of instruction?" Shapris yells. Everyone spills out of the vehicle, Sorotai is laughing and Nem Muub collapses on the ground, his legs shaking uncontrollably. Breshenal walks over to Shapris and attempts to explain the situation to the indignant Chagrian. "Something hit the underside of the vehicle and took out two of the coils. We couldn’t see what."

The whine of the approaching ranger sent alarm bells ringing in his head, are they being chased? He pulled up his Rifle and readied himself. The ranger came in slower than expected and he waited for something to follow, but nothing came, and the others spilled out of the vehicle. Rakan stepped forward, frowning and eyeing the speeder cautiously. He gave hand to Nem and lifts him up off the ground.

"Easy," He said, attempting to be reassuring, "You're breathing..."

"Any other issues?" He asked as he inspected the Ranger, dropping down prone to check its undercarriage, hoping nothing was clinging on.

Breshanal shakes his head, "No. Other than this, it went off without a hitch."

Sorotai stops laughing and says, " I'll get the repair kit. Shapris, let's see if we can't fix it up."

Nem steels himself and staggers to his tent.

As Rakan looks at the coils, he sees some blood and fur caught in some of the components, and notices that the two repulsor coils have been nearly shorn through. Based on the size of the cuts, it looks like they might have hit one of the predators they fought earlier. Both repulsor coils have several gashes, some of which barely scratched the surface, others that cut or tore fairly deep into the mechanism.

"Two Coils are down." Rakan muttered, getting up. " Completely shorn through there's some blood and fur down there, similar to the creature we fought yesterday."

The Wolf-Man sniffed the air and looked around at the storm. "Weather is crazy, and we're making more of a stir than I'd like. Everyone keep their blasters close. You never know what could happen in a place like this."

He walked off to get some refreshment.