Chapter 2: Birdsong in Hollow Valley

Wei rushes over and attempts to move the debris pinning the crab-man.

Feng looks for anyone stuck inside a burning building, or even an opportunity to simply keep some of the fire from eating away at the wood. She reaches out, wrestling with the licking flames as if it was a snake as she tries to pull it away, her body remaining unscathed.

Feng quiets the flames. Mimi and Orengi help the crab-folk douse the fires with buckets of water. Wei plants his feet squarely and heaves the burning, collapsed wall off of the pinned crab-man. Kalam and Meng rescue trapped folk and guide them through the smoke to where Iko tends to the injured. The crisis is surmounted.

Though grateful for your help, many of the villagers bow and scrape with a measure of fear. People generally don't come out here to the salt marsh except to round up more slaves to add to their stables. A crab-man steps forward, and you surmise it is an elder of sorts. Surprisingly, the elder speaks the common tongue, albeit awkwardly. No one has ever bothered to learn the language of the crab-men, which sounds like nothing more than bestial hisses and clicks.

"Wee thankk... why kkomm you?"

What do you do?

Wu Meng bowed, "We are glad that no terrible harm has befallen your village. Our guide returned here with our boat, we still require it, as we are hunting this deadly beast. Perhaps you have some clues to its lair or whereabouts, and can direct us." The crab-men were regarded as slaves, but Meng spoke to the elder with respect, as an equal.

"No problem, crab-person! Saving others is always a good thing! " Mimi also replied oblivious to the social circumstances of the Crab-men. "By the way, do you know of what caused the fire in the first place?"

The crab-elder eyes all of you with surprising intelligence. With its alien features, it's hard to tell what it's thinking. With a stick, it draws in the sand. A creature out of nightmare, identical to the sketch you were given, save for one feature: in the crab-man's drawing, the creature has a tail ending in a poison stinger, much like a scorpion's. Given the venom Iko discovered, it makes perfect sense. With gestures, more drawings in the sand, and the crab-elder's rudimentary speech, a possible location for the creature's lair is suggested to you. It's series of mud pools along a small tributary near a bend in the Tiger just a few miles from the city.

What do you do?

"Thank you. May we continue to have your crab-men guide us there in a boat?"

The crab-men are taken aback that you would ask their permission for anything. Permission is granted.

Satisfied that they had done whatever they could to help the village, Wu Meng got back on the boat with the others, and nodded to their guide to proceed where the elder had directed them towards, the mud pools. At least they now had more information than they did previously regarding the beast and its venomous sting.

Kalam follows suit

Mimi is still bothered about the cause of the fire, so she made a quick investigation before heading back to the boat.