Risen World

After the first fight of the day the group started making their push towards the marsh area of this portion of the prairie. It was the only place that seemed to stand out in comparison to the rest of the area and was likely to be where anything interesting would be located. Along the way they did end up running into several different groups of prairie chicken that were getting harder to avoid with how many there were. The group of fifty that they initially fought was on the smaller side in comparison to the groups of prairie chicken that could grow up to well over a hundred. Whenever they came across such a group the land was almost barren where the chicken were located since they would pick it clean.

Do to the fact that there were so many groups of prairie chickens all around the area they got caught up in several fights along the way. They used similar tactics to their first fight and most of the time they would work, but occasionally some groups of prairie chicken would group up and survive the sudden attack. Whenever this happened Joshua would lead the tanks into taking on the barrage of sudden screech attacks that was easier to block with the number of prairie chickens left alive being far less than the initial amount. At most twenty or so of them would survive the initial attack and that wasn't enough to break through Jayce's shield wall with the reinforcement of Celia's skill. The long range fighters would pick apart the remaining chickens with a barrage of smaller spells and when there were less than ten left the close range fighters would go in and take care of the stragglers quickly.

As they took out group after group of prairie chickens some members of the expedition force were gaining levels but Joshua didn't even feel like he had gotten to ten percent of a single level in all the time they had spent in the prairie. It was clear that fighting beast that were a tier below his own was greatly holding back his experience gains, but that was fine. He still had a huge lead in levels with just about everyone in the hub city outside of Dmitry, Lily, and Madalyn. Joshua was sure that the guardian beast would give him some experience and he'd be surprised if he didn't at least gain one level from the upcoming dungeon.

Outside of just gaining experience from all of the fighting they were also getting tons of tamed prairie chickens from each conflict. At the rate they were going they'd have well over a hundred of them by the time the day would end. Even if the little chickens weren't great fighters they would be a good start in getting a stable livestock source again. Although it would be interesting figuring out how to handle the giant eggs that they'd likely be laying. Apparently some of the prairie chickens that they were taming were actual roosters, but the only difference that could be spotted was the slight change in coloration of their feathers.

It was mid-day when they finally got close to the marshlands and the tall grass was starting to thin out so that even when the group wasn't on the back of Momo they would be able to get a decent look at the surrounding area. When they finally arrived Joshua had everyone get off of Momo so they could explore the place a bit more slowly. He didn't want to miss something while they were dashing by while being up on the back of the large ferret. The first thing Joshua took notice of when they stepped into the marshlands was that there were definitely some new beast around to find. When he spread out his aura sense he could sense different beast from the prairie chickens around in the area most likely drinking from the water.

Off in the distance Joshua could sense some beast that seemed to be on their own near the edge of some of the pools in the marshlands. From their size and the shape of their aura that slightly outlined their bodies Joshua got the sense that they were a type of giant frogs that were around the size of Momo except a lot more bloated out. They were still nowhere near the size of the bison or the deer, but they were more than big enough to be a threat to other beast in the area. In another direction Joshua found a familiar aura that wasn't hard to miss out on as a group of bison approached a large source of water to drink from. There were some of the frogs around the area as well, but they didn't bother the much larger creatures.

The only other beast that Joshua could sense in the marsh area outside of the occasional groups of prairie chickens near the edge of it was a herd of deer that seemed to be following the group of bison towards a water source. It was interesting to see how the deer and bison didn't seem bothered with each other, but it might be because of the rule of the prairie that all beast seemed to live by. Every animal around a watering hole in the prairie always seemed to avoid conflict, they might follow the trail of another group to attack later but fighting at the watering hole was off limits.

Joshua decided to lead the group towards the area where all the different beast were located to get a good look at them and the hierarchy of the marsh area. Although they seemed to relax for the moment Joshua had already seen how aggressive the prairie chickens were in the area so there was no way that wasn't the case for some other beast in the area. Joshua just wanted to figure out what other major threats could possibly be in the area. Making their way through the marsh without Momo was a bit tougher with the muddy ground and having to constantly walk around large pools of water that seemed to constantly get in the way, but the last thing Joshua wanted to do was come into the area on the back of Momo grabbing the attention of all of the beast around the cleaner water source.

When they arrived at the area they all stayed hidden in the grassier portion of the marsh so that all of the beast around the area wouldn't start focusing in on them. They might have been used to being around each other, but that didn't mean they would take kindly to explorers coming around. The bison and deer seemed to just ignore them in the past, but Joshua wasn't sure if the giant frogs lounging around the water wouldn't try to attack them if they got to close or were out in the open. When Joshua observed the frogs he noticed that even though they were fairly big they were slimmer in body shape in comparison to Mr. Hoppy who had a bigger stomach and was now more colorful. All of these frogs looked a little bit more like toads with their brown coloring and the warts on their body. Those alone screamed poisonous to Joshua and the deer and bison seemed to agree as they would avoid the frogs and bellow at them if they got to close.

One thing Joshua did take notice of was that several of the bison had some injuries on them and would roll around in the mud on the injuries and stay like that for a while. It seemed like the mud had something in it that heightened the bison's regeneration abilities and they weren't the only beast doing it. The deer seemed to do similar things if they had any injuries while the toads almost seemed to be covered in it constantly whenever they came out to be on land. Of course none of the beast would keep the mud on them forever and would wash off in another nearby pool that wasn't quite as clean as the one they had been drinking from.

With all of this in mind Joshua could tell that all of the beast seemed a lot more on edge than any of the beast had been back at the watering hole in the first area of the prairie. This was the first warning bell that went off in Joshua's mind that something was going on in the area. None of the beast seemed hostile towards each other that he could see, even the prairie chickens were smart enough not to come over and cause trouble at the watering hole, but this tension in the air told Joshua that something was wrong with the current situation.

'Everyone watch out!' Celia nearly shouted through the mental link grabbing everyone's attention. They were too close to all of the creatures to talk out loud if they don't want to grab attention towards themselves. 'There's something extremely dangerous lurking in the water. I don't know what it is but my ability is warning me constantly about it and we aren't even standing near it at the moment.'

Joshua nodded his head in response before using his aura sense to feel things out in the surroundings. Since there were several beast around Joshua didn't have to worry about them locking in on his group as long as he didn't use an aura pulse. When his aura sense started to dive into the water at first he couldn't sense anything. There were a few tadpoles swimming around that Joshua figured came from all of the frogs around the area, but the source of water wasn't really big enough to store what Joshua assumed would be normal sized fish in the evolved world. He kept pushing his aura sense deeper and deeper until he finally found a source of aura that was trying to hide itself. It was at the very bottom of the lake at the moment Joshua aura sense reached the creatures head snapped up and started looking towards the top of the water. At first Joshua thought it was responding to him, but he could tell that it was locking onto a frog sitting at the edge of the pool and was ready to strike..