Hunting: Forbidden Forest

Annabella felt thankful for them turning back now, the stench in that area was getting stronger. Also her feet kept sliding into the muddy earth and she thanked Merlin that she had decided to wear boots instead of the tennis shoes that she had almost worn instead. She turned around and slowly walked out of the muddy ground before she turned back to see if Damon and Jess was getting out alright.

Mud. Just lovely. He didn't remember of such sopping wet ground here the last time he was here. It didn't explain the light, and he wasn't so sure it was hinkypunks, but so long as it wasn't attacking them, then perhaps it was just as well not to agitate it. If whatever it was, was willing to let them be then perhaps just moving on to bug hunting was a better resolve.

"What sort of environment does this bug live in, Jess? Besides the woods," Brian asked hoping to get a more defined answer.

As they passed the crossroads again Jess heard a question behind him and frowned "Well, we don't know. This is the only report we have on them, that they live in this forest. They may exist only in forests, or they may exist only in this one... they may even not exist at all, but we can't simply twiddle our thumbs, and be idle. We have to do something," he muttered.

The continued into the darkness and Jess felt that familiar sensation of being closed in by darkness once more. 'I don't like this,' he thought to himself.

Note to self, Brian thought, make Robert be specific when sending us for tiny bugs in a great big forest. Jess had been no help. Brian didn't know what the bug looked like except that it was a beetle. 30 million species of this creature and they were looking for just one.

What did it look like? What did it eat? Where did it live--in a tree, on a bush, under a rock, in the leaf litter? Was it noctural or diurnal? "Go forth and bring me bugs" wasn't sounding all that specific now. He was starting to believe Robert hadnt given him enough bug jars.

"I'd be a lot less idle if I knew what I was looking for," Brian said. He saw Jess's awareness start to increase, but it didnt look different to Brian. To Brian, dark was dark.

Jess sighed a little, trying his best to keep it quiet so that no one else would hear him - they were thoughts he himself were sharing, but he really didn't want everyone else to know that. "Well, the book said we'd know it when we saw it, so I suppose we just need to look for a beetle that looks completely different to what we expect it to," he told them, shrugging a little and continuing down the path.

"How long have we been going?" He asked looking at his watch and shouting. "Huh, look at that, we've been in here for a couple of hours now," he told them

"Doesn't feel that long but then again it is the Forbidden Forest and you don't know what to exact from it." Damon said keeping up with Jess and keeping an eye on Annabella as well as Brian. "You see anything that looks like a beetle Brian?" He asked as his wand light went across the ground and up the trees hoping that they could find the beetle quickly.

Annabella remained quiet as she followed closely next to the three men. "Uh, I'm not so sure about this anymore." She stated as she heard a few noises coming from the right of them. To tell the truth, the forest scared her. It was unknown territory to her and to go with that it had spiders crawling about it, big spiders at that. "Isn't there an easier way to find this beetle?" She said as she cautiously stepped over a huge tree limp sticking out from the ground.

"Technically," Brian said to Annabelle, "Yes. There are probably easier ways, but that doesn't mean they're better ways." He had a visual of one of them flicking their wands and shouting "Accio Beetles!" and every beetle in the forest slamming into them

"Actually, I do see beetles," he said. "But they're not the magical sort. Just common ground beetles. Definitely not what Robert would be after." Brian had seen the endless number of bug jars Robert had. Robert was not short on common bugs. And Robert had lots of bugs that Brian had never seen before, so if he didn't have this particular bug, then this was not going to be nearly as easy as his trail mates thought it would be. But he kept to himself the fleeting thought that he would spend his retirement years here looking for freaking bugs.

Jess chuckled as he shared similar thoughts as Brian, though his involved more biting and crushing. "Definitely, but easy is no fun," he replied, his voice serious despite the grin on his face.

He glanced downwards, however, as Brian mentioned the normal bugs and frowned. He was glad that they had some sort of comparison, normal or not, though he wished that they could just reach their goal as soon as possible. "Should we stop for the night or push on," he asked, pausing in his tracks and waiting for the rest to catch up to get their thoughts.

"I'm good with stopping," Brian said. "We've been walking a long time. Or it seems like it anyway. And its either losing daylight or my eyes are playing tricks on me. If we are losing daylight, then we need to probably make camp before it gets even darker in here. Unless these bugs glow in the dark, we probably will have difficulty seeing them much longer. But we might well be safer around a fire." Most of the night creatures didn't seem to like fire all that much. Not that he remembered.