February 21st:

"Let'th juth' keep mothing, yeah? Juth' gotha finth thome kintha theddlemen'."

translation:

Sethos turns to Rory with a confused expression on his face, he stares at him for a solid twenty seconds trying to figure out what he said before the look of realisation dawns on his face at which point he chuckles a little again at Rory's speech impediment.

"Settlement ... which I don't see here. We should get moving. There's some dark clouds rolling in and it wouldn't be good to be caught out there in the middle of it. Let's at least get some cover." Snarg begins trudging southwards along the line of trees, slightly hunched over. Continuing to cautiously sniff around every so often, he grasps his cloak tightly to himself with both hands visible in the front.

Spoiler:

Sethos, still peering around anxiously follows slowly behind Snarg, doing his best to make the light plonk of his quarterstaff on the floor as inaudible as possible.

Rory followed at a brisk pace, glancing about warily, squinting through the glare reflected off the snow, ice, grass, leaves, and "bark". The fear of the unknown tingled in the underbelly of his brain, but he kept calm. With both hands free, he massaged his temples from time to time--his head was still throbbing mildly--and drank the blood from his tongue until it stopped bleeding. It fully relieved the taste of vomit that remained after he drank the water.

As the group makes their way south across the slush, to the point where they are now traversing actual snow, every so often a creature or beast hopping between the trees or a bird flying amongst them resounds, affirming that there is in fact life here. They see a usual assortment; rabbits, wolves, elk, aurochs, and so on but after a bit Snarg manages to finally spot the thing that's been following them; a lone Reedshark. It has stopped hiding and moved out into the open to stare at the group. While it is clearly a Reedshark, it looks quite different in appearance due to its dark mottled skin, slightly off-set rear legs, and much taller dorsal fin that makes it look larger then it is. It is making no sound nor approaching, though it is moving with the group.

Snarg:

Spoiler:

As he continues his walking poise, Snarg turns his head slightly back towards the group following him and speaks in a low voice: "Reedshark following us; trained scout at that. Someone is going to know we're here soon if they don't already."

Sethos lets out a low groan, his head ceasing all movement as he continues to walk behind Snarg. In a hushed tone he replies to Snarg,

"Couldn't we kill it or hide or something?"

"Wha' do we do? Good chanthe i' belongth to a Tuthker," Rory whispered. "Could be bandid'th. Quethchun ith, ith i' thafer tho kill i' or keep walkung?"

Translation:

"I don't want to fight a Tusker after we kill his scout for no reason," Snarg mutters back, staring straight ahead at the path, "we're not here to fight anyone. Keep on the lookout for others or any ambushes."

"Well couldn't we maybe avoid an ambush if we killed it, or at least, I don't know, knocked it out maybe?" Sethos shakes his head as he peers around nervously "Ho, I need a smoke right now" he whispers, rubbing his eyes again.

Snarg's cloak shifts back and forth as he visibility shakes his head. "I don't think trying to kill the first intelligent thing you see is going to do any good."

"So, what? We just keep walking like we're not about to get murdered?"

"I thay we juth' keep walkung. I dou' tha' the firth' thing they'll do when they thee waceth they'the nether theen before is kill them dead."

translation:

Snarg suddenly stops and slowly turns around to face Sethos, shivering shivering underneath his cloak. He raising his voice slightly from his previous mutterings, his tone quivering a bit."Look: if we get in to a fight, there's no way I can think of that we'll come out on top. Just fighting one Tusker will be the end. Period. We couldn't have even taken the child we met before if we had decided to fight him for some reason, let alone a full-grown one on this island. There's no reason to be fighting anyone here anyway. We haven't done anything. They haven't done anything. Sending a scout out doesn't mean someone's wanting to kill you. Trust me - I've been a scout most of my life. Killing a scout is going to bring someone's rage down on you ... hard. In a place like this, where we don't know the land, we don't have the weather on our side, and we don't have the people, we'll have nowhere to go but feet up if we start anything. Understand?" He pauses a few moments to give Sethos a serious stare, pats him on the shoulder a few times, and then continues back on the path, resuming his previous mannerism.

Sethos, standing still for a minute takes a deep breath, stares into middle distance for a second then at the back of Snarg's head as it slowly moves away and then sighs with a whisper of "D'arvit" before continuing to follow.

The group continues south for some time, finding more and more of the crystalline trees though as you go further you begin to notice varients in them. Some trees have red 'leaves', some blue, some violet. The bark, too, shimmers different colors, in one bundle or another, making a strangely pristine rainbow color.

The number of Reedsharks following you by now has increased to 5. None of them have ever gotten closer to you then about 50 feet back though, and they are all grouped together.

You finally arrive at the top of what looks like a fairly tall hill, and from the terrain you can tell that below you lies a valley that stretches for what has to be at least 50 miles, with twin peaks forming the edges to the west and east of the valley (which itself is a 'tall' valley, stretching north to south). The valley itself is almost pristine, no trees, no rolling hills, almost completely flat with a fine layer of snow over all of it.

"Oooff... that's a long haul." Snarg stops and looks over the valley, scratching his ear with one hand as he surveys the open expansion. "Wow ... there's nothing. Just nothing. Huh." He readjusts his cloak and turns towards the group. "Fiernaceal, are you sure you don't know what we're looking for or where we're supposed to be going? This is going to take a while to do if we're just going around randomly and it's not going to be nice going over places like that," he motions towards the valley, "with what we've got and without knowing who's watching us. If we don't know, then heck, maybe it'd be best to get the Reedsharks to lead us back to wherever they came from. At least we can talk to someone there."As he talks, he runs his hand near one of the trees nearby, curiously inspecting it.

Spoiler:

"Maybe that firth't shark wath a thcout for a nearby pack," Rory wondered. "Better keep your guard up, in cathe more come." He then peered into the valley, then the surrounding area, for any visible signs of life.

Awareness 9:

Rory:
The valley itself is totally devoid of anything except a fine layer of snow as far as the eye can see, and no matter how long or hard you look you spot nothing. No animals or birds either.

Snarg:
The trees themselves have a very obvious connection to the Fire Element, if you had to guess you would say that there's no artificial magery of any kind, Elemental or otherwise, within the trees.

"Well, I can't thee anything. Where do we go from here...? How did you find it lath' time?" he asked the Scion.

Fierneceal is frowning at the valley. "I have no idea," she admits. "There's no trace of Psionic energy here that I can see, but in retrospect I suppose that doesn't surprise me, since there was none on Vesayen Lassel either." She considers.

"I haven't seen anything like these trees before", Snarg muses, "they're connected to the Fire Element in some way... it's like..." He closes his eyes as if in a trance, his hand brushing against the tree. After several silent moments, he then slowly brings his hand close to the trunk until it is fully touching the tree.

Spoiler:

"Well we can't croth that valley. I'm not climbing all the way down juth' to climb all the way back up. Leth' go around the edge and then keep moving the direction we were going before."

Snarg:
There is nothing Scionic in the design of the trees at all. Nor is there anything magical in their formation, nor are they any more connected to the Ley Line then everything else around you is.