You soldier on and by the afternoon of the 2nd padan Nantas spies a mantalia plant, the life-source most Martians. Though it's milk is bland and relatively tasteless it is highly nutritious and indeed the only food eaten by green Martians. By nightfall you find you are no longer in such desolate land and your thoats are able to find abundant helpings of the yellow moss-like vegetation which is their natural food source.
As always upon Mars, dusk is a quick transition into darkness thanks to the thin Barsoomian atmosphere. Plunged into night you note that there is a distant shine on the horizon in the direction which you have traveled. It is too early to say for certain but hope kindles within each of you that Zodanga may lie only a few padan's away.
As day comes, akin to switching on a light in the reverse of dusk, you mount up once more and are off again. Everyone's spirits are buoyed as the day passes as you feel your journey must be nearing its end...
But when you halt at midday your thoats are restless. Something clearly disturbs them. The area around you is given to low hills and you have seen evidence of narrow gorges. As you investigate you happen upon a sight to fill most Barsoomians with dread, for within a nearby gorge squats one of the planet's top predators: a white ape!
It is entirely bald but for a mass of coarse hair that rises on its head like a crest. Standing ten to fifteen feet high, the white ape is an agile biped, which, like the green Martian, has an intermediary pair of limbs halfway between the legs and upper arms. These limbs are used for running and for grasping prey or improvised weapons. The paws of the white ape are massive and capable of completely enclosing the throats or limbs of any Martian it encounters.
Above its barrel chest, its square head sits on a corded neck. The eyes are small and close set. The ears are positioned high on the skull, but lower than those of the green Martians. With twenty different muscles controlling each cup-like ear, the white ape can pinpoint and distinguish sounds with remarkable precision. In this way, it can locate its prey easily in the mazy streets and plazas of dead cities like Horz, Jhama, Thark, and Warhoon. Its teeth and muzzle recall those of the African gorilla, though they are both many times larger. The two canines that protrude from the upper jaw are formidable piercing weapons and its
flat, broad incisors are efficient in shearing bone and stripping flesh.
The creatures ears are turned towards you and then its head raising in your direction.
You know it has detected you.
What do you do?
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:28, Thu 25 Feb 2021.