The Sentinels eat sugar, stay up late, have a seizure

@Visala

Summer nights were short. It was barely full dark for more than a handful of hours, and Sam would spend every second of that time on the cusp of shitting his proverbial pants.

It had started well enough. A little chit-chat. A pee break. An entire hour spent trying to explain colors. Then came the dark, and Sam and the Ghost were finally living on equal terms.

Sam had reformed into a loaf, paws tucked and tail wrapped tightly. It was dark enough among the juvenile pines that he could only see vague shapes. His hearing, however, was working overtime – and hallucinating more than a chatbot.

"Did you hear that?" Sam whispered, head swiveling to face the direction of the sound. Stomps? Steps? It sounded close.

Escalate panic? Even yes, odd no. Roll: 4

To Visala, the only difference between night and day was that in one she could still see blurred colours, and one she could not. She never quite understood what about the dark made seeing wolves so scared, but then again she never quite understood their fear.

The night had began fine enough; small talk, trotting far enough to pee in private, and explaining that blindness didn't mean she saw dark all day. She knew his panic would come, but Visala had expected it to be a bit funnier.

What, the crickets? She responded, brow raising. They're a nice noise. That was all Visala could hear besides what was pushed in the breeze, and she certainly didn't see a reason to be scared of them. Bugs were well.. bugs, but they didn't do all that much to really be more than an inconvenience.

I want it on the record that I know blindness is a spectrum!

Sam definitely heard steps. Heavy, slow steps, heading in their direction. The pine needles shivered above their heads, as if the knew what was coming - and knew to be scared.

"That's not crickets," the grey wolf wheezed, evolving his loaf into an awkward, shaky-legged crouch. His brown eyes were huge and straining in their sockets, closer than any eyes had ever been to sprouting limbs and fleeing. Sam's voice was thin and impossibly high when he babbled "She's coming. She's coming she's coming." and began to back towards the heart tree, pressing his bum into the lumpy trunk.

Odd yes, even no.

Are the sounds real? 3
Escalate panic? 8

Sounds could be explained by something funny/random if they are real

He had to be getting too old to act like this, right? When did men stop acting like babies?

What? She responded, standing up and scuttling forward on her best tip-toes, back arched as much as she could manage to look at least a little unnatural. The Huldra? She pushed out her best spooky voice too - all the effort here.

It didn't take long for Visala to lose her demeanour and start snickering, unable to take any of this too seriously. Nothing is coming, but your whining might attract a real problem if you don't suck it up.

Her mockery displaced some of the fear with anger - just enough to leash his panic and keep it from running rampant. Sam blew some sort of wolf raspberry at Ghost's display – he could see enough to know she was making fun of him, and doing a piss-poor impression of the Huldra, which everyone knew walked in two legs.

But he had heard footsteps.

"I'm sure you look great without skin," he grumbled, unfurling from his pretzel form and stepping into Ghost's defunct eyeline. "And another th–oh, sh- MOOOOOSE."

Le and behold, in place of the Huldra stood a fully grown cow - huge, her rubbery lips twitching in the dark. In her mind, she had been ambushed on a casual stroll, and now making her split second decision between fight or flight.

odd moose run, even moose attack: 12

Visala was quite pleased with her impression, and Sam's annoyance. Of course, I always look goo- she cut her sentence off, because this time she did hear the footsteps. Hooves, and bigger than that of which she knew. Did the Huldra have hooves?

Sam's sudden yell nearly sent her ears back, Visala frowning. What in the name of god's saint is a moose? She knew about deer, elk, even bison, but a moose wasn't something that a girl who grew up on beaches and in caves bumped into very often. Nonetheless, a snort from behind her told Visala all she needed to know; it was big, and it meant business. Maybe a fear response wasn't something that hit Visala the way it would another, but she still knew when it was time to getthefuckout. She was quick to start scrambling to get behind the tree, but not before a hoof got her in the right flank - ouch, that would hurt for a while.

Everything was chaos in the dark. The cow, with no way to put distance between herself and the wolves without an Olympic-level slalom performance, decided to attack. Sam saw a blur of something pale – how could she not know what a moose was? – scramble away, but not before the dull sound of a meat being struck. He would laugh if he knew that humans added 'punch sounds' to their magical moving pictures.

The moose was apparently not done with Ghost, because it pursued, stomping wildly in the direction she had fled and making its ugly grunting moose sounds. Sam let loose some hybrid between a scream and a war cry before he launched himself bodily at the animal, hoping to draw fire.

Odd moose distracted, even keeps pursuing Ghost: 14

Thankfully for Visala and unfortunately for the moose it was incredibly dark, and the large creature would likely hit the tree before the small canine scrambling to get behind it - though getting past Sam's sudden distraction gave her some time to space out where she had to go next if the moose made her way around the tree.

Whether Sam's attempt to scare the massive Canadian brand deer worked or not would likely depend on whether he would actually hit her where it hurt, and whether or not he took a heavy hoof to a non-specific bone. For Visala, that was why she would always pick flight over fight. Nonetheless, despite her hopes she still heard hooves clomping.

Odd for moose hits, even the moose keeps pursuing, exactly 5 and the moose flees? 4

Sam collided with the animal's side, which to him was quite an impact – the moose,  however, acted as though it had been attacked by bigger crickets.

Visala managed to avoid its blindly stomping hooves, but the attack did not let up - she acted as one posessed by the spirit of someone they had both wronged (like the Huldra) - the vibe had a distinct fuck-these-two-wolves-in-particular flavor.

Continuing this solo cage fight in the dark was a bad idea, Sam decided. He managed to skirt around the unrelenting ungulate and get within poking distance of Ghost, giving her a quick follow-me nudge en route to denser vegetation where the moose could not easily follow.

Odd escape, even trip and fall on face: 11

Sam finally made it to her, and Visala had absolutely no argument when it came to getting up out of there. Hopping through bushes she heard a frustrated huff of an ungulate before hoofsteps clomping away. Collapsing to the ground with pure relief, she couldn't help but cackle at the situation.

You're probably more paranoid than you were before, right? She asked despite her smile. Maybe once she would have taken an angry stomping beast as a sign, but now it seemed pretty silly to her. Stuff just.. happens sometimes. Who knew?

Sam insisted that they take cover under some ferns, giving Ghost's rump a mighty push when she fell to the forest floor – laughing, for some reason. He waited with bated breath and tense shoulders, listening as the stomping and huffing grew distant. Eventually,  the battle music faded into The Forest At Night.

Only then did he turn on Ghost, meeting her question with outrage on his voice. "Are you serio- that was obviously HER," he whispered, though it was louder than his normal voice would have been. "Wearing a skin."

Unfortunately she was right to think that Sam would be completely convinced now. Then call me a non-believer and doom me to her wrath. She grunted. Believe what you want, you have your gods and I have mine.

She had no time to argue - Visala was tired. Can we find somewhere to sleep now? I'm not waking up until noon.. Her statement was further confirmed by a yawn, mouth opening wide before shutting just as quickly.

Unbelievable. Sam snorted, then flinched at the volume. "YOUR gods aren't doing very good job of proving they exist! Go Huldra!" he whisper-yelled, all while nudging her in a moose-less direction. Somewhere underneath the adrenaline, he too was tired.

The forest swallowed the heated back-and-forth between the two wolves as they picked their way through the undergrowth. A calmer bed waited for them, free from demons.

Fin!