The third territory announced itself before Roman could see it.
The smell reached him first, thick and damp and carrying something underneath it that he couldn't immediately name but that made the back of his neck tighten. Then the sound came...
Low, rhythmic, like something large breathing slowly in its sleep.
Then he crested a small ridge and saw it.
[Location: The Murk Basin. Home of the Hollow Fin Colony.]
[Inhabitants: Hollow Fins.]
[Chances of Survival: 58%.]
The Murk Basin was a wide, shallow body of dark water sitting in a natural depression in the valley floor, its surface completely still except for the occasional ripple where something moved just below it.
The treeline around it was thick enough to block most of the available light, and the whole place carried the particular stillness of somewhere that had learned to be patient.
