Later into the night while letting the fire spark its flame as it will soon turn into a short ember of charcoal, minutes passed through the night as Gale and Ralian are taking shifts through the night as to not get ambushed by any bandits, any wild animals, or even the beast they had witness earlier that may be in their vicinity as to hope for Jin's safety as he would be healed by next light.
While it was Ralian's turn to be on night watch, Gale leans on against a tree as to mostly past the night. Gale takes short naps and observes a bit of their items, as within the armour, Gale still knows that a changeling like Gale is most nocturnal but happens once in a while. Looking from every corner where Gale can see from a distance noticing no one is watching, Gale reaches towards their helmet as was about to take it off to catch a breather. Gale got half of their face exposing the mouth as Gale takes a deep breath of fresh air without the helmet blocking most of the air flow. But Gale notice Ralian was walking towards Gale, quickly putting on the helmet and then starts pretending to doze off into a slumber.
Ralian then taps Gale's shoulder getting the attention as Gale looked up at her, "Gale it's your turn" she yawned noticing the tiredness in her eyes.
"Alright Ralian, but you take the nap, I'll take the rest of the night"
"Alright thank you, hope you can keep us safe."
As Ralian walks away from Gale she is then creates some vines and leaves to make a makeshift bed then starts resting on a pile of leaves lying on, feeling comfortable as falling to sleep. Gale knowing that they need to start their shift got up from the tree they were laying on and started to walk around the camp trying to find anything suspicious. But through all the search only from a few metres away from his friends, Gale tries to stop any bugs or birds still awake, anywhere around the area as to spend time during the hour night shift.
"I wonder if there's anything to do..." Gale thinking to themselves as not to feel bored.
But during his walk around the area they realized they are alone as most animals are seemingly to be asleep from what Gale can see from their surroundings.
"Maybe I can be myself for a while, since Ralian is sleeping" Gale thinks to themselves with a sigh of relief.
Then Gale walked over towards a nearby tree and rest their body onto said tree and their body begins to rattle, using their Changeling's ability, Gale's armour suddenly became hallow and a rat comes out of Gale's armour as Gale is now the rat, and quickly transforms into something that fits the wild atmosphere in the forest, and shifting their body as to become a wolf towards a more fitting environment and howls out loud through out the whole forest. As Gale begins to adventure through the whole forest jumping from rock to rock and leaping high enough that Gale turns into a monkey and grabs onto a vine swinging from vine to vine and swinging off a vine high enough that they form into a falcon and flies through the forest. Gale is having the time of their life exploring through out the entire the whole forest feeling more like an animal as being parts of a community of different species of animals. But as Gale quickly uses the talons landing onto a branch, Gale notice that there were no animals in sight, feeling an odd feeling for a few minutes Gale soon decided to head back to the others.
Hopping off the branch Gale starts flying back to the others. However, Gale suddenly hear singing nearby and is sudden to feel drowsy from their whole body almost losing focus. Gale almost crashes towards a tree but reacts quickly enough to avoid the upcoming danger swerving towards the right and left dodging many trees as Gale quickly lands onto another branch quickly taking a breath as Gale was sweating a bit from the sudden fear Gale was feeling.
"What is happening to me" Gale quickly thinking to themselves, but suddenly started to create lots of conclusion during their time here in this forest.
"Wait we never found any animals since we crashed here... odd".
Gale wanting to investigate further from the odd singing, Gale quickly changes their direction away from where to their friends and head towards where they heard the singing coming from. Slowly getting closer towards the singing as it gets louder and louder Gale suddenly gets more drowsy almost eventually falling to sleep by the singing. Gale then quickly shape shifts their ears closed as to not hear the strange singing and surprise to know that it stopped Gale from being drowsy anymore and is still on the trail Gale was on originally. And soon got close enough to where the singing is coming from and quickly lands onto the branch and changes into an owl for their benefit for night vision. Gale then witnessed the person who was singing standing in a flowing river as the person seemed to be barefoot while having their feet submerged in water and is seemed to be dancing as well.
"A human singing in the forest? Not the weirdest thing I witness for all my changeling lifetime" with Gale and their enhanced night vision Gale can only see a few appearance and opens one of its ears to take a listen to the singing, it was a female wearing a white skirt though it looked a bit thrashed and there doesn't seemed to be any shoes anywhere. But as soon they try to take a close look a wolf then approaches the woman slowly falling into her hand as the wolf gets closer towards her face, her appearance started to change, water dripping around her body, her skin started to form scales, her jaw started to become unhinged as all of her appearance changed she, wasn't any human, she is a Siren. And the siren bites the wolf and the wolf immediately gets out of his trance and tries to struggle out of the grasp from the siren, but to no avail and cracks the wolf's neck killing the wolf. "What the slang!?" Gale accidentally yelled out loud and has gotten the attention of the siren looking at Gale as she suddenly grinned at the owl looking at her.
"my, my, what do we have here, a little birdie being an eavesdropper. Are you going to fly and call your flock, if do so do it hastily, I do want a quick snack than this wolf here" her voice was just as lustrous and threatening as her face being the race of a siren, as she laughs manically to herself.
Gale, now feeling frightened from the Siren's evil laughter, quickly leaves the siren and quickly turns back into a falcon then flies away trying to get far enough away. But as the siren sees the owl now a falcon flying away from fearing her, she smiled, leaving the wolf she killed on the ground she started to walk towards the direction of where Gale is flying away as she is always excited for a chase for her prey. As she laughs echoing throughout the entire forest letting Gale know she was serious.
Elsewhere walking in the dead of night a stranger approaches running through the forest, and sees what's left of the forest in the surrounding area it took place in. Observing a crater but feels a strong amount of wind circulating around the area as the stranger walked into the crater he accidentally stepped and broke something beneath his feet. Lifting his feet and looking down the stranger notice a mask that only covers the eyes, the stranger then looks around the area of the crater and notices come scrap fragments of metal and some broken arrows and was quick to create a conclusion of what happened here.
"Seems to be that they were here. But it wasn't very welcoming to them" as the stranger pulls down his hood and reveals himself to be Ezrael Fendrick.
Ezrael then walked out of the crater and examines the ground to then see the footprints left by Ralian and Gale, Ezrael is quite grateful that three adventurers are still safe and hasn't found any unusual signs of danger. However Ezrael soon sees new footprints heading towards a different direction but still leads to the same path as Gale and Ralian made. He kneels down to examine the footprints noticing a slight glimmer of water.
"Hm, these are fresh, and wet?" Ezrael suddenly gets a frightened reaction something that he isn't familiar with the feeling of fear.
"This cannot be good I have to hurry before it's too late"
Ezrael quickly dashes forward using a lot in his strength to head towards the three, before the siren gets to them first. Though without knowing most of the members are asleep, while one is flying around trying to get away for their life is in danger.
(End of chapter 24)