Karina: "Are squirrels even that smart? Huh. I didn't think so... But this little girl is fine, she's gentle and nice! Here!"
She holds the squirrel out to you, and it gives a single chit as it eyes you calmly. Begrudgingly, you cautiously move your hand to its head and give it a scritch. It allows it, though shrinks back and shakes off its head afterwards.
Karina: "See! Cute. Also her friends are really noisy, I don't think they could sneak up on us if they tried, heheh."
She goes back to petting the squirrel, now giving attention to its bushy tail.

[ Timesquirrel? ]
[ Other ]

Karina lavishes the animal for a bit longer before releasing it back into the trees. It quickly loses itself in the branches, and you hear the characteristic chattering deeper in the grove. After that, Karina is in a very chipper mood, and time passes quickly for you.

~~~

Before you know it, the survey crew has finished their work, and with no incidents! You consider packing up the campsite while guarding, but considering it's right within sight of the second grove, you decide it's not worth the trouble to move it. The Jays grab their gear, and your group leads the way up to the other grove of trees.
The sun's pretty high, shadows are still short though plentiful with all the trees. You're glad that the weather cooperated for you on your first excursion, it's been great weather for a wilderness job. The temperature is nice, sky is clear, all is quiet and still in the forest, and you hear the wind hissing through the trees up ahead.

You draw your gun and motion towards the hissing with your off hand, slowing your walk.
A heartbeat later, a loud sound like a deep drumbeat comes from the edge of the trees, and all the brush and plants at that spot in the forest are blown apart as a wall of air slams into you. You go tumbling and your vision goes upside down and rightside up for a moment, before you regain your senses and deploy a shield above you.

The shield comes up again just in time, as the hissing returns as another drumbeat and blast of air hits just to the right of you, between yourself and where Frederic was, blasting a small depression into the dirt. You quickly look up, and in the air above you, staring down at the group, is a lizard.
About the size of a small horse and covered in tan scales, thick muscular limbs with large curved claws on its forelegs, a squat head with large yellow slitted eyes, and most notably an enormous bulging stomach sac, much larger than the rest of its body and rivaling the size of the carriage you rode here on. The rest of its body looks almost comical, limbs dangling off to the side and head poking out from the top of the creature

It makes a new sound, a loud angry hiss like air blown between teeth, and darts downward towards Frederic. The knight is still on his feet, braced behind his slab of a sword, and he withstands the collision from the puffed up lizard without falling as the lizard rebounds off no worse for wear.

You swing your shield to the side, snap your gun up, and fire off the first two shots at the lizard. Both hit its huge stomach as it falls back from ramming Fred, but it doesn't even react to the shots. Your eyes jump back to the forest, but thankfully nothing else seems to be coming.

Quickly looking around, the group is in a rough arrow, with you and Fred in front, Karina on the right, and Leon on the left. Both of the other mages have put up their new shields, and Leon looks like he's waiting to see before he makes his next move, while Karina worriedly eyes Frederic. The survey team has thankfully dropped their gear and scattered, and are out of the way for now.
Frederic is still fine with his shield-sword, and you look back to the lizard just in time to see it flatten itself onto the ground as much as it can, immediately followed by it opening its mouth wide and blasting an absolute gale from its mouth, the large pouch rapidly deflating. The rush of wind is aimed squarely at Frederic, and though his sword stays steadily rooted in the ground, the wind manages to still pick up Frederic and toss him back through the air.

In front of you, the lizard is now flat stomached, but you can see a small spot on its chest is sort of strangely bulged out, like that patch of skin didn't fully deflate. Then, it begins a constant gulping motion with its mouth wide open and you hear the hissing wind again, now much louder. Its stomach sac rapidly begins bulging and inflating, only momentarily slowed by the stiff patch.

You fire your last bullet, but the bulging and flexing of its inflating stomach makes it hard to tell what you hit. It doesn't seem to slow down any though, until from your left a trio of fist sized brown blurs shoot forward, slamming into the lizard. Two of them break apart on impact, turning into a spray of, dirt? The third stays together on impact, and you think managed to hit the odd patch too.
The lizard makes a hacking gagging cough, and stops its hissing inhale while its stomach deflates slightly. You hear a smaller hiss of air while it shakes around and coughs, though after a moment it stops and the lizard resumes its inhalation, finishing quickly. It balloons up smaller than when you first saw it, but still plenty full of air.

From behind you, Frederic charges forward again, taking hold of his sword as he passes and tearing it free from the ground.

Frederic: "Hey you scrawny scaleshit! Come give me a real fight!"
Frederic brandishes his sword in a wide arc in front of him, readying it at his side for a swing while the lizard locks its attention back on the knight.

Frederic: "Gram! Coordinate!"

(cave accidentally deleted this post lmao but the lizard knocked down frederic and some other stuff probably, I don't remember)

You watch the lizard finish puffing up to a full stomach, and seeing your chance you drop your shield and sprint forward, then throw it back up when you're a few feet in front of Frederic. Just in time, because the lizard impacts your shield a heartbeat later with a gust of wind boosting it forward. It apparently wasn't expecting its target to be so unyielding, because it squawks and flails backward, clipping your shield with a leg and fully exhausting it in the process, but opening it up to a counter.

Frederic leaps directly your head, bringing his massive greatsword from behind him in a massive overhead slash that crashes down on the lizard's inflated pouch. At first you think even that failed, as the blade sinks into the bulge merely deforming it, when it hits the odd stiff spot, and suddenly the blow goes from denting to slicing the stomach sac wide open. The explosive release of air throws you back, while Frederic barely holds on with the weight of his sword.

The lizard, now rapidly deflating and clicking wildly in pain, scrambles back, head darting around to see how many opponents are still left. A few more ice bolts from Leon and you and Frederic slowly advancing convince it that it's no longer a fight worth fighting, and the lizard quickly turns tail and runs off, skittering quick and low to the ground away from the grove, off into the distance.