Chapter 3: Ripred & Vikus

Disclaimer: Again, I don't own Inheritance or the Underland Chronicles. All original ideas are mine.

I was in the process of eating my fish. It wasn't hard to hunt, with all of the Underland being in chaos. Thing was, almost all of my valuable time was gone in trying to fix up everything after the war.

I hurriedly finished eating, there was going to be a lot of work to do. As I started to go towards my nest,

"Ripred!" I turned around to see Flyfur. He was one of Lapblood's pups, and annoying like all pups, but seemed to learn quickly.

"What is it?" I asked like I was annoyed. I have to keep up with my reputation, you know.

"We found Sliverstreek." He said.

"Good. That brat's been gone for days. Do me a favor, and before you ask him where he was, give hit him on the head."

"He's dead."

"What?" Okay, that was a slight shock. Sliverstreek had been a great fighter, and was smart. Not like me, but good enough. He was the last rat I expected to end up dead.

"Yeah, we only found his bones. I think you'd like to see them."

"Why?" Don't I already have enough things to do?

"Well, it's a bit strange."

"Besides the fact it's dead?" I may have said that, but still, one of my rats had ended up dead, and that was a matter of concern for any leader. I probably should at least try to figure out what happened to him.

Then, Flyfur led me to him. We found him in a cave. That was odd. Then, when I sensed the corpse, I understood.

Sliverstreek hadn't just died and decayed, he had been eaten. With echolocation, I could sense a lot of marks on his bones, and some had been cracked.

What more, it didn't look like it had been done by a rat. There were no marks of teeth, but rather of something I read about, beaks.

"What did this?" I asked him.

"We don't know. Whatever ate him did a pretty good job of it, and there are some strange scents around the cave." He was right, there was the smell of something like, and well I couldn't describe it.

"Okay then. Tell the other rats to keep alert for whatever might have done this."

Vikus

I sighed as I got up from my chair. I took good look at Regalia. We may have started the repairs, but the city was still in ruins. I was really tiring, working hour after hour. I barely had any time for sleep, and when I did, I got little.

Well, Solovet and I, even though we may have never got along, I did care about her. Not only that, all of the other creatures that ended up dead, still haunt me.

The doctors had advised me against this. Still, after two weeks I started working again, there was so much to do. Luxa couldn't handle it all by herself.

Still, I have to admire the way Luxa was working. She was definitely working better and longer than I am.

Then, Mareth came in.

"Sir, we have found some intriguing things." He said. Well, with all that was going around, I would prefer if there were less intriguing things around. Still, if anything happened, it had to be dealt with.

"What have you found?" I asked, trying to hide my weariness.

"Well, actually there have been a number of things around the Underland, that are of some interest." He paused for a moment, and then continued. "First of all, or scouts have found these along the coast." Out of a bag he was carrying, he took out some large black stones. At least, I thought they were stones. Then, I noticed that all of them seemed to be chipped and broken.

"What are they?" I asked.

"They appear to be eggs. Not only this, but we saw some footprints leading away from the eggs, going towards the Jungle."

"What kind of eggs?"

"No one seems to have an explanation. They are bigger than any eggs we have ever seen, and they can't be identified." I ran the matter several times through my head.

"Then it be some undiscovered species?"

"It seems so. And that is not all, sir. There have been several disappearances. Ripred reports that one of his gnawers was found dead, and that he had been eaten."

"Eaten?"

"Yes. We also found some bones. They were chipped, and we could see the marks where they had been nibbled. Andrea and her flyer have also vanished."

My brain could make out only one thing. It seemed that these were linked. I dismissed Mareth, and ran through the matter again.