It had been a very long day for Amber at the point that she sat down on a large rock at the edge of the river to soak her tired feet. When she joined S.M.A.K.tW (Scientific Minds Against Killing the Wild), she new they planned on being proactive in their protests, but she never expected to trapse 20 miles from the nearest town that vaguely counted as civilization just to march back and forth in front of some bull dozers to stop them from knocking down some ancient, sacred tree grove.<br/><br/>The natives people that worshipped this grove had "mysteriously" died of a bactiria in the water, right down to the last man woman and child, over a year ago. With the native tribe no longer in the way, a major oil company from the north had made plans to bulldoze their sacred grove. The grove was rumored to have healing powers, but what had interested amber enough to make her join the cause and come down here had been the promise of several new varieties of plants never before cataloged that allegedly grew only within this particular grove.<br/><br/>As a grad student in her final year of study for her masters degree in botany, the chance to tag along to the grove sounded like the oppertunity for the thesis of the century. Now that she was here, she was to tired from marching and waving protest signs to even attempt to go searching for any of them, at least, she was at first.<br/><br/>She'd been sitting with her feet in the cool water (which she had since been asured was safe to swin and bath in as the bactiria was no longer present) for a few moments, fanning herself with herball cap when she spotted an odd pale green vine, with a deep orange, white and yellow blotches mottled over it's surface. Curiously, Amber stood and waded across the river, which wasn't even deep enough to dampen the rolled up denim short shorts at the top of her long, thin legs. Even if she were to slip and fall in, Amber doubted very much that she'd care. It was easily 105, and the humidity was so bad that her flimsy SMAKtW t-shirt clung to her skin, the black sprts bra clearly showing through it's damp yellow material.<br/><br/>Amber climbed up out of the water and studied the single, thick vine, which ran all the way down and into the water. It was easily as thick as her arm, and seemed to run off into the jungle without any origin plant nearbye it. As she was climbing the bank, she slipped and lost her footing. Without thinking, she extended her hand and grabbed the vine to steady herself. It's velvety texture shocked her, as did how resilliant it was for how soft and maliable it seemed to be. When she reached the top, an intoxicatingly exotic and flowery smell wafted up from a deep revene sinking down in the other side of the bank, which appeared to be where the vine was coming from.<br/><br/>The steep incline down ended in a sudden drop down a cliff face. If she wanted to continue further, she'd need climbing gear. Excitment to find the origin of the vine had washed away the exhaustion, so, with renewed determination, Amber marched back to the camp to retrieve her climbing stuff. One of the other girls who'd been on her flight down from Tampa was still in the camp, while the rest had presumably headed back to continue their protest.<br/><br/>"Hey!" Amber called to the girl as she pulled her long auburn hair up into a high pony tail, and pulled her pack with her hiking supplies on over her thing frame, and cuckled the front straps together just below her perky 28b bra. She'd always been a thin framed girl, despite her rather tall height of 5'8". "I found this really intriguing specimine heading down into the ravine on the other side of the river. I'm gonna go check it out. You wanna come?"<br/>