Walking the short way from the gate of Carinthia to the Adventurer’s Guild, essentially across an open square, felt incredibly weird. Even at the Brighthollow Clan, the orcs had looked at us with a mixture of interest and dislike, but here, they received us with an almost giddy excitement. It made me want to look over my shoulder, to see if there was either a hidden camera or someone else, walking behind me, who warranted such a reception. There was no scorn, no distrust, nothing of the sort.

“What is going on?” I softly asked Sigmir, who was walking next to me.

“I have no idea.” she admitted, speaking just as quietly, her head swivelling around, trying to figure out what was going on. A neutral, maybe even curious response would be understandable, a wary, hostile or at the very least cautious one expected, especially with the tension Lenore had noticed from above. But people looking at us with hopeful expectation and excitement? Not what any of us was used to.

Stepping into the Adventurers’ Guild, I realised that at least that was about what I would have expected. A reasonably clean room, a few boards filled with the various tasks open for the taking, a counter that separated the front-room for the customers from the back-portion reserved for the staff, roughly what we had seen before. Only that here, too, the smile on the receptionist’s face seemed genuine and happy, if mostly hidden by a bushy beard.

“Good Afternoon, the gate-guard suggested we check in here before anything else?” Adra greeted the dwarf behind the counter, getting a nod in reply.

“Yes, Good Afternoon. Would you mind if I Observe you, or could you give me an idea of your power-level? While I can guesstimate from visuals and aura alone, certainty is always preferred.” the dwarf asked, getting straight down to business, whatever the underlying business was in this case.

Adra shot me a quick glance, getting a shrug in reply, before I decided to give an answer.

“I would prefer if you’d refrain from the use of Observe, but to give you an idea, around level hundred, with a balanced mix of martial and magical abilities.” I replied, keeping things about as vague as possible.

The dwarf rubbed his beard for a moment, considering things, before nodding, mostly to himself.

“Hopefully, that’ll be enough.” he muttered, before focusing back on us, his eyes flickering between Adra and me. “To clear up your confusion, for the past two weeks, maybe longer, there’s been something in the valley, some monster or maybe a pack of them.” he explained, letting out a sigh before continuing.

“At first, we didn’t quite realise that it wasn’t just individual livestock that vanished, not like all the shepherds and goat-herders exchange their tallies regularly. But once the Farmer Krem talked to his neighbour and realised that they, too, had lost a lot more than normal, a lot more than could be seen as ordinary bad luck and normal predation, he sent one of his workers around, to gather and spread information. Turns out, it wasn’t just him and his neighbour, but everyone in the valley was losing livestock, and a few local youths thought it would be an Adventure to figure out what was going on. They stumbled across some of the carcasses, found some strange tracks and ran away, back into town, as fast as their legs carried them.” At that, the dwarf gave a snort, shaking his head a bit.

“And a good thing that they did, just the next day, one of the shepherds didn’t return as normal and people went looking. They found him, or at least they found parts of him. Poor lad was torn apart, ripped limb from limb. And gnawed on. That was last week.”

“Could you find out what is going on, maybe even put a stop to it? There’ll be a reward for you, especially if you can manage it quickly, whatever that thing is, our losses are mounting, it has started to kill indiscriminately, not just for food, but for pleasure. And it seems to have a special pleasure to kill people. So far, nothing has attacked the outlying farms, but that might just be a question of time.” The dwarf asked, and, as expected, a blue window asking if I wanted to accept the quest popped up. From the way the eyes of the others flickered, they, too, saw that window.

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Quest Alert! Hunter in the Night. Quest Difficulty Hard A hunter stalks the shores of Lake Thia. Find out what it is and, if possible, end the threat. Quest Reward fifty Gold-Coins, fifty Silver-Coins

Bonus-Reward: Cloaks made from Carin-Wool.

After sharing a quick look with the others, I could only shrug, before giving the others a nod to accept. While time was, as always, a concern, the simple fact that it was a reasonably high-level quest, well-suited to our strength of seek and destroy, with a good reward. Even without a monetary reward, just the EXP from killing a powerful monster and completing a quest would be worth sticking around a day or two, especially with the positive reaction the town had to us.

“Can you tell us more about those weird tracks that were found?” Adra asked, sounding interested. .

“Not really. I mean, I can tell you where they found it, and that the lads who found them described them as large, with claw-marks cut into the ground, but not of any animal they’d ever seen.” the dwarf explained, shrugging his shoulders, visibly happy that we had accepted the quest.

“Lenore, did you notice anything from the air? And could you take another look, now that you know there’s a monster on the prowl?” I asked, while Adra began to question the receptionist about pertinent information, regarding distribution of recent attacks, where the tracks had been found, all those things necessary to actually begin hunting.

With Lenore’s unspoken agreement, I opened the Guild’s door, letting Lenore take to the sky, before returning to the counter, where a large map of the valley was spread out. Instead of interrupting, I carefully listened, sending the information to Lenore as long as she was within range for detailed communication, allowing her to begin searching efficiently.

“We should get some rest, head out during the night.” Adra suggested, getting nods of agreement from us, while the receptionist looked a little unsure.

“Wouldn’t it be smarter to wait until tomorrow, follow the beast’s tracks and ambush it?” he asked, sounding concerned.

“Normally, yes. But there are special circumstances. The Beast, whatever it is, is not the only monster that likes to hunt at night.” Adra replied, winking at me with a grin on her face.

She wasn’t wrong about that, a part of me wanted to challenge whatever beast that was, show it that true monsters didn’t need to slaughter indiscriminately, that it was no longer the master of the night around these parts.

“If you say so?” The dwarf accepted her words, confused but without further information, which none of us were willing to provide, he instead gave us directions to an inn where we could get some rest and food.

We excused ourselves, knowing that every bit of rest before a potential night-hunt and battle was valuable, quickly making our trip over to the inn. We didn’t have to walk far, it was just across the square and creatively named Mountain-Gate Inn. Even just the short distance demonstrated the weirdly welcoming atmosphere, though it made a little more sense if they were desperately in need of people to hunt their monster. Hopefully, it wouldn’t change once things were done and we got paid, feeling welcome and appreciated was quite nice.

The inn-keeper, a slightly portly dwarven lady, welcomed us, especially when Adra explained that we would like to rest now, get some food just before nightfall and leave, to hunt down the monster that troubled the town. Hearing that, she didn’t even try to negotiate some payment for the rooms, instead she simply invited us to rest, promised to wake us when the sun was setting behind the mountains and have food ready.

With an amused smile on her face, in contrast to the disbelief the rest of us was feeling, Oliiva accepted the hospitality and we followed into the back.

“Isn’t that a lot nicer, than getting chased out of town, just before the locals come after us with torches, pitchforks and whatever implements they can get their hands on?” Adra asked me, her tone teasing.

“If you manage to behave, we’ll be able to enjoy this treatment for a few days, resting, maybe you can enjoy swimming in that cold lake, you seemed to enjoy that. So please, behave!” she added, earning a scowl. It wasn’t as if I had been actively trying to get us chased out of the other towns. Despite that, it happened far too often for comfort. Maybe, this time would be different.