Cronk had to stop himself from punching the pathfinder, taking deep slightly shaky breaths he spoke, "Ok that was nice, but what was the point of this? To show me that creature, so I don't get in over my head?  If that's the case we can head back to town now, I get the point."

Shaking his head Vigil replied, "No, the point of going out here is to test your observation skills. Consider that the introduction."  Reaching into his oversized bag he pulled out a twenty-five foot long, six foot tall net designed to tangle, and a forty foot rope. "Now is where the training begins."  Tossing one end of the net to Cronk along with the long piece rope he pointed towards the water,  "Your next step is to get across the river and set up the net.

He caught the net and rope in his left hand, and looked down quizzically at the rope.  Disregarding it for now, he looked around for a way to safely cross a the stream, but found none.  Apprehension began to flood through him as he asked the pathfinder, but felt like he already knew the answer, "Is there a bridge around here or something?"

Still smiling Vigil replied, "Nope, you're going to be swimming across" pausing he continued, "what'd you think the rope was for?"

Cursing Cronk spoke, "You're insane, you want me to swim across this twenty foot lake and get to the other side before an Uare, or whatever that beasts called, decides to take a chunk out of me?" A worm of doubt wiggled it's way into his mind, 'He's getting paid to get rid of you, someone must have found out that you were here, and wanted to get rid of some competition.'

Backing away from the river he spoke whilst dropping the net, "I'm not going to do it" and began walking away

Not turning to look at Cronk, Vigil mentally clicked his tongue, 'looks like he's not as brave as I first thought, he's smart though, so I'll give him a little push.'  "No one will teach you how to pathfind if you don't do this you know?"  Vigil called after him

Hesitating slightly at the pathfinders word he could feel his blood boiling, 'If I don't learn how to pathfind this whole trip would be worthless, and I can kiss my chances of becoming a general goodbye.'  Turning back around he strode over to the net, picked it up, and jumped into the stream swimming as fast as he could.

Unable to resist looking he opened his eyes staring upstream,  it was hard to see and the water constantly assaulted his eyes making it fairly painful, but he pushed through the pain, if he would die he would stare death in the face.  Seeing a small figure upstream quickly getting larger as it got closer Cronk redoubled his efforts to make it across the stream.  Checking on the figure again he saw a blur pass by him several feet away.

Mentally breathing a sigh of relief he made his way to the opposite side of the shore.  Pulling himself up he silently prayed to every god he'd ever heard of for that amount of luck.  Feeling a tug of the net he was holding he looked over, and saw the pathfinder smiling.  'Bastard," he growled 'I'm going to kill him when I get back to the other side.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Still looking at the pathfinder he saw the man putting his end of the rope in the water, a few seconds passed until Cronk did the same.  After waiting for around seven minutes a large force slammed against the net, seeing the pathfinder let go of his end of the net he started pulling the net to his side.

Hearing a splashing sound he looked over at the end of the shore to see the pathfinder gone, shocked he looked into the water and saw the man leisurely making his way across the stream.  Dragging up the net Cronk was finally able to get a better look at the Uare currently tangled in the net.

The Uare wasn't what crock had imagined after his first encounter with it.  He had thought it to be a massive fish of some kind, but that was not the case.  The Uare was about four feet long, from head to tail; and had a wingspan of a little over two feet.  

The Uare's head resembled that of a tall rounded spear tip, with it's eyes favoring the side of it's skull rather than the front, most likely so it could move quickly through water without damaging its eyes. 

The rest of it's body was somewhat streamlined staying about the same width until it reached the back legs where the tail began to form.  The tail was fairly normal starting with the tail starting large and slowly getting smaller as it went down.  

The Uare's legs were medium lengthed and well muscled while having three joints instead of two, for reasons currently unknown to Cronk, and at the end of it's leg was a set of three pronged fingers which could be used for gripping.  

The most peculiar part that he could currently see would have to be its arms.  Its arms resembled that of a large bird wings twisted ninety degrees acting similar to sails, but instead of catching wind it was catching water currents. At the end of it's wings was the same set of fingers on its feet.

That's all Cronk could currently see to get more details he would need to go over and touch it, but he was still wary to do that.  He knew how deadly it could be in water he wasn't going to underestimate it now.

After pulling himself out of the water Vigil quickly strode over to the struggling Uare.  Leaning down he quickly picked the animal holding it beneath the armpits and against his chest, so it couldn't escape easily.  

Looking at Cronk he spoke, "We'll be taking this back to the guild hall where you can run tests and observe it at your leisure,"  Turning to walk up stream he stopped, "and one more thing,"  Putting one of his arms across the Uare's body he gripped it tighter against his chest as he reached towards the animal's mouth and forced it open revealing ... nothing, the Uare did not have any teeth. "Only the females have teeth, and they never leave the den."  With that he headed off upstream to the bridge a half mile away.