After leaving town, an uneasy silence fell upon the duo. Nywen seemed to be deep in thought looking at the sky, then turned to Alanna.

“So, what do you think?” Nywen asked.

Alanna couldn’t answer immediately. “I’m not sure. Illithor seems knowledgeable about the area, but he also seems kind of…”

Nywen let out a long breath. “Ornery?”

“Yes, that! I didn’t want to insult him by saying so.”

Nywen looked out across the landscape. To the east the landscape slowly descended into a festering swamp, wisps of fog clinging to the canopy above it. To the north the woods stretched out before them, the landscape slowly climbing into the foothills of the eastern peaks.

“You get clients like this sometimes. Can’t agree on the where or how. It’s dangerous for everyone, especially us.”

Alanna nodded hesitantly, having no experience herself. “Wh-what should we do then?”

Nywen pinched the bridge of her nose, her eyes shut. “The last place they were known to have gone too was the swamp. We’ll start there, where Rumi indicated the chokeberries grow. If that doesn’t turn up anything we’ll move north-west into the woods.”

“Agreed,” Alanna said after a short delay. She wasn’t sure if it was the right call, but she trusted Nywen’s experience.

Traveling through the swamp was tough going, to say the least. There was something of a path, but it was muddy and overgrown. Every so often Nywen would miss a step and sink almost up to her knee into the sucking mud. Alanna could tell where the ground disappeared thanks to her Tremorsense, but only for about one step forward. The wet soil dampened any vibrations she may have otherwise picked up through her boots. The smell of the swamp, however, made her new sensitive nose all but useless. She had honestly never considered a place this far from humanoid habitation could smell so foul.

Both of them kept their eyes peeled for any signs of the missing elves. They could make out boot prints here and there, but some rain must have passed over the area recently, so much of the signs of anyone passing by had been worn away.

Even after several hours they had found little evidence of what had become of the missing elves. Nywen had started swearing in her own tongue in frustration at their lack of any real progress, and Alanna felt her muscles burn from having to fight their way forward. They were deep in the swamp now, surrounded only by the croaking of frogs, bubbling of swamp gas and the buzz of insects.

“Let’s rest on that hill,” Alanna said. It wasn’t much of a hill if she had to be honest, being little more than a shallow mound with a tree growing on it, its roots holding the soil together, but it was the only dry place in sight. She let out a sigh of relief when she sat down on one of the bigger roots and took a swig from her waterskin.

“I don’t think the villagers would come out this far,” Nywen said. There weren’t a lot of landmarks here, so they had to guess where they were relative to town. They had passed some picked bushes of chokeberries, but again, no sign of their quarry. “The villagers likely to do their best to keep monsters away from their town, but we’re so far out now we could run into anything… Wait,” Nywen stopped, climbing up the side of the tree. She peered into the distance, then pointed.

“Look, over there,” she said. Alanna followed Nywen’s gaze and saw a piece of fabric hanging from a thorn bush. From this distance neither of them could tell what it was from, a tunic, backpack or sheath, but it was clearly man-made.

“You think we finally found them?” Alanna asked.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Nywen replied. “But it’s the only clue we’ve found so far. We’ll approach quietly. You remember what I told you, right?”

Alanna nodded. “Strike the ground softly with your toes, then roll your foot. Never touch water, branches or anything else that makes noise.”

“Good!” Nywen said, then began closing onto their target. It was especially rough in this area as no path had been worn into the swamp for them to follow, forcing them to zigzag their way forward across the driest dirt they could find. There was no sign there was anything threatening in the area, but Alanna did her best to stay quiet regardless. She had to admit that Nywen’s advice had helped immensely, though she was nowhere near as fast or quiet as the Rogue.

They closed the gap with the thorn bush. Up close it became clear it was a soiled scrap of wool, clearly part of some women's clothing. It was wet and muddy, but fresh.

Nywen and Alanna both looked around, but it didn’t seem like there was anything waiting in ambush. However, they didn’t have a ton of visibility. Trees, grasses and shrubbery grew all around, if something wanted to catch them by surprise there were plenty of hideouts.

Nywen squatted down at the base of the thorns, then frowned.

“Look, Alanna. What do you see?” she asked in a whisper, beckoning her over. Alanna looked and, to her shame, saw very little. Just mud and grass.

“Nothing,” she admitted, despite trying quite hard to find the tracks Nywen had clearly noticed.

“Exactly. Someone has been here, no more than a few days ago, then left this scrap in plain view. But no tracks?”

Alanna shook her head. “That makes no sense.”

“Nywen stared at her. “How much do you know of the monsters in this area?”

“Some. My… My master had a lot of bestiaries. Why?”

“I am not a native to these lands. I know plenty about monsters, as much as you can expect an adventurer of my skill to know, but there are strange monsters out there. I don’t know about every rare monster that exists. I hoped you might know one that would… Well, do this.” She gestured at the scrap of fabric.

Alanna looked up at the piece of fabric, then reached out towards it. Nywen grabbed her by her arm, shaking her head. “Do not pull. Use your blade,” she said.

Alanna nodded and slowly drew her sword. She gently grabbed hold of the fabric, then gently pried it free.

She looked it over in her hand. She believed it may have come from a sleeve, but there was little more information to be gained from it… At least, through conventional means. She brought it up to her face and smelled the fabric. She could vaguely make out a womanly scent… The coppery smell of blood. And a sweet flowery scent hiding behind everything else. It seemed familiar.

She looked back at Nywen, who looked at her as though she had grown a second head. She gestured “why” and Alanna blushed in embarrassment. Of course that would look weird if nobody knew about her keen nose. Then Nywen’s eyes went wide and she pointed behind Alanna.

“Move!” she yelled. Alanna did not think twice this time and ducked to the side, barely dodging something long, black and sharp from stabbing her through the thorns. To Alanna’s horror she saw two horse shoe-sized compound eyes looking at her through the brambles. Neither her nor Nywen had noticed the gigantic mosquito that had been laying in wait amidst the brambles, its stick-like body perfectly camouflaged until it attempted to strike.

Soon enough the sound of buzzing erupted from the thorn bush. Not one, but five of the giant insects flew free, no doubt protected from the thorns by their hard chitin. They buzzed angrily towards the two adventurers in a disturbing pattern of moving, then hovering still in mid-air, then approaching further.

Nywen drew both of her daggers as one of the mosquitoes flew towards her, its whole body lurching forward as it attempted to jab her with its mouthparts. She deftly parried the thrust, but the mosquito used its wings to retreat into the air before she could retaliate. The next mosquito made its attempt at Alanna. She was forced to repeat the same parry, and again the mosquito flew out of reach.

The swarm then descended on the two, clearly meaning to overwhelm them with numbers. Nywen yelled loudly, clanging her daggers together. She knew Alanna was the weaker fighter, so she was trying to draw their attention to her. Sure enough three of the mosquitoes decided to target Nywen, but the other two went after Alanna.

Fighting the two insects was like going through an intense combat drill against two deadly fencers. Every time one thrust at her and she parried, the other approached to cover the first’s retreat. After trailing through the swamp for hours she was already tired and now her body had to go through another strenuous exercise, one that didn’t allow her even one mistake.

She looked over at Nywen, who was holding her own against the three mosquitoes attacking her. She flipped one of her daggers around to grip it by the tip, then threw it with deadly accuracy into one of the mosquitoes eyes. It buzzed erratically but quickly returned to attack. Nywen drew another dagger and returned to her deadly dance.

Alanna gnashed her teeth at the idea that her first instinct was to look for Nywen to come save her. She was determined to not be this incompetent carry-on that Nywen carried around only because she had no other choice. She slashed at the mosquito attacking her, but it's reflexes were much faster than hers and it darted out of reach, her blade striking only air.

She knew she couldn’t keep this up, but she entirely lacked the tools to deal with these things. They needed a Ranger or a Wizard, someone who could strike these vermin out of the sky. She shook her head free of that useless thought. There was no point to wishing, she needed a plan. They were just animalistic monsters that wanting nothing but to sting her, all she needed to do was use that against them.

An idea occurred to her. She sheathed her sword, instead bringing her hands up in a grappling stance. Solizzar had taught her the basics of grappling, but he admitted it wasn’t his strong suit, nor was it hers with her small stature and lackluster strength… However, that was then. She was stronger now.

She waited for the mosquito to try its luck again, but this time rather than parry the blow or dodging she used both her hands to grab the mosquito’s mouthparts. It buzzed angrily, the spear-like proboscis fighting against her grip, but she was grounded, so she had far more leverage than the flying insect. To her surprise, the creature instead latched onto her with all six of its clawed, segmented legs, and began using all of them to drag her towards itself.

Now it was a much more even struggle. She was still stronger, but now the mosquito had far more leverage, the sharp end of its mouth inching closer to her neck.

Grabbing the mosquito was only half her plan, however. She watched the other one from the corner of her eye. It was clearly looking for an opening to gets its fill, and she intentionally did not react as it approached her from her side. As soon as she saw it lurch to try and sting her, she brought the monster she had in her grasp in the way.

Whether by momentum or simple stupidity, the other flying insect could not halt its jab, its proboscis sinking a finger length into its sister’s abdomen. The mosquito Alanna was holding buzzed frantically, letting go of Alanna and attempting to lift off, but it remained stuck between Alanna’s grip and impaled on the other mosquito.

With a sickening slurp, the grappled mosquito’s abdomen shrank rapidly. Its movements slowed until within a few seconds it went limp in Alanna’s grasp. The other mosquito, its abdomen grotesquely swollen, flew up into the canopy and out of sight. Alanna had no idea if the creatures could feed on each other at all, but judging from how unevenly the creature flew, she doubted this was a result it was happy with.

She looked towards Nywen and saw her land a dagger perfectly between a mosquito’s eyes. It fell, the last of the creatures to die. Nywen turned to rush to Alanna’s rescue, still hopped up on adrenaline, only to see that the battle had already been won.

“Good work, rookie,” she said, panting.

“Thanks,” Alanna said, smiling broadly at the complement. For once she felt like she hadn’t made a fool of herself in front of her fellow adventurer. Then her ears picked up on a distant noise. At first it sounded like a distant hum, filtering through the canopy, but soon she realized it was buzzing. A lot of buzzing.

“We need to go! Right now!” Alanna said as she began to hurry, grabbing Nywen by the arm and dragging her along.

“Why?” Nywen asked exasperated. “We should rest first, we’ll wear ourselves out like this!”

“There’s a lot of them coming! A lot-lot!” Alanna replied, at which point she felt the half-catfolk picking up momentum besides her until she no longer needed to drag her along. As scared as she was of the hundreds of wings following them, she felt a surge of happiness to see Nywen taking her warning seriously.

Many stressful minutes later the pair found themselves at the edge of the swamp, both panting with exertion and covered in stinking mud.

“I think we lost them,” Alanna said through gasps.

Nywen sagged against a tree, taking deep ragged breaths. “How did… How did they keep finding us?”

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“I think it was our smell,” Alanna said. “Either that or they followed us by ear, but if it were by smell it would explain why they lost us after we swam through the muck.”

It had been a bold plan to do so, but they had run into a dead end, it was either jump into the water and swim for their lives or run back into the incoming swarm. The monsters seemed to have lost them after they got to shore, but before that neither running nor hiding seemed to shake off the giant mosquitoes.

They spent a moment resting. Alanna’s body ached and she was sure Nywen felt the same. She thanked her lucky stars, but began to wonder.

“Do you think the mosquitoes are what got the missing people?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Nywen said. “However, giant mosquitoes leave bodies. They only drink your blood and leave the rest as a husk. We saw no such thing. Still, the swamp is a big place. We may have missed the bodies. Or something else ate them.”

“If something else came to eat the bodies, wouldn’t the mosquitoes have gotten them too?”

Nywen looked back towards the swamp. “You’re suggesting we go back in and keep looking?”

“No,” Alanna said after some thought. “We try the forest.”

“But we found our only sign of their passing in the swamp,” Nywen said, frowning.

“Something just… Doesn’t add up. Illithor said if the villagers meet a monster in the swamp and they can’t return to town for whatever reason, they would flee towards the forest. We were so deep in the swamp when we found that piece of cloth I have trouble believing the villagers would go that far, even if there was something chasing them.”

“Then how did that cloth get there?”

“I… I don’t know,” Alanna admitted.

Nywen cupped her chin as she considered, pacing back and forth a few times.

“My people always say instincts make for wise guides. We’ll follow yours on this one and try the forest. I doubt it can be worse than the swamp.”

By the time they reached the edge of the swamp the sun had begun to set, so they decided to set up camp and rest for the night, taking turns keeping watch. Thankfully the night was uneventful, and when they awoke in the morning they entered the northern woods, immediately feeling the terrain rise.

“What’s our plan here? I don’t see any tracks,” Alanna asked.

“We make a half-moon around the forest. We have no way of knowing where they entered the woods, if at all, so we’re going to try and intercept any potential route they may have taken. Keep your eyes peeled for anything that looks like tracks, if we miss any sign of their passing we might not pass that point again before the rains return.”

The trees here grew tall and strong, a mixture of leafy and pine trees covering the hilly terrain. While the ground was dry, the going was still tough, as Alanna had to alternate between climbing and descending. The air here also did wonders for Alanna’s mood, as her sensitive nose was no longer being battered with the sulfurous stench of the swamp.

They found a handful of tracks, but none of them belonged to humanoids. Some were animal tracks, and one aged track belonged to a troll. Nywen had been pointing out how to recognize these tracks, which was information Alanna absorbed greedily. That being said, she wished it wasn’t so easy to memorize the scent of a passing troll.

However, the sun had started going down, and they had found no trace of the elves. They were at the furthest point of their planned route when Alanna caught a strange scent on the wind.

“Wait,” Alanna said.

“Did you find something?” Nywen asked.

Alanna breathed in deeply through her nose. There was a scent at the edge of her senses, something just strong enough to let her identify it as female, perhaps even humanoid, though the scent was too faint for her to tell.

She brought her head low to the ground. There it was, faint, but following the ground. There were no tracks she could see, but the scent was unmistakable.

“Alanna… What are you doing?” She heard Nywen ask. Right. She had been trying to keep her new ability on the down-low after the reaction her unusual Feats had gotten at the Adventurer’s Guild, but she couldn’t afford to hold back now.

“One of my abilities gives me a very keen sense of smell. I’ve found a trail,” she answered, her heart twisting in her chest as she feared she was saying too much.

Nywen raised an eyebrow, and Alanna felt herself wither underneath the half-catfolk’s gaze, but then Nywen relented.

“Follow it then, we have no other leads to follow.”

Alanna nodded and continued to follow the scent-trail along the ground. It was intermittent, stopping and then continuing every few paces, making following the trail slow-going, but soon enough the scent increased in strength until she found its source. A single white feather, rimmed in blue. It was beautiful, with a strong feminine scent emanating from it… Mixed with something strangely animalistic.

Nywen’s eyes narrowed as she took the feather and held it in front of her face.

“Harpies,” she said with confidence.

Then Alanna picked up her second clue. The sound of flesh being torn in the distance. The sounds of feeding.

Once they got closer, they found the source. A womanly figure coated in white feathers highlighted with blue and clothed in rags was kneeled over what was clearly the body of an elven woman. The harpy alternated ripping slices of meat off with the claws on the ends of her wings then stuffing the strips into a satchel at her waist, and ripping meat from bone with her teeth to devour immediately.

Alanna and Nywen had planned their approach carefully. The harpy had her back towards them, and while she occasionally sat upright to scan the environment she had no way of spotting them from their current position. Nywen motioned with her hand for them to begin getting closer and both snuck through the trees and shrubs. Alanna knew she couldn’t mess up this time, or the killer would escape.

She heard a rattling. The harpy looked up, her yellow eyes scanning the area behind her. Alanna froze, but the noise hadn’t been her. She looked towards Nywen who had been approaching at a different angle. Neither of them had made a mistake, but a rotting branch had fallen and struck a dried shrub. A pure coincidence that had nearly gotten Nywen caught. She was forced to remain perfectly still, lest the harpy spot her. Alanna felt confident she was outside of the harpy’s line of sight so she continued to creep closer, and closer, and closer.

The harpy seemed to be weighing her options. For a moment Alanna worried she would take off, but then a voice called out from the trees.

“Sister! Are you done yet?”

It was a playful voice, but it had a bird-like timbre that made it distinctly inhuman. Alanna dared not look up lest her target notice. Thankfully the other harpy looked up towards the trees with a gore-covered smile.

“Almost, sister. We will eat well this week! No more chasing rabbits until the next moon!”

The voice of the harpy that had been devouring the dead body was melodious, more so than the one from above, but Alanna focussed instead on the opportunity in front of her. The harpy was distracted. Alanna leapt from the tall grass that had been hiding her and sprinted towards the harpy, drawing her sword with the hiss of metal slicing air. The harpy noticed the sound far too late and Alanna landed on top of her, wrestling her to the ground.

“Sister!” The voice from the trees called. Alanna heard footsteps, almost letting go of her quarry out of fear she was about to be pounced on in turn, only to see that it was Nywen standing over her.

Then she saw the other harpies. There were two of them, one with brown, one with black feathers. The former was holding back the latter, balancing on a branch as the black-feathered struggled against her grip.

“Let me go! They’re gonna kill her!” The black-feathered harpy screeched. The playful tone of her voice from earlier was gone entirely, replaced with panic.

“You can’t save her! There’s two of them down there!” the other harpy cried desperately. She was right, Nywen had a dagger in her hands, the tip pinched between her finger and thumb. If they got at all close Alanna knew just how deadly her aim would be.

“Kill that one! Harpies are cowards, if we kill one of them the rest of them will leave the town alone,” Nywen said.

Alanna nodded, bringing her sword up and attempting to stab down at the harpy. The creature caught her arm with her clawed wing as it came down, but she was fighting a losing battle. Alanna not only had a better position, but to her surprise she could tell she was stronger than the harpy. This lined up with what she knew about them, they were opportunists who disliked direct confrontation, instead preferring to prey on adventurers after some other monster had worn them down or injured them… Though unarmed civilians made easy marks too.

Alanna felt disgusted at the idea. Veefra was just gathering food, and she was killed just to end up as some monster’s dinner instead. And then they probably killed Erlathan too.

The harpy panted as she fought Alanna’s grip, her breathing becoming even more labored when Alanna put her weight behind the blade, the tip inching closer to the harpy’s chest.

“You’ll pay for what you’ve done,” she hissed through her gritted teeth.

The harpy’s yellow eyes seemingly grew to the size of dinner plates. Briefly her gaze darted to the corpse, then back to Alanna.

“I didn’t do this! I didn’t kill the elf!” the harpy gasped.

Alanna froze, briefly. Even the slightest push and her blade would pierce the harpy’s skin. She dared look over to the corpse. It was a grisly spectacle, meat stripped from bone, the torso ripped open and exposed. The smell of gore was overpowering… But it was old. Days old. Her keen nose could tell rot had begun to set in.

That didn’t make any sense. Harpies didn’t mind rotting meat insofar as she knew, but if they killed something they’d either eat the corpse immediately or take the remains to their nest. This clearing in the woods was no nest, and if they had killed the elf they wouldn’t have just left the corpse there, only to return this much later to feed.

Not only that, she could see where the elf’s clothing had been torn. It was identical to the fabric they had found in the swamp. If Veefra had been attacked there the harpies would’ve had to fly through the giant mosquito swarm to attack her and chase her all the way back here. It didn’t make any sense.

Nywen glanced back, just long enough to see what was happening.

“What are you doing? Finish her!”

Alanna hesitated, then ceased pressing the blade down, though she kept it in place as she

stared directly at the harpy.

Her gold eyes set in that black sclera were rather intimidating, and her mouth was covered in dried blood, but otherwise her high cheekbones and red lips would’ve made her quite pretty. Her eyebrows tapered to tips, and Alanna realized that they were made of tiny feathers rather than hair.

She shook off the distraction. She needed answers before the situation escalated, before someone forced her to make the wrong call.

“You said you didn’t kill her. Then who did?” Alanna asked the harpy, a growl in her voice as she attempted to come across as intimidating as possible. She wasn’t sure it was even necessary, the harpy was trembling like a leaf, either from exertion or out of fear.

“Not us! Not us!” the harpy answered.

“Then where did the body come from?” Alanna asked.

“Alanna, what are you doing?! She’s a monster! Just kill her and be done with it!” Nywen said.

“No. I think she’s telling the truth. Look at the body, it’s days old.”

“So what?!” Nywen asked, clearly frustrated as her attention was increasingly split between Alanna and the harpies above them. “None of that changes that she would rip open your throat in your sleep if she had the chance!”

“We need to know more!” Alanna said. “We’re not just here to kill things! Something is killing the villagers, finding out what is more important than dealing with some scavengers.”

Nywen gritted her teeth, then turned her attention back to keeping the harpy in the tree at bay. It wasn’t much of an agreement but at least she was going to let Alanna do what she wanted.

Alanna turned her attention back to the harpy. “Tell us everything you know.”

“We found the bodies in a hollow tree! It’s over there,” the harpy said, casting her eyes to her right before turning her attention back to Alanna. “We only just found them, don’t know what put them there! The smell drew us, like old hides. That’s all we know, I swear!”

It wasn’t nearly as much information as Alanna had hoped. It didn’t really point towards a how, why, or who. But there was one piece of interesting information in there, the way the harpy phrased it made it sound like wherever she had found Veefra’s body wasn’t there had been more than just one corpse.

“Will you… Will you let me go?” The harpy pleaded.

“Alanna, don’t.” Nywen warned. “She will claw your eyes out if you give her half a chance.”

“They’re going to kill her!” The black-feathered harpy yelled as she freed herself from the other’s grip, swooping down towards Alanna. Nywen readied a dagger and threw it with pin-point accuracy. However, the brown-feathered harpy tackled her sister mid-air, and the dagger flew through the empty space where the black-feathered harpy’s face had been only moments ago.

The two tumbled to the ground in a mess of feathers and breaking branches. Nywen pursued to engage.

“No, no!” the harpy pinned underneath Alanna begged. She turned to Alanna, and Alanna could tell tears were forming at the corners of her eyes. “If you kill me, will you let my sisters go?” the harpy asked with a trembling voice.

Alanna was shocked by the harpy’s response. Every bestiary she had read, every word of advice her mentor had given her had been that monsters were vile, hungry creatures, driven only to feed or destroy. When they worked together it was for safety or convenience.

But Alanna already knew that had been a lie. Solizzar, or the creature that had taken his name, had been a monster, and he had treated her with kindness and respect. Was it really so far-flung that monsters too would care about their families?

The harpy looked down at the blade pointed at her heart. Up until now they had been in a struggle, the harpy’s claws around Alanna’s arm trying to push back while Alanna sought to drive the blade down.

The harpy let go.

A moment passed between them. Alanna made no effort to drive the blade downward. She realized she couldn’t. While she thought the harpy’s corpse-eating had been vile, she couldn’t sentence her to death just for that.

Alanna stood up. “Leave and take your sisters with you.”

The harpy, looking at least as shocked as Alanna felt, nodded quickly and flapped her wings, taking to the sky. Rather than stand and fight her sisters joined her in the air, and within seconds they were gone.

Alanna watched them leave, only to see Nywen charge up to her in a rage and push her violently.

“What is wrong with you?! They’re monsters! They could be getting the rest of their flock right now for all we know!”

“There was no point,” Alanna said. “They didn’t kill the villagers.”

“So what!?” Nywen yelled back. “Even if they didn’t kill the elves, do you think they’ve never killed anyone? Do you think they wouldn’t kill us given the chance?!”

“We aren’t here to kill everything we find!” Alanna yelled back.

“You’re soft,” Nywen says, poking Alanna’s chest with a finger for emphasis. “You’ve never seen someone begging in the streets because they used to be an adventurer, but a harpy thought it’d be funny to claw their eyes out while they were relieving themselves away from camp. At that point if you don’t have a party willing to haul your useless behind back to town, you’re dead. Even if they do, and you don’t already have the gold for a Regeneration spell, you may as well have been because nobody will cast it on you for free.”

She got right up into Alanna’s face, her words practically hissed between her teeth in anger. “You’re on watch tonight, and if we get eaten later because you didn’t have what it takes to do what needs to be done, it’s on you.”