The moment he neared the door, he let his leather boots do the talking, kicking the door open while presenting himself into the open. The blade felt alive, as if warning its master of a possible threat nearby. It wasn’t wrong!

Something slithered nearby, releasing a whiff of stench that invaded his nostrils. It was unholy…pungent and putrid that outright stung his sense of smell. Holding his breath for a moment, he waved his blade.

The aura around the hunter cleared, and so did the air that almost surrounded him from all fours. Death…was all that he sensed. He could feel the stare of a pair of eyes that watched him hungrily…like a cat watching a mouse from faraway. The presence was there...that much he could anticipate...and a foul one at that.

He kept a keen focus on his surroundings, expecting something to pounce out of the line of shacks, taking advantage of the dark. Nothing came out...yet whatever was there did release a heavy breath. First it sounded from the right most corner, then the left one...and then from within the tavern. The predator wasn't the one that gave into primal impulses. It carried itself with patience, awaiting the right moment. For its frustration, the mind of the hunter remained as sharp as the blade that swung around in his grip, clearing whatever unholy air lurked around him.

The hunter sniffed, trying to trace the stench. Petty tricks couldn't keep his mind distracted. For a regular person, the foul aura would have induced hypnotic visions, yet for someone of his caliber, they held no power. Breathing deeply while composing himself, he widened his lips into a smile, hearing the sobbing once more. It came from exactly that spot where he had predicted it. Like that of a young girl...

"I know what you are trying to do! It is not working" he yelled. The moment the foul air swarmed him from all sides, something slithered from the far right and finally, the fiendish air subsided.

He squinted, noticing a blazing trail of blues and reds with the trace leading to the tavern.

"Illusions...distractions more like...to keep me away from its resting place...the tavern!" he concluded, preparing himself. His lips murmured a few affirmations, as he repeated the magical phrases a few times, each word inducing a trance.

His eyes were now peeled and his ears were wide opened, as the world around stilled, becoming more responsive. The water dripping off the barrels at some distance, the conflagration eating the last bit of the burning shacks and the air around, unnatural and completely cut off from the thundering gale beyond the boundaries of this town. He took it all, along with keeping his eye on his prey...hoping that he wouldn't become one in the process.

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His leather boot connected with the tavern door once more, this time shattering it as he barged right in. The corpses...were gone. Along with the pattern that he had encountered on the walls. All scraped clean...as if it had never been there. That was when he breathed deeper, squinting his eyes while tracing marks...fading runes around the corners. Only one word flashed in his mind.

"Draugr!" he recollected from one of the chapters in the Adabard's Magical Bestiary Volume III. Windsong throbbed with an impulse, as he felt a surge travelling through his entire body. His head turned in response to what he had recently sensed, looking beyond the bar. The next moment, he wondered how he had even missed it.

There never was any bar...only what seemed to be an illusion, a persistent one. The sight faded away as he whispered a few words, forcing his mind to see sharper. What met his eyes next was the vision of an underground tunnel, its entrance blocked with rubble...

No common man would have lifted off those boulders. Luckily, he wasn't one, hurling the gigantic stones with great ease across the place while clearing the entrance. Afterwards, he wasted no time in noticing those sobs or trying to sense more magical anomalies. He entered the newly discovered tunnel, readying himself for whatever dwelled there.

*****

Nothing would have matched the intensity of what he currently saw. He had glanced upon the bloodied battle fields, thick with fallen soldiers and the air putrid with flesh. However, it paled in comparison to the morbidity that he witnessed here.

He had now solved the mystery of where those missing villagers had vanished. Studying this crypt hall, he noticed the patterns, the guts and flesh spilled all over. Skulls had been thrown in circles, with the hearts of the unfortunate victims mounded in the center. He turned his head away momentarily, glancing around at the gigantic hall that he had ventured into.

"You are in hiding, are you not?!" He taunted the entity while scowling at the corners of this ancient burial site, watching the torches around blazing with dancing green flames. Something was lurking here...yet it hid behind those pillars, creeping right to the ceiling whenever he tried to pounce at it. Staring at his environment sharply, he finally took a vial out.

Whatever concealed itself from him noticed the contents of that vial, sending tremors around the hall to imbalance him. The hunter noticed it, as he uttered a few inaudible words to the vial, pouring its blue liquid on the pile of human hearts centered in the circle of skulls. What followed afterwards was a vicious cataclysm, the tremors travelling towards the surroundings. The flames danced fiercely in the hanging torches nearby, the blue hues overwhelming the green flares.

His hands clenched around his weapon, as something wailed loudly through the air, echoing a grimacing cry across the chamber. That was when he finally met the creature...