Morning was a quiet affair. The group quietly sipped lukewarm coffee from a thermos and chowed down some salty biltong. Johannes’ pack kept watch while they finished what breakfast they had and Ryan had to admit that it was fairly relaxing to feel a sense of security in the bush. Before the sun had time to rise more than a finger’s breadth over the eastern horizon he tapped Miguel on the shoulder. “Let’s go,” he said. “Time’s a wasting and I’d like to get this done today. William, mind creating a party for us?”
His brother complied happily and Miguel headed down the hill. Ryan followed immediately, leaving William and Johannes to their watch. Miguel led the way, skilfully prowling through the thick bush. Fury was screening their flank, closer to town than Ryan and Miguel. It didn’t take them long to reach the road, diverting along its shoulder to move a bit closer to town. Ryan and Miguel had discussed their route over breakfast. The two would first inspect the stables just outside town and then circle around town at a distance of more or less half a kilometre, sticking to higher terrain where possible so they could keep an eye on the town.
The stables were in surprisingly good condition. The buildings and corrals were whole, windows and doors open but not broken. The whole scene evoked an eerie sense of abandonment, of loss. Of the collapse of civilisation. Where broken buildings, flaming debris and the conflict of unscrupulous humans had failed to stir Ryan’s emotions this scene spoke to Ryan of an end. He couldn’t say why.
Any tracks were long gone but the two surmised that some townspeople must have fled the area on horseback. Fury quickly confirmed that the grounds were deserted entirely and the group continued with their trek. Ryan was keeping an eye on the surroundings while Miguel, in pole position, was keeping an eye on the ground. After a while the scout spoke up quietly: “This is interesting. I can only find tracks heading away from town. Every single track, small or large, is heading out. No incoming tracks. Also, most tracks are quite old. Few recent. Even the animals abandoned the area.”
“That’s worrisome,” Ryan replied, “seems as if we’re facing a veritable monster. Anything weird yet?”
“No, only what I’d expect. Smaller animals mostly, some cats and dogs, critters. A kudu or two. The large croc tracks would be hard to miss considering the thing can flatten buildings.”
“Ok, we’ll just proceed as planned then. No sense in changing our approach.” Ryan opined.
Several hours later Ryan was heartily fed up with trudging through the bush. The area was deserted and boredom had set in fairly quickly. He and Miguel changed position regularly to rotate through their two tasks. They hadn’t stopped for lunch and we’re pushing through to join William and Johannes on the hill they were now approaching from the east. They’d skipped closer inspection of the military base adjacent to the town. The base looked as if a Tsunami had flattened it and Ryan decided that approaching closely was too risky until they had the location of the croc. He’d prefer to scout it solo at night anyway. The base was also a bit closer to town than he remembered hence his hesitation to approach it until they had found the croc. So instead, still not having found anything abnormal on their circuit, the two were nearly done with phase A.
William greeted the pair with a question when they finally reached their camp; “Found anything?”
Ryan shook his head in negation: “Nope, looks like we’ll need the meek sheep after all. Care to wake Johannes?”
Johannes was dozing under an adjacent bush and snoring loudly watched over by Spot and Tiny, his pair of Hyena’s. Ryan wasn’t sure if he misremembered or if the two beasts had gotten even bigger in the past few days. They were now truly abnormally large specimens and intimidating to behold. Ryan wistfully wondered if Fury would also grow to a spectacular size eventually while William stepped past Johannes’ guardians and nudged the man awake.
Groggily rising from the cot Johannes listened to William updating him on their failure to find anything. Not wasting any time the Packmaster turned to Ryan: “Mind opening a portal so I can call a couple of sheep? How many you think we need? Four enough?”
Ryan considered the question as he spun up the portal. “Four should do it. Make the whole thing hopefully go quicker. If the bleating things wandering through town don’t attract anything willing to munch on them we can assume it’s safe to scout in stealth and figure out where the croc is.”
To his great surprise four sheep voluntarily marched out of the portal in an orderly line seconds after it was up. “That’s neat.” he addressed Johannes.
“Yeah, seems that the portal really is a shortcut through space. I can only issue commands to my pets if they’re in range.” Johannes idly fondled the lead sheep as he replied. “I’ll just send them to the road and into town from there. You said that you haven’t spotted any signs of life in the area, right?”
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Miguel chirped up, “Nope, area’s deserted. Don’t think we’ll need to keep them safe.” and then settled into his camp chair. Ryan followed suit and the group relaxed while their sacrificial offering docilely approached town. William and Miguel only picked up their binoculars as the sheep reached the outskirts. Ryan, deciding to forego the binoculars, tensed up as he kept an eye on the four sheep moving into the town as a unit before they split up and headed in different directions. The sheep kept in sight of the hill at all times, Johannes directing them along paths that the group could keep an eye on.
Nothing happened and as the minutes passed and the tension was rising. Ryan consciously tried to relax his tightening neck muscles as he stared at the four sheep. Miguel and William were each scanning the area around two of their sacrifices, swivelling from side to side as they switched from target to target.
The four sacrificial lambs were nearly three quarters of the way through town and Ryan was damn near fidgeting. The plan he concocted couldn’t fail. Exsolutus needed to know what they were dealing with here and he really really really had no wish to scout this location without first having laid eyes on the beast.
It happened so quickly that Ryan nearly missed the entire thing. Only William’s gasp allowed him to see the tail-end of the action. A humongous shape smashed through two blocks of buildings to snap up the tiny morsel of a sheep. Ryan couldn’t make out anything beyond an indistinct blurred form moving through the dust. Between one moment and the next the woolly dear ceased to exist, massive gaping jaws swallowing the morsel whole. The din of exploding masonry and crushed buildings was audible even at this distance as the croc’s silhouette now slowly faded into the settling dust.
Ryan could clearly see the shape settling down, the large mound now conspicuous even if its colour melded into its surroundings. Try as he might he couldn’t Identify the beast. Ryan dropped a Hunter’s Mark on the croc while he had the chance and decided to consult the rest of the group on the next steps. As he turned around to Johannes he only clued in to the fact that not everything was hunky dory when he noticed that the Packmaster massaged his temples. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Bloody sheep panicked so hard it broke through my control. The feedback’s a bitch.” Johannes groaned more than said.
“Could you run a sheep past at an angle? Or that too much? I want to see at what range it attacks or becomes aware of the sheep.”
“Sure.” Johannes answered. “I can just drop control the second that beast charges. Should avoid the feedback altogether.”
The closest ovine unfroze from its rigid posture and slowly started approaching the crocs location at a tangent. The huge shape had nearly entirely melded into the background, the colour of its ruggedly scaled skin matching the surroundings slowly. Ryan could see the change happen and wasn’t pleased. “It's like a chameleon, no wonder we haven’t spotted it.” he shared with Fury.
Sacrifice number two was five blocks away from the huge croc when it imperceptibly slowly inched around to face it. With microscopic movements the beast entirely turned around its massive body without disturbing its surroundings. As soon as the croc faced its target head-on it catapulted itself forward in an explosive motion, unerringly smashing through three city blocks worth of houses towards the running sheep in a straight line.
“It can sense its targets at that distance. No line of sight. How’s that fair?” Ryan expounded to the world at large, conveniently ignoring the fact that the radius of his Graviton Sphere was quickly growing and he’d soon have a similar advantage.
“Probably some kind of tremor-sense.” William speculated. “This thing will be hell to kill no matter its Level.” Ryan could only concur with that assessment and was thinking, not happily, that he’d have to get a lot closer and identify the croc. Best to approach it from directly behind along the swathe of destruction it had left. The going would be tough but it didn’t look likely that his target could turn around quickly. Hopefully affording him plenty of time to Shift himself to safety if the need arose. Mentally charting his route to the target location he announced: “I’m going in, solo. Clap an Identify on it. Can you guys keep me appraised of its activity when I’m down there? I’ve got Hunter’s Mark on it but that only gives me a location in relation to myself.”
His three guildmates quickly agreed and Ryan reluctantly started his stalk. Traversing through the urban hellscape was slow work. Ryan took the utmost care to quietly navigate through the rubble. The footing was treacherous and the sweetly cloying smell of long rotten flesh, organic garbage and shit permeated the area. The odour was so pungent that his eyes started tearing up. Only the chatter in the party chat relaying even the slightest twitch of the croc let him keep his resolve as he approached closer and closer to where he could feel the beast.
Ryan turned a corner and spotted the croc again. Or at least part of its rear. The tail, armoured in massively thick scales was lying stretched out on the ground a few blocks in front of him. The appendage was as tall as he was and stretching around a corner a dozen or so metres beyond the tip. Only now he appreciated the sheer scale of the monster. Near frozen in fear he forced himself back to some semblance of his usual confidence and used Identify on the beast. The moment he felt the Skill latch and provide feedback he Shifted the hell out of dodge. Once to the furthest raised location he could see only to reorient on the hill and Shift there directly.
“I probably could have Shifted in and out.” he thought to himself before remembering that he didn’t want to risk the split second of disorientation he was still dealing with after a Shift.
Pulling up the results of his Identify he haltingly read them loud for the benefit of the group. “Ou Baas. Level 43 Sensitive Armoured Crocodile. Leashed? What the fuck does leashed mean?”