Hunting in the woods around Kolyug was not as interesting as I would have hoped. The game was basically the same we had hunted further north, with levels mostly between thirty and fifty making it almost no challenge at all. We spent the most of the second day after leaving Kolyug hunting what I could only consider as critters, spending far more time following their tracks than actually fighting them.

There was one quest that would hopefully be interesting, the hunt for a bear that had been problematic enough to gain a direct bounty, as it had apparently decided not to hibernate in the winter but taken to going after farmsteads. That bear was our first big target, apart from the constant lookout for the gang of bandits.

While we were looking for the bear, we also kept our eyes open for traces of the bandits and their hideout, but on the second day, I realised that it might be a pointless task. I had underestimated a simple thing, scale. On the map we had seen in the Adventurer’s guild, the area had looked so small and our task so straightforward, go out there, kill the bandits, return, profit. The reality of it was, the closest attack had been about two kilometers away from Kolyug, the furthest about twenty. Without extreme burdens, those distances were a joke to beings with some levels to their name, crossed within an hour, maybe two.

In addition to that huge area that we would have to cover, there was no link between the sites that had been attacked, no common thread that we might be able to follow, they were all over the region, loosely centered around Kolyug. In addition, the attacks had varied in scope and scale; in some cases, a single farmstead had been raided and burned, but on the other hand, the last caravan in autumn had been raided and burned - a caravan with guards and escorting adventurers. That last piece of information was suspect, as it came from Kelgorn, but still, it gave me pause.

But before I worried too much about tracking down the bandits, we had a bear to hunt. That one was far easier, it had raided farms on our side of the river, one just days ago, and as we had been searching in the woods, I had been mentally going over the information, finally noticing that there might be a connection. The times during which the bear had struck had been all over the place, making me curious. Normally, predators had a preferred time of activity, all animals had, some were active during the day, others during the night and again others during the twilight hours, to put it simply.

But what if the bear was starting its activity at the same time, every day and went until it found food? That would allow me to make a rough estimation using the attack-times and the travel-speed, getting an idea where to look.

I had explained my idea to Adra who thought it had merit and ran with it, she was far more experienced in woodcraft after all. Using the normal activity pattern of bears, some estimation and a lot of guesses she decided where to look for our furry friend.

During dinner on the third day after leaving Kolyug, I tried to carefully sound out Kelgorn, and it was during that session that he told me about the merchant caravan. Sadly, I was not a skilled enough conversationalist to get the information I wanted from him, so ultimately, I gave up. I considered letting Adra handle it, explaining my suspicions to her but the lack of certainty, and a bit of pettiness, prevented me from doing so. Rai, on the other hand, was kept in the dark because I was not sure if he would be able to keep his emotions hidden; he seemed to dislike Kelgorn anyway, so fueling that dislike might give things away.

I considered telling Rai about my suspicions that evening but ultimately, I decided against it, instead, I focused on his training, mainly with his blades instead of his magic. Knowing that it might be a bad idea to let Kelgorn see too much of our fighting-style, we mainly focused on forms, beating them into Rai’s head until they became second nature, allowing him to use a particular set of movements in combat without the conscious need to think about where to place a foot or how to shift his weight. It was one of those disciplines that were moderately easy to learn - but mastering them, that took time and repetition.

A lifetime of dedication, as my teacher had put it.

We had been moving slowly and carefully, not wanting to literally run into something, so it took us almost four days to cross the distance we would cross within half a day on the old highway or a day if didn’t worry about enemies but finally, during the afternoon on the fourth day, we got into the area, a couple of rocky hills and valleys. I had Lenore fly scout every day, hiding my activity from everyone but Sigmir and she had told me where the bear was, it was apparently relatively easy to spot, even from the air. When I asked why, I was shown a mental image and had to fight to keep my composure.

There was an area devoid of trees and brush, but also of snow, everything was covered in a mixture of ice, mud and ash. In the middle of that area, black with soot, was a cave mouth and in the shared image, a bear the size of large car was trotting into the cave. It was about the same proportion compared to Yvla, so I could assume that it had crossed the first divide, and judging by the fact that the bear was on fire, I had a good enough idea about its elemental affinity. Either that, or someone had lit the bear on fire and it was simply ignoring it, I was not sure which option I thought worse.

Now that I had an idea where to look and what to look for, I was able to sense a faint echo of power - of heat - and somewhere inside me, hatred welled up. That thing should not be and I wanted it to be gone from this world, to prevent it from tainting the pristine white snow.

“I feel something.” I called out to Kelgorn and Adra, stopping them in their tracks and moving back to me. I no longer tried to keep the discomfort and revulsion I felt from showing on my face, just telling them the direction and approximate distance to the entity I was feeling and warning them that I had no idea just how powerful the being we were hunting truly was.

Adra frowned a little, having seen me take insane risks with a smile, so for me to be discomforted by the prospect of a fight would be a fight that worried her, but nonetheless, she moved into the direction I had pointed out to them, leading once more.

That gave me time to ask Lenore to come back, having her and the additional power she allowed me to wield might be crucial if the bear turned out to be more powerful than anticipated. I even went so far to disable the filter that kept the Ice-aspect of my power from invading her Hallow, allowing me to use my full magic power. It was only about a ten percent decrease in Astral Power regeneration but seeing the monster we were hunting, I wanted to have all the power I could get.

As we closed in on the cave, I started to think about ways to deal with our foe, considering how to defeat a being that only a magically supported Sigmir could stand up to. But even with magical support, it would be a seriously hard fight, just from the physical size and power of our enemy.

The first decision I came to, was that fighting the bear either in its cave or in the bare area in front of it would be a dumb idea. One of my biggest advantages had always been that I was a spellcaster controlling Ice and almost all my fights had been in an environment where I had next to unlimited access to a natural source of ice and snow that I could use to my advantage. Discarding that advantage seemed just dumb.

The next was that I did not want to have Sigmir engage it, if we could help it. We simply didn’t know enough about it, about its powers, making it a risky proposal. Hit-and-run tactics, in games commonly known as kiting, seemed a far healthier, if less honourable, idea.

And finally, I concluded that the battle might allow me to gauge Kelgorn’s intentions a little better, if he battled with us, risking his own life against a powerful foe, I might be inclined to trust him a little more. Probably not, but I might be.

With all that in mind, I crossed the rest of the distance to the burned out area, suppressing my smirk when both Kelgorn and Adra made noises of shock and disbelief seeing it.

Convincing them to not enter the area but wait and observe was almost comically easy, they were not eager to meet the entity that had created the devastation in front of us, especially not walking into its cave.