Gruf was not a happy man right now. All had been going smoothly. They successfully managed to kidnap their target and transport her way up the mountains, away from prying eyes.

And then his contractor just had to come here to have a look at his prize. And being the fat and gross swine that he is, he just couldn't keep his hands off her. He sends us away so he could have some special time with the captive.

It's not that Gruf shies away from rape, not really, but seeing who the captive was and who her parents were, he explicitly forbade his men to have their fun. And then this pompous ass had to come waltzing in here like he owned the place, which he technically does, and demand that Gruf and his men leave so he could have his fun.

And then the fool just had to remove her restraints, believing that he was strong enough to keep her subdued so the restraints wouldn't get in the way of his fun. All he got out of it was a mutilated face when she grabbed his knife and carved up his face with it. With him in shock and bleeding like the pig he is, she fled.

Which idiot keeps a knife in plain sight when trying to rape an unrestrained woman?

And now she has a headstart because Gruf and his men weren't there. And to make matters worse, because things had gone off without a hitch, Gruf had sent away most of his men to guard the trail up the mountain. Leaving him up here with only three others. And the bleeding pig of course.

Thankfully though, it isn't currently snowing so the women's tracks are easy to follow.

And with her being barefoot and underclothed, she couldn't have gone far.

With a cloth to his face to staunch the bleeding, the fat noble lags a bit behind as Gruf and his men follow the woman's tracks. Not long after, they lose sight of her tracks. They just seem to stop. Closer inspection reveals a small hole, one that only a small or slender person would fit through.

"Look around men, there might be an entrance to where she fell to"

While Gruf and his men are looking around for a way down, a blizzard can be seen creeping upon them.

Gruf knows that, if they don't find a way down there fast, they would get caught by the blizzard. The temperature would drastically drop, visibility would drop to a point where you could barely see a thing and the chance of getting lost and dying of exposure would increase a lot. And if they had to abort their search for the woman, she might either get away or die from exposure. Which would be bad. A kidnapping would be one thing, but having her die on their watch whilst being kidnapped would set things in motion that would lead to a very painful death for all them if they ever were caught.

With the blizzard nipping at their heels and the wind picking up, they frantically keep searching.

It is with the company of howling wind that they finally stumble upon a hole in the mountain. Something that might be a cave or might have been an old mining tunnel once upon a time. After all, a lot of people, but namely dwarves, have looked for precious minerals and ores in these mountains.

With the weather conditions getting worse each second, Gruf, his three men and the fat and bleeding noble enter the mountain. The tunnel is pitch black except for a point further ahead, where a faint glow could be seen.

An extra loud howl from outside is all that it takes to get them moving. Two of Gruf's men take out torches and attempt to light them. It takes them both a while but eventually, their torches light up the tunnel.

Briefly taking note of the smoothness and the straightness of the tunnel, the group quickly push forwards.

An even louder howl this time resounds through the tunnel which startles the small group. They all just nervously look at each other before one after the other just starts laughing and chuckling. Why would they, grownup men, be afraid of a little bit of wind? After a couple of steps, the noble slips and lands on his fat ass, taking the closest of Gruf's men with him as he tried to use the man to keep standing. The noble starts cursing loudly, both at the tunnel and at the man that went down with him. The man that went down with the fat noble on the other hand, starts cursing as well, but under his breath, calling the noble various despicable things.

Another howl, one many times louder then the last one echoes through the tunnel. As one, they all turn towards the entrance. There, in the faint background, looms a massive creature. It lets loose another bone-chilling as it seems to look at them. Very slowly, Gruf starts backing off, deeper into the mountain, while he whispers to the rest:

"Move! Now! But slowly! Make no sudden movements, make not a sound!"

With the ones that were still standing, slowly backing up, the noble and the other man that went down slowly try to rise so they can back up as well. The man makes it up without a hitch but the fat noble either has the worst of luck or is just too fat to gracefully rise while doing it slowly, Whatever it was didn't matter much. What followed is another thing entirely. With the resounding smack of fatty meat hitting the floor, the noble once again crashes to the floor.

With another massive roar, the creature at the entrance starts charging forwards.

"RUN!"

As one, Gruf and his men charge forwards as well, deeper into the tunnel.

The prone noble scrabbles for purchase as he tries to get up, breaking and even tearing off nails in his panic and desire to flee from whatever it is charging down upon him. Just as he finds purchase, the creature is upon him.

With one might swipe of his arms, the noble is batted towards the wall. With a wet crunch, the noble's head collides with the wall and splits open like an old melon, killing the noble instantly. Which can be considered as a small mercy, since the creature tears off one the now dead noble's arms and starts munching on it. While the creature was killing the noble and snacking on him, Gruf and his men were dashing further into the tunnel. All of a sudden, on of gruf's men slips and slides head first and screaming into a pit that spans the entire width of the tunnel. With just a split second to react, Gruf and his two other men leap over the pit, not sparing a glance for their fallen comrade. To falter or stop is to invite certain death. Unfortunately for them, the fallen man's scream alerts the creature to even more potential victims.

With renewed interest, the creature charges forwards once more.

As soon as Gruf enters the room, he quickly scans it, looking either for a way out or for something that would help them in their fight against whatever it is that is chasing them.

With only the weird orb giving off a slight glow, the cave is just too dark to look for any potential weapons that can aid them. Gruf takes it all in and makes his decision.

"stand fast men, we'll make our stand here."

They turn around and face the charging creature. Gruf pulls his sword out of his scabbard and brings forth the shield he had slung on his back. The man on the left of his pulls out two wicked daggers that glisten at their tips and at the edges in the torchlight. Coated with poison. The man on Gruf's right releases a greatsword from the straps on his back and brings it in front of him.

They would look like a proper adventuring team if they had ranged backup. or maybe even a healer. Sadly enough for them, the man that fell down the pit was their archer.

With Gruf standing slightly in front of the other two, he bends his legs a bit and raises his shield before him, hoping to halt the charge of the creature.

It must have some sort of low light vision at the very least because the creature just casually jumps over the pit during its charge. Seeing Gruf standing there with his shield raised, the creature jumps forwards, crossing the last few meters with a single leap. With both of its arms raised over its head, he slams them forward onto Gruf's shield, making use of his massive strength and the kinetic and potential energy of his leap. An attack fueled by the very mass of the creature combined with the speed of his jump and the strength in the arms of the creature.

With a mighty crash, the creatures arms impact with Gruf's shield. Even though Gruf is a rather strong man with a high constitution, his shield arm just snaps as if it were a dry and brittle stick. The massive flare of pain that runs like liquid fire through his nerves is enough to temporarily stun him. Luckily for him, his teammates quickly slip slightly behind the creature and start swinging at it.

The man with the daggers, presumably some rogue type, starts stabbing the thing with gusto. Every time a blade of his would penetrate the thing's body, traces of the poison that coat the blade would remain behind in the creature, quickly finding its way into the creature's bloodstream. From there it would slowly spread throughout the things body. On humans or smaller animals, the poison would act fast enough to at least incapacitate them but with a creature this size and with such an impressive body mass, the rogue knows that it will take a lot longer. And then it might not even be enough. After all, a creature this size most likely has a lot of blood and tissue to dilute the poison, reducing its effectiveness.

The man with the claymore starts swinging his mighty sword around as well. Even though it is rather unwieldy and is not made to be swung around with grace, it still is a deadly weapon in the right hands. After all, the very thing that makes it unwieldy, the length and mass of the weapon, also gives it a certain deadlines. The slightly sharp edge combined with its mass makes it so that the weapon cuts deep and leaves behind wicked and long gashes.

Unfortunately for them, the creature is quite sturdy and can take a fair amount of punishment.

With Gruf temporarily out of combat, the creature turns its attention towards the rogue. With a mighty swing of his right hand, the rogue is sent flying towards the nearest wall. Which he hits with a faint crunch as at least a couple of ribs break. Gasping for breath from the pain and because all the air in his lungs got forcibly expelled by the impact, he just lays there.

The man with the claymore just keeps hitting the thing with all of his might, enraged by the fact that his boss and comrade were being manhandled as if they were nothing more then children.

With two out of three immediate threats out of the way, the creature turns itself towards the man with the claymore.

Receiving another cut, this time to its chest, the creature attempts to grab the man. The man manages to jump back in time and retaliates by swinging at the creatures outstretched hands. A pair of fingers are cut off from the creatures left hand. Looking befuddled, the creature simply stares a bit at his hand and at the spot where two fingers used to be.

Befuddlement quickly turns into rage as the thing can't believe his meal just managed to permanently harm him.

With hate-filled eyes, the creature looks at the man with the Claymore before he just jumps towards the man, throwing all caution to the wind. The creature collides with the man, both crashing to the ground. The creature is first to get up and jumps on top of the man. The impact makes the man expel all of his breath as the creatures heavy weight presses down on him. With the man pinned underneath it, the creature starts pummeling the man. Soon after, the creature calms down, his body coated in red. The head and upper body of the man turned into an unidentifiable mess of blood, bone and grey matter.

Just as the creature is about to stand up, it is run through by a sword, its resilient hide pierced by a Gruf's sword.

"How dare you kill one of my men. I will cut you up. I will gut you like a pig at a butcher."

Sadly enough for Gruf, the thing is made of sterner stuff and it just turns towards him. The sudden motion rips the handle of the sword out of Gruf's hand and makes Gruf lose his balance. With the sword still stuck in the thing's body, Gruf is disarmed. Out of balance, weaponless and with a useless right arm, Gruf tries to crawl backwards. The hateful thing rushes forth again, but this time, it has decided it had enough. It opens up his mouth as far as possible and takes a huge bite out of Gruf's shoulder and neck. Blood comes spurting out of his ravaged throat and shoulder, in the rhythm of Gruf's frantically beating heart. As the thing keeps hold of Gruf, the intervals between the spurts of blood become longer and longer until it stops altogether. Gruf lies dead in the thing's arms.

The thing takes another bite out of Gruf's body, treating it like some sort of snack. While it is feasting upon Gruf's corpse, two grey blurs creep forward.

With an explosive burst of movement, the two leopards that had been hiding in the gloom before both take a bite of the thing's Achilles heels. With both of his Achilles heels completely cut, the thing promptly topples over. It pushes itself upon its arms and looks at whoever or whatever dared to attack it. The two snow leopard just stare back at him, completely impassive, almost bored even.

The thing tries to rise again but its feet won't work properly, causing him to fall again. To make matters worse for it, a large puddle of blood is quickly forming at his feet. The two snow leopard just lie down a bit further, out of the thing's reach, waiting for the blood loss to weaken it. Seeing it being so casually ignored enrages the thing further, but without the use of his feet, the only thing the creature can do is to try to crawl forwards using his arms. Every time the thing almost comes in range of the two leopards, they just saunter off again and lie down once more. Because of this, the thing keeps losing blood at an alarming rate. Eventually, the thing's movements become rather sluggish, until it even loses all strength in its arms and falls flat on its face.

It is at this point that the two leopards jump up again. One uses its mouth to turn the thing's head to the side, exposing its throat, while the other lunges at the exposed throat and rips it out.

With life leaving the thing's eyes, it is finally dead.

The rogue that was thrown towards the wall earlier tries to crawl sneakily away but unfortunately for him, the leopards weren't alone in that room to observe all that happened. With a heads-up warning from their master, the leopards turn as one towards the crawling rogue. Upon seeing this freaky behaviour, the rogue frantically tries to speed up his crawling.

With a snap of a jaw and the spurting of some more blood, all that didn't belong in the dungeon, except for the mysterious woman, is dead.

Tranquillity has returned once more.