Sentinel followed along the narrow path that ringed the village and intersected with the main road as the first rays of light began peeking through the trees and into the sky. Behind him, Cyclone and Prowl were discussing different fighting styles and methods of tackling different species of people, not that Cyclone had much experience with that sort of thing. Sentinel mostly kept quiet, watching their surroundings, and actually doing the job as they patrolled around the village.

They transitioned to the main road and started the walk back to the main entrance, but stopped short. A large animal, possibly a deer of some sort, was laying, slumped, near the gate. As they got closer, Sentinel could see chunks of the animal were missing. Something had attacked this animal and killed it, then dragged it to our doorstop.

“Whatya think?” Sentinel asked Prowl, looking over her shoulder as she rolled it over.

“Not sure, though it looks like its head has been crushed by something heavy. Huh, that’s odd, look at this,” she said, gesturing at the animal’s stomach.

Cyclone peered over and could see that the stomach had been torn open and the entrails and organs had been removed. “Where’s its guts?” he asked.

“I don’t know... weird, right?”

“Let’s get Kull or Mara to take a look at it,” Sentinel offered, as he started walking back into the village.

“Should we leave it here, sir?” Prowl asked, calling after him, before looking up at Cyclone, who shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess leave it for now. Protect the crime scene and all, right?”

Prowl shrugged back at him and let go of the animal’s limbs, letting it flop back onto the ground. From the gate, Mara came trotting out in their direction.

“Hey guys! Good morning, Alfred caught me on the way out. Said you found something interesting,” he called in his friendly manner.

Cyclone gave him a wave and Prowl stood up and backed away from the animal.

“Found this guy, laying here like this. What do you think?” she said, indicating the animal.

“Hmm... looks like a crobex... or maybe a saibex... hard to tell with half of its head missing and the rest crushed in,” he said, folding his arms and tapping his faceplate. “It’s the antlers really, that separate the two, but those are missing.”

Mara knelt down and pulled on a limb, rolling it onto its back. “The stomach has been torn open... it’s really ragged though, this wasn’t done with a blade, or if it was, then it was a really dull one.”

He gently pulled open the wound and looked inside. “All cleaned out... but I’m thinking it was more ripped out than carefully removed. See here and here?” he said, pointing at some part of the gory mess that looked just like the rest of the bloody insides.

“What do you think did it?” Prowl asked.

“Something big and strong, most likely, but I’ve never seen a carcass that was prepared but not eaten.”

“You think it’ll come back for this?” Cyclone chimed in.

“I doubt it. This was left here intentionally.”

“As a warning?” Prowl asked, walking around it to view from another angle.

“I think something thinks it’s sharing with us. I don’t know what, though.”

“Should we ignore this, or accept it?” Cyclone asked.

“It’s not in bad condition, all things considered, and it’s pretty fresh. I guess talk to Sentinel if you want, but I think our choices are to accept this as a gift and dispose of it or use it; or to ignore it and risk offending whatever was capable of this amount of violence.”

“Fair points,” Cyclone agreed. “Can you properly clean it and butcher it for Shiro? I think he’d be pretty excited to make use of it.”

“Yeah, not a problem,” Mara said, standing up. He then grabbed the creature around the ribs and hefted it over a shoulder.

Mara wasn’t a large Automata, or a thick one. He’d requested his frame be on the smaller and thinner side to make it easier for him to slip through the woods as a hunter. The sight of this large animal delicately balanced over the shoulder of a slight Automata would have been comical if you didn’t know just how much stronger an Automata was than other beings of similar size.

“So what now?” Prowl asked, as she watched Mara trudge off towards the hunters lodge where they took care of disassembly and processing their kills. “Should we head back to the office?”

“Nah, Sentinel has that covered. Let’s see if we can figure out who our friendly neighbor is.”

“I’m in. Where do we start?”

Cyclone looked again at the area where the animal had been laying. Some blood had pooled in the spot, but not too much. Most of the blood had likely drained elsewhere or on the way here. He squatted down and looked at the matted grass and plants and found traces of blood leading to the road. He pointed a finger at the traces and visually traced the path across the road and into the woods.

Prowl looked hard at the roadway and though it was dirt, she couldn’t see any indication of foot prints. “I see some broken branches and crushed plants over here,” she said, inspecting the ground entering into the woodline.

“Well, let’s go,” Cyclone said with a light bounce in his step.

He followed after Prowl as they entered the woods and searched for clues to what had come through and from what direction. The clues weren’t terribly hard to come by as whatever it was seemed to have shoved anything out of its way or crushed it underfoot. Neither of them had any skills at tracking, but it wasn’t a problem. Tracking this thing was like a tracking course for babies.

They climbed over fallen trees and through brush and ferns in search of their quarry; broken limbs and occasional blood or fur highlighting the trail that their neighbor had taken. Eventually, they found a relatively open area that was splattered in blood. Either this was where it had been killed or where it had been cleaned. Or both.

The Automata lacked any sense of smell in the usual understanding of the ability, though they were able to detect high concentrations of the various fatty acids and proteins of the blood hanging in the air. Their systems weren’t sensitive enough to be able to create a visual overlay, but by moving around the area surrounding the site they could map out where the concentrations were higher or lower.

The entrails, nor the antlers, were to be found in the area so they reasoned that the neighbor must have taken those elsewhere before carrying the rest of the animal to their village. Or it ate them. Following their “noses” they continued tracking until they came to a rocky area that wound down to the mouth of a cave.

“I think we found our neighbor’s house... should we say hello?” Cyclone asked, looking sideways at Prowl.

“Maybe just a peek? Aren’t you curious?”

“I am...”

Prowl pulled on the hilt of her sword and slowly drew it out but stopped when Cyclone touched her on the shoulder and shook his head. Approaching the home of something big and potentially violent required caution but at the same time it wouldn’t be good to appear as a threat from the start.

Quietly, they edged closer to the opening of the cave. Just inside, they could make out the bones of other creatures that had been consumed or possibly had tried their luck at saying “hello”. The cave entrance was larger than it looked from a distance, easily two stories at its height and twice as wide. The positioning suggested that it probably flooded when it rained so something living here either didn’t mind or this was an opening to a cave system.

“Think this is a dungeon?” Prowl asked, eyeing the living ceiling carpet of bats.

“Like with a bunch of floors and monsters and such, leading to some boss fight and a grand treasure?”

“Maybe? I’ve never been to one before. I don’t know about treasures or anything but otherwise, yeah. I think there’s a couple of them in the Fangwell Forest.”

“What makes it a dungeon and not just a cave with some big beasty living in it?”

“I dunno. Though I heard that the monsters in a dungeon aren’t real. You kill them and they just dissolve, leaving behind their mana crystals. If you don’t get the crystals into a [Storage] space then the monsters will come back.”

“How’s that supposed to work? Things can’t just spawn into existence.”

“I dunno.”

“So you think maybe this is a dungeon and the boss decided to drop off a welcome to the neighborhood gift?”

Prowl shrugged.

They continued following deeper into the cave as they lost any natural lighting coming from the mouth. Things scrabbled and skittered above and around them but nothing attacked or tried coming close.

“My light filters aren’t helping any more,” Prowl complained. “I mean, I can see the heat coming from the things on the ceiling and some slight mana in the air around us. Thanks to that fancy lighting decoration you have, I can just make out any large rocks around you... but that’s about it.”

Cyclone looked down at the glowing panel lines that adorned his body and realized that other than her eyes, any glowing bits on Prowl were covered by the clothes and armor that she wore on top as if she were an organic soldier.

“Yeah, that’s not really enough to go by,” Cyclone agreed. “I didn’t switch on my headlight, thinking that I didn’t want to give away our position... but I guess with my panel lighting, I’m lit up like a neon sign.”

“What’s a neon sign?”

“It’s um... a sign made out of light? Like for shops?”

“Ah, I’ve seen some stuff like that for the super fancy expensive shops. Words of light hanging in the air and dancing around and stuff. I didn’t know that’s what they were called.”

“Yeah... just like that...”

“So how come you’re lit up like one? So is Prime for that matter, now that I think of it. I’m not covered in lights like that, just you guys.”

“Cause it looks cool?”

“Heh, okay big guy,” she said, patting Cyclone on his hip. “With those lights, I hope you’re prepared to be the tank in our party. Anything in the dark will be drawn to you like a buttermoth.”

Cyclone switched on the headlight mounted in his chest from his motorcycle form. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’m confident in my ability to tank.”