Chapter 5: The Work of the Beast

Lily stirred as she blinked the sleep from her eyes. She sat up and winced as she felt a stinging pain from between her legs. Her whole body ached and the area around her neck felt so sore she could barely move her head. She sat up from the bed and looked up. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open in shock as she beheld the gaping hole in the wall.

She looked around the room and saw there was another hole in the side of the wall. She could see from the hole the camp was wrecked and the gate was almost completely destroyed. The watchtower was now a pile of rubble and part of the wall was also destroyed.

Did the camp get attacked?

Were there rescuers?

A search party from Averlon?

But then why was she still here?

Did they leave her behind?

The last thing she remembered was that foul creature’s hand around her neck. She looked off to the side and saw the full body length mirror the brute stole from some poor merchant weeks ago. She staggered to her feet trying to ignore the searing pain in her nethers and neck.

Lily got a few steps forward and collapsed onto the floor. She looked up and saw her haggard reflection in the knocked over mirror. Her dead eyes, matted hair and a ugly ring of purple around her neck reflected in the cracked surface.

With a groan she tried to get to her feet again and this time she managed to walk. She staggered over to the massive hole where the door used to be. Lily didn’t know what to think when she saw the total devastation around her. All was silent, not a soul was there, not even the dogs, horses or that horned bear that was locked in that iron cage. The camp was totally destroyed; only about half the shacks were still standing. She looked back at the walls of the house and realised it was a miracle that the house didn’t collapse.

Then Lily felt the cold on her bare skin, it was a welcome chill… ever since she was dragged here she has been locked in that house with that monster and naked as the day she was born. She needed… clothes…

Clothes… it has been weeks since she wore them…

Lily stumbled over to the dresser and saw that for some reason that monster left his prized horned bear pelt coat behind. She grabbed whatever clothes she felt would fit and tried not to gag as she breathed in that man’s scent on the clothes.

Now covered up her eyes wandered to that monster’s sword that lay against the wall. The weapon was still in its scabbard. She walked shakily over to it and grabbed it, intent on using it as a walking stick and emergency weapon. Although she knew she was so weak that it was unlikely she would be able to swing it.

The moment she lifted the sword it suddenly struck her… she was free… whatever happened here had freed her… she could go home…

The thought brought her to her knees as tears fell freely, the nightmare was over…

Lily didn’t know how long she cried as she knelt on the floor but when the tears dried she felt something in her chest she had not felt in a long time… hope…

That hope gave her the strength to rise and her mind immediately went to how she was going to get home. She needed food and water. She remembered there was a trail out of the camp. After that she had no idea, well she would rather die to the fangs of wolves than be used as a toy by that brute.

So she gathered whatever supplies she could scrounge up in the house, it wasn’t hard. The brute kept all the nice cheese in this house and she found his water skin. She picked up the waterskin and found it full. So with supplies in hand and the sword as a walking stick she took her first steps out of the house. When the chill of the forest touched her face she was almost overwhelmed again but this time she managed to steel herself.

The Divine has given her a second chance… she would not squander this gift…

As she walked towards the gate she noticed pools of dried blood in dirt. But no bodies…

Then she noticed strange spines made of white bone in the dirt. These were blood stained and were as large as a dagger from blade to pommel. She looked over to the empty pen where they kept the other girls and saw no blood stains there… maybe they got out too…

She looked around at the damage and saw slashes on the walls and in the dirt. Whatever made this gashes was large, the gashes were wider and longer than any gash she had ever seen. Then she arrived at the iron cage where that horned bear was kept and saw the iron was horribly bent and it looked like the cage was cut apart by some kind of blade. Outside the cage was a small puddle of blood…

As she continued through the camp the realisation started to sink in that whatever did this wasn’t human… it was large and it was powerful… those bastards probably didn't even stand a chance judging by the weapons lying next to dried pools of blood…

When Lily reached the gate she saw the same gashes streaked across the logs that made up the walls. It looks like the blades went through the wood like paper… the wood wasn’t even splintered at the gashes, it was a clean cut that gouged a neat gash through the wood…

Finally she took her first unsteady step outside camp and she paused. She took one last look at the utterly destroyed camp and privately vowed never to return…

She somehow knew in her heart those bastards were dead, whatever did this made sure of that…

Now she just needed to get to the main road and maybe… just maybe she would get home…

With the thought of her parents' face in her mind, she took a determined step out into the forest.

Then another and another…

She would get home or die trying…

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

Beatrice was quite nervous truth be told. She is a Beastiarian, a researcher of the many forms of life scattered across Terra. She finds comfort in books and dissection tables. Now she was riding in a wagon being dragged out of the Averlon. Beatrice internally cursed her luck of being activated for a “New monster contact protocol”. Apparently the road patrols found an attacked merchant wagon on the road and they found some odd things at the site.

So since Beatrice was the royal Beastiarian for the city state of Averlon she was being set out to investigate. She wasn’t good with people or the outdoors for that matter. Well yes she is really good at her job and outperformed even her peers who were decades older than her. She’s only in her mid twenties and she's already been recognised as the best Beastiarian in Averlon.

Still! That doesn’t mean she’s good at FIELD WORK. She’s good at analysing samples that end up on her desk, not going out there and finding out what the hell happened! Now she would have to go out there in the cold and work with strangers… heaven she hated strangers…

Her colleagues often made snide remarks about her, sometimes behind her back, sometimes right in her face because of her social anxiety. One of the most common ones she hears is when she receives any romantic advances from anyone.

“Beatrice isn’t interested in your boner brother, the only bones she’s interested in are the kind that she can reassemble.” that was a common one… well to be fair she could reassemble any skeleton from memory but still! That’s MEAN!

So with a sigh she looked up and saw the horses pulling her wagon. On horseback around the wagon were the gold ranked adventures that had been contracted to escort her to the site. She let out another sigh as she looked back down trying to catch anyone's eye and pulled her fur coat around her shoulders a little closer to keep out the cold.

When Beatrice finally reached the site she struggled to get off the wagon only to be helped off by one of the gold ranked adventures.

“Steady now Ma’am.” the gold ranked warrior said as he helped her with a smile.

“Thank you…” she mumbled in reply and quietly began shuffling towards the site.

When Beatrice looked over the site she saw guards posted around it. They had stuck sticks into the ground around the areas of interest. The first thing she noticed was the wagon was wrecked. Something had broken a wheel and the horses were nowhere to be seen. Funnily there were no bodies… the bodies might have been eaten...

“Are there any remains?” Beatrice asked timidly to a nearby guard.

“Huh? Who are you?” the guard replied gruffly.

“Eeeep.” Beatrice yelped as she shrunk back and the guard recoiled slightly in surprise at her reaction.

“This is Madam Beatrice Godwinn, the Royal Beastarian of Averlon.” the gold ranked adventurer said helpfully from the side.

Beatrice saw the eyes of the guard widen in surprise and he immediately bowed forward.

“My apologies Ma'am.” the guard said hurriedly.

“It's… ok…” Beatrice replied softly.

“She was asking about the bodies.” the adventurer said, trying to speed things along.

“Yes of course good sir, we have found no bodies here or nearby. There are patches of dried blood however and what looks like tracks made by some kind of serpent along with some other… strange observations.” the guard said as he turned his head to the wagon.

“Can you show me the tracks first?” Beatrice said softly.

“At once Ma’am.” the guard said.

Beatrice was brought to a section of grass that looks to be trampled. She looked down and pushed up the large glasses on her face. As she examines the tracks she noted the guards were right, this does look like a serpent type trail. A long body slithering across the grass…

“It’s heavy.” a voice said from behind her and Beatrice nearly jumped out of skin.

“Angelina, careful she’s skittish.” Beatrice heard the adventurer say.

She turned to see the ranger in the adventurer’s party. As she got a good look at this Angelina she noted she was a half elf. A rare species, interrace procreation is difficult, with only ten percent of the fertilisation chance for the lower fertility species. Elves also had an extremely low fertility with only a ten percent chance of pregnancy during ovulation meaning that there is only a one percent chance of fertilisation for a human, elf couple. Half-elves also had longer life spans although not as long as pure blood elfs.

All these facts rang in her head as she looked at Angelina, all the information being pulled from her memory instinctively.

“Erm hello?” Angelina said and Beatrice realised she had been staring blankly at her.

“Oh yes, why do you say it’s heavy?” Beatrice asked.

“The tracks aren’t wide but they are deep. A serpent of this size shouldn’t leave such deep tracks. My best guess is that this creature is only a serpent on the bottom half, with some other torso body type.” Angelina said as she looked back at the tracks.

That made sense, full serpents usually leave shallow tracks because their weight is distributed across a wider area. This one isn’t that wide yet the tracks are deep, which means chances are Angelina was correct. She really needs to improve her field work…

“I think you’re right.” Beatrice said with a nod as shifted her gaze back to the tracks.

“What do you think it is?” Angelina said.

“Erm… can’t tell with just the tracks, there are many species that have serpent type lower halves. Naga, Gorgons, Snakefolk… too many to list…” Beatrice replied.

“Ok then let’s see what else we can find.” Angelina said as she turned to the guard.

“What else is there that seems strange?” Beatrice asked tentatively at the guard.

“The thing that stands out the most would be this.” the guard said as his voice grew troubled.

Beatrice was brought over to the wagon and she spotted a white protrusion in the wood. Closer inspection revealed that it was some kind of bone spine about the size of two fingers put together. It must have been propelled at great force for it to be embedded so deeply in the wood…

“We haven’t touched it, we were afraid it’s poisoned.” the guard said.

“Yes it might be, but first I need to remove it from the wood. Hang on…” Beatrice said as she reached for a tool on her belt. She pulled out a set of pliers and she used it to grasp the end spine. She tried pulling but it didn’t even budge. She tired again groaning but still nothing.

“Need a hand?” Angelina asked.

“Yes please…” Beatrice said in response as she panted.

Angelina took the pliers and pulled, again it didn’t budge.

“Damn this thing is stuck hard.” Angelina said as she pulled again this time harder but still the spine didn’t budge.

“Let me try.” the other adventurer said.

“Sure thing Gregor, be careful you don’t break it.” Angelina said as she handed him the pliers.

Gregor looked to be the party's warrior, he wore fine plate armour and looked to be quite strong. He grabbed the pliers and pulled, again it didn’t budge.

“Divine, this thing is stuck hard.” Gregor said as he pulled again and this time he got it out… but he took the wood with it…

“Aww no…” Angelina said with a sigh at the sight of the destroyed side of the wagon.

“It’s not broken though. Tough little thing...” Gregor said as he looked down at the spine held in the pliers.

“Let me see.” Beatrice said.

Beatrice took the pliers and flipped down a magnifying lens built into her hat. A magic light on her hat came on and shined a light onto the spine. As Beatrice examined she realised she didn’t recognise this kind of spine. It was definitely an interesting spine, it had hooks running along the edge to make it harder to pull out… and there looked to be small holes running along the edge of the spine… poison holes… this spine is supposed to inject poison into the target…

“I don’t recognise this type of spine…” Beatrice said as she looked away from it.

“I guess you should take it back and maybe see if you can find anything in your archives.” Angelina suggested.

“Yes, that would be best.” Beatrice said as she took out her pouch and carefully placed it in.

The moment she let go and the spine fell. It cut straight through the bottom of the pouch and dropped out. The spine landed a centimetre away from her foot and embedded itself into the ground. Everyone froze at the sight of the spine now embedded in the ground so close to impaling her feet…

“Erm… ok… that was close…” Angelina said.

“You... got a better pouch?” Gregor suggested softly from the side.

“That’s my best one… it’s demi-gryph leather…” Beatrice replied softly now feeling quite shaken.

Demi-gryph leather was an extremely tough leather, it was so tough in fact it was favoured for its use as armour used by high ranking adventures.

“Damn…” Angelina said softly.

“Could you break off a piece of wood…” Beatrice said.

After a piece of wood was obtained, Beatrice dropped the spine onto it and it was once again embedded into the wood. Though this time not as deeply…

She carefully placed the piece of wood at the back of the wagon and headed back to the site.

“Ok what else?” Angelina asked as she looked at the guards.

“There’s patches of dried blood scattered about. Some of them had weapons next to them.” the guard said.

“What weapons?” Gregor asked.

“This is one of them.” the guard said as he walked over next to the wagon and picked up something wrapped in cloth. He unfurled the wrapping and handed a beat up sword to Gregor. Gregor paused as he examined the sword.

“This is pretty crap gear. My best guess would be the type of weapons used by bandits.” Gregor said.

“That was our guess as well.” the guard said.

“There are two more patches of blood further away. The trail leads to patches of blood.” the guard said.

“So the bandits attacked this wagon, it looks like a merchant wagon. Then the bandits were attacked by this monster.” Beatrice said as she analysed the information.

“Yeah, the two patches of blood further away were found without weapons. But we found weapons lying over there without any blood nearby. We assumed the bandits dropped their weapons and ran. They didn’t get far, only about ten metres that way.” the guard said as he pointed into the distance.

“There is something else.” the guard said.

“Hmm?” Beatrice asked.

“We found this lying in the grass.” the guard said as he reached for something next to the wagon and picked up a… mirror?

“A mirror?” Angelina asked.

“Could it be a Gorgon? Mirrors are used against Gorgons.” Gregor suggested.

“No Gorgons don’t have the ability to fire poisoned spines. It could be Basilisk but no... Basilisks have a fully serpent body type so it doesn’t match the tracks… and they can’t fire spines either... if petrification was used then there would be statues around here…” Beatrice said.

“Maybe one of the victims thought it was a Gorgon?” Angelina suggested.

“Or a Basilisk.” Gregor added.

“No way some merchant or bandit will be able to tell a giant snake is a Basilisk, most likely they thought it's a Gorgon. The snake hair is a dead giveaway.” Angelina replied.

“Hmm true…” Gregor said as he cupped his chin.

“There is one last thing.” the guard said.

“Which is?” Angelina asked.

“This here.” the guard said as he walked over to an area marked by sticks.

Beatrice walked over and saw there were spines here as well embedded in the earth. What’s more there was this long gash in the earth and a splatter of dried blood in the dirt.

“That looks like a blade slash…” Gregor said.

“What the hell is this thing? Looks like a Gorgon, a serpent’s lower half, it’s big, it can fire spines and now it has blades?” Angelina said in bewilderment.

Beatrice cupped her chin and tried to put the pieces together.

Looks like a Gorgon or some other creature that uses petrification...

Serpent lower body…

Rather large… larger than a man…

Poisoned bone spines that can be fired at high speed…

Blades…

Probably ate the bodies, which is why none are here…

Definitely faster than a man since those bandits were caught quickly...

Nothing matches all of these…

“HALT!” Beatrice heard a guard shout.

The group turned to see a group of guards with their weapons drawn facing the forest. Then she saw a woman staggering out of the trees. She was wearing a fur coat and using a sword as a walking stick. She got two steps onto the road and fell onto the ground.

“Help me…” the woman croaked out.

“What the hell?” Gregor said as he rushed over.

Beatrice stood up and followed behind the rest and when she got close she saw this woman looked to be in bad shape. When the woman looked up from the ground she saw a ring of ugly black bruises around her neck.

“Woah, I think she’s been choked out.” Angelina said.

“Where are you from?” Gregor asked.

“Escaped from a bandit camp… lost in the forest… two days...” the woman replied weakly.

“Bandit camp…” Gregor said as he turned to look at Angelina who gave him a look.

“Yo Fili, get over here.” Gregor shouted and the party’s priest ran over.

“Heal her up will you.” Gregor said.

Once healed the woman sighed in relief as her bruises faded.

“What happened?” Angelina asked.

“I woke up after being…” the woman faltered as she bit her lip.

“Woke up?” Angelina pressed.

“I woke up on the bed… after the leader of the bandits de… defiled me… the camp was destroyed by something. Something large…” the woman said shakily.

“No bodies?” Angelina asked as she raised a brow.

The woman looked at her suddenly at those words.

“No… how did you know?” the woman asked.

“Same thing behind me. Come with me for a moment. I want to see if you recognise something.” Angelina said as she helped the woman to her feet.

The woman was brought to the wagon and when Angelina showed her the bone spine the woman’s eyes widened in recognition.

“You’ve seen this before…” Angelina stated.

“Yes… but…” the woman replied.

“But?” Angelina pressed.

“The ones I saw were larger, much larger…” the woman said.

“How much larger?” Angelina asked.

“The ones I saw were about as long as my forearm.” the woman said.

At those words Beatrice’s eyes widened, the spines here were only about 15 centimeters long. This site is still quite fresh, the attack happened only a few days ago. No creature can grow this fast, which means… there’s more than one...

“There’s more than one…” Beatrice said her voice barely above a whisper.

“A mother and it’s child?” Angelina asked.

“Possibly…” Beatrice said shakily.

Beatrice shut her eyes for a moment and steeled herself before she reached into her pouch, pulled out the royal seal of authority and unfurled it. She held it out for all to see and she began to speak.

By the power granted to me by the throne of Averlon

I Beatrice Godwinn, Royal Beastiarian of Averlon hereby declare a new monster appearance

All roads are to be locked down

Messengers are to be sent to the villages

Until instructed, all unauthorised travel is prohibited...