“Hauuu, how much longer till they’re ready Arin, I’m ready eat and sleep.” Complained a drowsy girl with brown hair tide in a ponytail as she snuggled up to the boy she was complaining to.

“Hold on just a few more minutes Elli.” Replied Arin while stirring a pot of stew sitting over the camp fire.

Inside a cavernous room, a small junction of cave tunnels, a small group of hunters had made camp after a day of fortuitous hunting in the Maze.

“Elli stop rushing Arin’s cooking, it will be perfect when done.” The young girl with long blonde hair while she bandaged another adventurer girl next to her.

“Hauuu, I’m just ready for bed.” Elli replied continuing to snuggle Arin.

“I bet you are, just remember your pulling night watch with me so don’t get carried away with your….sleeping.”

“Julia no need to fight, how about I pull night watch shift with you instead so there no problem.” A previously silent male hunter wearing a chitin breastplate suggested with eager eyes directed at Julia.

“No need, I simply want Elli to remember her commitments and…promises.” Julia said rejecting the hunter.

“Aww, your always so critical of me but the one you should really be concerned about is Sati not me.” Retorted Elli to Julia’s jab, while pointing at a girl sitting at a small distance from the fire. She had straight black hair in messy ponytail and a dark complexion, a crossbow sat next to her as she did her best to ignore the ongoing drama.

Arin maintained an innocent smile while chuckling inwardly. He found it so easy to manipulate these girls that he started to wonder if their brains were made of mud since manipulating them was like molding mud. Now he was making plans to capture the other girls in his group and ‘recruit’ more girls, especially girls from more famous or powerful guilds.

The small group continued there bantering suddenly Sati grabbed her crossbow and fired at one of the tunnels. Everyone were into a panic from the shocking action, then a howl came from the tunnel once the bolt hits its target. A giant mantis had crept up on them. Their panic doubled, the hunters scrambled to their weapons.

Sigard had rushed into the room right behind the Mantis Queen, the Golden Tiger by his side. He came up to the Mantis left side with the Golden Tiger covering his left side.

Inside of the room was a group of nine hunters readying their weapons. Four males and five females originally forming in to a half circle around the Mantis but now shifting into a rough line. In front of the Mantis Queen a male with two women on either side of him the crossbow wielding woman behind them and another male off to the flank of the Mantis Queen. A spear wielding woman between two armoured men positioned against the Golden Tiger. Finally the last female dressed in casual clothing and only armed with a short sword caught between the two clusters takes position in front of Sigard.

“Wait. Wait a minute.” Suddenly a shout echoes through the room. It came from the man nestled among all the women, he was frantically trying to get Sigard’s attention. “We’ve done nothing to you, so recall your beasts and we can cooperate on returning to the surface.”

“You shot my Mantis Queen, beside why should I cooperate with anybody so stupid as to camp here.” Sigard pointed at the room they were in, as it was a nexus point for several cave tunnels joining together.

“Choose your words carefully. Just because you’re from the Beast Master Guild doesn’t mean you can bad mouth your fellow Hunters.” The man, Arin, clearly didn’t like being looked down upon.

Sigard noted that this man assumed he was from the famed guild of monster tamers, one of the prestigious great guilds of Runnyaria.

“We were merely reacting, look your mantis only took a minor wound so no need to escalate further.”

While speaking Arin glanced around the room. His eyes then locked onto the Golden Thunder Tiger on the other side, such a rare creature it’s meat, bones and pelt all would fetch a fortune on market, greed overtook him and so he made a quick gesture towards his comrades.

“Look, it’s clear from your appearance that you’ve been down here for quite a while, how about we escort you back up to the surface I’m sure the Beast Master Guild will be relieved to have you back.”

Sigard caught the gesture and could see movement from his periphery vision. The male hunter on the far side of the Golden Tiger slowly moved towards its flank. This hunter was armed with a bone sword, a weapon made from a monsters bone and crafted by specialist Bone Smiths, because of Quintessence that soaks into the monsters

Why would I want a bunch of greedy scavengers anywhere near me?

And with that line the Hunters became enraged. Of course they would, calling someone a scavenger is one of the biggest insults amongst those who delve into the Maze. Many in the hunter profession only take the most valuable parts of their kills, to maximize ease of transport. So there are many hunters who pick over these discarded remains. These hunters are seen as weak and lazy losers, and so are derided with the epithet scavenger. As time went by the title also gained the meaning of criminals, ironically enough many of those criminal elements have adopted the word for there own which if anything has only made it a bigger insult amongst ‘upstanding’ hunters.

The hunters raising their weapons to attack, and the beasts immediately react. The Giant Mantis Queen attacked with her raptorial forelegs attempting to stab or catch the enemy hunters in front of her. They in turn got in a formation, the leaderish male and two female hunters defending from the mantis’s assault protecting the crossbow wielding female fired bolts from behind, while the remaining male hunter moved to flank and attack the mantis’s weak points.

The Golden Thunder Tiger lunged forward, the spearwoman tried to stab the tiger but the spear was batted aside and the Golden Tiger then bit down onto the woman’s neck and shoulder. With a sickening crunch the tigers jaws ripped out flesh and bone. The woman went limp, crumpling onto the floor as blood and gore sprayed into the air.

Both hunters to either side of the now dead woman struck out against the Golden Tiger making two gouging wound on both flanks.

While all of this was happening the female hunter in front of Sigard had pulled her short sword and attempted to grapple him. With his still malnourished body it was unlikely he could handle an extended melee so instead he stepped back from the hunter then kicked her in the abdomen. Already out of balance from her attempted grapple she was forced back from the kick and fell onto her back straight in a campfire. There her hair, clothing, head, neck, and upper back quickly caught fire.

Sigard took a moment to access the fighting around him, then bent down to grab several rocks on the ground and in order to launch them at the currently distracted hunters. The first rock he fired went towards the hunter fighting the golden tiger and so had his back facing Sigard. The rock hit him right between the shoulder blades. He screamed out in pain as his body seized up while in mid attack. The golden tiger heard the screams and took advantage of the opening, launching a powerful swipe with her claws. The hunter momentarily paralyzed took the full attack, launching him across the room where he bounced off some rocks and then fell prone as he bled out from the huge gashes across his chest. The Golden tiger didn’t have time savor her kill, she immediately turned around and focused all of her attention upon the hunter wielding the bone sword.

Back to the giant mantis queen, unlike the quick brutality of the golden tiger this fight was looking more like a choreographed dance, with the hunters weaving in and out of attack range as they try to inflict damage on the monster while protecting the crossbowoman. After one of their own went into the campfire, one of the female hunters had withdrawn to save the girl leaving four hunters to fight the mantis queen. with the reduction in fighters this gave the mantis queen more room to focus her attention on individual hunters. Thus when the flanking hunter moved in to launch more strikes the mantis used this opportunity to ambush him with a vicious counter attack. First strike-dodged, second strike-deflected, on the third strike the hunter attempted to dodge but the mantis’s raptorial foreleg cleaved into his thigh completely severing the leg, spraying blood and viscera everywhere. A second stab quickly ended the screaming man on the ground.

The remaining hunters were enraged, they pressed forward trying to retake the initiative. The two charged in while the crossbowomen readied her crossbow to support them. At this crucial moment a rock came flying in hitting the bow, several more rocks flew at the hunters disrupting there attack. Obviously it was Sigard who was firing the rocks, he had waited for this opportunity to scatter them.

“Ahhh!” A blood curdling scream reverberated throughout the room. One of the mantis queen’s forelegs had impaled the female hunter fighting out front, it had gone in at an angle slicing through her upper chest and coming out of the lower back, severing the spine and piercing multiple vital organs. She was dead before her body hit the ground.

The male hunter, the who tried to sway Sigard, was visibly shaken with how quickly everything fell apart. He looked around the room where most of his comrades lay dead. Of the survivors one was pinned in a corner by the golden tiger, another was seriously burned. After a moment of mental calculations he turned around and bolted straight down one of the tunnels leading out of the room.

Sigard felt the tension release from his body, as the fight wrapped up. The Golden Thunder Tiger was finishing off the bone sword wielding hunter. The burn victim and female hunter who had been trying to save her were finished off by the Giant Mantis Queen. This left the crossbowoman as the remaining hunter, luckily she had run out of arrow bolts and was now using her crossbow as a crude shield while she coward in a corner. At least until the mantis queen stabbed her.

With the fight now over Sigard was free to loot the hunters and their campsite. While picking threw the remains he also examined the injuries on his monsters. The golden tiger had multiple large gashes along her sides. The mantis queen was even worse off with cuts and arrow bolts sticking out of limps and body, one leg even was completely hacked off.

Sigard now saw this little expedition as a mistake.

While ruminating on repercussions of this fight, he came to the crossbowoman’s corpse. Sigard stopped while he was checking the corpse, on her arm underneath the armor and clothing was a tattoo. The tattoo was the insignia of the Relentless Stalkers Guild.

Now Sigard was really certain that this was a mistake.