“Oh, fuck, seriously?” Prof was swearing.

The day started so well, a nice hike in the woods to kill off some critters for money, and what came out of it? Ambushed by said critters! The first sign of trouble was when a very typical “krrrk-kek-kek” sound sounded from behind a fallen tree.

The overgrown chicken that peaked over it, sent Prof into another swearing fit. He knew that lizard, or should he call it Dinosaur from back on Earth. A whole franchise was built on the back of those buggers! Obviously the Administrator collected monsters for a long time. In this case, it was a smart idea: if the movies were right, the Raptors were the very best hunters in all of history. And since movies always told the truth and nothing but the truth…

The party was in for a tough fight.

“Gather around!” Prof commanded “They are probably already around us!”

As they decided previously, Prof took the front with Binky on his right, Shinead on his left and Foxy in the back. Mini, with her double-grooved crossbow in hand was behind her mount, Ainmire, the archer from the Clan on the other side, while Oisin stood behind Foxy. Sharpclaw, as the weak link in the party was left in the center, and should only participate in the fight cautiously.

Weapons in hand and ready for carnage, they waited for the inevitable bloody fight to start.

And waited.

“Do they know that we were ambushed and now they should start attacking?” Foxy asked after five minutes. Mini nodded.

“Probably they are waiting for us to introduce ourselves. It’s the polite thing to do.”

“Maybe we should start running in panic.” Foxy hazarded

“Or split up the party. That always went well.” Prof was not sarcastic at all “Or send out someone on his own. Also a proven method.”

The two new members, Oisin in particular, were so impressed by such profound tactical wisdom they held their faces with their hands.

“Idea good!” Sharpclaw agreed “Koboldssss alwaysss sssend trapsssniff and fodder in firsssst. Trapsss no working after!” She maybe didn’t realised, she was the only trapsniff or fodder currently in the team. Or realised it and expected to be sent in.

“Where did that first one go?” Shinead asked “I have the highest [Tracking], I will take a look. I will probably able to follow the trail”

“Let’s all get over together.” Prof cautioned.

Shinead shot him a strange look, but agreed for the others to come too. The trail was more, than clear, even Mini with her abysmal Skill could have followed it – assuming she cared. Which she did not. The prints led to a glade with man-high grass. Prof stopped to others.

“There is no way, we should go there. It’s a trap! Foxy, can you do something with the grass? Make it reveal the lizards or something other?”

“I will try.” Either the spell was easier or the few points she put into the Skill made the difference, but it didn’t fizzle this time. “The spell is telling me there are at least six creatures in the grass, probably a seventh too, but that was visible for only a short time.”

“Good. Burn it down. It’s the only way to be sure! Oisin, you are on.” Prof commanded.

The Wolfkin was better in casting than Foxy was (not much of a surprise, [Floramancy] was a secondary Skill for Foxy, but [Fire Magic] a primary for Oisin), not one of his spells fizzled as he flattened the clearing with fireballs and firecarpets.

The lizards shrieked and gathered for a full head-on assault.

“Level 5 and 6 Normals!” Foxy informed them before leaping into the air and kicking one of the trademarked monster in the teeth. [Battle Chi] ruled, Prof was envious. He read the Rulebook, and haven’t even realised how big a cheat [Battle Chi] was. Or he realized it, but didn’t care about the necessary extra Perks to be able to use it, he wasn’t sure.

To get over his envy, he transformed the head of another Terrible Claw into mush with two well-aimed Critical Hits. Mini shot his lizard in the kidneys twice, Binky lazily ate his with one bite and Shinead gutted the one before last. Only their mage and archer had any problems with the last one, neither having good melee Skills or powerful single-target Spells (or Mana).

Their Kobold simply faded away.

Everyone turned on the last remaining enemy, but before they could finish it, they were jumped by three further, uninjured ones, a big one sporting bright green scales on its otherwise greenish-brown hide. Reinforcement has arrived.

Prof was able to intercept the most dangerous looking one – the big one – Foxy kicked one of the smaller away, but the others were well out of position. The last uninjured lizard jumped on Ainmire, who could dodge it only by the skin of his teeth, and rolled away, losing his bow in the process.

The last lizard of the initial batch meanwhile landed a heavy hit on Oisin, knocking him out of the fight. Just before the mage was gutted by the wicked claw on the foot of the Terrible Claw, Sharpclaw appeared behind him, and performed a perfect assassination.

Despite being a low-level normal and armed with a shitty weapon, she was very good at utilizing her Skills and Perks. Or she was so good at it because she was a low-level normal. Be as it may, the lizard was almost bisected by the other lizard. Another enemy down.

The un-engaged lizard from the reinforcement wasn’t un-engaged for long. Or alive. Binky’s tail spike drilled into its stomach, and the lizard was pulled into the mouth of the other lizard. There were too many lizards around to keep count…

Foxy squeezed her lizard…

No, Not going there.

Foxy punched her enemy hard, her chi-enhanced hits finally breaking probably every last of its bones. That left only one Terrible Claw, the pack-leader, which was held back by Prof. The Elite lizard was a harder enemy then the Dire Wolf or the Dire Bear he had fought previously, the extra Levels were telling.

That, and the completely different fighting style. The Wolf just lunged and tried to bite, the Bear swiped at him, but the raptor tried to jump and gut him with its wicked claws, tried to bite him, tried to shoulder-check him so it could gut him, and even swiped its tail at him.

Again, Prof could barely do more than to defend himself. He managed to land a few hits, but the damage was slight. That was until Foxy arrived with a chi-powered hammer kick, Mini shot her crossbow at the lizard and Shinead tried to flank it. Dazed by the kick, the trophy-aspirant could not defend against Prof’s co-ordinated strikes with both his axes.

Its head fell to the forest floor.

“That was easier than I thought” Mini observed

“Yeah, never underestimate overwhelming firepower.” Prof agreed.

And it was helpful that he saw that documentary franchise too. Never enter man-high grass when dangerous animals are around. Never split the party. Never send out someone on his own. OK, you can do that, but only if you want to get rid of him.

“What do you think, can I have something nice out of this leather made?” Mini asked. Prof was undecided.

“Probably. If you spend enough money, you can have nice stuff made out of even trash.”

After bandaging their mage and giving him a Health Potion, it was time for looting again. Since Binky ate most of two copyrighted dinosaurs, they were left with seven carcasses.

Only Prof and Shinead ware barely proficient in Skills useable for processing dead animals, so they had the honour the get themselves bloody. The claws were easy, they could even save those of the eaten ones, next were some teeth, bones (that were not pulverised by Foxy or Prof), the hearts and livers, and a lot of meat.

Unfortunately, from the seven possible hides, they could save only four, plus some tattered rags.

After burying most of the remains, they discussed finding the pack’s nest. It was technically not part of the task, but they hoped to find eggs or juveniles for some extra money. Shinead managed to find the possibly right tracks after a few hours walking in circles, discarding false clues, and running into a few dead ends.

Barely an hour of walking after that, the tracks lead to a field, largely covered by ferns with a few patches of the man-high grass. Even the ferns were high enough to make observation difficult, and could have hidden quite a few monsters and animals. Foxy tried to flood the field with her detecting-through-plants spells, but it was slow going, because every other spell just fizzled. She was visibly annoyed after a time, without even finding something interesting.

They finally gave up on detecting with spells, and searched the rest of the field the conventional way. Although they found a nest, but it contained only a couple of hatched eggs, and although they found tracks of juveniles, the next generation of Terrible Claws was not found.

They were almost ready to leave the field, when Prof’s Scavenger Perk started tingling. Poking around a bit, he found the scattered bones of a previous explorer. No valuables were found, only a bronze locket with the enamel painting of a flower inside. According to the others, the explorer was most probably an Elf, the correct thing to do was to bring back the skull to the village for forwarding it to the relatives.

Returning to Willowflower they visited the chief first, and were immediately greeted by him.

“Well done on the task. Before we finalise our deal, would you please present your Hunting Licenses?”