My party and I crept through the Ironwood trees quietly, all of out hustle and bustle from before having died down since the hunt began.
These youngsters, kids they may be but they're still level 40s, at least they have the skills to back up their bluster. Olaf I expect to be professional though.
No, stop that! I needa quit losing my train of thought, that'll kill me kick infront of the bear...speaking of which, apparently according the villagers they heard the bear yelling and howling last night.
Good, its been in a fight, and that means it'll be easier to kill! But still difficult, its a long lived animal and has claimed many lives...especially with suprise attacks.
It has some sort of skill that lets it move silently through the woods till it gets into a fight, so we have to be on our toes here.
"Miaa, how are the tracks?" I asked the half elf, her face gone serious.
"It should be a little further, these tracks indicate from the weight it was putting in its legs that it was sneaking up on something." The half elf said nice and quiet.
"That means the fight site should be up ahead then?" Asked Kieran.
"Kieran! Watch our backs, don't lose focus. We put you on watch for a reason." Olaf hushed up Kieran right quick, harsh as usual. Good, don't care much for the brat neither.
"Quiet, everyone. Get ready..." Alright, show time. We crept to a clearing, the smell of blood was thick in the air, an Ironwood tree snapped in two, and a massive bloodstained furry mount laying with its head mutilated and split open.
"You're goddamned shittin me.." Its the Forged Irom Bear!
"Its already dead?"
"Looks like."
"What could've done this?"
My party members murmered to one another as I stared, dumbfounded at the scene before me. Something managed to kill the bear before we got here?
"Keep watch...I'll investigate the body." As usual, I'm the only one to keep us on track. Plus these idiots can't figure out what happened, I'm the only monster expert here.
I approached the corpse, it was definitely the Forged Iron Bear, the scars on it confirmed that. Looking tentatively over the corpse I've noticed 3 things.
One, its damn covered in bite marks. Big ones too, big massive hunks are torn out of what used to be it's right shoulder.
Two, whatever killed it, killed it by biting the top half of its skull clean off.
Three, it hasn't been skinned, or eaten. That means it could be a member of an uncivilized race that didn't know the true value of the beast but still, if that was the case they still wouldn't have just left its body here, they would've taken it for food.
"Hrm, this may be a bigger problem than fighting the bear would've been. I hope we don't run into whatever killed it. I'd prefer not to fight an unknown.." I spoke to my party while they watched my back. Unusually quiet I might add.
"Boss.."
"Not now Kieran."
"Yorlund...look."
"Fine, what is it a rabbit or someth-" Holy shit.