The city's southern district bustled with life as the morning sun gilded its cobblestones and cast shadows that danced across the narrow alleys. Litty strode purposefully, the crumpled commission paper clutched in her gloved hand.
Her eyes skimmed the hastily scrawled details, scanning every word as if they might reveal secrets previously overlooked: "Hunt and eliminate as many Dunemauls as possible. Location: Blackwater Beach, restricted zone."
A memory surfaced of the worn tomes she had studied back in Aethelwarin's grand guild library, their leather spines cracked and imbued with the scent of old ink and adventure.
Those books had described Dunemauls as relentless amalgamations of land and sea, creatures whose unchecked bloodlust could turn serene shores into charnel houses. She shivered as she recalled the vivid sketches of their monstrous forms.
