Malcolm watched as Valgrin and Skwilly gradually regained their color with each step, their pallor fading as the group moved purposefully through the village. They tried to locate someone, anyone, who could shed light on the situation. Their path angled toward where they assumed the explosion had occurred, yet the absence of any lingering smoke or visible clues made their quest challenging. The air was still, and the village lay silent, with no obvious signs to guide their way.

  Tahlur stopped and slapped his thigh. “You’d think there’d be at least one person in the street…”

  “…or in one of the shops...” Steeyann added.

  “…or the town hall like place.” Valgrin finished.

  “Do we just start going door to door?” Malcolm asked the group, “Or head down the street screaming…” He flinched when another explosion rattled the shop window where they had paused.

  “This way,” Tahlur motioned and started jogging down the street. Everyone followed.

  As they rounded the corner of a stark white building, their feet skidded to a halt just in time to avoid colliding with a small gathering of people. The group stood with their backs to the crew, seemingly absorbed in their own conversation. The sudden noise of hurried footsteps and the abrupt shuffle to a stop echoed through the air, prompting a few curious townspeople to turn around and see what had caused the commotion.

  “Who in Rool’s rubbish are you?” Asked a portly, bald man.

  “Um, we’re here about the job you posted. It instructed us to report to the town hall and ask for Bluven, Toran, or Wyndee. Didn’t find anyone around until we found all of you all.” Steeyann motioned to the small crowd of people.

  “Toran!” the bald man shouted. “Bluven! Wyndee! We got an answer to our job posting!”

  That caused everyone in the crowd to turn around and stare.

  Malcolm quickly counted heads. “I think there are sixteen here.” He whispered.

  “I got fifteen, but easy to miss someone since they were moving.” Valgrin added.

  A thin, older woman made her way towards Steeyann, a muscular man followed right behind.

  “Quicker answer that I expected. I’m Wyndee.” The woman stopped in front of Steeyann. “Sorry, no one was up at the hall to meet you. Just four of you?”

  Valgrin pointed at Skwilly. “Five.”

  A gruff voice carried from the middle of the crowd. “You counting that beast as one of your crew?” A thick, short dwarf stepped out from behind a couple of people and made his way toward the group.

  “Toran, be nice.” Wyndee turned and admonished the dwarf.

  “At the risk of being told to be nice too,” the muscular man spoke, “You look somewhat on the fresh side. Except for you.” He pointed to Steeyann.

  Steeyann nodded and motioned for Malcolm to step forward.

  “Well, we are fresh.” Malcolm smiled and offered the man and Wyndee his hand. “Steeyann here being the stale one of the bunch.”

  Some giggles from the crowd and a smile from Wyndee broke some of the awkwardness.

  “Oh, should have asked this before starting. You’re Bluven?” Malcolm pointed to the muscular man standing next to Wyndee.

  “And I should have introduced myself first, sorry.” Bluven nodded as he spoke.

  Malcolm joined Bluven in nodding, then continued. “Anyway, for the rest of us, this is the first crew we’ve been a part of officially. We formed up when the four of us took out a gang of baddies threatening people at a tavern. Valgrin,” Malcolm pointed back to his friend, “and I are friends, but other than the two of us, none of us had met before. We worked together well enough and…um…well, here we are looking for our first success in our first job.”

  “In that case, let’s head back to the hall. We can get all the official stuff taken care of and let you start.” Wyndee walked past Malcolm, heading back to the middle of the village. Toran and the muscular man followed behind her. Malcolm and the rest of the group did the same.

  Toran stopped and shouted back to the crowd, “Lorfa, keep testing. I’ll be back when we get this done.”

  “What are you testing?” Malcolm asked.

  Toran stared up at Malcolm for a second before answering. “Trying to create an explosion that will scare off the poacher. But we can’t go hurting anything. Getting it to explode hasn’t been hard, but trying to get a container that won’t shoot pieces around has been. We want the explosive to stay dry, but putting a cover on it mutes it or causes the container to explode. We just tried paper, that worked, but water soaks through and gets the explosive wet.”

  “Did you hear that Valgrin?” Malcolm looked over at his friend, who was nodding.

  Valgrin stepped over to walk with Toran. “I’m assuming you’ve tried metal, correct?”

  Toran scowled as he nodded. “We have a handful of dwarves in the village. We tried metal first, didn’t work well, too much damage.”

  “Did you try a lid frame to allow for a gap between explosives container and lid, then hinge the lid on that frame?” Valgrin asked.

  Yay, at least an idea that shows we’re not stupid. Malcolm tried, but failed, to hide his smile.

  With a quick tug on his beard, Toran shook his head. “No, we were trying to get something quick with what we had on hand, so didn’t work on anything but what we had. That’s not a bad idea. We could probably get that put together in an hour our less.” The dwarf rubbed his stubby fingers through his graying beard. “That just might do it. Bluven! Wyndee! I’m running back to get us started on trying out this new idea. This crew has my vote of approval.” He turned and ran back to the crowd of villagers.

  Wyndee waved back at Toran, then stepped over to Steeyann. “Well, there goes the primary reason to go to the town hall. He had objections to hiring adventurers instead of waiting on the guard. They can’t be here for weeks—our people can’t wait that long, losing livestock while we wait. I think he had planned on asking you about one hundred questions. Seems like your friend back there said the perfect thing.”

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  “Getting out of a hundred questions is a successful start.” Steeyann grinned, stopping with Wyndee.

  Wyndee waved back at Toran, then stopped and turned to address the group as they gathered around her. “I can save us time and a few steps. With Toran’s objections out of the way. We can complete terms and tell you what you need to know here, or we can walk to the hall and do it there.”

  “Here!” was the unanimous reply.

  Bluven stepped over, once again standing next to Wyndee. He ran his fingers through shoulder-length brown hair, coughed and stared at a point above the heads of the adventurers. “Wyndee will complete the contract stuff. I’m going to let you in on what is going on. About two months ago, a few of the farmers reported livestock missing—mostly chickens, a few yantkas, and a llama. Over the weeks, more livestock disappeared. I won’t get into the breakdown of what went missing unless you want me too.” He paused, waiting for a reply.

  When no reply came, he continued. “When the numbers grew to dozens at a time, it became easy to track the direction they headed. Almost due north of here, I’ll take you there later. A few of us, including myself, followed the trail—at least until it led to the deep woods. Our guess is whoever is poaching is holed up in one of the mahsuca caves. The myths around those kept us from going further.” Bluven pointed at himself. “I’m the closest thing to a fighter type in the village. In other words, we’re not prepared to deal with poachers, let alone anything from a myth.”

  “Mahsuca? I don’t know that word,” Tahlur spoke up.

  “Name from the myths that have been handed down for generations. Mahsuca is some sort of a dangerous monster that lives in a bunch of caves.” Wyndee answered, “Until now, we’ve had no reason to think it more than a story parents told to keep their children from exploring the caves. And to address the unasked question—the tale varies wildly what the mahsuca is, so those won’t be any help to you.”

  Malcolm patted Steeyann on the back. “Sounds like you need to make this all legal-like and then we follow Bluven to the start of the job.”

  Steeyann nodded. He and Wyndee stepped to the side to solidify the last details.

  “So, Bluven, does the poaching occur every night? At specific times? Has anyone seen the poachers? Have you tried to trap the poacher? Have…”

  “Valgrin,” Malcolm help a hand up. “Let him answer at least one of your questions, and you probably need to take a breath, anyway.”

  Valgrin’s face reddened as he nodded.

  Bluven’s fingers intertwined as he fidgeted. “Um, we set a watch, but we never saw who was poaching. The animals just left town. Something had to get them out of their cages, pens, corrals, or whatever they were being kept in. Something had to be leading them out of town. But we never saw what is might be. One of the other reasons we decided we needed help.”

  Malcolm watched Valgrin and the others. Invisible opponents? Great, haven’t got used to smacking the ones I see.

  “It sounded like you tried to get the guard to help. Why didn’t they?” Malcolm asked.

  “Nearest station is in Snellgar. They had some sort of issue that they had to attend to, told us people came before animals. I get that, but these animals do directly impact people.” Bluven quit wringing his hands, stopping short of pointing at the group as he spoke.

  Malcolm put an arm around the troubled man. “I understand. All of us do. We’re going to do our best to fix this for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Tahlur and Valgrin stepped forward, patting Bluven on the back, affirming Malcolm’s words.

  Steeyann called out as he headed over. “Let’s get going.”

  Malcolm looked back, then patted Bluven on the back. “Sounds like your cue.”

  A moment of confusion played across the pale man’s face, then he nodded and started heading north. Turning once to confirm that everyone followed.

  “Here’s where the tracks lead out of town. Nearest we could tell, all the poached animals leave down this small trail. It’s wider now with the new traffic, but narrows at the point where they head toward the caves. Tracking to that point is easy. I mean, we did it. After that point, I can’t give you any information.” Bluven looked at the ground.

  This man is in dire need of some confidence. Malcolm watched as Bluven toed at the ground. “Listen Bluven, any information is good and it would have been reckless to go into an unknown situation where at least one poacher is hiding. I imagine with what you described, it’s likely to be more than one.”

  Bluven looked up at Malcolm with an expression of gratitude. “Glad to help where we can. I’ll head on back and let you get started on whatever you need to do.”

  “So what do we do now, head on into the woods, or set-up watch for tonight?” Tahlur asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

  Steeyann cleared his throat. “I vote we go in, at least to the point the animals leave the trail and head to these caves. If we want, we can set up camp for the night there.”

  Malcolm pulled some orange-tinged leaves out of his hair, stopping to point at a track on the ground. “Hold up, all of you. I have two questions.” He looked down at the track he pointed at. “Just how big are your chickens? And I thought we were making camp on the trail and do this wood thing after sunrise?”

  “Chickens are chicken size.” Steeyann grinned as he replied. “About four and a half feet tall to feet tall, long neck, long legs, with a mean kick.”

  “Sounds like a short ostrich.” Valgrin added.

  Steeyann shrugged. “Here we call them chickens. The reason we didn’t make camp back at the turn off—the trail into the deeper woods is clear.” Steeyann waved his hand forward, pointing out the trampled grass and bushes. “And we still have a few hours of daylight, worth it to explore. We can always go back if we can’t find a suitable campsite.”

  Malcolm made a show of thinking the answers over. He couldn’t come up with anything to refute the logic, or a joke. He sighed, “Sounds good. Let’s keep going.” A thought occurred to him, “Although have we given any consideration to the fact the poacher, or poachers, has not tried to hide their activity?”

  “I was wondering, but hadn’t worked anything out.” Tahlur stated.

  “Maybe they got bolder the longer they got away with it?” Valgrin drew out the last few words, shrugging as he did so. “I mean, Bluven said this started a couple of months ago. If I was a poacher, that type of success could make me complacent.”

  “Or we’re coming up to a point where they do hide where they're going. Or they think they can hold their own against anyone coming after them.” Steeyann added. “Lets move forward a little while longer, then head back if we don’t find a good place to camp.”

  Malcolm trudged behind the others, running his hand over the broken branches along the side of the trampled grass. Did they walk side by side? Or are we dealing with some really large livestock? Chickens the size of ostriches? How big is a llama? What the hell is a yantka—or whatever it’s called?

  He stopped just short of running into Valgrin, all thoughts of livestock sizes derailed. “What…why…oh.”

  The abruptness of the clearing appearing jarred Malcolm. One step they were in the woods, the next they were in a grassy clearing at least two hundred feet wide and twice as long. The grass was short and a rich, deep green, creating a striking contrast against the rugged boulders that marked the far end of the clearing. Malcolm stood alongside the rest of the group, silently absorbing the scene, their eyes wide with wonder as they attempted to take in the unexpected openness of the landscape.

  “Their scent goes into the grass, but it fades. I’d have to spend some time sniffing around to recatch the trail.” Skwilly looked up at the crew.

  “Should we camp here, then?” Steeyann pointed to his right. “Lets move about thirty feet that way, then into the woods and camp there. We might get a decent view of the animals and poachers tonight.”

  The group discovered a cozy nook beneath the sprawling branches of a grand, ancient tree, its trunk thick and gnarled with age. The spot required minimal effort to transform into a snug camp. Two large bushes with waxy, emerald leaves stood as sentinels between the clearing and the campsite. Malcolm hoped these verdant barriers would provide the concealment Steeyann had insisted they would.

  Several hours later, Malcolm and Valgrin were about to wrap up their round of the watch when a rustling noise drew their attention. Both crept along the ground, using the narrow paths under the brush they’d prepared earlier.

  “See anything?” Valgrin whispered.

  “I hear rustling, but my night vision isn’t good. So I’m not seeing anything.” Skwilly’s voice could barely be heard.

  “Not ye…wait…that’s weird.” Malcolm muttered. “You see that?”

  “Yes, I’m heading back to wake the others. They need to see this, too.” Valgrin scooted back.

  “Somebody that can explain it needs to see it,” Malcolm whispered to himself.