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"Mother of all headaches. There was a constant ringing in my ears as smatters of color came into my view, the images in my eyes spun around and I could feel the throb of my heart in my eyes. After a short moment I managed to refocus my mind as well as my eyes and I found myself laying face first in dirt in a ditch. I was still very confused from the hit on my head and had no clue where I was, at first I thought I had passed out at the shop after a night of drinking berry ale. My heart skipped a beat as I remembered where I was, Knowledge which was prompted by my hearing coming back and then the sounds of snarls and barks coming from somewhere beyond the ditch. I made the conscious effort to not get up instantly, but instead I carefully turned my head to the other side to see what was around me. With each movement of my head I felt like my brain was shaking and sliding inside my skull, colliding with its walls and making me feel nauseous. I realized the carriage had rolled over me and I alongside the carriage were both laying in the moss covered mud. The carriage had formed a kind of a shelter above me, which made it impossible to see me unless someone crouched really low to the ground and peered inside through the backside of it, something which the afflicted seemed to not be bothered with doing, as from the sounds I could hear it sounded like my compatriots weren't as lucky. The crunches of bone and sinew between their teeth still haunt me.

I assessed my situation as being of utmost shit, I likely had a severe concussion as I could feel, what was likely my own blood, drip from my forehead and left nostril. There were also likely several monsters right outside this carriage, I likely was also the only one alive, and I was several kilometers away from the crossroads which marked the exit to the forest. If I stayed here, they would probably find me eventually so with a degree of fight or flight inside my system I began crawling out of the carriage. I noticed one certain member of our group at the exit, a dragonoid with pale green scales, a senior member of our now former group. A wave of nausea washed over me as I crawled closer and noticed that something was amiss, to be more precise, everything under his rib cage. Someones arbalest lay near his corpse, just a few crawls away from where I was at. I grabbed it with me, as I was going to need it if I got into a fight. The ruckus at the main path continued all the while, sounds of infighting and howling emanated from one direction and I picked a direction that was the opposite.

It was dark, the red moon still filled the sky as I stumbled in the forest. After the sounds became distant, I began to move southward parallel to the main path, moving again a bit closer to it so I would not get lost. It is called the main path, but you must keep in mind that it is merely called that because it is the only road that has bare necessities to be capable of accommodating a wagon or carriage drive over it. At points it is overgrown with roots, and you can see small shrubbery trying to take it over, which causes it to occasionally blend into the background. I feel it is necessary to state that to you now, so you wont imagine it as some fine rock paved road. The headache was getting worse, if the monsters weren't going to kill me, I was sure this damn headache was going to do it for them. I had to make an effort to keep my eyes focused and from my field of vision not drifting into two separate images, a fog of black surrounded my vision. I had to sit down in an alcove formed by the roots of a particularly old tree. I was going to pass out if I didn't, a pulse of cold came from somewhere in me and settled in my forehead. How damn bad had I hit my head? Uttering curses under my breath I got back up again, but not before hearing something. Something, something, was it the crack of a broken branch? A rock colliding with another? A footstep in the darkness? I damned my hearing for being so unreliable right at this instant. I peered over the sides of the tree I was sitting by. Nothing on the left, on the right, nothing either. After a second I thought I could see a silhouette out there, camouflaged by the branches of the undergrowth and the ever present fog, but I could swear there was something there and it was moving in a manner that seemed to take it effort to merely put one foot in front of the other. A tell tale sign of the afflicted, they seem so clumsy and slow when they aren't doing anything, but when they see something that moves they become full of life, or perhaps life is the wrong word here, but they certainly move fast when they want to. As it moved it seemed to have its head up in the air, it seemed to be frantically sniffing the air around it.

I leaned over to my side and took aim with the arbalest. I had it on my sights, my trigger finger trembled, in fact my entire arm trembled from the concussion and from how weak I felt. A soft pull and no sound. I cursed as silently as I could, but in my head I was screaming obscenities, the damn thing wasn't loaded. For some reason I had thought the crossbow was loaded and I hadn't thought of checking if it were. From where I was sitting, the thing was blocking my way further south. If I wanted to go around it, I would have to take a detour around and and give it a wide berth so it wouldn't see or hear me. I figured it was a far better idea to just go for the detour, rather than deal with the thing now. In the sorry state I was in, I did not trust my aim a single bit As silently as I could, I got up from my alcove and began to make my way towards the main path to make a curve around the creature. The silent woods are known for being a wet and miserable place throughout the year and as it just happens, my right boot found a particularly swampy spot and plunged into it. I lost balance as my boot became stuck, I shot a glance back at the creature and indeed, the sound of me abruptly losing my balance had alerted it as it was now moving my way, not running, but I could swear it was moving towards where I was.

I picked a bolt from my quiver and with hurried trembling hands I shoved it into the arbalest, I began spinning the crank to reload it as fast as I could. The gears grinding in the arbalest, in turns I glanced down at my weapon and up at the approaching figure. It was getting closer as I could now hear the sounds of an animal breathing and sniffing the air, if you have ever heard what a bear sounds like when it breathes you know what these sound like, with the addition of some more organic sounds and much deeper. It must have seen me now as it let out a shattering howl which no hunter would ever want to hear, as that meant they had seen you before you had the chance of killing them. It rushed at me as I was still reloading the accursed thing. It leapt at me as I finally felt the gears clank and move no more. The creatures claws outstretched and ready to strike within this moment, I fell back first onto the ground. All I could see is my field of vision being filled with this thing, its claws slashing at me and the creak and tick of gears.

Is this what being dead felt like? The smell of rotting flesh and barely being able to breathe, it took considerable effort to just raise my chest to get air into my lungs. I still felt dizzy and concussed, but most of the pain that used to be there was now gone. I hope that I at least managed to take that thing with me, although I don't think I'd want to see it here in the afterlife too.

The taste of fur in my mouth made me realize that I wasn't actually dead, I was just being crushed by the now likely dead corpse of this creature. Get the damn off of me you shit, I cursed as I mustered what energy I had to roll it off of me. I had my eye on the thing the entire time I got back up and pulled my boot free from the worlds tiniest swamp. I was exhausted after the effort and was heaving over its corpse, slowly all the pain started coming back too. Before I could be too relieved, the creature shuddered and groaned and began to move, despite me thinking it was as dead as it could be. I hacked it with my sword several times until it didn't move anymore, it wasn't pretty, I will tell you that. It must be that damn moon, at that moment I still hadn't quite connected the dots that the red moon may have had a hand in the creatures being less killable than before, but now it was kind of starting to come together. It was still several kilometers to the shop, but thankfully my concussed self was able to get back there.

However, when I got back, the signs of an attack at the shop were obvious. Normally you'd have people walking around its perimeters and people conversing around the fires, but now there were no people and there were no fires. Some of the tents had been torn apart and afflicted and hunters alike, mostly hunters from the looks of it, were scattered along the grounds. The shop is basically just a smattering of huts, tents and a handful of permanent cabins, all of which seemed to be more or less abandoned. My hopes were that maybe everyone just ran away, as after all, if this were an army we were talking about, they would maybe stand their ground, but we were just talking about people after iron and gold, who would be far more likely to just run. As it turns out though, some of the cabins still had people in them, in fact, as I got closer to them I could see the arbalests which were mounted on the windows. I didn't even really need to ask what happened, but still felt compelled to. They were attacked around what would have been the same time when we were attacked in the forest. At the moment when we were on the hunt, there were four other groups doing the same and only one of them came back, and when they did, the shop was already under siege. the one group which came back was basically the only formidable defense the shop then had and they had all barricaded themselves into the titular shop of this cluster of makeshift shelters. The following night was uneventful and the whole attack seemed to have been already weathered when I got back. However the shop was a mess now.

It would be two weeks until a group of official looking people alongside several dozen heavily armored men would show up at the now refurbished shop. It was obvious that the human that rode alongside the commander of the troops was from the Bellington company and a highly ranking one at that, judging by the emblem he wore and his general "above thee" demeanor, there was a specific word for people like him, ah yes, "Asshole". He pointed at me and told me I'd be heading back in and finishing this thing. And with that I was now in charge of a platoon of soldiers and we'd be going into the caves come next day."

Description
"Mother of all headaches. There was a constant ringing in my ears as smatters of color came into my view, the images in my eyes spun around and I could feel the throb of my heart in my eyes. After a short moment I managed to refocus my mind as well as my eyes and I found myself laying face first in dirt in a ditch. I was still very confused from the hit on my head and had no clue where I was, at first I thought I had passed out at the shop after a night of drinking berry ale. My heart skipped a beat as I remembered where I was, Knowledge which was prompted by my hearing coming back and then the sounds of snarls and barks coming from somewhere beyond the ditch. I made the conscious effort to not get up instantly, but instead I carefully turned my head to the other side to see what was around me. With each movement of my head I felt like my brain was shaking and sliding inside my skull, colliding with its walls and making me feel nauseous. I realized the carriage had rolled over me and I alongside the carriage were both laying in the moss covered mud. The carriage had formed a kind of a shelter above me, which made it impossible to see me unless someone crouched really low to the ground and peered inside through the backside of it, something which the afflicted seemed to not be bothered with doing, as from the sounds I could hear it sounded like my compatriots weren't as lucky. The crunches of bone and sinew between their teeth still haunt me.

I assessed my situation as being of utmost shit, I likely had a severe concussion as I could feel, what was likely my own blood, drip from my forehead and left nostril. There were also likely several monsters right outside this carriage, I likely was also the only one alive, and I was several kilometers away from the crossroads which marked the exit to the forest. If I stayed here, they would probably find me eventually so with a degree of fight or flight inside my system I began crawling out of the carriage. I noticed one certain member of our group at the exit, a dragonoid with pale green scales, a senior member of our now former group. A wave of nausea washed over me as I crawled closer and noticed that something was amiss, to be more precise, everything under his rib cage. Someones arbalest lay near his corpse, just a few crawls away from where I was at. I grabbed it with me, as I was going to need it if I got into a fight. The ruckus at the main path continued all the while, sounds of infighting and howling emanated from one direction and I picked a direction that was the opposite.

It was dark, the red moon still filled the sky as I stumbled in the forest. After the sounds became distant, I began to move southward parallel to the main path, moving again a bit closer to it so I would not get lost. It is called the main path, but you must keep in mind that it is merely called that because it is the only road that has bare necessities to be capable of accommodating a wagon or carriage drive over it. At points it is overgrown with roots, and you can see small shrubbery trying to take it over, which causes it to occasionally blend into the background. I feel it is necessary to state that to you now, so you wont imagine it as some fine rock paved road. The headache was getting worse, if the monsters weren't going to kill me, I was sure this damn headache was going to do it for them. I had to make an effort to keep my eyes focused and from my field of vision not drifting into two separate images, a fog of black surrounded my vision. I had to sit down in an alcove formed by the roots of a particularly old tree. I was going to pass out if I didn't, a pulse of cold came from somewhere in me and settled in my forehead. How damn bad had I hit my head? Uttering curses under my breath I got back up again, but not before hearing something. Something, something, was it the crack of a broken branch? A rock colliding with another? A footstep in the darkness? I damned my hearing for being so unreliable right at this instant. I peered over the sides of the tree I was sitting by. Nothing on the left, on the right, nothing either. After a second I thought I could see a silhouette out there, camouflaged by the branches of the undergrowth and the ever present fog, but I could swear there was something there and it was moving in a manner that seemed to take it effort to merely put one foot in front of the other. A tell tale sign of the afflicted, they seem so clumsy and slow when they aren't doing anything, but when they see something that moves they become full of life, or perhaps life is the wrong word here, but they certainly move fast when they want to. As it moved it seemed to have its head up in the air, it seemed to be frantically sniffing the air around it.

I leaned over to my side and took aim with the arbalest. I had it on my sights, my trigger finger trembled, in fact my entire arm trembled from the concussion and from how weak I felt. A soft pull and no sound. I cursed as silently as I could, but in my head I was screaming obscenities, the damn thing wasn't loaded. For some reason I had thought the crossbow was loaded and I hadn't thought of checking if it were. From where I was sitting, the thing was blocking my way further south. If I wanted to go around it, I would have to take a detour around and and give it a wide berth so it wouldn't see or hear me. I figured it was a far better idea to just go for the detour, rather than deal with the thing now. In the sorry state I was in, I did not trust my aim a single bit As silently as I could, I got up from my alcove and began to make my way towards the main path to make a curve around the creature. The silent woods are known for being a wet and miserable place throughout the year and as it just happens, my right boot found a particularly swampy spot and plunged into it. I lost balance as my boot became stuck, I shot a glance back at the creature and indeed, the sound of me abruptly losing my balance had alerted it as it was now moving my way, not running, but I could swear it was moving towards where I was.

I picked a bolt from my quiver and with hurried trembling hands I shoved it into the arbalest, I began spinning the crank to reload it as fast as I could. The gears grinding in the arbalest, in turns I glanced down at my weapon and up at the approaching figure. It was getting closer as I could now hear the sounds of an animal breathing and sniffing the air, if you have ever heard what a bear sounds like when it breathes you know what these sound like, with the addition of some more organic sounds and much deeper. It must have seen me now as it let out a shattering howl which no hunter would ever want to hear, as that meant they had seen you before you had the chance of killing them. It rushed at me as I was still reloading the accursed thing. It leapt at me as I finally felt the gears clank and move no more. The creatures claws outstretched and ready to strike within this moment, I fell back first onto the ground. All I could see is my field of vision being filled with this thing, its claws slashing at me and the creak and tick of gears.

Is this what being dead felt like? The smell of rotting flesh and barely being able to breathe, it took considerable effort to just raise my chest to get air into my lungs. I still felt dizzy and concussed, but most of the pain that used to be there was now gone. I hope that I at least managed to take that thing with me, although I don't think I'd want to see it here in the afterlife too.

The taste of fur in my mouth made me realize that I wasn't actually dead, I was just being crushed by the now likely dead corpse of this creature. Get the damn off of me you shit, I cursed as I mustered what energy I had to roll it off of me. I had my eye on the thing the entire time I got back up and pulled my boot free from the worlds tiniest swamp. I was exhausted after the effort and was heaving over its corpse, slowly all the pain started coming back too. Before I could be too relieved, the creature shuddered and groaned and began to move, despite me thinking it was as dead as it could be. I hacked it with my sword several times until it didn't move anymore, it wasn't pretty, I will tell you that. It must be that damn moon, at that moment I still hadn't quite connected the dots that the red moon may have had a hand in the creatures being less killable than before, but now it was kind of starting to come together. It was still several kilometers to the shop, but thankfully my concussed self was able to get back there.

However, when I got back, the signs of an attack at the shop were obvious. Normally you'd have people walking around its perimeters and people conversing around the fires, but now there were no people and there were no fires. Some of the tents had been torn apart and afflicted and hunters alike, mostly hunters from the looks of it, were scattered along the grounds. The shop is basically just a smattering of huts, tents and a handful of permanent cabins, all of which seemed to be more or less abandoned. My hopes were that maybe everyone just ran away, as after all, if this were an army we were talking about, they would maybe stand their ground, but we were just talking about people after iron and gold, who would be far more likely to just run. As it turns out though, some of the cabins still had people in them, in fact, as I got closer to them I could see the arbalests which were mounted on the windows. I didn't even really need to ask what happened, but still felt compelled to. They were attacked around what would have been the same time when we were attacked in the forest. At the moment when we were on the hunt, there were four other groups doing the same and only one of them came back, and when they did, the shop was already under siege. the one group which came back was basically the only formidable defense the shop then had and they had all barricaded themselves into the titular shop of this cluster of makeshift shelters. The following night was uneventful and the whole attack seemed to have been already weathered when I got back. However the shop was a mess now.

It would be two weeks until a group of official looking people alongside several dozen heavily armored men would show up at the now refurbished shop. It was obvious that the human that rode alongside the commander of the troops was from the Bellington company and a highly ranking one at that, judging by the emblem he wore and his general "above thee" demeanor, there was a specific word for people like him, ah yes, "Asshole". He pointed at me and told me I'd be heading back in and finishing this thing. And with that I was now in charge of a platoon of soldiers and we'd be going into the caves come next day."