The Eyewitness

Grove rushed to the meeting place where he was expected to secure the merchandise and the exchange of coins between the monster crew and his men. Everything seemed to be going as usual until he heard a distant explosion in the same direction as their hideout. This wasn’t good…

When he arrived he saw a scene that made him and his followers freeze with surprise, if not abject horror.

The sentries had been killed without firing a shot, some of them pinned to trees with an arrow on the throat, others had their necks cut by a blade. Their usual guards had been chopped up and bashed in by the monster crew who also lay dead with arrows on their heads. Some of the monsters also had a strange wound on their heads that he couldn’t recognize…

The products they had hoped to sell were burning on a heap and rendered useless inside their wagon, ruining their business deal. Whomever had done this had not taken anything, by the looks of things.

The man in charge of the deal was nowhere to be found, more than likely dead under the rubble of their hideout. Something had exploded from within it and caused the rubble to crush everything inside, rendering this hideout unusable, since it would draw a lot of attention.

What Grove couldn’t figure out is who caused all this? It seemed as if a fight had broken out between his men and the monsters. He couldn’t see where the orc chief was, so, was it possible that he’d turned traitor and killed them all? But even if he did, why didn’t he take the merchandise for himself? This didn’t make any sense.

“Boss! We have a live one! He’s pretty banged up, but he’s alive!” When Grove heard this, he rushed towards the survivor who was muttering to himself, delirious from pain and horror.

The survivor, his body wracked with tremors and his eyes wide with terror, stammered through broken breaths, "He... he was a demon... a monster..."

Grove, his face contorted with rage, grabbed the survivor by the collar, his voice a menacing growl. "Who? Who did this?!"

"The... the bounty hunter," the survivor whimpered, his voice barely audible. "The one they call... Wolf."

"Wolf?" Grove spat, his grip tightening. "That newcomer? Impossible!"

The survivor's eyes darted around frantically, his voice rising to a panicked shriek. "He... he moved like lightning... he pointed his metallic hand at them… heads blown off... explosions... fire... everywhere… he summoned the very flames from hell like a child tossing rocks in a pond!"

"Metal hands? Explosions?" Grove's brow furrowed, confusion mixing with his fury. "What are you babbling about?"

"He... he summoned… voices from the Underworld… he controlled the monsters… made them attack us… we couldn’t hear him… he simply… butchered us… like a demon!" the survivor's voice trailed off into a delirious mumble, his mind shattered by the horrors he had witnessed.

Grove released the survivor, who collapsed to the ground, his body convulsing with fear. The knight's mind raced, trying to make sense of the survivor's fragmented account. The newcomer, this bounty hunter using magic, explosions, a demon... it all sounded like a madman's ramblings.

But the chilling terror in the survivor's eyes, the stench of death and destruction that clung to the air, it all spoke of a truth too horrific to ignore. Grove's blood ran cold as a chilling realization dawned upon him. He had underestimated the Wolf, dismissing him as a mere newcomer. But the reality was far more terrifying.

The Wolf was not just a bounty hunter. He was a force of nature, a bringer of chaos, a demon in human form. And Grove had just made him his enemy.

He had to report this to the Baroness… and that was a conversation he didn’t want to have.

Elsewhere…

Richard was angry again at the current situation. After dispatching the chief of the Black Talons and the Orc boss in the cave, he found even more evidence pointing towards the Black Talon group, their illegal activities and some information regarding the real mastermind behind these crimes.

Piecing all things together, it would be easy to tell that all the misinformation about Guild requests, people going missing, increase in monster activity and smuggling of illegal goods were all being orchestrated by the same mastermind behind the Black Talon’s activities as well as their sponsor. 

All he had was a title: the Baroness.

He was going to have a little chat with the Guild Master after he returned to town. Once he found out who their patron was, he’d make sure to hunt them down like any other criminal…