Bent through his knees, a hooded mean wearing a coat of thick grizzly fur was rubbing his hand across the floor, actively looking for something he deemed interesting. For the past couple of hours, he had been in the act of stalking a small herd of beings that had been summoned from entirely different plane of existence. These creatures, called Lladd'Sidan by the being that had first summoned them here, were beasts that had been brought here for the sole reason of corrupting their environment and spreading as much chaos and mayhem as possible. Devouring just about anything that got in their way, they did not make a whole lot of distinction between living beings or plant life as they could not taste the difference. The only reason why they killed and devoured living beings aside from the stationary plants and trees that made for easy targets was simple, they liked the sport of hunting down and killing things.
As he traced his hand along the ground, his enhanced senses were of great benefit to him as they made him into a far more well equipped hunter. Moving aside some fallen branches and leaves, the young man uncovered several hoof-tracks that were relatively shallow, making them hard to spot by the naked eye when one was not expressly looking for them. What had allowed him to track them this far was his sense of hearing, as the trampling noise made by hooves was rather distinct, as was the nauseating scent they left behind in their wake. Rising back to his feet, Solmar started running, following the direction the tracks had gone into towards a small forest that had not gotten the chance to properly grow into a woodland like Sakuramori. From the looks of it, people frequently came here for the purpose of logging wood and picking flowers and plants, likely the work of an herbalist. Watching as the tracks went deeper into the forest, Solmar took an altogether different path.
It had been a while ago since the beast that had spawned these monstrosities had perished, and while he had imagined that the remaining brood had all been taken care of by both himself and Gangting, it would seem that he had been wrong at the time. Luckily for him, as well as everyone that might encounter them, these creatures were incapable of breeding as all of these Lladd'Sidan seemed to be male. Their mother however, the fearsome Hisy'ngeni, seemed to be the only one capable of producing such monstrous offspring after eating plenty of life energy from the beanstalk tree. Having chased them down all the way to Era to make sure their numbers were culled and depleted, it was beyond him how some of them had actually managed to escape him. Luckily for him, being able to speak to and otherwise communicate with nature and its denizens brought him the news of these monsters having resurfaced in Tolgalen of all places. This was quite odd, especially considering how they had been born in Fiore.
Having only been in Tolgalen for a little while, he was not as aware of the lands as the residents were. So when he had asked around a bit, the forested area ahead of them seemed to be a place referred to simply as the training grounds. While the monsters would not be all that hard to track, the reason why Solmar was being cautious about it was because the creatures had taken a young girl from a nearby settlement and dragged her off with it after mauling her dog nearly to death and outright devouring her younger brother. As terrible a thing as it was to hear such a thing, there was something about it all that simply did not add up. From what he had seen so far, these beings only just went around devouring whatever they could get a hold of. That, and they simply lacked the capacity to think about taking food with them and saving it for later. It was for that same reason that the young mage was under the impression that some other force was at work here. After all, it would explain how they had managed to get from Fiore and into Tolgalen in the first place.
Taking down his hood, he listened for whatever might be nearby before his attention went out to a few swallows flying overhead. With a sharp whistle, he called them towards him, allowing them to sit and rest on his extended arm for a bit. Explaining to them in a manner of language they understood what he was looking for, the two birds set out into the sky as they started looking for the beasts. While they were under no obligation to help him, the promise of a piece of bread was enough to make them interested in this proposal. And with that, he would wait a while for the birds to do their assigned job.
(828)
As he traced his hand along the ground, his enhanced senses were of great benefit to him as they made him into a far more well equipped hunter. Moving aside some fallen branches and leaves, the young man uncovered several hoof-tracks that were relatively shallow, making them hard to spot by the naked eye when one was not expressly looking for them. What had allowed him to track them this far was his sense of hearing, as the trampling noise made by hooves was rather distinct, as was the nauseating scent they left behind in their wake. Rising back to his feet, Solmar started running, following the direction the tracks had gone into towards a small forest that had not gotten the chance to properly grow into a woodland like Sakuramori. From the looks of it, people frequently came here for the purpose of logging wood and picking flowers and plants, likely the work of an herbalist. Watching as the tracks went deeper into the forest, Solmar took an altogether different path.
It had been a while ago since the beast that had spawned these monstrosities had perished, and while he had imagined that the remaining brood had all been taken care of by both himself and Gangting, it would seem that he had been wrong at the time. Luckily for him, as well as everyone that might encounter them, these creatures were incapable of breeding as all of these Lladd'Sidan seemed to be male. Their mother however, the fearsome Hisy'ngeni, seemed to be the only one capable of producing such monstrous offspring after eating plenty of life energy from the beanstalk tree. Having chased them down all the way to Era to make sure their numbers were culled and depleted, it was beyond him how some of them had actually managed to escape him. Luckily for him, being able to speak to and otherwise communicate with nature and its denizens brought him the news of these monsters having resurfaced in Tolgalen of all places. This was quite odd, especially considering how they had been born in Fiore.
Having only been in Tolgalen for a little while, he was not as aware of the lands as the residents were. So when he had asked around a bit, the forested area ahead of them seemed to be a place referred to simply as the training grounds. While the monsters would not be all that hard to track, the reason why Solmar was being cautious about it was because the creatures had taken a young girl from a nearby settlement and dragged her off with it after mauling her dog nearly to death and outright devouring her younger brother. As terrible a thing as it was to hear such a thing, there was something about it all that simply did not add up. From what he had seen so far, these beings only just went around devouring whatever they could get a hold of. That, and they simply lacked the capacity to think about taking food with them and saving it for later. It was for that same reason that the young mage was under the impression that some other force was at work here. After all, it would explain how they had managed to get from Fiore and into Tolgalen in the first place.
Taking down his hood, he listened for whatever might be nearby before his attention went out to a few swallows flying overhead. With a sharp whistle, he called them towards him, allowing them to sit and rest on his extended arm for a bit. Explaining to them in a manner of language they understood what he was looking for, the two birds set out into the sky as they started looking for the beasts. While they were under no obligation to help him, the promise of a piece of bread was enough to make them interested in this proposal. And with that, he would wait a while for the birds to do their assigned job.
(828)
