Journal

With the magical contract in hand and my guards still following behind me I head to the library. I need to refresh my memory about the so-called winter beasts. I read about them before, they should be a common winter monster, the keyword is common.

They should appear every winter so the woodcutters must have been used to dealing with them by now, yet they got wiped out and were even forced to run away.

Before I make my move I need to read some more about them. I never had a good relationship with monsters and this doesn't seem like it will change any time soon.

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We swiftly reach the library and I go straight in, my guards chose to wait by the door. There is a heavy storm outside so the library had closed its wooden blinds leaving the insides covered in darkness. While the building is currently empty it is all but quiet, due to the strong winds, the wooden blinds keep rattling and hitting the stone walls in a constant pattern.

The only light source I have is a small candle they gave me when I entered.

The books I am looking for are quite easy to find, there are very few monster encyclopedias.

I just pick up one that I read before, namely the 'Bestiary of the western realms' by Master Scholar Orin of Tuland.

It takes no time at all to find what I was looking for. The creatures are called 'Vulnogs' and they are described as predatory monsters that 'slumber in the summer days and follow the blizzard in the winter months' in other words they hibernate in summer and hunt in winter, probably.

They are described as fearsome hunters that feed on both the living and the dead, they like to keep their prey alive in order to feed off of them for as long as possible.

The book does not say much more about the creatures, only the name, how they act, and what they feed on, it does not even give a proper description of the creatures.

All it says about how they look is 'big, pure white creatures that skulk in the snowy woods'. It does not even give an accurate size. for all I know they could be the size of a house.

That book was more useless than I thought, master scholar my foot, but I won't give up, there must be something around here.

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I then spent somewhere around two hours looking through old books and travel journals until I finally found what I needed. It was not easy to read the books under candlelight so it took me much longer than needed.

A certain short journal wrote by a so-called hunter of the druidic path. I am not quite sure if he is a monster hunter or a normal hunter, it does not specify. as for this druidic path, I can imagine what it is by the name.

There is a short chapter about how the author ran into the nest of Vulnogs located in an underground cave around this area. It does not say how long ago this was but it refers to the now city of Westerngrad as the small port stop of the Western sea.

In other words, it was before the founding of the city. The story goes as such. The hunter is tasked with retrieving a certain item off the body of a messenger that got lost in the woods due to the early winter. Similar to the one we had this year.

It does not say what the item was, they also instantly assume that the messenger was dead. The story proceeds by a day to day explanation of the hunter's travel, things like I got to this village, I got attacked by this monster, I ate this today, etc.

The interesting part comes near the end and I quote 'Today I found the carcass of a horse, the markings on the saddle belong to the one I am searching for. The animal that the saddle belonged to was mostly eaten, only bones and parts of the skull were left. I only managed to locate the body due to the enchantments on the saddle. I proceed deeper into the forest'

The storm outside intensifies, my candle flickers with the wind passing through the gaps in the windows. The next entry follows. 'Today I found the creatures that killed the messenger, a pack of Vulnogs, hideous things, akin to a pack of wild dogs. The ones I spotted where covered in rot and guts as if they just bathed in them. This is a sign of a lair nearby, the messenger was most likely taken there.'

After this entry the next few pages are barely readable, I can only make out a word here and there. If I am interpreting this correctly it says something along the lines of 'danger, there are more than I thought, I am forced to hide inside their lair, hundreds of bodies, the remains have pooled in the middle, the young feed'. This is about 3 entries worth, after this, it goes back to normal.

'I have recovered the item from the messenger's body and successfully set fire to the lair. While this will not rid the area of the Vulnogs the rest of the winter should be peaceful. To end this mission I have to report of what happened to the nearby villagers, all of them have been eradicated by the pack residing in the cave.'

This is it, the whole adventure. It doesn't even mention what the Vulnogs look like. In the entries that is. Because while the journal entries are over the next few pages have drawings on them, three drawings to be exact.

The first one shows the mouth of a cave, the drawing has been made using only charcoal so to me it looks like a black hole swallowing the surroundings.

The second picture is most likely what a Vulnog looks like, an easy way of describing it would be emaciated wolf on steroids. The body itself looks like some sort of canine yet is it grossly disproportionate, the limbs are too long and lanky, they almost look like bones sticking out of a torso.

The part where the belly should be is nonexistent as if there are no organs there, it looks like only the backbone is keeping the front and backside together. And the most horrifying part is the front, the creature has a head bigger than it should be, about one-third of its mass seems to be the head, not the head per se, but the mouth, a crocodile would be embarrassed to compare themselves to what these things have.

This is indeed a creature of nightmares and this hunter probably spent days hiding from them in the woods.

The last drawing makes me feel a bit uncertain about my plans, it shows in vivid detail how the 'blood pond' in their lair looked like. A mess of decaying bodies pooled in feces and blood with small versions of these creatures drinking the disgusting liquid while the bigger ones swam in it as if cleaning themselves.

I suddenly understand a lot more clearly why the woodworkers chose to run instead of going back into the forest with these things.

Let's hope that I am right otherwise I just wasted a day reading horror stories and about 100 coins on a useless piece of paper.