[Child of the 7th Age]

As the last rays of the sun slid beneath the horizon, Carl, Dinodas, and Branda were gathering up their gear, preparing to head to the farmhouse for their evening meal. They had made a long day of it and were returning with a goodly number of fish, neatly strung up in bunches. They had just gone back one last time to retrieve their buckets, when they discovered something strange.

Carl stood at the edge of the river scratching his head. "I know I put those two buckets here. They were both filled with small fish. They weren't much for eating, but we could use them as bait."

"Maybe you just thought you set them down. Maybe you got so hungry you ate them raw." Dinodas suggested with a laugh.

"Ate them raw? Hey, cut it out." He gave Dinodas a playful push. "That means I ate the pails too. I'm not that desperate. At least not yet!"

Dinodas stumbled over to where Carl stood, and looked carefully down at the packed snow. "Look here. Real close. There's some drag marks here." He pointed to a series of scraggly lines on the ground which seemed to lead off in the distance, and then disappear.

Dinodas glanced up with eyes staring wide, a look of fear on his face, and grabbed for a heavy cudgel he'd brought along with him. "You don't think it's more of those critters? The ones we met before. Maybe they did this." He looked first at Carl and then at Branda.

Carl shook his head, "I can't say for sure, but I don't know too many animals that would bother toting away a wooden pail. They'd just dump the bucket over, and eat what's inside. Whatever took this made a clean getaway." Carl looked around the snowswept tundra, but could see no sign of either pail, or the remains of eaten fish.

"I'm not sure," Branda said, "but I have a funny feeling about this. Let's try something..."

Branda knelt down near one of the strings of fish, and pulled a few of the smaller ones off the end. He set them on the ice right near the spot where the buckets had mysteriously disappeared. Then he hid behind a series of bushy shrubs that stood close to the river bank, and beckoned the others to do the same. He told thm to keep their weapons close by. Then they sat quietly and waited.

[ December 15, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]