Dates came into the tent where the high ranks were her entrance caused confusion, most were utterly baffled as to why a half naked woman was here but as it were anton the quartermaster spoke up. “this is the woman i was talking about sir she was the one that found the scouts and guided them to camp" she walked up to the quartermaster pistols were aimed at her

do not move any further, why have you come" she raised her hand and pointed to plain nearby the base then slowly taking out something from bag placed a severed hand on the table she looked around the room most of the people there looked shaken by the body part. On inspection the hand looked to be ripped off and dozens of small puncture marks dotted the hand

"this was recent?" the man dressed in fine furs spoke. she nodded solemnly the pistols were lowered but still held in hand. Fishing around her bag she placed a bottle then pointed to the quartermaster he picked it up reading the lable then frowned "what is it" furs asked. “its a bottle of formaldehyde" Anton said he thought for a second "do you want another bottle as payment?" she nodded eagerly this time. Payment, for what?" the one with an eye patch spouted “for hunting the animal that did this"anton was interrupted by the woman who was giggling this time

how do we now she didn’t kill the man?" eye patch looked at her scanning for anything on her person from the paper bag on her head to the weird body paint on her to the long skirt on her he settled on an eyeball dangling from her neck "look at that she has the audacity to waltz in here throw the remains of one of ours and keep a souvenir around her" the others looked to see what he was on about they saw the eye they all stepped back save for Anton who moved closer "no thats not a human eye and she had that the last time i saw her. “when did you see this woman anton?”

“she saved me from a creature here its probably the same kind that took out our man" eyepatch furrowed his brow" fine if shes willing to hunt this thing be my guest." he walked out of the tent the lead biologist who had remained quiet until now looked at her “excuse me miss... eh anton, dear i dont think shes introduced herself yet" anton looked at her "right about that shes mute so as far ican tell she likes to be called dates."

She tuned to her “dates?" the biologist reintroduced her self "my name is Aria lead biologist here it is good to meet you miss dates" dates performed a curtsy towards her and to the man in the fur coat, he walked towards her “Im Dura the leader for our camp, Dates how long have you been here?” she moved her head around as if to find the answer on the wall then stood still with the same hand she put up one finger then put up her whole hand “fifteen...months?” she nodded slowly as if that was a warning. Are you alone?” she shook no and pointed down at her skirt all of us looked at her garment. Upon closer inspection it was a patch work of the same white cloth however each one had a different color thread in between each strip, on the waist were name tags fastened to it the names were barely legible the three looked at each other coming to the same conclusion about her. Dura gave her pendant with our logo on it "once your done report to Duval” She placed a hand over her eye, “yes that’s Duval don’t mind him this beast has been harassing us for the past couple weeks, return this and the head of the creture as proof after that Anton will pay you are we in agreement?" dates nodded and rushed out of the tent before dura could say anything else the others followed and saw her rush in to the woods with a bardiche in hand.

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To any one else it would seem like she was just wondering aimless but she had been here longer anyone else she was just glad that Anton was there to explain her presence. Muddy prints that showed a creature to be three toed and that the creature had passed here recently this was not what she was looking but she had no other tracks to follow. Following them lead her to a corpse, of what she recorded as a 3 toed runner uncreative some would say but it got the point across tell but she knew it wasn’t a carnivore curiously there were arrows in it she pulled one out to inspect but the animal shrieked, dates jumped back it wasn’t dead but dying the animal continued to cry in pain dates took the weapon she had raised above the creatures neck and swung down hard the creatures head was cleanly cut.

Dammit woman what are you doing!" a man with a bow walked out of a bush "haven’t you ever heard of laying a trap" he noticed the crest she was wearing and sighed "so Dura told you to hunt it did he? I suppose I should tell you my name" she nodded eager to learn this new info “its Russell I run recon” he looked at the bardiche she was holding "i dont know how you plan to kill somethin that runs fast with that” upon hearing that she held out the weapon to him with a slight snicker waiting for his reaction to the weapon “your not all there are you” he reached out for it expecting the usual weight of a pole-arm but was thrown off by the sheer lightness of it “what the hell? Is this a joke” dates pointed to the carcass beside them and motioned for him to take a swing at it he scoffed “Ok lady will see” he prepared him self to swing as hard as he could with this crudely made polearm. he swung and like butter the blade cleaved the body in two burying the blade in the ground. Dates laughed while he was in disbelief “what the hell is this” she picked up the pole arm bringing the blade close to her rus was watching her. She put her hands on the blade and pulled the top to rus’ shock the blade deformed like clay stretching until it reached a desired state dates bunched up the rest of the metal at the top extruding 2 sides to make a guard. Refining the spear she squished the metal in to a broader shape when she was done the bardiche had become a boar spear she smiled underneath the bag looked at rus who was dumbfounded. “what is that stuff?” She shrugs “is there more” she shrugs “where did you find it?”

She shook her head looking at rus again she swirled her finger around making a circle she tore a piece off of the glob that was at the base of the spear and handed it to rus. Rus held the globule in his hand messing with it cool to the touch reminding him of beach sand but rather than falling apart it stuck together tightly holding on to itself as rus pulled on it he looked at dates for any advice she gestured a quick pull motion following suite rus gave a quick pull on the substance and with a snap had a smaller piece in his other hand dates watched on eager to see what he would do now.y “is this good for all of the beasts here?” she nodded.

A low growl alerted both of them both turned to where it came from. A body came lumbering out of the bushes on all fores right away dates got away from the corpse and tackled rus with her into the underbrush she did not take her eyes off the beast examining it not making any noise. Rus adjusted himself to where he was lying prone next to her he whispered “how did bears end up here?” she shook no to that rus focused on the animal as it circled the corpse sniffing it. He noted it being bear-like 2 toes on each limb, a flat head rounded by a large nose with 2 large front facing beady eyes with a thick tail “do you recognize it?” she shook no. the creature poked at the body with its claw after a time it grunted opening its mouth. Its moth streched across its entire face almost splitting its head in two when it widened it for a bite dates saw needle like teeth filling its cavity before filling it with the internal organs of the runner burying its face in the offal. Rus nudged dates “is that what killed the scout?” dates shrugged still not taking her eyes off the animal, slowly she took out a book from her bag as well as a pencil she placed the book in front of her flipping through pages of animal sketches until she got to a blank one she scribbled something then passed it to rus“I don’t know what that is but our mark has something to make puncture wounds its teeth look like they match those marks, we cant leave it as it will stick around to find more food drawing it closer to the camp.”

rus wasn’t too sure about killing it but she was right if the beast stuck around more encounters would happen, during his thought dates was slowly crawling out of the underbrush spear in hand. Rus snapped out of thought when he heard the beast growl dates had stabbed it in its side and was now on top of it attempting to wrench her spear out from its side. Rus rushed out of the underbrush to help but they took off deeper into the woods rus gave chase.

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Following the grunts and yells of dates and the animal rus caught up to them finding them in a clearing staring and circling each other the beast was bleeding from its side but didn’t seem to care about that dates meanwhile had visable brusies on her arms and body her spear was between them closer to the beast in distance. Keeping quiet rus began to nock an arrow tipped with the metal dates had given him it had a crudely drawn out point he waited for an opening. dates was in front of him and he began to draw as soon as he saw the eye of the beast he let the arrow fly. It flew under dates arm and hit the beast in the forehead and contined to sail throught it like water embbeding itself in the ground behind the beast. It reared up yelling in pain dates seized the moment rushing and grabbing her spear and stabbing it into the underbelly and yanking down, disimbowing it. Blood and entrails covered dates body skirt and paper bag with the beast unleashing its death cry before going limp, dates moved herself avoiding getting pinned by the dead weight of the beast

“are you good?” Rus came up to dates who was taking off the gore soaked paper bag revealing the short dirty blonde hair she had underneath. she turned around and gave rus a nod and a grin Her cheeks caused her to have a rounded face that gave the impression she was in good health but the heavy bags underneath her widened frenzied eyes betrayed that belief along with the wide toothy grin she gave rus showing the overbite and crooked canines she had. Rus relized he was staring a bit too long but she didn’t seem to notice and went to move the bear-like creature off of her spear rus joined her. He prepared to push the animal off realizing this thing was way heavier than anticipated he pushed on to it giving it his all taking a break after the attempt dates gave no hints of help only a wide grin with hands behind her back rus looked at her annoyed by her unshared insight. “ok whats the secret, lady.” she pointed to the arrow he fired; buried in the ground he went to retrieve it and came back throwing his hands up “now what?” she gestured to make the arrow tip longer and flatten it. Rus followed suite ending up with a thin knife she pointed to the creature and made the motion to cut it open “why? We don’t need to do that I have some rope lets just tie it to the right side and roll it over. Dates shoulders slumped her grin shaped to a frown and eyes softened she reluctantly help rus tie up the animal they both grabbed the rope and both pulled together the corpse followed with it now belly up and sticking out of it dates spear. she rushed to it quickly taking it out and stabbing the ground in an attempt to clean it. Observing this rus undid the standard around his waist “hey use this” handing it to her she cleaned the spearhead leaving it to dully shine. She gave it back to rus but he refused “keep it lets just see if what this thing is” dates took out the severed hand heading to the head of the animal to inspect its teeth the mouth was lined with needle like teeth however they were fragile breaking off easily when dates put the hand inside of it “not what were looking for?” she shook no “well that a shame” he looked to the sun that was setting “days must be shorter here well he should be heading back bring the head if nothing else at least aria can do her thing if we bring her a new specimen dates stood up with the speahead molded into an axe she took aswing and cleanly cut it off.

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