Specimen #626

20/07/56 - Day Two

A dispatch from Alderfox.  He has answered some of my queries as to the creature's location and manner of death.  As expected, he has failed to answer certain others.  Dolt.

This dispatch was included in Vorheim's papers, and is transcribed below. – L

Dr. Vorheim,

The notes you requested, sir:

We met a little sea ice when entering the fjord, but the season was too far advanced for it to greatly impede our progress.  Upon landing, we made a survey of the area.  The landscape all around was deserted and the nearest known settlement is some hundred-and-ten miles to the south.  We found evidence of abandoned villages; it is to be assumed that the beast's predations have driven away all settlers over the past decades -

Here Vorheim has written 'centuries?' – L

- leaving it to scavenge such wild creatures as roam this wilderness, largely caribou, though even these are scarce. 

A blizzard delayed the commencement of our search for three days.  On the fourth, the weather brightened and signaller parties were dispatched to the hills.  By the end of the week, the beast was sighted in the skies to the north-east, some miles away.

Our lure, I must confess, met with far more success than I had expected.  Through the positioning of meat parcels along the trail and the strategic discharge of rifles for maximum volume, we were able to draw the beast closer towards our ship in the bay.  I can only assume that it was exceptionally ravenous, perhaps after a hard winter.

Within three further days, the beast was nesting just out of sight of the bay.  Here I must disappoint you: given the reported size of our quarry I deemed it necessary to deploy heavy-calibre ordnance, contrary to your wishes, for the safety of the crew.  The corpse, however, is not overly damaged.

The battle itself was swift: rifle fire enraged the beast, luring it at last into the fjord itself.  Sustained cannonades of both round and grapeshot, combined with small-arms fire, felled the creature.  I am not normally inclined to poetry, but the noise as it smote the mountainside was astounding, like an earthquake.

Vorheim's note: "Poetry?  Pshaw!" – L

Two elements of the battle are of importance: first, the beast must have been weak.  It was not as aggressive as expected and succumbed with disappointing ease.  For all the terror with which it inspired the less well-fortified members of my crew, I was still expecting a great deal more.

Secondly: it did NOT breathe fire.  Either that aspect of its physiology is indeed a myth, or it has lost the ability to do so.  I suspect the former.

Lastly, the beast's size.  From head to tail, lying flat: 90 feet.  Wingspan: 100 feet.  Width of abdomen: 6 feet.

Vorheim, you've bought yourself a monster.

Your servant,

Alderfox

We return to Vorheim's journal. – L

Alderfox gives me all this, but neglects to tell me precisely WHAT the creature looks like, as I asked him to.  Hellfire on the man, whatever he brings me.  He won't even have penned this himself, the spelling is correct.

Still.  Those measurements are astounding.