What Dwells in Kyrnovek

- Part II -

          Diligently the hunter conceals his bruised body within the shadows of the two rows of stone pillars near the center of the room, whereat the rusted iron bars that compose the cells meet to form their corners. In either hand he holds fast one of his twin daggers - each a single edged, delicately curved blade of medium length with a thick spine of matching contour, sprouting forth from a handle of black wood and steel fittings, all shaped to fit perfectly in his hands - which he orients opposite to one-another, keeping them near to his chest in order to retain low visibility. The clicking of claws from the next room draws nearer and is therefore now more discernible, allowing Veldred's trained ears to determine that whatever lurks nearby walks upon two legs, dissimilar to any monster known by him to dwell in this region. He darts through the column of amber light to the next pillar closer to the door, planning to creep his way close enough to catch the fiend by surprise. After a pause he continues to the next pillar, however he halts his advance there as the menacing clicking comes to an abrupt stop. He holds his breath and listens, but all he hears is the cold, silent cry of a darkness so heavy he can nearly feel it upon his skin, for though the light of the lantern passes him by so near it travels straight and without deviation, as an arrow does, leaving no mark upon that which it does not directly hit. He sees in the amber light a faint fog, or perhaps smoke that he had not noticed before, floating softly through the air as if upon a draft, though he fails to pick up any odor from it and so assumes it to be fog blowing in from a nearby exit - an idea encouraged by the growing presence of cold air. The duration of the silence grows suspiciously long, so Veldred carefully encroaches upon the doorway with the quietude of a bodiless shade, then presses himself flat against the wall to the left of the ajar door - the lantern and door hinges being on the right - providing him with a concealing cloak in the form of the door's shadow, and permitting him to peer through the gap.

          Beyond the doorway he sees another stone-walled room that is vacant, devoid of furnishings, and totally deprived of any light sources save the delicate twinkle of stars peering curiously through an overgrowth-obscured hole in the wall to his right; to his left is a threshold containing a flight of stairs, however no sooner than the third step the way is blocked by a seemingly new addition of a crude wall of uncut stones set in mortar. Seeing no signs of a living being's presence, he assumes the source of the clicking claws had left by way of the man-sized hole in the wall and therefore advances into the room, nonetheless retaining his heightened state of caution. He crosses the threshold, then from behind him in the corridor he had just left comes the clicking once more, however now it is far more rapid than it was prior - and drawing nearer. Veldred whips himself around with his daggers ready for combat, then comes to face a grotesque mass of black, oily fur vaguely in the form of a hunched-forward human darting towards him. Before he can react the creature leaps atop him, bringing them both cascading to the hard, stone ground, then accompanied by a series of bloodthirsty, guttural grunts and growls it begins slashing at him with two hands shaped like those of a man, but coated with more of the short, filthy fur and tipped with bladelike, corvine claws that had already been colored red with blood. The hunter beats the creature's malformed head with the pommel of one of his daggers, then drives the second into its side, at which the fiend shrieks animalistically and quickly leaps a safe distance away.

          Veldred quickly stands himself upright and catches a much clearer view of the ghastly thing that had previously been no more than a violent flurry: short, patchy fur covers the whole of its body, thinning upon the belly of its waned and hound-like torso, whereupon its too-tight skin envelops the heaving ribcage within. Two narrow legs with a pair of sickly, almost birdlike, clawed feet extend from below, and a set of lanky arms stretch out from its broad, bony shoulders, atop which a panting, nigh-indescribable head with features comparable to those of men, hounds, and rams, are all bound together into an unnervingly familiar yet so blatantly foreign face whose mouth drips with yet more blood from an unknown source. From the sockets of the horrid thing's skull there glower a pair of ardent, nearly luminescent, yellow eyes that emit a vehement, raging anger directed at the intruding hunter, cursing without words the very thought of him ever having drawn breath. Veldred enters a combat-ready stance then swiftly closes the distance between himself and his target, however before he can sink another blade into the flesh of the accursed thing it drops itself upon all four of its limbs in a sickening display of double-jointedness, thereafter sprinting through the hole in the wall with a broken, disjointed gait reminiscent of a wild dog, beaten and stricken with rickets. Veldred is quick to follow, however by the time he sticks his head through the damaged wall the creature has already vanished from sight, leaving no trace save the bloody lacerations upon the hunter's upper body. He pauses to reclaim his breath and tend to his wounds with the rudimentary medical supplies in his satchel, all the while analyzing the nature of the strange beast. "Dom'kredvyn," as the unseen sentry duo had referred to it, cannot be named as any known beast or a derivative thereof; its abhorrent mixture of features, the infernally wrathful eyes, the disturbing way it carries itself in either its upright or prone positions - all incredibly unknown and unanticipated, so much so that Veldred feels a slight sense of worry germinating within him. When one's proficiency is reliant on foreknowledge and planning, how are they to best something totally unfamiliar? He banishes his internal nay-saying and rushes the treatment of his injuries to a close, thereafter exiting the bleak dungeon through the only available outlet.