Rather than follow the trail straight away, Ramsey decides to take a closer look at bones and hair left at the site. Although now feeling Hopeless (mental condition) he does score a success on a Logic test.
Up close, the detritus is even stranger. The hairs have a faint, almost metallic sheen when the light hits them, and the singed tips are brittle — as though scorched by something hotter and steadier than a campfire. They don’t quite match any animal Ramsey knows; the structure feels wrong, almost hollow, like quill shafts.
The bones are just as unsettling. They’re from more than one animal — a rabbit’s femur, what might be part of a sheep’s jaw — but all are stripped with remarkable precision. The tooth marks are fine, sharp, and unnervingly even, nothing like the ragged tearing of foxes or dogs. One piece still has a faint residue of the same oily slime on it, and when he brings it closer, the tang burns faintly in the back of his throat.
Ramsey's Vaesen-sense prickles — this isn’t natural. The scorch, the hollow hair, the precision in the bite… it’s starting to point toward a creature adapted to hunt with both stealth and sudden bursts of searing heat.
The trail into the copse looks even more significant now. Whatever it is, it’s fresh — Ramsey guesses the vaesen passed through less than a day ago. He decides to pluck up his courage and see if he can follow the trail.
The copse swallows Ramsey quickly — a tangle of hazel, oak, and bramble that forces him to stoop and sidestep. The trail of slime is his guide at first, but soon it’s just the memory of the prints and the occasional snapped twig that keeps him on course.
Failed Observation test here - Ramsey still feels Hopeless.
Ramsey presses on for perhaps twenty minutes, but the woods here are deceptive.
The ground is uneven, with old charcoal pits, rabbit warrens, and tangles of thorn that snag his coat. The slime trail fades into damp earth, then disappears entirely under a scatter of dead leaves. A few times he thinks he’s spotted another print, but it turns out to be a deer track or a knot of roots.
By the time he realises he’s lost it, the stillness of the place has settled in around him — no birdsong, no breeze, just the faint creak of the trees. He’s deeper in than he intended, and the light filtering through the canopy is already starting to dull toward afternoon.
Somewhere off to his right, maybe fifty yards away, comes a single sharp crack — like a branch breaking under weight — followed by silence.
Ramsey calls out, in a slightly tentative voice, acutely aware he is on his own here. Ramsey’s voice carries oddly in the still woods — the sound seems to hang a moment too long before fading, as though the trees themselves are listening.
For a few heartbeats, nothing answers. Then, from somewhere ahead and slightly to the left, comes a low, rasping exhalation. It’s not quite human, not quite animal — like air forced through a throat too narrow.
The undergrowth rustles, slow and deliberate, followed by another crack of wood. Whatever it is, it’s moving now, angling toward Ramsey’s position. The smell — that same acrid, oily tang — begins to thread through the air. He decides it is time to get out of there.
Ramsey turns and bolts, pushing through brambles and low branches, the smell clinging to the back of his throat as he runs.
Whatever’s in the woods is fast — the cracking of twigs and the heavy brush-rustle follows almost in rhythm with his own steps. But it’s not crashing after him in a straight sprint; it seems to weave, as though trying to flank or cut him off.
Roots catch at his boots, and his breath comes ragged in the cooling air. Somewhere behind, the strange rasping breath rises in pitch — not a shout, not quite a roar, but a warning.
Ramsey runs and rolls his Agility but fails, he tries to push it, but fails that too. He takes the Exhausted condition.
Ramsey’s flight turns desperate. He tries to force himself faster, lungs burning, but his boots skid on a patch of slick leaf-mulch. He stumbles hard into a thorny tangle, the branches clawing at his coat and face.
That’s when he sees it — not the whole shape, but enough.
Through the bramble gaps, a hunched silhouette moves with an unnerving fluidity, its limbs too long for its frame, its head low and swaying. The metallic sheen of its coarse hair catches the light, and where its mouth should be, there’s a faint, ember-like glow that pulses in time with that rasping breath. It pauses, turning toward the spot where Ramsey crashed.
For a long, breathless moment, the only sound is the faint hiss of its breathing. Then — it tilts its head sharply, makes a guttural click, and slips back into the deeper shadows without a sound.
Ramsey is left scratched, winded, and very aware that it knows he’s in its territory. By the time he blunders his way back to the clearing near the burners’ camp, the light is already dimming toward late afternoon.
Ramsey decides to stick around and try to set a trap for the beast, whatever it was. He is now Exhausteed however. The charcoal burners don’t welcome Ramsey back warmly — in fact, they pointedly avoid asking where he’s been — but they also don’t throw him out. Maybe the scratch marks on his face and his muddy clothes tell them enough.
The smell of the thing still lingers faintly in the trees, and the sun is already sliding behind the Mendip slopes. The burners mutter among themselves in low tones, but one eventually tosses him a length of sturdy rope and an old meat hook.
The ground near the edge of the copse is damp but workable, and Ramsey picks a spot where the slime trail had passed — a narrow run between two thorn bushes that would naturally funnel something through.
Working quickly but quietly, he digs with a borrowed spade from the burners, scooping out enough earth for a shallow pit. He lines the bottom with sharp branches and the old meat hook, then covers it with a thin layer of brush and leaves, making sure it looks undisturbed. For bait, he lashes a scrap of the vicar’s bread to the hook — hardly a feast, but enough to carry his scent and maybe that faint trace of oily tang from his earlier encounter.
Failed Precision + Agility roll here.
Ramsey works as quickly as he can, but the soil is stubborn — full of roots that creak and snap as he digs. The noise carries farther than he’d like, and once or twice he freezes, convinced he hears something moving in the undergrowth.
By the time he’s covered the pit, the camouflage isn’t perfect. A few spots of freshly disturbed earth peek through the leaves, and one of the thorn bushes has been bent awkwardly out of shape. To a casual glance it might pass — but for something hunting in its own territory, the trap will likely be obvious.
As twilight seeps into the clearing, the burners retreat into their huts, shutting their doors and bolting them from within. The only light is the dull glow of the charcoal mound and the first smudge of moon above the treeline. Somewhere in the distance, that faint rasping breath drifts through the air again — closer than before....
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