We came upon the fiend on the eastern slope of the

Radagar Spine. It was lying in a shallow gorge formed

by flash flooding, and the stench pervading the hot

air told us of rotting flesh, and indeed upon examination,

conducted with utmost caution on this, the very day

following the ambush on our camp by unknown

attackers, we discovered that the fiend was, while

still alive, mortally wounded. How to describe such

a demonic entity? When upright, it would have balanced

on two hugely muscled hind legs, reminiscent to that

of a shaba, the flightless bird found on the isles of the

Draconean Archipelago, yet in comparison much

larger here. The hip level of the fiend, when standing,

would have been at a man’s eye level. Long-tailed,

the weight of the fiend’s torso evenly balanced by

its hips, thrusting the long neck and head far forward,

the spine made horizontal. Two long forelimbs, thickly

bound in muscle and hardened scales providing

natural armour, ended, not in grasping talons or hands,

but enormous swords, iron-bladed, that seemed fused,

metal to bone, with the wrists. The head was snouted,

like that of a crococdile, such as those found in the

mud of the southern shoreline of the Bluerose Sea,

yet again, here much larger. Desiccation had peeled

the lips back to reveal jagged rows of fangs, each

one dagger-long. The eyes, clouded with approaching

death, were nonetheless uncanny and alien to our

senses.

The Atri-Preda, bold as ever, strode forward to deliver

the fiend from its suffering, with a sword thrust into the

soft tissue of its throat. With this fatal wound, the fiend

loosed a death cry that struck us with pain, for the sound

it voiced was beyond our range of hearing, yet it burst

in our skulls with such ferocity that blood was driven

from our nostrils, eyes and ears.

One other detail is worth noting, before I expound on

the extent of said injuries. The wounds visible upon

the fiend were most curious. Elongated, curving slashes,

perhaps from some form of tentacle, but a tentacle baring

sharp teeth, whilst other wounds were shorter but deeper

in nature, invariably delivered to a region vital to locomotion

or other similar dispensation of limbs, severing tendons

and so forth….

Factor Breneda Anict Expedition into the Wildlands

Official Annals of Pufanan Ibyris