With her best buddy back in action, Belladonna took one last look around the potion shop, before deciding to go without. Even if she had a massive amount of wealth from the dragons horde, she still had the mindset of someone living paycheck to paycheck.

If she went her whole life without spending all that money, she would be perfectly fine because it was a good safety net, yet conversely she had the instinct to splurge it all at once just because she was never going to get the opportunity again.

It was a strangely contradictory mindset, but she was used to it and could control the urge to splurge.

Exiting out of the city, Belladonna once more delved into the wilderness as she followed the instructions for the quest. However she wasn’t away from civilisation for very long, as the instructions led her to one of the nearby farms that the Grimshawls had attacked and ravaged.

The farm itself was in a complete state. Half of the field had been ruined, which seemed to be growing some kind of plant that resembled tomatoes in their growth and shape, but looked like Christmas ornaments with their multiple colours and glossy sheen.

These plants had been either torn completely out at the stalks, leaving nothing but a few wayward greenery and upturned dirt to mark their presence, and those that still remained had large bites taken out of them.

The buildings had been ransacked as they had taken all sorts of things, from the farmers savings, to the cutlery he ate his dinner with, to a belt particularly shiny belt buckle that the farmer had kept in nice condition for special occasions.

It was easy enough to decipher their intent behind this thievery. They were like magpies. Attracted to anything and everything that shined, because if it looked shiny then it had to be valuable, right?

However this was not the only thing they had stolen. if stealing shiny knick knacks and eating crops was all they did, then Grimshawls would have been seen as little more than a pest, and for the most part that was what they were.

But that was only when their numbers were low or they were around larger structures, like cities, where they sometimes infested by nesting in the less populated areas. Sewers, for example.

When their numbers got big enough, or they got confident enough, the Grimshawls upgraded themselves from Pest to Living Blight. For even though the singular farmer was all that Belladonna had met and interviewed, he had not been the only one that worked there.

Working an entire farm by yourself was a herculean task without modern technology to assist you.

Along with his crops and property, the Grimshawl had also taken the farmers family. That was the purpose of the quest, and the reason they had been posted in the Tower. Population control and extermination, mainly, but to give this man and all their other victims some closure. After all, this farmer was not the only one in the region, nor was he the only victim.

Inspecting the area, Belladonna would have been blind to miss the footprints that the Grimshawls left. There were hundreds of them, constantly crossing over and mixing up, as the little beasts cut across each other’s paths.

But from the few clear footprints that she could find, she noted their distinctly human appearance. Small, like that of a child, but humanoid. Although there weren’t many, there was enough to follow as a trail.

Thanking the farmer for his help, Belladonna started to follow the trail of footprints, all whilst trying to ignore the sound of weeping fading into the distance behind her.

She almost lost the trail more than a dozen times, especially when they switched from soft dirt to grass and foliage. But a wayward broken stick, or breadcrumbs of the half eating Christmas fruits, was enough to keep Belladonna on track for the most part. Had she been a ranger, or had one in her party, this would have been much easier as they had skills based entirely around tracking and sniffing out their prey.

Perhaps even Figg, with his attunement to nature, could have been better. Picking out the less obvious clues at best, or talking to the trees and just getting them to tell him the answer at best. Actually... she wasn’t entirely sure if he could do that, but it would be pretty useful if he could.

She should remember to ask him the next time they meet, Belladonna told herself.

Feeble and pathetic though her tracking skills were, her persistence eventually paid off, as Belladonna noticed something moving in the brush ahead of her.

She immediately dropped down to all fours, strangely finding the position more comfortable, as she clambered into the trees and started to prowl from their branches like a panther.

With her increase in the perception stat, the smaller sounds had become much more crisp, and she could almost feel things in a limited space around her, even if she wasn’t looking at it, just from the way the air shifted and played with her faint body hair.

Her eyes, enhanced for the dim light, were easily able to pick out the slight movements of her target. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Pouncing silently through the trees, and even stepping through the shadows once or twice, Belladonna perched on a branch above her prey as she finally got a good look at the creature called a Grimshawl.

It was a small humanoid creature, from what she could tell, standing roughly 3 feet tall, with gaunt and skinny limbs, and deep grey skin. As for the body of this creature, she could not see it clearly, no matter the position or angle that she took.

A ragged, muddy grey cloak, or shawl as the name would suggest, was draped over the creature’s body, obscuring both it and the head from view. Although the shawl was loose, the space underneath was filled with thick, wispy darkness that meant that anything underneath was obscured completely from view.

The only thing she could see was the pointed ears poking out from what she assumed was its head, the two skinny legs that it stumbled around bare foot on, and the four arms that it was pawing around on the ground with.

As Belladonna watched it, she wondered what ability that it would give her. It didn’t seem dangerous, as it pawed at the ground and dug through the dirt, occasionally finding grubs or bugs that it immediately shoved under its shawl and crunched on.

But just as she was about to make her move, the Grimshawl suddenly hunched over mid-bite of its bug snack, and let out a high pitched, whimpering groan as something started to bulge from beneath its shawl.