The first person to speak up was a man leaning against the wall in the corner of the hall with baggy clothes and an unassuming face, but with a familiar tint to his voice that Tio found oddly familiar. It wasn't until he recognised the small horde of wolves, the squirrel and the whatever-Lyshe-was that he figured out who he was speaking to: Nir'wei the mortalborn! The last time they'd met Nir'wei had himself been a wolf, but now that he thought about it Karem had mentioned that she was going to help him return to sev'ryn form. He'd assumed she was going to make Nir look like his old hippie self, but apparently not.
"Well now, if it isn't my favourite wolf-man!" He replied with a bright grin, assuming from where he was standing that Nir was probably trying to stay incognito and woudn't appreciate having his name shouted out. He hadn't pegged Nir'wei for the type to hunt down monsters, bu perhaps he recognised it was necessary for the people of Egilrun to thrive. "I'd be more than happy to have you and your companions along! Well... as long as they don't all want a share of the reward as well..."
The next to call out was another familiar face, but this one he'd seen far more recently. It was the little tunawa from that incident in the bookstore a few days ago! He didn't think he'd caught their name back then, but he could remember them acting very chivalrously. The tunawa introduced himself, and while the long and complicated foreign name went straight over Tio's head he did recall hearing talk about a new source of clean water popping up around Yaralon when he was travelling through there.
"Hello again Madea Kis... Mudara... Ma-... Hello again tunawa person!" Tio called. "If there is a way to settle with without violence I'm happy to give it a try, but the wellfare of these people comes first. This problem has to be resolved one way or another." From what he'd heard the Scalvbeast was just another mindless monster, but locals did tell stories that the Scalvbeast used to protect Scalvoris. Maybe there was a peaceful way? Regardless, there was no harm in preparing for both eventualities
The final person to speak up was someone that Tio had never met before, and honestly was a little surprised had stepped forward at all. It was a girl in her early teens, possibly an aukari if the bright red hair was any indication, without much in the way of muscle on her. In all honesty Tio's first thought was to turn the girl down; after all she didn't seem like she could look after herself, and there was a very real chance that the Scalvbeast would kill her if they made a mistake. He didn't want the death of a kid on his conscience. But when she shouted back against the person who heckled her and turned back to then with eyes burning with determination he was forced to revise his opinion. If looks could kill the Scalvbeast would be dead already. Taking her would be a risk, but she certainly seemed to have the courage for a monster hunting quest and in his experience that was half the battle. Why not give her a chance? If it turned out she couldn't keep up he could always just send her back home alone, but if she could then this experience might help her become someone ferocious in the future.
"... Very well, you're in." He said slowly, making it clear with his assessing look and tone of voice that he had some doubts. Better to let her know from the start that she needed to prove herself to stay in rather than deal with any misconceptions later. "You've got guts kiddo, I'll give you that. Let's see what you can do."
Nobody else stepped forward after her, and so Tio addressed the crowd once again. "Then with that we have a party! I promise you that in a few trials your problems will be over! I know exactly how to do this!"
The Lemon Messy was filled with noise as the residents of Egilrun all cheered and toasted to their success. Drinks flowed like water, praise was given, and for a few minutes the village celebrated as if their problems were over already.
"I have no idea how to do this."
A little while later the newly formed team was sat at a table in the far corner of the hall while the rest of the villagers returned to normal conversation or headed home for the night. Tio had called them away from the crowd for a strategy meeting, looked around to make sure nobody was listening in, and then casually dropped that bombshell with a smile on his face and an ill-deserved level of cheer.
"Don't get me wrong, I wasn't lying when I said I had a plan." He continued quickly as he saw the others begin to react to his statement. "It's just that it's more like... half a plan. Two thirds at most. But in all fairness you can't really plan very much when you have no idea what you're up against; honestly I think I've done well to get this far."
With a quill and piece of paper he'd borrowed from the bar he sketched out a rough drawing of... something. It seemed to be some kind of dragon, but a child drawing in crayon could have done a better job. Art was not one of his strengths. "From the intelligence I've gathered the Scalvbeast is some kind of big dragon-like creature with wings and sharp claws, but that's all that's known for certain. It has a preference for attacking early at night and leaving few survivors, so eyewitness accounts are pretty vague. Now I don't fancy my chances at trying to either negotiate with or fight a dragon head on, so my plan so far is just to find out what it looks like. Once we know that I'll figure out the rest of the plan."
He quickly drew two very bad representations of Almund and Egilrun with a squiggly line between them, then marked points in the middle of the line with X's. "What I do know is that there's a routine to its attacks. While it has been seen causing trouble all across Scalvoris, the raids that take place on the road always take place at night and out of sight of both Almund and Egilrun. It also only targets cattle and slave carts, and has been seen to eat what it attacks. My theory is that the Scalvbeast has learnt that this area is a good place for a midnight snack; it's fairly busy even at night and poorly defended. So here's what I thinking." He opened the pouch of money Liza had given in advance and spread some coins out among the four of them. "Tonight we get some good rest, and tomorrow morning you guys go around the village and see if you can buy some cattle we can use as bait: old sheep, the odd sick cow, dogs, that sort of thing. I'll look to hire a cart, and then we meet up at the village centre in the afternoon with whatever gear we need. Then we load the cattle onto the cart and set out on the road to Almund, which should take us into its hunting grounds just as the sun is setting: about the time the Scalvbeast should make an appearance."
"With a bit of luck it should see us and attack, and which point we abandon the cart and run for cover. If we put some hanging lanterns on the cart it should both help attract the Scalvbeast to us and allow us to get a good look at it whilst it eats the bait. Hopefully by observing it we'll be able to come up with a plan for how to deal with it. When it's finished feeding I'll use this." Tio reached into his domain bag pulled out a smooth round stone, almost like a pearl but with an unusual pink hue to it. "This was a gift from Edasha," Tio said with the infatuated sigh, the faraway look in his eyes betraying how fond a memory it was. Edasha had a habit of leaving the men she met looking like that. "It's called the Verity Stone, and with it I should be able to see through the Scalvbeast's eyes. Once it returns to its nest I'll see where it is, and then we can plan to set a trap there. So what do you think? Any questions?"
