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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 9527082" data-attributes="member: 11760">We're riding north toward the Icefinger Mountains.It's cold, brutally so, but so far, this is an easy job, guarding Big Jim Sun's trading caravan. We're bringing southern goods -- cloth, utensils, weapons, salted meat, spices, tea -- to the northern outposts, where they'll be traded for furs and carved mammoth tusks. The bandits will be on us when we head south, after we've done the hard work of bringing mammoth ivory out of the eternally snow-covered mountains.I'm on point, walking ahead of six carts across a frozen lake. On the far side is a trading post where the Northmen should be waiting for us. I prod the ice periodically with my sword to see if it'll hold us, but that's mostly just to show Jim I'm earning my keep on this stretch of the job.And then a hunting horn sounds.I hustle back to the carts, where Big Jim -- and he is big, so big that it speaks to how serious a danger the bandits are if he feels like he needs to hire me -- who's sitting next to the driver of one of the carts, smoking his pipe and scanning the horizon."Go check the outpost and be quick about it. There could be trouble."I go as fast as I can across the ice and snow, but it still takes about two more hours to arrive at the outpost.There's been a massacre. The snow is soaked red with the blood of six dead Northmen, bodies slashed open, their axes dropped in the snow where they fell. Their attacker is nowhere to be seen but there are a creature's enormous footprints.It takes me another hour to get back to Big Jim, the sun setting over the wintery landscape as we meet back up again.Jim orders the carts to be circled for protection overnight, a large bonfire in the center.Sitting quietly, our backs to the fire, looking out into the darkness, Big Jim and I share a smoke."This beast will ruin me if he drives off or kills all the Northmen; all my money is tied up in this caravan," he says, with a beard so wild and thick, he looks half-beast himself. "Will you find it and kill it for me, Lucky?""I was hired to protect you from bandits," I reply. "A beast that can kill six men single-handedly will cost you extra."Jim scowls and his beard moves as he clenches his jaw."How much extra?""Another 50 gold pieces should do it."If we were back home, he'd strike me and damn me for a thief. But up here, on the ice, he has little choice. Still, it takes a long time before he gives me a sharp nod.I don't sleep much. My mind is racing with what's required to hunt such a creature and how soon its tracks will be lost to new snowfall. And whether I've got a better chance at survival than six armed Northmen.I'm up with the first light of dawn. I nudge Big Jim with the toe of my boot."I'm heading out. I hope to be back before sundown."I nod to the guard on watch as I head back toward the outpost.</blockquote>

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