Tybalt ran into the guard post, short of breath and looking very frightened. His fellow guards who had been idling looked at him in curiosity. Once he had caught his breath, he spoke. "There's, there's, there's a demon! It's kidnapped a family and killed Gunter and ransacked the warehouse!"

The others were about to mock him for being so silly as to believing there was a demon about, when what Tybalt had said caught up with them. "It killed Gunter?" Tybalt nodded solemnly. The rest of the guards immediately became serious and went for their weapons. Not only had one of their number been slain, but whatever this threat had been was enough to fell one of them, despite being quite used to handling the wild animals from the jungle.

They headed out immediately for the warehouse, taking torches with them to light their way through the light of the setting sun. They found the warehouse partially looted, a wall scorched, a path burned through the undergrowth and the body of Gunter lying in a heap some distance away from the warehouse. He was clearly dead, for his skull had bled, his neck was bent as it shouldn't be and his skin was quite pale. The guards gathered around solemnly, sharing a moment of silence and consoling each other. The looked to the ashen path into the jungle, and back to Gunter.

"We'll get Gunter back to the town first. Get him dealt with," one of the guards finally said, "The tracks left by this, demon, won't be disappearing any time soon." There were nods of agreements from around the group, and so they picked up the body and began carrying it back to town.
[hr]
It was a little over an hour later when the guards set out again after the demon who had attack their town and killed their friend. There were eight in the group going out hunting. All the guards bore their standard arms of a short sword and chain-mail armour. Three were also equipped with polearms, including Tybalt, three were equipped with bows, one was equipped with a musket and the last carried no extra weapon but was instead a spell-caster, specialising in manipulating plants to ensnare and bludgeon opponents. This was also the order in which they advanced along the charred trail.

As they traveled, they identified the tracks in the trail, marked clearly in the ash. Those of a wheelbarrow were very distinct. There were also a few footprints of shoes, about five unique sets they eventually reckoned, which clearly correlated with the family Tybalt had mentioned. There was another set of footprints, although trampled somewhat they were distinctly larger, heavier and not shoe-shaped. This, they reasoned, must be the demon. This meant they knew to expect about five prisoners, or hostages, or at worse corpses.

The party soon made it to the end of the trail, which revealed a strange stone door which was sitting in the middle of the jungle. None of them had seen it before, and they were unsure how long it had been there. Baffled by this mysterious door, one of the polearm wielding guards approached the door to inspect it more closely. There was no handle to open it by, and it did not yield to a firm push. Markings on the ground clearly indicated that the door had been opened recently, so this must be the entrance. The guards began looking nearby to see if there was some hidden switch or something, but they stopped their search when the spellcaster approached the door and observed, "It's a magic door, I can sense that. I can't tell how to open it, though."

Tybalt stepped forwards. "Well, there's only one thing to it." He raised the butt of his polearm and bashed it against the door three times before shouting, "Open up! We know you're in there!"

Meanwhile, the musketeer loaded his musket and readied it, as did the archers. The polearm wielders stepped back and formed a defensive line between the door and the ranged guards. And the spellcaster identified the plants in the area which would be useful to him. Unlike last time, these guards would not be so easily frightened or intimidated, and were in fact feeling rather vengeful.