Dawn’s light was soon to break from the east. Levi cursed the sun before it showed itself to the world, and kept riding. He had rode through the night from the northern fringes of Durot back to Rothenburg. His plan called for him to be sleeping soundly with two fresh ogre heads right now, but instead he was just a mile outside of Rothenburg and riding hard still. The sound of horseshoes decreed his arrival before he could even be seen as the morning light still had yet to break. He had caught word of the guild having a contract for an ogre problem in the northern stretch of the Durot range: a task he thought he could easily solve by himself even before checking in with the guild’s captain. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

In all his years of hunting, he had only ever seen four ogres in a raiding group once. Three was uncommon still. This night he had seen six, and more could be heard in the distance. The wreckage was more broken and scattered. The roaming band of beasts was farther north than he’d ever seen. Levi had spent plenty of time in the area dealing with the mongrels but this was beyond his ability. Even with his propensity to rush to action and confidence in his skill ... he realized six ogres at once was insane even for him. Something was wrong; this was far worse than anything encountered before.

[hr]
The city of Rothenburg had begun to wake up as the sun rose above the walls. The horse that served as Levi’s mount was growing as tired as he was. There had been nowhere near enough rest between riding out to Durot and back. His weariness showed as he slowly came up to the converted inn. It wasn’t much of a headquarters from the outside, but inside it has most everything it needed to where it counted.

Levi stumbled to the ground in his exhaustion. He hadn’t even taken the time to relieve himself of parts of his armor. His shoulders ached from riding for hours in it. Under the circumstances, the frustration was mounting. His tired feet carried him indoors to get some much needed rest. He grimaced as he walked past the bounty board seeing the contract he had just abandoned. In anger he beat a fist against the defenseless piece of parchment.

He didn’t even know why he was angry. He had been forced to abort a contract. The situation in Durot was far worse than anyone could have expected. He was running on twenty hours of no rest. His mental capacity was strained at the least. He took a breath, and then stumbled his way towards the captain’s office. He gave two swift raps on the doorframe, and then addressed the captain through the open door. His face said most of what needed to: that the situation where he had come from was severely problematic. [color=e2e2e2]“Captain, Levi,”[/color] he identified himself speaking breathily through his weariness, [color=#e2e2e2]“Durot ... it’s bad.”[/color]

It was not until after he had briefly reported the situation he noticed the large wolf in the company of the man currently speaking with the captain. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, his left hand slowly sliding down to meet the grip of a blade as he leaned against the doorframe.

[i](Continuity note: this post pushes slightly past the next future post by Drakey.)[/i]