Aidann froze for a moment when he saw the corpse, expanding his senses, tensing up, and preparing to toss himself to the side to avoid an attack if necessary. When no attack was forthcoming, he crept forward to examine the corpse, kneeling down and parting its injuries with his fingers to inspect them, paying no mind to the [i]excessive[/i] amount of blood there was on his hands now. It wasn't as if getting blood all over him was a new thing, after all, and certainly not here. The whole floor was covered in the stuff. It was splattered on the walls, even. He could hardly make out the masonry through it all. And, on the other side of the corpse, a trail of it--splattered droplets and streaks implying something moving quickly. Grimacing at that--faster-moving monsters were invariably more frustrating to deal with than the slower ones--he returned his attention to the wounds.

"Ragged cuts, not smooth," he murmured. "They mey be sharp, but difn'itely claws instead o' blades. Poor bast'd niver stood a chance." Then, a moment later, he kicked himself for doing something so silly. He'd always had a bit of a habit of talking to himself; being alone for too long did that to a man. But there was a monster kicking about somewhere now. He couldn't afford to be indulging in silly things like habits when they put his life on the line by making more of a racket than he really should. Monsters tended to have good hearing.

[i]Bones broken severely in localized places. This wasn't done by a limb; looks more like a warhammer, almost, but this is definitely a monster attack. And there are puncture wounds--blunt looking ones, more like the skin being torn than being pierced--at the center of the breaks. It looks like a beak got into him. Probably an ornithosaur, or maybe a griffin? No...not a griffin. Too enclosed here, not enough space for it to fly. So that leaves, barring something...different...happening, either a cockatrice or a basilisk as the likely subjects.[/i] He hissed quietly, making sure to mind his volume. He was in hostile territory now. [i]And I don't want to fight either of those without preparation. Let's see. I'll need ornithosaur oil for either of them. If I recall correctly, basilisk don't like dancing-star bombs, but cockatrice don't much care about them. I know I'm going to need to make Thunderbolt, Swallow, and White Honey, but if it's a basilisk, I'll need to make Golden Oriole as well...[/i]

He frowned. He didn't have as much information as he wanted, if he were to make a report. He could only imagine the look on Balidvar's face when the elderly witcher told him that "it's some kind of ornithosaur, I think, and I [i]might[/i] know how to fight it, probably." No, he needed to know beyond a shadow of a doubt what kind of monster was lurking in the shadows of Rakald Keep. No room for error, or more than just he would die on a failed hunt this time around. [i]No fighting it right now,[/i] he promised himself as he began to creep deeper and deeper into the keep. [i]Just find something that tells me what it is, and then report back.[/i] 

Still, no harm in taking precautionary measures: his silver sword whispered into his right hand from his back, and his crossbow, bolt already loaded, went into his left. Taking a slow, quiet breath and bearing stealth in mind, he began to creep after the trail of blood as it led off, ever deeper into the keep. Crumbling stone and rotting wood had turned from scenery into cover very quickly, and now it was getting darker, precious few motes of light illuminating the disused corridors and halls. He fought the urge to use Igni as a light source; if there really was an ornithosaur nearby, he certainly didn't want to alert them, and the blood's contrast with the stone was enough to keep him on the trail. The dead-still air was perfumed with the smell of bile and blood; clearly, that was not the mystery monster's only victim. For a moment, something buzzed in the back of his head; a word, maybe, ill-defined, and he reflexively tensed. But then it was gone, and he was free once more to focus on his task:

[i]Now...where are you?[/i]