Location:Eastern Forest — Near Stonecroft Settlement
Date/Time:TC1854.01.04-05 — Dusk to Dawn
The tracks were wrong.
Taron crouched at the edge of the eastern tree line, two kilometers from Stonecroft, and studied the marks in the frost-hardened earth. Not animal prints — nothing on Ascara left tracks like these. Three parallel grooves, spaced unevenly, as if something with too many joints had dragged itself across the ground without caring whether the ground survived the contact. The soil where the grooves passed was dry. Not frozen-dry. Drained-dry. The particular desiccation that happened when Necrotic Essence touched organic material and consumed the life from it.
Three sets of tracks. Heading southeast. Parallel, five meters apart. Coordinated.
Scouting, not feeding. Learning the terrain around a settlement full of people who didn't know what was hunting them.
"Three confirmed," he said, low enough that only the team heard. "Moving together. Disciplined spacing."
