The Start of a Pattern
His feet stopped as they finally arrived in front of his home, it had be left untouched by the creatures of the Naav highlands, "I see no beast has ventured out of the forest recently," Putting his hand on the door, he stopped and looked towards Getulush and sighed, "Maybe I should've stayed, the company of many was welcoming and enjoyable," He pulled the door open and found everything in the same way he had left it when Yishva and him had left for the tribe's village. It was as cold as always, the Getulush winters were much warmer than even the Naav summers.
He got a fire going before unpacking his bag, he had notes to add to his journal and a new trophy to add to his collection, "Why was that thing so huge?" He wondered to himself as he began writing things down in a new journal entry, "First, a highland troll then a sand wyrm appears out of nowhere and is much larger than it should be," The hunter mumbled to himself as he copied the notes from the village's papers onto his journal, "Is there something that can link them?"
The sun was setting as he looked out one of the tiny windows of the small house. His mind began to wander, attempting to explain why creatures could suddenly grow to such sizes without being noticed or that type of size being able to be explained. As the fire finally began heating the room, Kolvma retrieved bits of smoked meat from the central beam of the house's roof. He chewed on a bit of meat and continued to think about the two beasts he had most recently hunted, "What is causing this? If there even is something doing that," He would need to get back to his usual routine and his solitary life, the spark of excitement was enough for a small while, the cold Naav winter would end in a month normally and for now, the cold would replace the heat that he had grown nearly used to.
He tossed the vegetables into the pot before starting to cut up some more, tomorrow he would find some meat to add to it and finish up the stew then, "One thing I will miss is the food not needing to be prepared."
The snow was falling slowly from the sky, slightly hindering visibility as the arrow rested on Kolvma's finger, the bowstring tightly pulled back. It tracked a reindeer as it grazed alone. The string was loosed and the arrow whizzed off, cutting through the wind before hitting the medium sized creature in the side as it cried out in pain before falling, "I missed the heart, damn it," Kolvma quickly got out of his hidden vantage point and hurried to the fallen deer and drew his axe, "Sorry for that, bud, I should've aimed for the head," The axe hit the male deer's head and it stopped moving instantly, no pain left for it to have, no more agony for it to endure, "I haven't used this thing in a while, sorry," He sighed, in the many years of being a hunter, pain in the creatures he killed wasn't the thing he wanted, a clear, quick and simple blow should be all that was needed to kill a beast, regardless of the size.
Pulling the large carcass onto his shoulders, he began walking back to his home. He was an appetizing meal for any large predator if they were in that area, a troll could've set its trap in this part of the woods. Killing a troll wouldn't be an issue, it would just be a nuisance and more tiring to drag the deer home after slaying the larger predator. But today wasn't the day he would be ambushed by a troll, it was calm with light snow dusting on the clearing that his house sat on the edge of, it seemed winter would stick around for a week or two more.
He finished stringing up the deer and let the blood drip out of the body as he sighed and looked back at the clearing, "I should improve this place one day," The day was calm, he should be calm as well, there wasn't much that was going wrong for him, but that beast's sudden appearance lingered in his mind, what caused it? Could this be the work of something outside of that environment? Could someone or something really alter the size of a creature that drastically and without being noticed?