Talfuric and I were shaken by that. Clearly what we were dealing with wasn't goblins.

I leaned back and yawned, saying, "Well, I'm gonna head off t' bed now." I stood up and strode past the crowd to the stairs, which I ascended to my bedroom.

Once I entered, I sat on one of the two beds and waited. A few minutes later, Talfuric came in.

"What do you think, human? Were they telling the truth?" he asked me.

"Aye. Truer words, they've probably ne'er spoken," I said thoughtfully. "You don't joke abou' that kind'a thing. Not to mention, no one questioned we'er it was true."

He nodded, obviously having reached the same conclusion. "A giant bear..." he said to himself. "Could a druid be responsible for this? I've seen quite a few back at Darnassus. Of course, they only take the form of regularly sized bears…"

I thought about it for a second, and then said, "I think we need to ask around more, get a few details about what happened."

He nodded, and then said, "Well, it's too late to do anything tonight. Let's go to sleep." "I'll take first watch," I said. There was no question that we were taking watches after what we had just heard.

************

Talfuric relieved me at midnight, at which time I slept a fitful sleep full of giant bears and nameless horrors. I woke up far from refreshed, but eager to get to the bottom of what was going on.

We left the inn at the crack of dawn. The sun rising over the trees was a sight of such beauty, I've had a hard time seeing one that beat it. There were no clouds in the sky, and slowly people began to emerge and arrive from the roads.

We walked around the town for a few minutes, and then approached the black smith as a man in a Stormwind uniform took a position outside.

"Excuse me sir," I said, "we've heard a few tall tales around town about a few kidnappings going on. My friend and I wanted t' know if they held any water."

He gave me a sad smile, than said, "If you hear any strange and mysterious tales of kidnappings going on around here, then you can believe them. Every day there's been someone stolen out of their bed and never seen again."

Talfuric and I looked at each other, surprised.

"It's just a matter of time," he said, "before we discover whose been taken today."

"We also heard about a man who was torn to shreds by what was apparently a giant bear," I said, "can you tell us about that?"

"Ah, yes. The man's name was Aberforth, a man about 46 years old. It was 12 days after the kidnappings started. He and I were talking by the road over there," he said pointing to the road that split to go to Goldshire and Stormwind, "when suddenly he looked over my shoulder, and screamed."

"He started running towards whatever he saw, and I grabbed his arm and stopped him. I asked him what it was, and he said he'd seen a man dressed in black, upon a black horse. He shouted something over his shoulder about duty as he ran away," the man said.

"I ran after him, but he lost me in the darkness. I few seconds later, I heard him scream. It was a horrible sound, but it pointed me in the right direction," he said, "A few seconds later I found him. He was lying on the ground, face up, dead. Across his chest, from shoulder to hip, were three massive cuts, like a giant beast had clawed at him."

"What was the man's profession?" I asked him. He thought for a moment and then said, "He was a lumber jack, and a fine one too."

Talfuric gave me a strange look that I couldn't interpret, so I thanked him for his trouble and told Talfuric loudly that we'd better get to hunting. He set off into the woods and I followed him.

A few seconds later, we stopped in a group of trees that obscured us from the town. "What was that question about his profession for?" he asked me.

"That question," I told him, "gave us another reason to think it's a druid that's doin' it." "Druids like th' trees, righ'? I asked him. When he nodded his confirmation, I continued, "So they wouldn't be too happy about havin' 'em cut down, would they?"

Understanding dawned on his face. "Well, that limits the suspects to Night Elves," I said, proud of my detective abilities. I got frustrated when I saw Talfuric shake his head. "It's not a druid that's doing it," he told me.

I frowned. All of the evidence suggested that it was a druid that was doing it. "Why do ye say that?" I asked him.

"Remember what he said about the man who was mauled?" he asked me. I thought for a second, than said, "Yeah, three claw marks across th' chest."

He nodded, than said, "How many claws does a bear have?" "Four," I said. He nodded.

Any further conversation was cut off when we heard a scream coming from the town. We looked at each other, then stood up and sprinted as fast as we could towards it, nocking an arrow onto our bows.

We burst into the village to see no people in the streets. Alarmed that the usually crowd was gone, we ran into the inn. Still no people.

We ran upstairs, panic sinking its icy claws into my chest. It alleviated a little when we saw a large amount of people gathered around a room.

We somehow managed to elbow our way through to the room, where we saw a woman cradling a man's head on her lap. The man was dead.

He held a sword in his had, cut into two. A scar ran down his chest, from his left shoulder to his right hip. It was clearly made by a sharp weapon, probably a sword.

Among the crowd, I spotted the guard we had talked with earlier today. Walking over to him, I asked him, "What happened here?"

He appeared thoughtful for a second, then said, "The man was here visiting his mother, the woman holding him, for a few days. We suspect that he was the target of the kidnapper last night. My theory is that he woke up while he was in the room and grabbed his sword. Somehow, the kidnapper broke it into two, very neatly, and then killed him."

I thought about it for a second. It sounded logical, and since no one had disappeared, that must have been what happened.

Talfuric caught my eye and motioned for me to join him in our room. After I entered and closed the door, he said, "Charlie, have you noticed anything about the victims?" I thought for a second, and then said, "I didn't look at the list of people who had disappeared."

"I did," he said, "and I noticed something. All the people who have disappeared were only visiting for short periods of time. No permanent resident has been killed." I nodded my understanding.

"So?" I said, "How does that help us? Most of the people here are just passing by, so it doesn't give us the ability to protect people."

"It doesn't help us," he said, "what it tells us, is that we are in extreme danger right now. We're supposed to be passing by, as we've loudly told everyone we can."

My eyes widened at that revelation.

Then I said, "Well, doesn't that help us? He'll just come to us faster, and then we can deal with him."

Talfuric sighed, and then said, "Did you bother to find out what that man did for a living?" I frowned and replied no. "Well, I did," he said. "So? What did he do?" I asked him.

"He's a member of the Alliance Special Forces. They may be idiotic snobs, but they're called the Special Forces for a reason. Charlie, I think that if we want a hope to survive, we need to find the kidnapper before sundown." He said.