You hire a boat to travel the Tiger downriver to the salt marshes. You keep a watchful eye along the riverbank for any sign of the beast, but everything is tranquil here. Now and again, you encounter crab-man work gangs coming up or down the river. They watch you with their expressionless eyestalks, but don't interact with you otherwise. The sun is westering when you arrive at the marshlands, and are greeted by the magnificent sight of scarlet reedbeds stretching nearly as far as the eye can see. It's ironic how this is the home of a race widely regarded as too stupid and brutish to appreciate such beauty.
Your guide, a crab-man with purplish eyestalks, takes you to an area abundant with tiny black snails like
the one you picked out of the dead man's neck. It's hard to make them out at first, but they're definitely there. Was the victim all the way out here, or did the snail catch a ride on the monster's back? The crab-man only shakes its head when you show it
the sketch of the beast. The crab-men's wattle and daub dwellings are quite a distance away. If the monster did come through here, it could have easily been mistaken for a common water buffalo. You can see one of those docile animals now, being picked clean of bugs by a white crane perched on its rump.
How do you hunt this beast? What do you do?
