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would an aggressive mob of such a level come from in Beatwick and why on earth did it decide to pay me a visit?
    "Were you looking for something, my son?" a voice sounded nearby and made me turn around. A small, plump and pink-cheeked priest of some god was standing by the temple, thumbing through the prayer beads in his hands. A black robe covered him from head to foot, but failed to conceal the size of his enormous stomach. "Do you want to receive a blessing from Vlast? In that case you have to become his novice. Are you ready?"
    So this was a temple of Vlast. The god of wine making. He was an analogue of Bacchus, Pan and other such gods from the real world. I went into the manual to read the main limitations imposed by serving this god and was surprised to see that there were none — any NPC or players could become this god's novice without any restrictions. This didn't concern just the novices, but you could even become a priest just a few months after becoming a novice. There were no additional costs or donations to be made. All you had to do is drink a glass of wine or homebrew every day and thus receive your divine blessing. Although if you failed to drink it, you'd incur a divine curse, not a pleasant thing, as a rule. This meant that you'd have to atone for your sins with two glasses of homebrew. All right, I was never that interested in Barliona's religions as a Hunter and as a Shaman had even less need of them. Of course, Vlast is a convenient god for levelling up the Faith stat, but there are just too many complications in this field. Not my thing. Now it was clear, however, where the priest got his large stomach — probably from saying all those daily prayers with his parishioners and anyone else who dropped by. With the devout aid of wine and homebrew, that is. I bet those guards I met by the gates yesterday were also his active novices.
    "No, thank you. I respect Vlast, but I am not ready to become his novice. You have my thanks," I bowed to the priest, receiving a similar bow in response.
    "As you wish. Vlast doesn't force anyone to serve him. Only someone with true insight could fathom the real depth of his teaching. Can I help you with anything else, my son?" the priest run the standard phrase by me.
    "Yes. Holy father, can you tell me if there are any monsters in these parts that roam about at night and bring grief and destruction to the local people?" the incident with the respawn wouldn't let me be. I was dying to find out what dealt me all that damage.
    The priest stopped fingering the prayer beads, looked around and then gestured me to follow him:
    "Enter into the temple, my son. This isn't the place to talk of such things."
    There was nothing interesting inside the temple. There was the altar with the depiction of a rather chubby Vlast, whose bleary-eyes gaze stared into empty space, and a couple of benches. That's it. The place was totally Spartan. The priest went behind the altar, took two cups from somewhere and handed me one of them.
    "Vlasts' commandments do not permit one to start a conversation without wine passing one's lips first," the priest said in lofty tones. "I see that there's a reason that you asked me about the night monster," he began as soon as we had drunk a couple of draughts. It was ordinary wine and did not give any stat bonuses — just a 'slightly tipsy' debuff after drinking it. "I can see that this trouble has not passed you by. Yes, there is trouble in our land. People don't like talking about it and everyone's pretending that nothing's happened. You've seen the claw marks on the gates, yes? The Headman had to make up a story, saying that he was the one that scratched them on — just to calm the villagers down. But every seven days the claw marks appear again. It's just as well that the local kids got it into their heads that they are the ones getting up to this, so people stopped worrying. And the fact that every seventh night either a cow or a sheep disappears from the