"I found another one!" yelled Fimu.

She was standing on a "mountain" of broken rocks, roughly 20 feet tall, looking out over the broken plain around them. She was pointing to a circle of vultures. "I can't say for certain, but with as many as we've found, I bet it's another party."

Figtle ran stubby fingers through his thick, coarse beard. Of course it would be. And so far that made seven they'd found and that was way too strange to be normal.

It's started yesterday afternoon- they'd stumbled upon vultures and wild dogs tearing apart a kill. But it wasn't some unfortunate beast they'd slaughtered and were eating. It'd been a party of five adventurers, the poor bastards. Two half elven males, a half elf female, a dead dwarf, and a gnome, all mostly torn to pieces and eaten.  Figtle and Ficle had talked it over whil examining the corpses. There wasn't much left to determine if it had been foul play or bad luck that had done them in but they'd all pitched in and buried what was left. It had thrown a pall over the evening, but that wasn't the worst- before the sun started to fall in earnest and they'd been looking for a campsite, they found another bunch.

Another five adventurers, same as the last. Two half elf males, a half elf female, a dwarf and a gnome. Cause of death was unknown but cause of making a nasty mess of their remains was obvious- Figtle and the rest had angrily killed a band of wild boars that had been messily and noisily eating the corpses.

It had been Fimu that had brought up what they'd all been thinking- She and her two brothers were half-elven, Figtle was dwarven and Thiffling was a gnome. Coming across one party of such odd makeup was odd, but twice was too strange to be a coincidence. What and who had killed them all?

Throughout the rest of the next day they'd discovered another five sites of dead adventurers- each of them containing two dead and partially consumed half elf males, a dead and half eaten half elf female, and a dwarf and gnome, both dead and mostly eaten. They understood the half-eaten state- the wilds around the city of New Phlan were untamed at best and filled to the brim with meat eating beasts. Anything dead and made of meat would be torn apart and devoured if left unguarded. But for each party to made up of the same types and numbers as their own bunch...

"If we didn't have to find those damned nomads I'd say we head back to Phlan," said Ficle, next to Figtle and looking just as worried. "This is all wrong."

Figtle agreed with Ficle, whom he was finding to be a very smart man under his half-elven foolishness. It was badly wrong.