D&D is For Nerds - Fall from Grace: The Hag #2 Fight in the Woods

Episode Date: January 25, 2020

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Sands Pants Radio, Australia's most family-friendly podcast network. Once, long before Tiffany or Sir Hector were even born, there lived a man named Jordan Grace, or, as he had recently become, Sir Grace. Newly knighted and looking to prove himself, he accepted a quest investigating disappearances in the small town of Sheabrook. Little did he know that this was the first step on what was to become a strange and dangerous life. Welcome to episode two of Fall From Grace, part one, The Hag. Previously, you see a figure standing over you.

You look up into the face of like a dirty looking peasant. Stand up and be like, well, I'm here from on high. I've been informed that there have been disappearances in the village. I don't know really what time it is. You're from the capital? I'm from the capital, yes. Then you're a knight. Recently, there have been

two children who have disappeared. Oh, I'm sorry. If I'm wearing a hat, I take it off. Ansys and Annette. They all look quite clearly distressed and they're petitioning Thudu for advice. Okay. Thudu is slowly going through them.

There's maybe 40 people here. Quite a crowd. Gosh. All 20 arrows are still here. No arrows fired. That's very interesting. I suppose whatever this was came as a shock to Gator.

You clear a lot of wood. The tree almost immediately starts toppling. Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Grant. I don't know my own strength, I guess. Grace, you have just chopped far enough into the tree to cause it to tip over. Thankfully,

neither of you were standing too far in the tree's path it just hits the ground with a tremendous crash i i apologize that's my tree he says maybe with some humor okay i like put a hand in my breast like okay good um well uh i suppose and this is not saying I don't believe you, but I suppose whatever was within the tree has left it now. So it would seem, Grattan says. I write down maybe like a curse, question mark, question mark, in my journal.

I know some of the other woodsmen that I spoke to, or the council have told me that some of the other woodsmen have encountered trees coming to life is this something you've ever come across gratton right and shakes his head no i've not seen any trees come to life okay sure but i have heard tales of trees doing what happened to me right okay well it seems very strange um Okay, well, it seems very strange. Yeah, some of the council told me that the woods had almost come to life. Sorry, what am I trying to say here, Groton?

That there's almost a malevolent presence within the woods. I suppose that's the rumor in the town. Would you agree? Yes, I would absolutely agree with that. The only strange thing you've experienced, though, that the axe swinging back at you yeah yes that's the only thing i've experienced well it's pretty strange and that's fair well thank you grattan do you know if there are um any other are we at like just a section of the forest or is this like his house you're at a section of the forest okay uh are there any other woodsmen that i might be able to chat to, Grattan? People that maybe have seen some of the trees come to life?

Just trying to get an idea of what's going on here. Mm, Grattan thinks to himself, Yes, you might be able to speak to Robert. Robert, sure. He's a halfling. Okay. You'll know him. He's the only halfling in town.

Okay, yeah, for sure. If I could speak to him, if you could point me in his direction i'd love to yeah just trying to get a handle on it gratton gratton takes you back to town and on your way back you hear you can hear something traipsing about through the wood with you okay the the woods here have uh you haven't really noticed it because it was so gradual but over time it feels more and more like the trees the tree canopy has been getting thicker and thicker and thicker until it becomes like shadowy everywhere throughout the forest here even though it's still daytime it's almost as if it were night i'd like to kind of hold if my spear is in my back i pull it out and just keep it in one hand woods are oppressive this um afternoon gratton i suppose gratton nods

yes yes they are as you keep moving you hear something big traipsing through and as you move forward you take a step and you feel instead of solid ground you feel like almost wet marshy bog when your foot hits the ground you look down and you can see that there's a gentle fog beneath you that is wetting the ground oh no i would like to back up because i think this fog is as the spell fog cloud? You don't know much about magic. Yeah. But this fog seems too sudden. Okay.

Too sudden as in like too sudden to be natural. Too sudden to be natural. Yes. Okay. Grattan, get behind me, I say. And I pull my spear out, hold it in two hands and stop. Something big, something very big traipses through the forest what's the biggest animal you've got in these woods grattan and i would love it if you were to say something like a bear that would be what i would like to hear right now grattan whispers behind you ain't

no bears in these parts of the ironwood okay how far away are we from town? If you were to walk, you're half an hour from town. If you were to sprint, you were maybe half that. I turned to Grattan. How do you feel about running? Grattan says, I would, yes. No shame in it. No shame in it.

Grattan sprints. Are you following? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. No? No. Okay. You stand your ground?

Yeah. I've been sent here to deal with a problem. If this is the problem, I got to deal with it. Through the trees, you can see a giant dark shape loping. The dark shape, there's like a noise emanating from it at first you're not sure what it is it's like being carried by the wind towards you yeah and then when it gets a little bit closer you can hear it mama's house. Mama's got the food for me. Show yourself.

The voice stops and so does the loping dark figure through the woods. Come on. Show yourself. It turns around and you can see that it stands up a little bit more. Mama It turns around and you can see that it stands up a little bit more.

Mama said to kill. Right. Okay. A tree is nearly torn out of the ground as the figure emerges into the light before you. Okay. Oh, no. Standing before you at twice the size of a normal man, wearing pants and boots and a simple vest, you stare into the face of a hairy, awful, ogre-like creature. You're not sure what it is, but whatever

it is, it's big, it's green-skinned, but it's not an orc. In one of its hands, it holds a giant axe, which you realize after your brain needs to have like a mental tick to realize that it is in fact a two-handed giant dwarven double axe. But this creature wields it as if it were a simple hand axe. Mama says to kill. We're going to go to initiative. Okay. Oh no. I did not realize it was going to be Sir Grace in Dark Souls.

I'm going to be doing a lot of rolling around right now. It moves quick, faster than you had anticipated, Sir Grace. It swings its axe at you and catches you dead center in your chest. Thankfully, it is only using one hand. You take 12 points of damage. Oh my god. You don't know if you could handle that again, Sir Grace. It's your turn.

Hmm. Hmm. God damn it. Not being a big enough fighter to be able to just like... Because what I want to do now is I want to incapacitate him and run. That's my plan. Fair call.

Can I, with my spear, maybe I try to swipe at one of his legs and then action surge and leg it in the other direction. All right. Sprint. You swipe at his leg, drawing a bloody line upon it. You deal him 10 points of damage and he howls in rage. Ma, ma said to kill. You turn around and dash in the opposite direction.

As you dash away, he swings and you feel his battle axe just miss you. Then it's his turn i assume he runs quicker than me being that he is huge he's big but he's he's kind of clumsy yeah that's true that he needs to bustle past trees to move at the same speed as you and that kind of slows you down a little bit okay all right okay okay he starts gaining on you nonetheless though because the trees here are sparse are you just gonna keep sprinting yeah absolutely you leap through two narrow trees hoping that when he catches up behind you his axe will hit one of them and sure enough his axe embeds itself in one of the trees you hear a terrific cracking sound as he tries to wrestle his axe out of it but instead he just lets go and keeps going okay he can't he buried it so deep in the tree that he can't get it

come back food i'm not saying anything just staring wild-eyed over my shoulder you start gaining oh actually i guess you don't know how good you're going then you trip and stumble you hit some mud and slide down a hill you collide with what feels like every rock on your way down. You hear something big and great rolling down the same hill. Oh, no. It feels like he hits and breaks every rock going down. Okay, I will get to my feet and keep running. Is there anywhere denser where the woods are denser? Is there anywhere within my immediate vision that I think I could possibly lose him in?

Yeah, you can see some dense clumps of trees to your right. You turn right and start heading north instead of west towards the town. You hit those very dense clumps of trees, and it becomes difficult for you to move as well, but it becomes almost impossible for the creature to move. The creature slams into a line of trees with a lot of bodily effort. And while you're not looking at him, you can see the reverberation as other trees get knocked in a domino effect. But Ironwood is sturdy and none of the trees buckle. You can hear him falling behind you calling out come back food

eventually you lose him okay i'd like to stop by a log maybe do a little surreptitious vomit from running for so long and slump down onto my ass i pull out my journal and i'm gonna try and draw it as accurately as I can. Just that when I can go back to town, I can show anybody and see if they've seen anything similar. You don't do a great job because you're panicked. I'm not an artist as well. You're not an artist and you're kind of panicked. But the drawing is definitely of what you saw.

It's just not very accurate. Sure, sure, sure sure sure sure okay after maybe an hour i'd like to begin gently kind of sneaking my way back to west towards town i'm gonna have to make you make a survival roll no you're fine okay good the you kind of always knew which direction the town was so you just head in roughly the right cardinal direction, and eventually the town, it's large enough that you see it through the trees. Okay. You return to town.

Grattan Wood is there, and so are a large assembled group of Cownsfolk. Oh, I'm so glad you got out, Grattan. It looks like they took up arms and were ready to go into the forest after you. I think it's, as I, like, leave the forest blood-dried, I guess, on my front. It's, wherever it is, it's not an immediate threat. I would say, pushing through the crowd, you see Birkinth and Willian. Willian says, a drink, a drink, please drink a drink please yeah yeah yeah they take you to the broken hammer you have a deep drink you have a deep draft of a stout slam um i i pull out my

dainty slipper notebook and slam it on the table open open to the page with the creature. That's the being that followed me. It was singing a song talking about a mother. Mother said, mother said. Well, he kept saying mother said to kill. William snaps his fingers. Robert, get Robert. He has the most books in town. Hell yeah.

That rolls. Robert the Halfling is brought before you. Fantastic. He has short golden hair and soft blue eyes. However, Sir Grace, you can see that behind those blue eyes... No one knows

what it's like. You can see that behind those blue eyes there's a cruel intelligence okay everyone else in town that you've met has seemed worried or panicked or concerned for someone or something or themselves robert you can tell us the sort of person who is going to look at this situation and see how he can make a buck okay cool cool he is dressed quite nicely he wears tailored clothing he is the nicest dressed person you've seen since william and you can see that he has almost it feels like there's some something going on here between

them because william has a pet fox that follows him everywhere and robert has a fox fur cape. Robert has in his arms bundles of books that he dumps on the table. I was told to come here and bring all my books. I appreciate it, Robert. We're trying to find... You would be the knight then. Sir Grace, I've heard. Sir Jordan Grace, it's a pleasure.

Robert, I didn't catch your surname. He is the first person who you have met who does not bow. Oh, all right. Oh, hey, look. Can't expect everyone to bow. Sorry, what did you say? What's your surname this, Robert? I don't have one.

I'm not fancy. Oh, that's fine. Cool. So we're trying to find... I open up my journal. This is the creature that was chasing me. I heard you had the most books in town. He flips through one of his books until finally he comes upon a page that has all of the book.

It's got a title called Emmanuel of Monsters. Edition one. All of the pages have illustrations of the different monsters featured in the book and he flips finally to a page with a monster that looks shockingly similar to yours except maybe it's wearing different clothing yeah sure the illustration denotes it as ogre slash half half ogre see. It would appear that the creature that you fought is either a half or full-blooded ogre. How

big would you say it was? Wow. Twice the size of maybe something like 12 foot, maybe 10 foot, something like that. We're talking quite large. Hard to say then. Yeah. Did it have hair? Did it? It did. It was very hairy. Yeah, it was quite hairy. It had hair like a man's then. Yeah. Did it have hair? Did it? It did. It was very hairy.

Yeah, it was quite hairy. It had hair like a man's beard. Yeah, yeah. Facial hair, hair on its head, hairy arms, yeah. That would indicate probably half ogre then. Okay. It's not as bad, but it's not good either. The union between a person and an ogre presumably results in?

Not necessarily a person, just muddying of the ogre blood. Oh, okay. If an ogre, I suppose, mates with a lesser creature of many different types, possibly another giant, it could create a half-ogre. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. In any case, they're sometimes referred to as Ogryllion.

Ogryllion? Ogryllon, sorry. Ogryllon. There's only one eye. An ogre can mate with a human, a hobgoblin, a bugbear, or maybe even an orc. It was green-skinned. Might have been an orc then. Okay, I write orc down in my journal.

Are there any orcs in town? No, there are no orcs in town. Okay, I know that might seem a strange question, possibly. I just thought I'd ask. William shakes his head. No, of course, it's a natural question. Yeah, sure. Where is the nearest...

Do I know that within the kind of surrounding areas, are orcish settlements common? Or is it kind of like quite a rarity? You'd have to get a lot further out. You would not find Orcish settlements in Kandor unless there were some sort of raiding body. Yeah, cool, cool, cool, cool. Okay, okay.

How recently, within how many years, has all of this been going on? It would appear... Oh, what going on? Since the first disappearance. Since the first interaction in the woods. Birkinth answers that question. Should have asked this earlier.

It's been... The first disappearance was about a week ago. Okay. The first time anyone noticed hostility from the forest, though, would have been maybe a month. Can I, I guess I don't get like a constant update of what's happening in Kandor, but do I remember like the last time there was an Orcish raiding party

where it was an issue where even like the knight that trained me or one of the other knights of Kandor was like, oh, I've got to go check this out. It's pretty constantly happening. Yeah, okay. Like large groups, big, almost, almost, almost armies are rare and kind of a big event when they happen. But it's a very common thing for orcs to not get together and raid,

but for orcish raiding parties to occur somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of one of those things. It's a constant thing that's happening. It'd be hard to pinpoint. It'd be hard to cross-reference these two events. Okay, sure. Well, thank you very much.

I wish I'd been able to vanquish it, but it kind of snuck up on me. Thanks for your help there, Robert. I was chatting to Grattanon he said that you'd encountered one of the trees coming to life the halfling gives you a almost sarcastic no pitying look oh robert says there are no trees alive in these woods okay people like to say so and the woodsman especially they've always liked to say these sorts of things i have had to field many questions about living trees all i did was tell them that they exist not that i've seen

them not that they're here okay sure can i in that emmanuel of monsters is there a page for these living trees? Yes. He flips over to a treant. Cool. I give it a peep. Emmanuel of most dears. It is me, Emmanuel. So if it is a treant, you're in trouble. Because this is something that you cannot deal with. That's great if that's the accompanying paragraph.

Well, it would describe treants as being creatures of might describe them yeah as creatures of siege oh so a treant is something that the damage that a tree and can wreck especially on a city equivalents to a siege weapon so it's not the sort of thing you want to fight okay you you it says in the book that they are vulnerable to fire which is presumably a good thing that it would have a weakness however a bludgeoning or piercing weapon oh as the book would describe weapons that doth weapons that doth deal their damages upon thine with club or point? You know club is spelt with two Bs and an A as well.

Club. Or point. Do not have much effect upon the treant's hardened skin. Okay. A treant can appear as though it is a regular tree, though once on the move, they may, as they wish, create themselves in other trees. Do I, I'd like to flip back to the ogre, half ogre page.

Does it say anything about them casting spells? Half ogre? No, they're not intelligent enough to cast spells. A treant cannot cast spells either, though it is only because they have no connect. In the book, it would describe them as having no-eth connection with the weave of magic. Does it say anywhere?

I would say, however, that treants are typically, while treants have no love of cities, they are not evil creatures. Okay. say the opposite so i would describe them as good creatures it would describe them as protectors of forests okay do i think from reading this that if it was a tree and any woodsman that claimed that they encountered one would be dead instead of coming back to tell the story yeah oh my god yes a tree and well they are actually no they are quite slow to move,

but they have quite a range. They're big. They're huge. A treant, if a treant was in these woods, you would see it above the other trees moving. Okay. Well, I don't want to discredit the woodsman's stories, but unless they were very quick,

I just feel like the treant might have, I'll still chat to them about it if I get a chance. Okay. What would you like to do now? Well, thank you very much, Robert. I'd like to pay him for his time. Just a gold. All right.

He accepts that. Yeah. I'd like to... I appreciate you lending us your books. Would I be able to hold on to... If you want... Yeah, no. A manual of monsters?

If you don't ask for a manual of monsters, someone will ask for you. So, yeah, you can add a manual of monsters to your book, to your equipment. In fact, I ask him how much to purchase the book from you. 25 gold. Do you have that? You have 25 gold exactly on you. I hand it over.

All right. Thank you. Manual of monsters. Well, it's not like I'm paying for food and board, so I might as well. Thank you. Emmanuel of Monsters. Well, it's not like I'm paying for food and board, so I might as well. All right. Well, thank you, everybody. I was going to go investigate the area of Gita's death.

So if Mally, you would like to accompany me. Mally nods. I'll help. Well, you have to go grab Mally. I go grab Mally and I go get Thuddu and we head for the place. You and Mally head out to head out, I would say

it would be north. Cool. Is Thuddu coming with us? Oh, yeah. You'd have to wait until the end of the day. Oh, that's right. We've got to wait until 6pm. Well, you can take a long rest. Whatever. Yeah, maybe I will. I have been injured. You take a long rest. You get basically everything back and you can recover

1d10 plus your con or 2d10 plus your con. Let's go 1d10 plus my con. Alright. You recover Oh, good. 3 hit points. Why does this keep happening to me? I don't know that's a shame well you've got you could just use a second long rest uh yeah why not i might as well we're waiting till 6 p.m maybe i'll just i'll just be spending this time in my room in the inn just like collating um all of my information into kind of like something neat that i can follow.

You recover another five hit points, so you're on 20 total. That's alright, I'll take that. Okay. Then, at about six, you, Mally, and Thudu leave northwards. It's getting dark already. Do we have like lanterns or at least torches? Well, I don't know if you have a torch, but

they both have lanterns. No, actually, Thudu has a lantern. I mean, Mally has a lantern, and Thudu has her dark vision. Yeah, I do not have a lantern. Oh, no, I do have a torch. Well, you light a torch, and Thudu, dark vision, you a torch, and Mally has a lantern. Cool. All right, so you head out northwards.

And Mally has a lantern. Cool. All right. So you head out northwards. After maybe 20 minutes of walking, Mally points off to the west and says, if we head in that direction, we can find where the two children played. Oh, okay. If you're curious.

I would like to visit that eventually, yeah, if that would be okay. But first of all, let's check out this. And that also maybe is the kind of thing that I should do during the day. I feel like it's just going to be more dangerous at night, maybe? Nah, that makes sense. Okay, well, yeah, let's go and have a look at where Gita died. You come to a copse of several dead trees. Hmm, that's interesting. I don't know. This is where we found the body. I don't suppose you know if these trees were dead to begin with? They were is where we found the body. I don't suppose you know if these trees were dead to begin with? They were dead when we collected the body.

Okay. Can I go and have a look at the dead trees? Give them an investigate, like a once-over? You're fairly certain that the dead trees are coincidental. Oh, okay. Cool. All right. Well, trees do just die, I guess.

Yeah. I've just maybe scouted the area, like shining my torch. Oh, you get a good boy card as well. Oh, fabulous. Sorry, you rolled a die, I guess. Yeah. I've just maybe scout the area, like shining my torch. Oh, you get a good boy card as well. Oh, fabulous. Sorry, you rolled a 20 on that one. I forgot. Shining my torch on like where the body might have lain. Checking, even though I know that she didn't fire any arrows,

maybe checking the tree. He, sorry. Just checking the trees for like any arrow marks, anything like that. Okay. Checking for like, I don't know, just marks the trees for like any arrow marks anything like that okay um uh checking for like i don't know just marks on trees possibly hair caught on trees if it was the half ogre that did this okay a general search of the area reveals that you can see soft footprints where our gita was walking you can tell that it's gita's boot specifically. Then the tracks stop being that of a stalker and start being casual. Gita stood up and just started walking.

Then the tracks stop suddenly and a little bit away from just like maybe a meter or maybe three feet from where Gita's tracks stop, you can see a deep impression where they found Gita's body. Additionally, in the area, you see no obvious large tracks of the half ogre. Okay. You don't see any evidence of the half ogre. Okay. You don't see any evidence of the half ogre.

You do see another set of tracks, but those tracks seem very strange to you. Sure. They're hodgepodge. So different foot sizes at different points. Oh, that's strange. Never as big as the half ogre. Only ever like a medium size, like a humanoid human sized creature. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But they get a little bit bigger and smaller at certain points. Additionally, you find near the deep impression where they found the body, you find a coin, a single coin. All right, I bend down and I pick it up. The coin is made out of iron okay immediately on one side bears a just a just like a soft or or nothing yeah it's just faceless on one side and on the other side you can see the head of a wolf. It's a very bad impression of a head of a wolf. Does it look like a very old coin? You can't tell.

If I hold it and shine the torch on it, does it look? It's very muddy, unfortunately. Can I spit in my hand and try and clean it a little bit? Or spit on the coin and try and clean it a little bit? Spitting on your hand, you try to polish the coin. Yeah. And it polishes such that it looks a little new maybe oh okay hmm i i flick it grab it my hand flick it grab my hand walk over to the

to thudu and mally and i'm like does this do you recognize this coin at all both of them shake their heads it's not currency none that i know of that's very strange um i guess i pocket it to look at at a later date you have the strange tracks you have uh gita's tracks you have the impression yeah and the coin you could yeah and the coin oh i mean sorry these are things that you have not really this is what i was telling you the area i was saying just like what you see but these are this is not not what i've specifically gone and investigated. Yeah, imagine it's the corpse again. You can investigate them now further.

All right. I will have a look at, okay, so maybe I'll talk it through. I'll ask. Would it be okay if I sort of voiced my thought process out loud? Who do not? Of course. Okay. So initially, I guess I was thinking that the trauma to the chest of Gita might have been from, I don't know, say, the swinging fists of the half-ogre.

But I can't see any of the half-ogre's tracks here. And a half-ogre doesn't cast magic, which I don't know about you guys, but I feel like that leads me to think that there's someone else here. Nally nods. That makes sense. But who? Could it possibly be this mother that the ogre was talking about? I go in and I investigate the strange tracks,

the one that change and shift in size. Now that you're looking at them closely, you can see that there's a consistency almost. The tracks are one shape at one point and then become another shape off as they walk they slowly morph into another shape does it morph into another sort of humanoid footprints two different sets of humanoid footprints does uh i turn around does gita have a partner or family in town m Mally says Gida had no family.

He was searching. He had come to this town searching for a sorcerer that had murdered his family. I see. So there was nobody that Gida, I don't know, trusted? Or was a close confidant of? No, Gida's entire family were wiped out by a sorcerer that's why gita was here gita uh believed a while ago that he could find a lead here but it proved to be a dead end and gita just kind of i guess gave up on it sure sure just sort of moved on i guess um

the only reason i bring it up is that i see the footprints change and i thought maybe if there was someone gita trusted because he he never seemed he seemed so casual when he was walking towards whatever i assume inevitably killed him but but the only person that that it could have but even i suppose just someone in town you know gita wouldn't have run from them. Gita might have recognized someone from town. Yeah, the footprints just don't change. All right, I'll investigate where Gita lay.

You can see that it has soaked out for the most part, but there was a lot of gore here. There was a lot of gore. Does it look just like Gita's, or does it look like there could be somebody else just eaters okay you can see as well that gita left the ground for a moment it wasn't a jump because you can see that gita kind of dropped as if not dropped as if a jump dropped as if dropped yeah okay for sure for sure So Gita was standing at one point, got picked up,

and then got dropped dead, or as he was found. I feel like, and I don't want to make any claims before I know, but I feel like magic has got to be involved here. I mean, I guess I already know magic is involved here, but I feel like magic maybe is what killed Gita. Around the depression, you can see, and kind of everywhere involved here, but I feel like magic maybe is what killed Gita. Around the depression, you can see, and kind of everywhere around here, you can see the impression

of residue, the same residue that you found on Gita's boots. Okay. The fog cloud residue. So, let's walk through this. Gita is coming through the forest, possibly hunting, although Gita wasn't a hunter, were they? No. Well, okay, let's

speculate on this, maybe. Gita believes that what's happening in the forest is maybe this sorcerer come back. Gita thinks, well, I'll go and investigate. He walks into the forest, but then, instead of seeing what he thinks is going to be his enemy,

he just sees someone he knows. He walks toward them. Fog cloud, perhaps levitated by a spell, dropped dead. But then at what point does Geeta's chest get impacted? Hmm. I jot it all down in my journal. Was there anywhere else for me to look? Properly investigate the coin or have I done that?

There's not much more to clean out of it. You've kind of had a look at the coin, yeah. Okay i jotted all down in my journal well i just don't know what else i can glean from this right now unless you guys have any ideas mali shakes her head she wanders over as well the thudu hasn't really been properly looking yeah or anything like that thudu is there mostly for muscle well yeah for muscle and also if you need to ask questions sure do is smart but doesn't doesn't understand how to search yeah clues of course mally understands a little bit more and so she's moving about the scene looking at various things she mostly just comes to the same conclusion you do as she walks past the shifting tracks yeah she maybe experimentally

gets really close and puts her boots on either side of it and then like leans down and peers at the tracks and she makes no comment because she probably just doesn't see it but you grace notice that her boots are an exact match for the shifted boots. Mally, stay where you are. I go over and I squat down and I'm like, I mean, okay, are your shoes... Obviously, there's no like, it's not like you can get Nike's. There's no mass production. The shoes would be specifically made for Mally.

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Death Star. When did you say that, um that Gita, when did you find the body? How recently? Gita would have been, Gita's the most recent one. Gita was two days ago. Two days ago. Where were you, and I'm not casting aspersions,

but where were you two days ago, Mally? Mally says I was in town. I was at the guild hall. Many people will vouch for me. I'm sure. It's just that I noticed, and I'm sure you see too, that your shoes are an exact match. These are the shoes after the change or before?

After the change. What was your relationship like with Gita? Friends or at least acquaintances? We were friends, yes. I helped him a little bit in searching for the wizard. Sorcerer, sorry. Yeah, for sure. Perhaps Gita thinks that it's you coming out of the fog.

And so walks towards you. Unafraid. Maybe. When in fact it was something else. I jot that down in my journal. Actually. Now that you mention it. Yes.

Gita did act strange. Like a day before. I didn't think anything of it. Until you've mentioned that our boots are a sure but yes gita said that i was just chatting with him in passing and he said that he said that things had he liked the way that things were changing. And I said that was very strange because of the forests and such. Sure. And he said, he gave me a wink and said it was just like old times. I'd like to pull from, I assume, my coin purse,

my very empty coin purse, out the wolf coin and just kind of casually inspect it and be like, did Gita's personality change at all? He seemed more energetic. He lost a lot of his heart when he gave up on the search for the sorcerer. How long ago was that? Years. Okay.

Okay. I put the coin back in my satchel, my coin purse. Right. Well, unless there's anything else we can glean from here, I think it's probably best to get out of these woods and head back to the tavern for the night. And then in the morning, I'll go and investigate where the children went missing. If you'd like to accompany me on that journey as well, I'd appreciate the help.

You head back to town? You get there without any incident. Cool. Well, I'll head for the tavern and if anybody's having dinner or whatever, like any... It's a meeting night tonight. Oh, great, that's right. Yeah, well, I'll head in and I'll sit in on the meeting uh the meeting the meeting is kind of well it's in it rather than being in the tavern it's in the guild hall it's an ornate stone walled building so it has a wall to it and it's decorated with brightly dyed flags and banners and such like that it contains one large meeting hall big enough for anyone who lives within the center of town, big enough for everyone there.

So maybe a hundred people it could seat. And it has several smaller rooms. A lot of the trade guilds that work throughout the town have an office here, basically. Okay, sure, sure. In the big meeting room, all of the chairs have been cleared away and one big table sits there all four of the town councillors sit at the table

and they just and you obviously there's also a chair laid out for you they sit there they eat meals they drink and over food and drink they just chat about the town that's the kind of meeting yep that i like i sit there and i don't i don't ever like get involved in the conversation unless i'm like spoken to well the conversation is probably pretty heavily about what you've been doing well that's fair well then then if if they ask me to speak i give as much of a like a statement as i can be like well um yeah as to that i'm not i'm getting closer with, uh, every investigation I undertake so far.

I think we can confirm that somewhere in the woods, there is at least a half ogre or something that looks like a half ogre that is probably some in some way responsible for what's been going down. But I believe also that there is at least a second party as well. Someone who can cast spells um uh possibly change their shape uh i wouldn't be is it just us like if i start being like not don't trust your neighbors but like if i'm like they can shape change and may take the appearance of someone you trust is that going to cause panic amongst the town so well not among the counselors yeah the counselors are probably made of sterner stuff and are smart

enough not to panic people but if you were to just tell the townsfolk that it would cause a panic okay well i don't i say look uh yeah uh whoever this is is quite sneaky um and and using a lot of tricks that maybe we're not so great at handling, but hopefully within at least the next two or three days, I'll be able to come to some conclusion and I, working as the capital, will be able to solve your problem. Birkinth says,

I just thank the gods that you're here. I smile and I say, I just smile. Yeah. Then I sit down and let them have whatever other discussion they need to have. Once the conversation about the creature troubling the town has died down, there's just like a couple of disputes or issues between guilds get brought up and the council vote a couple of times on things. between guilds get brought up and the council vote a couple of times on things.

Once, maybe, there's a stalemate where two councillors vote on the... There's like a tie. Yeah, for sure. And when a stalemate happens, whoever can down their tankard the fastest wins. This town rolls. What sinister force still lurks in the forest?

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