Jonathan removes his hat as a polite sign when he enters the hut. "May Erastil bless you, grandpa, thank you for your hospitality."
The hunter's gaze moves from one item to the next, examining everything out of sheer curiosity "I hope you don't take no offense, grandpa, but when the others told me of an hermit living out here by himself... I started to worry. I've spent my fair share od time alone in the land, and twas not an easy journey." the hunter says while scratching his left ear "Now I think different, this place... this place evokes in me a sense of safety I long hadn't felt. Not since I was a young'un..."
While Kahurangi felt it a touch odd a cleric of the hunting god was affirming the difficulty of living in the wild instead of the opportunity it granted, he did empathize with the hardships an old man would face. Grandpa, I barely made it through Garund. How do you think he gets by up here? Probably something to do with those potions.
Piggybacking off Annika, Kahurangi elaborated. "Can't have people threatening others at random. Who'd want to live in a place like that? Not me, and this is my new home. Let us help - it'll be better for all of us."
A fan of the open sky, the young shaman still was aware of the threats remote areas posed in their vulnerability to plunder.
The ratfolk's leg, or at least what you see of it before Bokken wraps it up, is clearly sporting some sort of puncture wound on his lower calf. Theo, with a more trained eye, is fairly certain it must have been a crossbow bolt. More importantly though, the wound looks almost diseased; it's possible it was some sort of poison, or simply that the wound became infected before he arrived. "We were out hunting, down south of here. There's wild hogs out here that make for good salted meat, and it'll sell for a fair price at Oleg's or up in Brevoy. We hadn't had any luck and were running low on rations, so we were going to take a few days and head back to the trading post to stock up again. We'd heard about the bandits, so we decided not go through the forest; the plains were faster, and we'd see them coming." Niman groans as he stretches out his leg, wincing as he tentatively stands up off the cot. Bokken just watches and nods, the old man seemingly enraptured by the tale. "I remember heading past some giant old tree. It wasn't alive anymore, I don't think. Erin saw a pack of kobolds and a few seconds later there were bolts flying at us. She was fine, but they hit me in the leg. I lost a lot of blood."
"The girl brought him here," Bokken says, shrugging. "Wound was infected. He had a fever. Delirious. Claims he saw little blue people. No little blue people here." The old man walks out into the main room of his cottage, and begins stirring a mixture with little regard for whoever might not have followed. "He's doing better now."
Jericho smiles at Niman encouragingly, "Niman, Erin was well when we left Oleg's. She was primarily worried about you."
Jericho follows Bokken out to the other room, "Do you know where there might be such a large dead tree as Erin and Niman have described?"
"Good, I'm glad she's okay." Niman lips away back into the cottage, presumably to rest. Out in the larger area, Bokken turns only for a second when Jericho addresses him, then goes back to the table.
"Oh, sure. There's an ancient sycamore tree down south of here, probably where they were. Too close to my brother, I'd think." Bokken just grumbles and continues to stir his potion, grabbing a pinch of the ingredients that had fallen on the table. He tosses it in and coughs when some vapors travel up toward his face. "F*ckin' rat bastard." He raises a bit of the mixture to his lips on a spoon, then nods with satisfaction. "My brother, not the tree. Tree could be too, though."
"Should we be worried about your brother, too?" Marcus asked.
"Observation. Little blue people, this is not the first time we have heard such a claim".
Jericho nods to Creon, "Nor the first we have heard of this large dead tree."
Gallidren frowns, "Kobolds and blue humanoids. We will need to investigate. We encountered kobolds at the moon radish patch. They seemed reasonable - perhaps we can determine what has agitated the kobolds."
He turns to Bokken. "We will also try to find your brother. Is there anything else you can tell us about him?"
"Bah!" Bokken throws his hands into the air, spilling yet more reagents along the floor of the cottage. "He isn't nothin' but a mangy old jackass. I haven't seen him in years, and good riddance. I only know he's down in the south somewhere, and I don't want to have any sort of dealings with 'im if I can help it." After a moment though, he turns around with a sly grin. "If you're goin' down that way though, there is something I could use... there's a thicket of fangberry trees way south of here, and I'm runnin' low. I used to have people head down there on an errand for me, but those damnable bandits have scared people away. Somehow though, I don't think you're too worried about them. What'd'ya say? I'll make it worth your while."
"You want us to bring you the trees? That's a tall order."
Gallidren shakes his head at Kahurangi. "No, he wants us to bring him fangberries. Fangberries grow on tree like bushes. I presume they have some alchemical value."
He turns back to Bokken, "Aye, we'll bring you fangberries, sir. Any we'll see if we can find out what happened to your brother."
He turns to the others. "Unless you have further business with Bokken, we'd best be on our way."
"Yeah, the berries. Unless... no, I'm sure you don't have a way to bring the trees. I need them for my potions and such." When Gallidren mentions his brother again, he scoffs and spits on the floor. "Hell with it! It ain't worth it to try an' drag his wrinkly ass out from wherever he's hidin'. If you happen across him you can give 'im a good kick in the pants, but that's about all he deserves." He turns back to his experiments and begins working, spreading a mixture onto a piece of fabric before giving it a studied look. "Just bring the berries back when you've got 'em, you hear?" Whenever you're ready to leave, it doesn't seem like Bokken will mind.
Gallidren turns to the others. "I suggest we continue our exploration south and east. Part of our charter is to map these regions. We need to be methodical and explore the whole region to lay the ground work for future colonization."
Creon nods at the wisdom of Gallidren's suggestion.
"Seems reasonable then. Shall we get moving then? I think we have supplies to find and monsters to take care of."
Keeping silent and simply listening to the conversation, "Thank you for welcoming us into your home Bokken."
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"Aye, we have work to do and many a task we must complete. Thank you granpa for your words of wisdom, may the Allfather bless your home, guide your arrow and keep your hearthfire warm." says Jonathan as he bows slightly and touches his chest with an open right hand.
The hunter turns to the others "If my memory doesn't fail me Tuskgutter's lair is somewhere to the south, not far from the river... wether we plan on hunting him now or not, we should tread carefully if we are to travel there. A moment we are walking through the land, the next a huge bloodied beast the size of an ogre jumps on us."
"And after that they get a taste of hard, orcish iron," Prophet says, a grin on his face. "Let's not worry too much about the what-ifs and could-bes, huh? Just set a basic plan and stick to it."
He nods at Gallidren. "Never thought I'd say it, but the lulgijak's got the right idea. We're not gonna find everything we can unless we play it smart. One mark at a time."
Watching Prohet, I am starting to think that one is a little off in the mind. Though since he is not alone in there that is to be expected.
Nodding his agreement with Prophet and hearing one of his old teachers berating him in his mind, "Plans rarely survive the first challenge so flexibility is rather important. Picking one problem at a time to contend with while still having at least a rough idea of how to deal with the others would help."
"I defer to the experienced hunters then. I'd rather not get ambushed by a ferocious beast and eaten."
"Let's wait to hunt 'im until we're headed back to Olegs. I don't want to carry a giant severed head with us when we head into other errands." Marcus said, wrinkling his nose.
Heading south from Bokken's hut, the party wanders the plains for quite some time until they come upon what, to most of them, looks like a an ordinary tree upon a hill. However, Gallidren recognizes the outline as they walk past. He pulls out the sheet of paper on which the crude map was drawn and realizes the horizon is nearly identical. Leading the group closer, the trackers amongst their number find boot tracks that lead them to a well-hidden hole in the ground. Buried within and wrapped in a heavy leather cloak is the cache itself, which consists of a finely crafted dagger, a brittle-looking wand made of from the wood of an ash tree, a sterling silver ring, and a spellbook. Examining the spellbook, Gallidren discerns that most of it has been ruined by water, but several spells still remain.
The more eagle-eyes members of the group spot what looks to be a massive tree to their southwest, although whether it is the same tree they're seeking out is difficult to tell.