Lord Duristan matches Zelda's excitement for pork. "Indeed! It has been a few moons since I've had roasted pig on a spit. We shall need quite the pole to mount such a beast as this though!"
"You may make use of my cart, good sir," he motions to Fulk, and snaps his fingers for his servants to assist. The unenthusiastic servants nonetheless begin to walk over to help Fulk.
Before they reach him however, the extraordinarily muscular Fulk manages to begin dragging the massive beast's impossibly heavy carcass on his own towards the cart.
"By the gods!" Lord Duristan exclaims. Some of the servants gawk in wide-eyed amazement at what would take several strong humans. Even Delgros nods approvingly at the great feat.
All six servants must help to lift the ton of dead weight into the cart however. Sookie steps forward as well to assist. Though the cart sinks and strains under the great weight, it does not collapse.
The pack horse whinnies. It does not look happy. At all.
...
As the boar is loaded into the cart, Christoph now approaches the stag carcass.
Kneeling down, he inspects its wounds carefully for a long moment. Eventually, he announces his findings.
"There are tooth marks and tusk slashes here," he points to one of the wounds, then another, "and here. From the boars, I'd say."
Lord Duristan's eyes glaze over, the excitement of finding a werewolf beginning to wane...
"But here," Christoph continues, pointing to a bunch of bite marks and lacerations on the stag's neck, "These are canine bite marks and lacerations. This is what killed it."
Lord Duristan's eyes are rekindled with thoughts.
"Werewolf!" he declares. "It must be!"
Christoph chimes in, "the canines are large, but it could also be a dire wolf..."
"WEREWOLF!" Duristan is entirely convinced now.
Excited with the prospect of another kill, Lord Duristan quickly decides, "I shall wait out the night in the woods in the hope of
catching the werewolves!"
Delgros chimes in now. "Duristan... your plan is a fool’s errand. You're... serious?"
"Entirely! he enthusiastically responds.
Delgros sighs and shakes his head. "Look, I did what I promised. I'm heading back to the lodge, before night falls. You want to stay out here all night, you do you."
"Very well." Lord Duristan looks annoyed at Delgros, but accepts his wish.
He turns his attention to the companions now. Especially Fulk, who looks like someone you want to have around to wrestle with a werewolf or two. "I do hope you will stay with me? I promise you, this shall be a hunt like no other!"
Delgros looks around at the companions to see what they want to do before taking off back to the lodge.
Fulk turns away from the Lord and casts a pair of spells, The first is Prestidigitation, to clean the blood and whatnot from himself. The second, cast when he is turned fully from the foolish lordling, is Message.
"What do you think?"
"Agreed, the danger to the surrounding populace is too much to ignore." Rhia adds.
"Obviously, there's danger here," Sookie whispers to her companions, eyeballing the very large boar carcass on the cart.
"I don't trust Lord Leaps-Before-He-Looks to know what he's bloody talking about though, to be perfectly honest."
She sighs. Looking at Rhia, she whispers her conclusion to her companions, "But if we stay, I'm with you."
Christoph nods in agreement with Sookie, one side of his mouth creasing upwards in slight glee at her characterization of the lord.
He whispers, "True. And we're also in the dark about the local situation. We don't know much about these parts. Or what we might be getting involved in."
He then whispers a counterpoint. "Yet, it could be a werewolf. And that would be bad."
"I'm in."
"After all, it's what we do." Rhia says with a small shrug and a bit of a smile, giving Sookie a look.
Fulk nods thoughtfully as the others make their points, then turns to the overconfident noble. "Very well. We will hunt."
An excited Lord Duristan loudly claps his hands once.
"I KNEW it! You handled yourselves quite well against the boars, I just knew you must be real adventurers. And real adventurers can't resist a magnificent hunt such as this!"
"Good luck," Delgros wishes the group with a shrug. He rides back to the lodge.
As Delgros departs, the nobleman gets right down to business making recommendations.
"Let us setup a central camp here, lay baited traps about the perimeter, and wait for the wolves to come to them."
Without waiting for any replies, Lord Duristan snaps his servants to attention. He splits his hirelings into three pairs, instructing them to "Bait the perimeter, and keep watch."
The dutiful hirelings walk to the laden cart. From the crates upon it, they pull out several silvered, toothed wolf traps and hunks of raw meat. Two pairs of the servants head out in opposite directions into the woods. The third pair remains behind, clearing a place and setting up a small camp.
With a hand gesture from their lord, one of the remaining hirelings sets up a small portable table. The other brings a bottle and several crystal snifters. He hands the bottle to the nobleman and rests the sifters upon the table.
Lord Duristan pours each of you a snifter of a rather exquisite Ustalavic brandy.
"Now. While we wait, please do tell me of your adventurous exploits!"
Lord Duristan listens eagerly and attentively.