”Ah yes, old Henry. Glad to hear he’s still kicking. He’ll talk your ear off, that one,” the sheriff replies.
At the guild hall, Wolfgang comes to in his chair by the fire. ”A what? Talking fox? You haven’t been drinking the dragon’s breath, have you? No matter, all sorts of strange creatures out there, I suppose. Now, a map? Capital idea. Don’t have any. But let me get some paper and I can at least sketch you out the highlights.”
Wolfgang creaks his way out of his chair. Once he’s up, Felix can see that the guild master has left a distinct impression in the seat cushion. He sketches a rough rectangle of the map and indicates the town, the main road, the old road leading west to the iron mines that were overrun by goblins. He indicates Baba Yaga’ shut somewhere in the northwest corner of the valley, Erasmus’ house in the northeast, Spielberg Lake and the Flying Falls in the southeast, and Erana’s Peace in the middle of the north wall, though he puts a question mark by it.
”Erana’s Peace is a funny one…I think it moves, though how an entire meadow with rune stone and magic tree can move, I don’t know, but I’ve been there a dozen times, and I’m positive I was never in the same place twice, and other times I’ve gone looking for it and not found it. It’s almost as if you can only find it if you need to go there, but if you’re just in the area and want to go there, you can’t find it.”
"Wow, thanks Wolfgang. This is really helpful."
Felix also marks the good campsite he found on the south side of the valley on the map.
"Say, ever heard of a spirea plant or where I can find one?"
”Spirea? Not a clue. Old lady Reimstadt next door might know about plants if you can wake her up. Some people will just sleep through the whole day if you let them.”
"I'll have to see if I can get ahold of her, then. Thanks, Wolfgang!"
Felix goes to the Reimstadt residence and knocks on the door.
No need. The old lady is rocking away on her porch, fast asleep. A short-haired black and white cat lies on the railing, watching Felix approach.
Felix will stop just shy of stepping on her porch and call out to her in increasing volume until the hopefully wakes up.
"Hello...
"Hello!
"HELLO!
The old lady gives a start, waking up, and looking around. After a moment, she spots Felix, puts on the thick spectacles that hang around her neck and waves him up. ”Well, good afternoon, young man. Would you like a caramel?” She reaches into her sewing basket by her feet and extracts a rattling tin.
"Ooh, yes please!"
Carwel waits patiently for a caramel. If he gets one, he enjoys it thoroughly and is very thankful towards the old lady.
After he's properly enjoyed it and thanked her, he gets down to business.
"Ma'am, I'm told that you might be able to tell me more about the spirea plant. Specifically, where to find one and what one looks like. Any other information that you might think be helpful would also be appreciated."
He does get a caramel (plus the old lady pops one in her mouth too).
”Spirea? Why I have one right there in my little front garden. Doesn’t have any leaves yet, or flowers of course. Are you interested in gardening?”
”Spirea? Why I have one right there in my little front garden. Doesn’t have any leaves yet, or flowers of course. Are you interested in gardening?”
Felix stands up straighter.
"No, ma'am. I'm an adventurer! And I'm on a quest! A quest to find a magical 'spore-spitting spirea' plant. But even if I knew what a non-magical version looked like, that would be helpful."
”Ooh, how interesting! My spirea is over there. Have as close of a look as you like!”
Felix sees a fairly uninteresting bush, just starting to come into leaf.
Felix examines the bush until he's fairly certain he could recognize it in the wild. After he's satisfied, he thanks Ms. Reimstadt for her assistance.
Next he moves on to the dry good store to buy a few sacks to collect the various things people have wanted him to collect. (He had had to use a blanket as a make-shift sack to bring Amelia Appleberry's magic mushrooms back.) If he sees the centaur at the produce stand, he'll go over and say hello.
The centaur lass is indeed at her stand, as is another centaur, who is older and clearly her father. The two of them are packing up produce but stop as Felix approaches.
"Hello! I've met most of the other folks in town, but I haven't had a chance to meet you, yet! My name is Felix Riffin. I'm an adventurer!"
Felix looks over the wares that they still have out.
"Good evening, young adventurer, I am Heinrich Pfeferdern, and this is my daughter Hilde," papa centaur replies. "If there's something you wish to purchase, we'd be happy to help, but if it's just to chat, perhaps another time, as we need to pack up and get back to the farm before dark."
There isn't much, given the early season, and everything looks like its spent a good amount of time in a root cellar. There are shriveled carrots and turnips, beets potatoes, as well as a barrel of wrinkled apples. Another barrel is filled with oats suitable for horses and other feed. Their prices, given the condition of the produce, are fair and reasonable.
"Another time, then. I've met most of the other people in town, so I just thought I'd say hello."
After the past few nights of interrupted sleep, Felix decides to have a night's rest at the inn before heading out in the morning. He decides to head north, past the castle to explore and maybe search for this magical spirea plant.
When Felix awakens the next morning and is breaking his fast with Shema’s delicious food, the Sheriff enters and comes to his table.
”Good morning. It might be time to find out just what kind of hero you can be, lad. Word has just come from the castle. It appears that we have a frost giant in the Valley, who attacked the baron’s men early this morning.”
"A frost giant!? What happened? Where?"
As the Sheriff explains, Felix wolfs down the rest of his breakfast and his coffee.
”Message just said that a frost giant attacked the castle wall, was repelled and left, and to keep an eye out in case it tries to attack the town. Karl at the castle gates could tell you more.”
Assuming that’s what Felix does, he arrives at a much better defended castle this time, with several guards stationed along the walls at regular intervals (though still too few to properly defend even this small of a castle). Karl waves down at him. ”Ho, there! Hero friend! Have you come to join the giant hunt?”
"There's a giant hunt?! HECK YES, I'm here to join the giant hunt! When do we start!?"
”I’ll open the gate. You can speak with the captain inside.”
Karl steps over to a winch and cranks up the portcullis. Inside the courtyard, the splendour of the castle is equally faded as outside. A barracks is built into the wall on your left, a stables on your right, and the keep itself is straight ahead, with kitchens and other outbuildings to either side. A knot of three guardsmen stand speaking with an elegant man. He wears no armour but he does the uniform of the baron’s guards, albeit with a golden knot of rank on either shoulder. An exquisite longsword sits in a sheathe on his hip. He sends off his men with orders as Felix approaches.
”Who are you and what do you want?” he asks abruptly.
Felix does his best not to salute the man. He's learned the hard way that professional officers don't like it when non-soldiers salute them. For some reason.
"My name is Felix Riffin. Adventurer. I've been told there's a giant hunt taking place, and I was hoping to help out."
Felix stops himself from finishing with "Sir."
”And what service do you offer the giant hunt, besides being bait?” A couple of the guards laugh.
”Show me your skills. If you know what you’re doing with that sword, and can still stand up when I’m through with you, you can come. You two, finish with the supplies. Come adventurer, let’s see what you have.”
The guard captain moves to a clear area and draws his sword. He wears no armour and carries no shield. He waits for Felix to prepare himself.
Felix' eyebrows shoot up at this requirement, but he doesn't hesitate.
He moves to the clear area and draws his sword. When he sees that the guard captain is ready, he'll move forward and attack.
Felix squares off with the captain of the guard, who nimbly evades Felix’s first few slashes, returning with several of his own, quickly wearing down the young adventurer. The man has an arrogant attitude, but has clearly earned his position through merit, and soon Felix is on the ground.
“Even as we fought, I could detect your skills improving through practice. It was most prudent that you should give in to my superior skill. Still, you seem to tire more easily than you should. Should we meet again, I would not be adverse to another go-round. Still, I cannot take someone so clearly exhausted to hunt giants. Farewell, friend!“
The captain takes his men and they head out the front gate as the world in front of Felix finally stops spinning.
Inherently oblivious to arrogance, Felix picks himself up, stumbles a bit, and thanks the captain for the opportunity. As he recovers and catches his breath, he looks around for anyone in the yard to talk to.
If there isn't, he takes his leave of the keep and heads due north.
There are two older guards standing at attention on either side of the entrance to the main keep, and it looks like there’s somebody working in the baron’s stables.
Felix sheathes his sword and heads over to the two men guarding the entrance to the main keep. He'll stop a respectful distance away to indicate he's not trying to enter.
"Does that happen a lot?" he asks, hooking his thumb in the direction the captain and his men left. "The giant hunts, I mean, not the training."
”Only when giants attack, I suppose. Yesterday was the first time, so I guess the answer to your question is no it doesn’t happen a lot.”
”Hermann got off a good shot at it, before the thing rushed over and cut him in two. Poor Hermann.”
"Poor Hermann." Felix nods silently in commiseration. "Your captain seems pretty good! Hopefully the hunting party gets the giant!"
After the guard says anything about the captain (if he does), Felix looks up at the keep.
"So... the Baron lives here, huh? I've never met a baron before."
”And you aren’t going to change that today, friend.”
"Okay, fair enough! Have a good day!"
Felix starts meandering back toward the gate, but he makes sure he passes by the stables where he saw someone working earlier.
"Good morning!" he says to the stableman or woman. "I, uh, haven't seen very many people riding around on horses since I got into the area."
”Hey, there! No, you wouldn’t. Years ago, these stables were an impressive sight for sure. Now, there are just a few animals left, like the baronet’s steed over there. Say, you look strong. I can use a strong young man to clean out the stables. Doesn’t pay much, but it’s good honest work. Interested?”
Felix's face betrays his hesitancy to accept.
"Oh, jeez. You know... I have a lot of jobs lined up, already, and I really need to clear some of those out before I take on any more work. I can't over-commit, you know? Really sorry. Maybe if my schedule clears up I can come back and see if you still need help, okay? Haveanicedaybye."
As he speaks, Felix is backpedaling with increasing speed away from the stables. When he's done, he turns and hustles out the front gate. He'll head due north until he finds something interesting.
Heading due north takes Felix through failed farmland and barren fields. This is more than just poor farming, as even an untended, fallow field should have weeds and remnants of old crops sprouting up by this time. Half an hour of walking across fields brings him to the forest edge and he ducks in under the tall, leafy boughs.
After another half hour of walking through the mid-morning warmth, Felix spots something chilling: an enormous footprint, heading east. The footprint is literally quite chilling, as the temperature inside the footprint is several degrees cooler than the rest of the air, indicating that not only did the frost giant pass this way, but fairly recently.
Felix wonders how recent the frost giant track is.
He turns and heads west. If the captain leading the party to hunt the giant whooped Felix so handily, then Felix figures he has no chance against the giant on his own. If he goes west, however, he may find the hunting party and let them know about the track he found. If he doesn't find the hunting party, maybe he'll find one of theses spitting plants Nerissel tasked him to find.
Backtracking the giant’s path, the footsteps angle around to the south. It looks like the giant did a big circle after leaving the castle.
Heading west off the giant’s path leads Felix into untamed forest. After an hour, he hits upon a very old, faint trail heading due north-south.
Felix takes the trail north.
Felix follows the trail north until it eventually fades into nothing. He estimates that he's most of the way to the north wall of the canyon when the light begins to fade. Strangely enough, he can smell a strong floral scent, though there don't seem to be any flowers nearby.
Felix starts to look around for a good camping spot, keeping in mind he won't have a magic stag watching over him. If it looks like rain, he'll set up his tent. If not, just his bedroll and blanket.
He also keeps an eye out for the source of this flowery smell.
It seems to Felix that there must be an entire meadow of fragrant flowers just around the next tree, but if there is, he can’t see it. He makes himself a fire and sets out his bedroll and blanket nearby, and prepares his supper.
As he settles down on a log to eat some roasted deer meat, he hears the faint sound of twigs snapping out there nearby in the dark. Peering into the dark, he sees nothing, but then another twig snaps from the other direction.
Glad that he hasn't yet taken off his armor to sleep, Felix takes a quick bite of food before he affixes his shield and draws his sword.
"Who's there?" he calls out around his mouthful of food.
If he doesn't receive an answer fairly quickly, he heads off in the direction of one of the twig snapping sounds he heard in the hopes he can avoid being surrounded.
As he stands, Felix sees two pairs of glowing discs reflecting firelight from the undergrowth: large, feline eyes that flash green. Hovering 7 feet above the ground, Felix puts two and two together and guesses these must be cheetaurs, centaur-like creatures which are half panther rather than half horse, which Wolfgang warned you would likely be the death of you one on one in battle.
And there are two.
"Ah. Um. Hello."
Felix talks while backing away in a perpendicular direction so that he can keep both of these dangerous beasts in sight.
As Felix backs away, the two cheetaurs come into the firelight, though they avoid the flames themselves. Massive and strong (and hungry looking), the two beasts are magnificent to behold, yet terrifying as well. Their upper arms end at long thick claws, while their lower limbs look powerful and fast. The creatures don't look particularly intelligent, however, unlike their ursine kin. They do watch Felix's sword warily, however.
Noting that the cheetaurs seem to be wary of the fire, Felix regrets backing away. He starts to circle around, hoping to maneuver things so that he's able to get the campfire between himself and the cheetaurs. If he manages that, he'll try and get closer to the fire. All the while, he keeps talking.
"My name's Felix. What are your names? Do you live around here? Is there something I can help you with? Not sure why you'd stop by if you're not going to talk...."
Felix is pretty sure that the prospect of meat will overcome their natural fear of fire. It’s the sword that’s keeping Felix alive for now.
As a breeze comes in from behind him to the north, the intense smell of flowers wafts over him again.
When Felix runs out of things to say, Felix lets the silence hang for a moment. As the floral smell wafts over him again, he glances a quick glance over his shoulder. If he doesn't see anything, he'll turn back to the cheetaurs and bang his sword against his shield a few times hoping to scare them off.
"Go on! Get out of here!"
Over his shoulder, he can barely make out a darkness through the trees that must be the north wall of the canyon.
Banging his sword on his shield just seems to piss them off. They begin a low, hair-raising growl, and start to advance again.
These creatures are quite large, which means the scraggly undergrowth along the canyon wall might give them trouble. There could also be a crack in the wall or a narrow cave for shelter.