The Wooden Sea #4

Foolslope
By Kati Davis (Korva Grimdawn)

The Wooden Sea

A Dungeons & Dragons World/Adventure

By Ahmad Williams (DM)

Travelling to Foolslope would take a while. Though the group hoped to make good time, they knew they would have to spend the night on the road one way or the other. They followed the main trade road as far as they could, before splitting onto a less trafficked one that would lead them to their destination.

The town of Foolslope was yet another tiny place trying to survive in the Wooden Sea. They were known for being grabbit farmers. This was probably the easiest job someone could have, whether inside the Sea or out. Grabbits were stupid animals and provided the most common, cheapest meat you could find. Plus, they bred like crazy. Surely a wizard in a Grabbit town was a great waste of talent.

After walking for some time, the trees closely encroaching on the road gave way to a grassy area that dipped away from the road. The grass itself was tall, most of it shooting well past the top of Korva’s head. From where the dwarf stood, she could just see across the top of the grass, thanks to the slight incline of the road. Great, broad mushrooms grew out of the swaying grass. Some caps were level with the grass, twitching every so often. Korva wondered if they were growing before their eyes. Others had grown beyond the grass and stood proudly in the bright sunlight.

“Could I make a shield out of one of those caps?” Crow mused while observing the tallest of the mushrooms. “Maybe we can eat them?”

“No, do not eat them,” Zrotzerzroz warned sternly. “They are poison. Do not eat them.”

“I want to go get one for a shield, but I’m worried about the ones that are moving,” Crow said.

“None of them are moving,” the gnome snapped at the human.

“Yes, some of them are moving.”

The paladin and druid went back and forth like this for some time. Korva thought it was funny that Zrotzerzroz was even arguing that they weren’t moving since she was pretty certain he couldn’t see the mushrooms Crow was referring to. The gnome was substantially shorter than the grass. Madera was the first to get fed up with the two of them. He picked up a stone off the road and hurled it into the field. It bounced off the top of one of the caps level with the grass with a boiing. The mushroom remained still.

“Not. Moving.” Zrotzerzroz stomped over to some small mushrooms on the side of the road and began whacking them with his hand.

“I’m going to get my mushroom shield,” Crow huffed and stomped off into the grass, heading for the tallest one he could see.

The man stood well above the grass line so Madera and Korva had a pretty clear view of what happened next. Crow was quite far out into the grass when suddenly he disappeared. The way his arms went up, it almost looked as if a rug had been pulled out from under him. A metallic tink sound reached the ears of those on the road, and it kept occurring irregularly.

“HELP!” Crow’s cry rang out across the grass. The group looked at each other in confusion, but another cry came.

Madera grabbed Zrotzerzroz and slung him onto his shoulders so he’d be above the grass. The half-elf started to run, and the dwarf followed closely to stay in the trail of parted grass he left. She could tell when they were close because the sounds grew louder. There was scrabbling and grunting in addition to the metal sound. Following her ears, Korva pulled around the other two, but when she finally reached Crow, the dwarf got a face full of grass. Tiny pieces stuck to her eyeballs, and she scrubbed at them frantically.

“Hey guys, it’s a small bugbear,” she heard Zrotzerzroz call out the warning. “Be super careful. They’re really strong.”

Korva shook her head and felt the last of the grass pieces come free. Just as she did this, the gnome yelled, “Thorny plant attack!”
A vine whipped through the grass, splitting stalks in its path. The dwarf turned her head to watch it go. It went right to the place where Crow was laid out on his back with the crudely armored bugbear on top of him. The creature was wearing one of the mushroom caps for a hat. The thorned vine wrapped mercilessly around the bugbear and yanked, pulling it off of Crow and closer to Zrotzerzroz and Madera. Now free, the human was on his feet as fast as he could be, greatsword in hand. He squared off with the disoriented creature.

It was small, standing about the same height as Korva. It’s armor was haphazard and it’s shortsword had the look of being scavenged from someone’s trash pile. Coarse hair covered it’s body, fangs jutted randomly from it’s mouth, and it’s nose resembled a bear. Otherwise, it was similar in shape to a goblin. If this was a small one, she hoped not to encounter one that was bigger. Breathing heavily through its nose, the bugbear whipped its head around to look at each of the four companions in frustration.

Crow lunged at the bugbear with his greatsword and managed to draw blood with the attack. Madera was right beside him, following up with his rapier. The hit was deep and true, drawing agonizing screams from the creature. The bugbear retaliated with all it’s might and was rewarded for it’s effort, blood for blood. It’s clawed hand sunk deep into Madera’s hip and ripped upwards, visibly severing skin and muscle. The rogue lost consciousness and fell instantly. Zrotzerzroz tumbled from his seat on Madera’s shoulders and landed on his back. The bugbear began to limp away, blood running steadily to the ground. It was still screaming and Korva could hear other feet moving at the sound of the creature’s death throes. Putting two and two together, the dwarf now understood the shifting and twitching mushroom caps that were level with the grass tops. There were too many bugbears in this field for comfort, but it sounded like they were retreating for now.

She grabbed her dwarven hammer and lobbed it in the direction of the retreating bugbear. The hammer connected with the base of the creature’s skull with a sickening crack, effectively putting it out of its misery. The bugbear collapsed, tongue lolling from its mouth.

Turning to Madera, Korva found Zrotzerzroz was already working on the half-elf. He was horribly pale and had lost a lot of blood, but the gnome seemed to know what he was doing, so she didn’t interfere. Crow went over to the dead bugbear and picked up Korva’s hammer. Severing the head of the creature, he removed the mushroom cap helmet and placed it on his own. The human wore vindication broadly across his face as he handed the hammer back to the dwarf, though she personally found the helmet to be slightly amusing. Crow attached the bugbear head to his pack.

Shortly after, they got a now-conscious Madera on his feet. The gnome had adequately stabilized the man. Crow laid his hands upon the man and pulled from his holy magic. His wounds seemed to heal well enough and soon enough the rogue was twisting around to test his range of motion. The paladin was looking quite disheveled himself due to his romp with the bugbear. He had some shallow wounds that were easily patched up, and before long the party was continuing down the road.

They had hoped to make more progress, but stopped when Crow and Madera found a good spot to camp, knowing their group needed to rest. Korva and Zrotzerzroz elected to let Crow and Madera sleep the full night and share the night watch between them. The dwarf took the first shift and sat up near the fire, watching as evening turned to dark night. Her companions fell asleep one by one. Eyes passed outside the circle of firelight every so often, and some even stopped to watch for awhile. Nothing ever tried to come near, though, for which Korva was grateful. Nonetheless, she kept a tight grip on her quarterstaff.

Hours passed and she finally woke a groggy Zrotzerzroz for his shift. He dutifully took her place by the fire, and when she was sure he was alert enough, the dwarf let herself drift off to sleep.

Korva awoke with a confused jolt the next morning. Something had been touching her neck. Sitting up and looking around, she saw Zrotzerzroz walking away from her. He kneeled down by Crow, reached out, and began rubbing two fingers gently up and down behind his ears. She shook her head, trying to clear her bleary eyes. Who wakes someone up like that? Korva thought tiredly, scrubbing her face with her hands. The human awoke in a similar way to Korva and the gnome moved toward Madera. 

“Why would you wake someone up like…” Crow started, but then he cut his own words off sharply by yelling, “What the hell!”

Korva saw the reason for his reaction as she lowered her hands from her face; their campsite was utterly destroyed. The dwarf groaned. Each of the party member’s travel packs had been shredded, along with anything inside that hadn’t been hard enough to resist whatever it was that had raided them. Fabric was strewn all around, the remnants of extra clothes and Korva’s blanket. Their rations had been filched from the packs and eaten, and not a single crumb was left behind. Madera’s rope that had been so helpful in Stonebottom was in chunks around the site. Three heads turned toward the night watchman.

Zrotzerzroz seemed to be having a hard time meeting their eyes. For all that he didn’t appear to understand social norms, he certainly knew to look guilty now.

“How did this happen?” Madera asked sharply.

“I was, maybe, picking flowers over there,” the gnome gestured towards the treeline.

Sighing, the rogue got up and started sifting through the mess. Crow, Korva and Zrotzerzroz followed suit, knowing there wasn’t much that could be done about it now. The dwarf rummaged through her ruined stale-ale-and-body-odor clothes, grateful she had been wearing the cleaner of her two sets. She gathered up the items that hadn’t been ruined such as her book, silver skull, money, and herbalism kit. Though her pack had been violently torn, she managed to tie knots along the side of it, sealing as many of the holes as she could. It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it should work until they could get back to Profit. Looking around, Korva saw her companions had done much of the same.

“I’ll find some food,” the dwarf murmured. She was unhappy, of course, that she would have to purchase replacement items, but the biggest loss was rations. This would be a pretty worthless group if they were starving. The dwarf searched the area around where they had camped and scavenged enough berries to feed them for now. Walking back into the open, she distributed them amongst her companions. Crow and Madera thanked her. Zrotzerzroz instantly stuffed a handful into his mouth, but Korva thought she could read gratefulness in his eyes.

The party started down the road again after salvaging what they could. Korva felt particularly sluggish following the events of the day before and the unkind surprise they had awoken to, and she could tell she wasn’t the only one. Madera was dragging as well, which made the rest of the trip to Foolslope take longer than it should have. Eventually, though, they made it to the tiny town. Korva couldn’t help but hope that finding the wizard would be their easiest task yet.

The bedraggled and worn party made their way into Foolslope. Well, all except Crow. He entered the town as well, but it was as if the events of the last eighteen hours never happened. Somehow his armor even seemed freshly polished.

The buildings in Foolslope were a ramshackle mess and junk was littered around the area. It was a town in disrepair. People were hanging around and they only showed a mild interest at the arrival of the strangers before going back to their loitering. Dwarves, halflings, humans, and elves all seemed to be inhabiting this little place in equal numbers. One large pen sat inside the town and it was teeming with chicken-sized grabbits. The fence was short, maybe knee high to a human. Must be really dumb animals to be corralled by that, thought Korva. They ignored the adventurers. A Guild bounty board was off to one side, but it had a single bounty tacked to it, which was the one they already had about disappearing grabbits.

There was one man who stood out, a human in his young twenties. He was standing aside from everyone else, though he was lollygagging like the rest, and he wore robes with a sash tied around them. It was quite a contrast to the others in Foolslope, who seemed to wear the normal attire of farmers.

Upon entering the town Zrotzerzroz and Crow made a beeline for a utility hut to see what goods they could replace. Madera and Korva followed. The dwarf had made some coin since starting out in Ofaname a handful of days ago, so she decided she’d rather wait to see what was available in Profit. The shop did have some small leather bags which locals used for feeding grabbits, as well as rations and waterskins. These were the items her companions seemed most interested in. After they made their purchases, Crow and Zrotzerzroz went over to a nearby well with a hand pump to fill their waterskins while Madera moved his stuff from the shredded pack into a leather feed bag. Meanwhile, Korva was surveying the hillside.

The dwarf was thinking about the bounty they had picked up for Foolslope. Grabbits were going missing following a flash of light appearing in the hills. She hoped they were lucky enough to be there on a day when the light appeared. And it seemed they were. Against all odds, something caught her eye. It was distant, maybe five miles out from the town in an area choked with trees, but it had definitely been there. Whatever was causing the flash disappeared in an instant.

She turned to the hut, purchased two day’s worth of dried grabbit rations and rejoined her group. Korva was distracted, though, trying to make sense of what she had seen. It must have been moving, whatever it was. She was reminded of the sun glinting off of something; polished silver, armor, a mirror… Her brain was too tired, and she couldn’t figure it out.

Crow led the way over to the young man in robes, who they were assuming was the wizard Mr. Preston had spoken of. He was leaning against a tree, looking as bored as everyone else in the town. Despite the representation of different races in Foolslope, they all seemed to have a similar rundown look. This young man, though, was cleaner and almost had a way about his features that would be associated with those of a higher class.

“Hey, my name’s Crow,” the human introduced himself as they gathered in front of the wizard. “What’s your name?”

“Crow, huh? Well, good to meet you,” the young man stood up straight at the approach of the party. “You might have heard of me. My name is Kenworth Brimley-.”

Maybe he was about to say more, but he didn’t get the chance.

“Nope, never heard of you,” Zrotzerzroz blurted out as soon as Kenworth’s words left his mouth. Korva resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the gnome.

“O-okay, I guess that’s fair,” the young man stammered. “Maybe my father, Wilfred?”

The name Brimley was familiar to Korva, and when Kenworth said “Wilfred” the pieces fell into place. Wilfred Brimley was a very powerful wizard who had spent substantial time working for the king of Wheldrake. She knew he had children who had shown promise as wizards themselves, but didn’t know much more than that.

“No? Okay…” The wind seemed to be going out of the young man’s sails at the lack of recognition. Trying to recover, he began again, “Well, I entered the Academy at the early age of ten.”

Kenworth looked at their faces hoping for reactions at the revelation of entering the school for magic users a year early. He continued proudly, “Yep I was a real prodigy, on my way to becoming one of the best wizards this land has ever seen. I mastered Mage Hand by my seventh birthday… but that’s where I kind of peaked… I’m not really a big deal.”

“So what brings you to this town?” Crow asked after the young man had deflated again.

“Umm, you guys are adventurers, right?” the kid asked his own question in return, nervous.

“Yeah, we’re with The Guild.”

“Am I in trouble? Are you here for me?” When the group hesitated in response to his questions he became flustered. “Look, it was an accident, okay, umm…”

“What was an accident?” Madera piped up, confused. This “wizard” was all over the place.

“I want immunity!” He burst out, fear written on his face. Tears quickly followed. “I didn’t do it on purpose!”

“Well, lets hear your side of the story,” Crow replied, unsure what was happening. The wizard was obviously afraid of them now that the conversation had moved in this direction.

“So… you’re not here to kill me?”

“Can we go sit somewhere? Maybe in that barn over there?” Madera indicated one of the rough buildings that was indeed a barn. The rogue looked as exhausted as Korva felt. The heat of the bright day didn’t help, either.

“That’s a good idea. It’s hot out here.”

Kenworth led them into the building, where it was cool and dry. The barn didn’t seem to serve a purpose, as it was relatively empty and no workers were around. Korva was grateful to see a couple of benches and stools. She moved to sit on one, curious about why their gnome companion was making a pile of straw to sit on instead.

“Okay, okay,” the young man started talking once he’d had a seat on a stool. “So, if you like my story, I can get immunity? Is that fair?”

“Sure,” Crow immediately lied. He and his party knew that wasn’t something any of them could offer. If Mr. Preston wanted to end this pathetic wizard’s life for whatever he was afraid of admitting, none of them would or could stand in the way. “Everything’s okay, you can give us the truth.”

Korva personally didn’t think she would have believed the paladin’s lie, but she could see relief in the kid’s eyes at the reassurance. Well, that’s that. This guy is easy.

“Alright, you say it’s okay… Oh man, where to begin?” He was building himself up for quite a story. “So I was young in the academy. Youngest ever, by the way. And it was hard. I mean, there were kids there who looked up to me, you know? And first year I was something. During the second year, everyone kept growing and getting better. They were learning new spells… while I was merely mastering the spells I had already learned. So, you know…”

Korva couldn’t help but feel a little bit bad for the wizard, and she could tell most of her companions (the gnome had a completely vacant look on his face and she couldn’t tell if he was listening or not) felt much the same.  To have such a promising start and then peak in the second year of school? That was unfortunate, though it didn’t explain what he was doing here or why they’d been sent to speak to him.

“But that year,” Kenworth continued, turning wistful. “That’s when I saw her. Her name was Lily. She was just so perfect. She was a wood elf. I could tell because I know these things. And, you know, I think the love was true. It was there. I would sit right next to her in our first period, and I swear she had the sweetest little laugh and half-smile. I’d tell her one of my jokes and she would laugh softly and it just warmed my heart. We were meant to be.”

Crow and Korva exchanged a look, hoping this was somehow pertinent information and they weren’t wasting their time.

“How old was she?” Zrotzerzroz interrupted bluntly.

“She was so beautiful… and she was in my class, so I assume we’re the same age. I mean, don’t elves age, like, I don’t know… isn’t every one year for us is like half a year for them?”

Oh boy, Korva thought. That math is so wrong. As far as she knew, elves were the longest living people, and they declared their own adulthood at somewhere around one hundred years.

“Third year came around. Boys were getting muscles, and I was still younger… So I thought I was going to lose Lily. I decided to borrow some money from my dad.” His hesitation was obvious around the word “borrow”.
“I purchased some books with it, you know? They were like that! Like, big textbooks.” The young wizard was jabbing a finger at Korva’s tome from the Stonebottom mine. It was poking out of a rip in her devastated pack. He shrugged, “I bought ten books and I just read a lot.”

Zrotzerzroz obviously couldn’t care less and laid down on his mound of hay. Korva, on the other hand, was trying to figure out how much money this guy had “borrowed” from his rich father to afford that many books. However much it was, it had to have been substantial.

“I kept doing research, and I learned about planeswalking,” Kenworth’s tone had changed a bit as he got into this part of the story. He was becoming more sheepish. “You guys ever heard of that before? How to go through different planes? It’s really high wizard stuff. Anyway, there’s this one plane that really caught my eye. It’s called the Fade.”

Zrotzerzroz actually sat up at that last sentence. Korva didn’t know anything about this “Fade” plane, but it was obvious the gnome did and that was worth noting.

“We don’t know how many different planes there are,” the wizard went on. “We’re on the material plane, and there is the fire plane, the water plane, planes of birds… There’s just different planes.”

“Whoa,” the gnome whispered, in awe at the idea of a plane for birds.

“The Fade is literally the area between the planes. It’s just a fragment of area in between. And there’s stuff there! Who knows what kind of stuff. I was reading about it, and one book said anything you can imagine can be found there, because it’s just been around for as long as existence, right? So I borrowed more money from my dad and was able to get a planeswalking kit.

“Anyway, I went there and… yeah, that place sucks. The book said what you are looking for finds you. Of course, that sounded really vague, so I didn’t know what to expect when I got there. I was trying to think of what to get for Lily, and I realized she must like flowers. Because her name is Lily! So, I thought ‘flowers for Lily, flowers for Lily, flowers for Lily’ and this woman appeared in front of me.

“Next to her was this, well, it looked like a seed. It was like a pit from a fruit but bigger and it was… sort of pulsing. And I know this sounds weird, but I could hear her mind. She wasn’t talking. I don’t know if that makes sense… Well, it kind of makes sense. And she said, in her mind, not to me, that it was a seed and it could create anything.

“Then I stopped listening, and I just grabbed it and got out of there. That place is, like, really scary. And, you know, she was really sad. But I don’t think she missed it. She wasn’t even holding it. So I got out of there and that’s when…” He trailed off momentarily. Korva could see Kenworth steeling himself for whatever he was about to say next. “Okay, whew. You said I had immunity, so okay… So I brought the seed back, because I wanted to plant it. To show Lily! And it just… shot into the ground like a crossbow bolt. It burrowed and stuff started growing and it was just… It was really scary. I’ve never seen something burrow so fast. It just started… I don’t know, the ground was shaking and trees started sprouting up. I thought I was gonna die.”

“How long ago did this happen?” Crow interrupted, but Korva was pretty sure she already knew the answer. A heaviness settled uncomfortably in her stomach and she was pretty sure her eyes were bugging out as the wizard shared more and more of his story.

“Oh gosh, less than ten years?” Kenworth replied. “Maybe seven or eight? Needless to say, I didn’t finish the academy so… yeah, about eight years ago.”

“Okay,” Crow responded in a clipped tone. The dwarf wondered if he and their other companions were having the same revelation she was.

“Do you know about where it was that you planted the seed?” Madera asked the young man.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t plant it. Lets be real, because I don’t want to get in trouble, okay? It dropped. You remember that old game forest that’s not too far from the capital? It had this cool little place, I called it my ‘hideaway’ where I kept all my teddy bears and stuff… I tried to show Lily once but she was not interested. She was really busy though, she said she had to do homework and stuff. I get it, the academy is really hard.

“I had, like, this little house that I made and it was in that game forest. Not, like, too deep into it but around there. Is that important?.” Korva’s head had dropped into her hands and she nodded minutely. Honestly, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Yup,” she muttered.

“You’re just a simple thief,” Zrotzerzroz stated.

“Hey now-”

“Just a simple thief trying to impress a girl,” Crow amended. Kenworth shot him a grateful look.

“Thank you!” he exclaimed. “I mean, have you ever been in love? You would do anything!”

“No,” the gnome said, overlapping Crow’s, “yeah.”

“Well umm, I mean, I just kind of hid out after. I was too embarrassed to go back to school. And then all this! This forest is weird, but, you know, I think my dad is maybe mad at me. I haven’t seen him in a long time. I’ve just been hiding out here in the Wooden Sea.”

“Why is your dad mad at you?” the dwarf asked, wanting to make all the pieces of this horrible puzzle fit together.

“Well, I never paid him back,” Kenworth replied slowly. “And he knows the king. The king! And I’m just so afraid I’ll see Lily again… Can you guys, like, put in a good word? That I’m not a thief?”

“Oh, we will put in a word,” Madera commented.

“You could come back with us, potentially,” Crow interjected.

“Plead your case,” added Zrotzerzroz.

“Does anybody know that you did this?” Korva inquired.

“Well, I may have left out some of the details to the people around here, and there are a few passerby, but… I mean, most people just know me as the wizard,” he fired off a small swirl and a few sparks from his hand. “So that’s what I’m known as here.”

“Wow,” their gnome companion looked thoroughly unimpressed and irritated as he said the word.

“Can you tell us more about what the seed looked like?” It was yet another question from Korva and she dreaded this one the most. Her gut was telling her she already knew what the answer was.

“Yeah, yeah, of course. It was this big,” Kenworth gestured with his hands, indicating something around the size of a ball children would kick around for sport. “It was rounded on one end and kind of tapered on the other. And it was kind of pulsing with all of these, like, cool looking root-vein things going through it. It was pretty solid and hard.”

“Did it have a distinct color?”

“Yeah, yeah… It was green and sort of bluish, with tinges of purple on the ends.”

“Did it give off any light?” She was forcing out her most patient voice, despite already anticipating the answer.

“Let me think,” the young man responded. After a moment, he said, “A little bit. I mean it was bright outside… Actually… Now that you say it, when it jumped out of my hands and was burrowing into the ground, it lit off some kind of blue glow in the hole it made. Is that important?”

Korva stifled a strange, panicky noise that was trying to push its way through her teeth. It was the orb. It was the orb they’d found in Stonebottom. At least it was one like it. Maybe what they’d found in Stonebottom was created by the one this idiot had brought back from the Fade. Oh no.

“You know, I wish I had more information for you,” Kenworth rushed the words out, his tone worried. His eyes were darting between Crow, Madera and Korva, who were all in various states of disbelief at his story. Zrotzerzroz, as a druid, was of course interested in the idea of the seed, but he hadn’t physically encountered it like the other three. “I only had the thing in my hand for, like, thirty seconds before I lost it. But I still have my summoning gear if you guys are interested in going to the Fade and talking to the-”

“That is a horrible idea” the dwarf cut the kid off at the same time the gnome started saying, “No, no, no, no. I am very familiar with the Fade, we are not going to do that. Rule one, never go to the Fade.”

“I mean, I feel like we should talk to the lady. That’s my opinion” Crow chimed in.

“Can we have a huddle real quick? One moment,” Zrotzerzroz demanded and turned away from Kenworth. The rest of the party came to join him.

“Okay, I get it. I get it,” the wizard said backing off a bit.

“Don’t go anywhere,” the gnome threw over his shoulder. Turning back to Crow he snapped, “No.”

“I say we just take the summoning gear, but we don’t go there yet,” Madera offered.

“I feel like, we just take the summoning gear from this person,” Korva pleaded. “I think that’s a good idea. But I’m not interested in travelling to another plane.”

“I say we get this guy in prison. He sounds like an absolute hazard,” Zrotzerzroz huffed.

“I think we should bring him back,” Crow started. “But I also think we need to talk to the person.”

“We do not need to do that at this time. I’m just saying the Fade is a danger-”

“I’m not saying we do it right now-”

“Do you know what a fractal is? The definition of chaos. That is what the Fade is.”

“Okay-”

“We can’t handle that.”

“Okay,” Crow conceded. “Well, take the summoning gear just so we have the option.”

“I think we should take him back to Profit.”

“I agree. Do we want to do the bounty first?”

“Look, this guy is absolutely the dumbest person I’ve ever met. We’ll just convince him to hang out until we get back.”

“We could bring him with us-”

“No!” Madera interrupted Crow. “We’ll just tell him we’re here to investigate the shiny thing.”

“Yeah, he already trusts us,” reminded Korva.

The party, now in agreement about taking the planeswalking kit and asking Kenworth to wait for them so they could take him back to Profit, turned back to the young wizard.

“Yo, stay here. We’ll be right back,” Zrotzerzroz told Kenworth flatly.

“Okay,” he said with a shrug.

“Cool, thanks for sharing your story,” Crow added. 

“So, we came to investigate the shiny thing and the disappearing grabbits,” Korva told the young man. “Do you know anything about that?”

“Oh! So you’re not here for me! Whew!” Kenworth looked thoroughly relieved. “Okay, yeah, so the grabbits… You’re adventurers! How come I didn’t see that?! Sorry for unloading all of that on you, but it feels really good to get that off my chest.”

“You’re good, you’re good,” Crow reassured him. Zrotzerzroz stormed out of the barn, completely annoyed.

“Yeah, so we don’t know what it is. We think it might be… Like, a bird… I don’t know let me think,” Kenworth waited a beat. “All we know is that we’ll be working, or some of us are, and someone will say that they heard a noise and we go out to check the pens and like half of the grabbits are gone.”

“What kind of noise?” Crow asked.

“So, it sounds like heavy scruffling, but that’s weird because we thought it might be a bear or a boar or wolves… But the fence isn’t broken. There are footprints, but they’re huge. Nothing is really that tall. And it’s always so fast. Whenever we check the pens after our naps, grabbits are missing.”

Korva internalized her exasperation as best she could. He just admitted they nap when they should be guarding their animals. Of course this guy is the one who managed to get to the Fade…
The young wizard was pointing in the direction that the dwarf had seen the glint earlier.

“You know, we see the same flash in that direction up there, but I have no idea what it is. It could be a seven foot tall bear with, like, sunglasses on,” Kenworth ended lamely.

“What about a dragon?” Crow asked randomly.

“Maybe! It could be a dragon!” The kid seemed excited at that prospect.

“Does it happen day and night?” Korva totally ignored the dragon comments.

“Yes, but it’s not every day. It’s, like, every three days, but-”

“When was the last time it happened?” Madera interrupted.

“Oh, just yesterday.”

“Thanks for the information,” Crow replied. “Just wait here, and we’ll be back.”

“Yeah, yeah sure.”

The group exited the barn, leaving Kenworth inside. Zrotzerzroz was sitting on the ground outside. He got up as his companions filed out and asked venomously, “So did that stupid idiot have anything useful to say at all?”

“Yeah, he gave us some information-” Korva started, but Crow interrupted her.

“Sorry, random thought, but can you look in your history book to see if there is anything about dragons and this shimmer?”

“In a minute, we’re talking!” Zrotzerzroz retorted.

“You’re kind of rude-”

“So, yeah, I was going to say,” Korva started talking over them until they quieted down. “It was really interesting that he said it happens every three days when I actually saw the flash of light  in the hills earlier. Apparently the last time they saw it was yesterday.”

“Was it very bright?” the gnome asked.

“It was just a glint, and it was there and then it was gone. It was quick. Just a quick flash”

“So that’s it? That’s all the information he had? That it flashes every three days?”
“Uh, well, they hear a sound. A heavy scuffling sound-”

“And there are footprints,” supplied Madera.

“Yes, large footprints,” Korva confirmed.

“Did he say if they look human or animal?” Zrotzerzroz inquired.

“I don’t think he knows,” Madera’s comment was probably spot on.

“That’s fair,” agreed the gnome.

“Have you heard of anything like that?” Korva asked the druid, but she knew they didn’t have much to go on.

“I’d have to look at it to see, so lets go check out the pen.”

They walked back toward the town entrance where the large, fenced grabbit pen sat. Zrotzerzroz immediately began pointing out the prints to Korva while the other two examined them. There was one that was less obvious inside the pen and it had been raked over erratically by whomever had done such a poor job mucking out the enclosure. Other prints encircled the pen. It was a print of a heavy boot, and they were indeed massive. There weren’t many of them, though, which made sense when one realized the distance between them had to be close to six feet. Maybe a troll, though the gnome informed her it was uncommon for them to wear boots. They weren’t big enough to be a giant and it certainly wasn’t dragon.

Crow had started to walk off, following the long strides away from the grabbit pen. The tracks led, of course, toward the hills. Korva and the other party members followed. Before long, they had crossed the treeline. The trees themselves were spread out in this area, so the midday sun beat down relentlessly, and the air was very muggy.

About a mile outside of Foolslope, Crow seemed to lose the trail. Thankfully, Madera caught the edge of one of the prints out of the corner of his eye and the group continued on in that direction. The ground started to incline as they went. A glint further up caught the attention of all of the companions, but Crow got the best look at it.

“There,” Crow pointed out. “Whatever it is, that glint is on the creature’s head and it’s about ten feet tall.”

“How far away?” Madera asked.

“A couple of miles hike probably.”

“Was it muscle-y? Could you tell?” Zrotzerzroz wondered.

“I just saw it’s head and shoulders, and then it moved behind a tree.”

Nodding in acknowledgement, the gnome turned and began picking some nearby yellow flowers. He started stuffing his pickings in his pack. Meanwhile, Crow had walked ahead. After catching up to the human and climbing the hill for awhile, everyone was beginning to feel tired with the exception of Zrotzerzroz. Reaching into his pack once more, the druid pulled out the yellow flowers and stuffed one into each of the other adventurer’s hands. It didn’t seem to help with the climb, but Korva supposed it was a nice gesture. Madera put his in his hair and the other two awkwardly put the flowers away in their packs.

“You look super awesome,” the gnome told the rogue in his deadpan way.