Dappled light danced in the leaves casting shadows on the forest floor below, while up in the trees birds sang. There was even a stream nearby with water peacefully passing. In short all was calm, it was all so calm, and so peaceful.

Errol at that moment forgot the golden rule, and started to drag a hammock out of his backpack, and carefully setting it up between two sturdy looking trees that were conveniently spaced. (Usually when one goes to set up a hammock all the trees nearby are just far enough apart to be useless, or just close enough together that hopping in the hammock results in you getting out just as quick and infinitely more painfully, or worse falling into a mantrap of cloth and rope from which there is no escape unless somebody comes to your rescue. You know this to be true.)

So after set up he clambered into a perfectly set up hammock for a nap, only to be pummelled from above by several well thrown acorns. Resulting in him trying to dismount in a hurry, and as you are no doubt aware one does not get out of a hammock in a hurry. Soon enough he was dangling with one leg trapped in a seemingly impossible knot, while his hands were on the ground, and the more he tried to struggle free the worse things got, and the acorn attack intensified.

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Mibbet saw the scene, and with a sigh got ready for the incoming invasion, though she looked at Errol sympathetically. She was after all intimately familiar with scenes like this, a great day suddenly stopped by a short sharp shower of s.......eeds.

She carefully assessed the ambushing bushes, these had to be the aforementioned Spriggans, they were about the height of a medium dog, with tanned bark like skin, atop each of their heads like a weird hat was a singular leaf, or occasionally a blossom. They would almost be cute if it wasn’t for the branchy brambled hands. But the idea of being grabbed by one of those quickly dispelled the risk of them being described (at least accurately) as adorable by people without very specialised likes and dislikes.

Unsure what else to do she walked up to Errol and cut the contraption that had him trapped down. Once Errol was down he clutched the remains of the hammock with a look very much like a kicked puppy.

“I’ll buy you a new one alright? For now get to cover” Rosalind snapped, that seemed to bring him out of his sulk a little, (not fully though he liked THAT hammock, even if it did tip him out so often as to be beyond belief,) but he pulled himself together as an acorn caught him right on the end of his nose, and almost charged after it.

“DON’T FOLLOW IT YOU PILLOCK” Mibbet sighed, "at the very least not alone and without a plan. Will we get hit with acorns? Probably, will they sting? A little, will they kill us? Nope they’re bloody acorns, now fall back, we’ll go get Alba, and THEN we’ll follow TOGETHER get it?”

Errol nodded (muttering under his breath a little, but hey anybody would be a little cranky after being pelted with the ungerminated, that attack was nuts.) So they fell back, Mibbet shielding with choppy, (the flat of a massive axe can make a decent shield provided you move it fast enough, and as long as what you’re shielding against isn’t a full on attack, in that situation all bets are off, as are your limbs most likely.)

They were soon joined from the other side by Sir Leeroy and Elvira, Alba meanwhile was still napping peacefully as the acorns pelted them, a thick hide comes in handy sometimes. Mibbet dug in her pouch to retrieve some Jerky, and waved in front of the slumbering beast. (Hey you do not wake up a cranky Owl-bear without providing edible motivation, and you definitely don’t do it twice. Mainly because doing that once is already probably going to end badly for you, like you becoming the early morning snack level of badly, what can I say Owl-bears like their naps.) Then Mibbet hopped on, and followed the Spriggans at a distance, careful not to go above a walk, as the others used Alba as a particularly large, and spectacularly fluffy, mobile barricade.

Of course whenever they got close their opponents fell back, anything as familiar with bears as a tree does not really wish to be on the receiving end of those claws. But the strange bit was whenever they lost the trail they were hit with an additional barrage.

“It’s like they want us to follow them.” Mibbet said, thinking about it a little, “be prepared for possible ambush.”

“Great so foul play from the foliage” Errol moaned, he was definitely not happy here. But his family were counting on him to sort this mess out (that and he didn’t want to get fired,) so he kept on going.

Soon they noticed a pattern, they were going deeper, and deeper into the woods, if this kept up at this pace it could take them days to figure out their way out, but it was a tad late to be turning back now, so they kept going. Taking the occasional seed shower when they got turned around, until they stood at last in front of a familiar looking place.

“A bloody dungeon” Sir Leeroy moaned, they definitely had not come geared for a delve, but each time they tried to walk away they were subjected to a fresh bombardment of a much larger scale.

“Well maybe that’s what they need help with” Mibbet suggested.

“Then why didn’t they just ask?” Errol asked.

“Well did you see any kind of mouth on any of them? Because I didn’t, and I don’t think they talk like the Sporeling did, so all they could do was annoy us and hope that we’d notice.”