“… And then Kip here goes and jumps onto the troll like some lunatic. The rest of us are thinking… What!” Nick makes an exaggerate surprised face, drawing laughter from the few villagers in the inn’s common room, that came to thank the adventurers and to hear their tale.

“He drives his sword through the troll into the group, pinning it for all of three seconds. Then it goes berserk nuts. Flailing around.” He flails his arms in the air. “Then my daft brother over here goes…Oh that looks like fun and jumps right on with Kip! He’s trying to smack the troll with his mace.” The crowd laughed again at Nick’s outlandish story telling. “Till the troll finally has enough piggy backing and tosses my brother away like he was made of paper. Goes bouncing through the trees aways.” He uses one hand to show a bouncing motion off to the distance. The crowd still chuckling along. “This gives Kip here a second wind to try and hold the troll more firmly, but…” here Nick makes a crazy face and throws his hands in the air. “It’s a troll. I still can’t figure out how lucky he got that the troll didn’t just grab a leg and start chewin.” Here Nick emulates, with an ugly face, and exaggerated chewing motions. “Then what happens? I’ll tell ya what! The only sane one in this group… Yeah, that’s me. I run up and burn it’s head up with my fire spell. Causing the thing to go even more over the deep end. But as it swallowed my fire, it burned up inside too, and didn’t last more than a few breaths longer.” A few villagers clapped as Nick summoned up a bit of fire into his palm. “Then once it’s dead, Kip here, just lays on the thing still huggin it. Like he’s wedded or something!” Nick raises his voice at the end in exaggeration. Playing to the crowd, still with big gesturers and eye rolling.

Kip gives a bit of a cough into the side of his fist. The villagers looking over at his neutral looking face.

“Well, ok. Maybe he was tired from wrestling with the troll. Still though, that man was not thinkin right that’s for sure. Who goes and hops on a troll’s back, sword or no?” He shakes his head looking down at the ground.

Kip leans over whispering to his sister who is smiling along, “I’m going to jump on him with my sword in a minute”

Mel whispers back, “Aww, shush. He’s just making it a fun story. You know it’s all in good humor.”

Kip just shakes his head a bit then continues to drink his mug of soup broth.

As Nick goes on with the story telling it until they got back to the village. Kip whispers Mel another question “Is Mic still in his room? He took a bit of a tumble, but it wasn’t that bad.”

“No, he told me to let you know he was going to ask around about a possible missing villager. He’s worried someone is lost out there.” Mel whispers back after taking a drink of her own broth. “You know him. He’d worry about it for weeks if we didn’t follow through.”

“Yeah.” Kip answered, leaning into his chair, sipping his drink, and trying to ignore Nick’s story. It was either that or he was going to toss him out the window.

==================================

Shae awoke to a very sore… Everything! Not only was her body worse for wear, but she started shivering from the damp in the cave. It was starting to get cooler as it got darker, and her pants and shoes were soaked. With a bit of effort, she moved to the entrance of the small cave, and peeked out, listening hard to her surroundings. After a few minutes wait she figured she was safe to go out. She left her pack behind, then started to collect up some fallen wood that was dry enough to start a proper fire. She needed to get herself warmed up and dry. She was hoping since nothing had found her yet, she would be safe enough to build a small fire inside the cave to dry her clothes out. She made three trips for wood, figuring it should be enough if she kept her fire small. The cave should be easy enough to warm up, since it wasn’t very large. The fire should also keep out the bugs and any predators that might come sniffing around.

Once she had dug a small pit, and placed the wood, she lit the fire, and fanned it to keep it from smoking until it got hot enough to burn clean. As the cave entrance was slightly above her, there was little chance of killing herself with carbon monoxide.

Once the fire was good and hot, she pulled a plastic tarp out of her pack. She had a few survival items packed. This she would have used normally to make a rain cover. It was the only thing she had to keep herself up off the wet ground. Then she pulled out rope and two knives she had packed. One was a hunting knife, the other, for skinning. She tired the rope to each knife then wedged them into the walls on either side of the cave at the ceiling, making herself a clothesline.

“I sure hope nothing finds me…” She more prayed than said.

She took off her pants, underwear, and shoes, hanging both on the line near the fire, but not over it, in case the rope fell. She also removed her top as it was a bit wet too.

Now devoid of wet clothes and sitting beside a nice warm fire, she felt better. Still sore, but her mood was improved. Then she remembered what brought her to this point and grumbled, “At least they could have dropped me near a town or something. Instead of dropping me off to be a troll’s lunch.” Then she sighed. Slowly working and stretching her sore muscles. Now that she was not in shock anymore, she rechecked to make sure she had no major injuries. She didn’t even have any cuts worthy of notice, a few scratches at best.

“Well, at least I got some bit of a lucky break.” She then retrieved a wool blanket from her pack. It was now pretty much empty, just some dried fruits, nuts, and cereal. A homemade trail-mix. She figured if she didn’t go crazy eating it, she had enough for two or three days. She had enough water in her tin canteen for about three days. A week if she rationed.

“Food, first. Then clean water. I don’t have a lot of hunting gear, so it’s going to have to be something easy to catch.”

She rolled herself in the blanket putting more wood on the fire. Which was between her and the exit. Then laid down in thought. Staring at the ceiling.

‘So, food. Find a settlement. Find a way to earn money for necessities. Learn about the world and what life was like here. Yup. Piece of cake.’ She mentally laughed. ‘At least I was given my pack and the ability to speak and read the more common languages here. Things would be translated into my languages they told me. So, I guess whatever they called a cat… would be called a cat. I can learn the other languages if I wish. One thing at a time.’ She yawned. ‘Tired. I guess being unconscious is not the same thing as restful sleep. God I’m going to hurt even more tomorrow I bet.’ With a bit of a frown, she decided to wait until tomorrow to take another pain pill. Unless she couldn’t sleep because of the pain.

She watched the shadows from the fire play on the roof for a while, listening to the night. It was almost too quiet out there, though she did hear some insects making noise. Which was comforting. She added more wood to the fire, and let herself drift off, with an ear open for trouble.

==================================

Once Mic entered the inn’s common room, he looked and saw his group at a table. It was starting to get dark out and he had run out of energy trying to hunt down clues to the person that might be in the swamp. No one knew of anyone missing. Even the village head had not heard anything, but he said he would seek Mic out if he heard contrary. With that Mic felt better. His conscious was mostly clear. Either the person was an adventurer traveling, or they were far from home and likely were already gone or dead. Not much he felt he could do either way. It’s been hours after all.

Nick waved at him as he walked up to take his seat at the table.

Kip nodded. Mel asked, “Any news?”

“None. The being who made those prints was not from this village. Though the head said he would seek me out tomorrow if things changed. Otherwise, it looks like we’re in the clear to head back to town.”

He got three nods. Then he waved the girl over that was running orders.

The four ordered their evening fare and ate in a more relaxed atmosphere. They chatted about their day, and Mel ribbed Kip about his “heroics” again, Drawing a chuckle from the table beside them. It was a good end to a good day’s hunt. Tomorrow they would head back to town, turn in their quest, and head out again. They were not a sedentary group. They liked to keep moving and living while the living was good. Each had their own reasons to push. For two it was about money. For the other two, they did it because they each thought they were there for the other. Not realizing they might not have to work quite so hard, if only they had thought to ask the other why they adventured, instead of ASSuming.