A short time later, the tranquil bubble of the clearing was rudely popped by a roar that jiggled the earth like an overly ambitious pudding.

 

From the dense foliage, a monstrous creature burst forth, its appearance an absurd mashup of something like a hyena and a turtle, standing taller than a horse and broader than a bear. Its scales were more aquatic-looking and shimmered in the sunlight, while its tortoise-like maw, filled with sharp, uneven teeth, snapped at the air. This fearsome spectacle of nature was a thrennal; upon its back, it carried an imposing figure.

 

He was a man of considerable size, his muscles bulging under the strain of controlling the creature, draped in sky-blue robes that fluttered dramatically behind him as the thrennal skidded to a halt. Scars crisscrossed his visible skin, a likely indicator of countless battles, and a double-bladed battle ax, large and menacing, was slung across his back. Despite his rough exterior, the elegance of his attire suggested a status far above that of his companions, who arrived in the clearing moments later.

 

The seven individuals who trailed behind him wore robes of a dark navy, far less impressive than the man's vibrant attire. They looked all the realm like the understudies to his lead role, a motley crew that seemed almost humorous in their attempt to embody the same level of intimidation.

 

As the group took in their surroundings, their gaze fell upon Garrick, who remained seated alone by the cookfire, an embodiment of calm in the face of their dramatic entrance. He’d been stirring the contents of the pot on the flames but had looked up upon their arrival.

 

"Hey, you there, by the fire!" one of the robed figures called out. “...uh, old man!”

 

Garrick glanced around the clearing with exaggerated confusion as if expecting to find someone else hiding behind the bushes. Finding none, he pointed to himself, eyebrows raised in mock surprise.

 

"Me?" he asked, voice dripping with innocence.

 

The robed figure’s face twisted into a sneer.

 

"Yes, you! Who else would—"

 

"Silence, Tormund!" the man atop the thrennal barked, his voice carrying the sort of authority that immediately snuffed out Tormund's burgeoning tirade. Tormund's mouth snapped shut, his expression sulking into one of wounded pride.

 

Kroll the Finder, as he had to be, gracefully dismounted the thrennal with a fluidity that was at odds with the bulk of his muscled form. He patted the creature affectionately, murmuring something Garrick couldn’t catch but seemed to soothe the beast. Then, stepping forward, Kroll left the thrennal to loom ominously by the trees, its large, turtle-hyena body casting an absurd shadow on the clearing.

 

Garrick, meanwhile, continued his culinary ministrations with the same serene disinterest he might afford a remarkably uneventful breeze. The Finder advanced but halted midway across the clearing, his nose twitching as he sniffed the air.

 

Fixing Garrick with a look that might have been intimidating if not for the curious tilt of his head, Kroll raised an eyebrow.

 

"What are ya cookin' in there, gramps?" he asked.

 

Garrick glanced down at the bubbling pot before looking back up with a nonchalant shrug.

 

"Lunch," he stated simply as if the answer should have been evident to anyone.

 

Kroll sneered at the response, turning to share a look with his companions.

 

“Gramps thinks he’s funny, don’t he?” Krolls said to the others, who all erupted in derisive laughter.

 

An elfin woman with long, violet-colored hair called out to Garrick, "Oi! Did you make enough for all of us?"

 

There were more chuckles at that.

 

Garrick paused, his gaze drifting back to the pot. He then turned to the woman and the group, making a deliberate show of counting them, his lips silently forming numbers. After a moment of theatrical contemplation, he shook his head, his expression one of regret.

 

"Afraid not. Apologies for that, friends. If you'd have sent word you were coming, I could've prepared more.” Then he made a show of perking up.

 

“Who do we have here, by the way? Obviously, we've got Tormund," he nodded toward the now-silenced man, "but his is the only name I know. What are the rest of you called?”

 

“Burdette,” said the elf woman with the violet hair.

 

“Pepper,” said the short man with his hood all the way up, who Garrick thought might’ve been a dwarf.

 

“Char—” started another but was interrupted as Kroll wheeled on them.

 

“Why you—what are you all doing?” The big man demanded. “Why in the blasted blue are you telling him your names?!”

 

The woman called Burdette stepped forward, awkwardly holding her hand out.

 

“Um. Because…he asked for it?” she ventured, as if the man had been looking for an actual answer.

 

Kroll’s scowl brought her to heel, and she threw up her hands and stepped back into formation. The Finder turned back to Garrick, puffing out his chest as he made a grandiose declaration.

 

"I am Kroll the Finder, the premier tracker of the Order of the Penitent Tome."

 

Penitent Tome? Garrick couldn't help but think it was a rather silly name for a cult. How is a tome supposed to be penitent? He mused. It's a book. What in the realms could it possibly need to feel bad about?

 

He recalled some dreadful books he'd read over the years, considering that perhaps the authors owed the world an apology, but the books themselves were innocent bystanders to their creation.

 

Looking up at Kroll with a congenial smile, Garrick nodded.

 

"Well met, Gull," he deliberately mispronounced, feigning ignorance. "I am Garrick. What brings you and your search party to my humble campsite?"

 

Kroll's expression darkened into a scowl, correcting him tersely, "It's Kroll."

 

“My mistake, young man,” Garrick said. “‘Skull,’ it is. Very intimidating name, by the way.”

 

Trying to recapture the imposing presence he had momentarily lost, Kroll began, "We are in pursuit of…"

 

His words trailed off as his gaze landed on the carriage, awkwardly visible downaways on the trail. His focus whipped back to Garrick, eyes narrowing with suspicion, before taking a deliberate step toward the old man, his posture tensing.

 

"Where's the family that was traveling with that cart?" Kroll's voice was sharp, a clear demand with an underlying threat.

 

Garrick feigned a moment of confusion, glancing back toward the cart and the horse tethered to it. At the edge, he could just make out the blanket and boots, five pairs hanging limply from the back of the wagon. Covered in blood.

 

"Oh," he replied nonchalantly, lifting the ladle for a sip of the stew. "Killed them."

 

The group, as one, jerked to attention.

 

"What?!" Kroll managed to choke out, his face a mask of incredulity.

 

"Killed them?" Garrick repeated as if unsure they had heard him correctly the first time. "With a knife. Their bodies are over there," he gestured vaguely toward the back of the cart, "if you fancy a look. Though I wouldn't recommend it. Nasty business, very messy. They tried to run, of course, but I managed to catch them all in the end."

 

He took another casual sip of his stew and added, "Tasty, though.”

 

He offered the ladle of very red stew toward Kroll with a polite smile.

 

The ripple of surprise that went through Kroll and his followers was physical, their faces horrified at Garrick's calm admission.

 

“You’re eating them?!”

 

“Yep,” Garrick said, still holding out the ladle. “Want to try?"

 

He was met with stunned, abhorrent silence.

 

“No?” Garrick asked. “More for me, then.”

 

This did the trick. The cult members strategically spread out, creating a semicircle around the clearing. With a dramatic flourish that seemed almost too grand for the situation, Kroll drew his double-bladed battle ax from his back. He pointed the weapon directly at Garrick, which only served to amuse the old man further, considering the pointed end was arguably the least intimidating aspect of the ax.

 

Still maintaining his relaxed demeanor amidst the growing standoff, Garrick sighed heavily.

 

"Fine, fine," he conceded, with a tone of exasperation, "if you're all going to get this upset over a simple misunderstanding, I suppose I can offer each of you a sip. But no more than that. The best bits are at the top, and I wouldn't want to waste them."

 

"You're a monster," Kroll accused, his voice heavy with horror and disgust, "and you deserve to be put down."

 

Unfazed, Garrick let out a performative groan as he pushed himself to stand, taking his time to sell the whole ‘fragile old man’ act he had going. As he rose, he couldn't help but notice, from the corner of his eye, the involuntary step back taken by several of the cult members.

 

Garrick slowly made his way forward with the pot of stew in hand until he was merely inches from the menacing ax head. He squinted at it.

 

"What's with the violence, gents?" he inquired, his voice dripping with naivety. "It's just stew, after all."

 

"This is a crime," Kroll declared, spitting to the ground with a gesture that intended to convey his disdain but instead added an air of melodrama to the scene. "A heinous one. You’ve murdered and eaten a family!”

 

He’s awfully judgmental for someone who was planning to take a boy back to be sacrificed.

 

“I’m afraid I am a bit confused, lads,” Garrick said. “I thought I mentioned that the family was tasty?”

 

“On your knees, wretch. Now. This cannot stand any longer."

 

"Why?" Garrick responded. "I'm sorry, friend, but I'm an old man. If I drop to a knee, I won’t be able to get back up for a fortnight."

 

"You won't be getting back up again," a voice chimed in from beneath a heavily shadowed hood—Pepper, by the sound of it. "That's the point."

 

"Oh. Ohh, are you planning to end me? Chop my head off? Run me through?" Garrick chuckled merrily. “Not with a cheaply-made weapon like that, you’re not.”

 

Without waiting for a response, he reached out and pinched the edge of the ax's double blade. With a pressure that seemed no more strenuous than plucking a dandelion from its roots, the entire section of the blade snapped off, clattering to the dirt below.

 

"See?” Garrick asked, tsking. “Quality craftsmanship is hard to come by these days. Back in my time, you could—"

 

"Demon!" Kroll's shout cut through the clearing like a knife, his accusation sending a wave of horror through his followers, who began to retreat, their faces etched with fear and their murmurs laced with horrified oaths. One of them, braver than the others Garrick wagered, raised his hand to cast a Chant of some variety. Garrick felt the surge of astara as the robed individual pulled on the strings of energy.

 

“Powers that be, grant me the might to—GAH!” the Chant-wielder screeched, suddenly finding his face splattered with hot stew as Garrick deftly aimed a ladleful of the stuff right at his face. The man began to sputter and wretch.

 

“It…g-got in me MOUTH!” he shouted, suddenly doubling over, his attack forgotten. “It got in me fekkin’ gob! The people stew! ARGH!”

 

“Oh, did you not want to go first?” Garrick asked. “Apologies then.”

 

At the same time, Kroll took that opportunity to attack, swinging with all his might with the still-intact side of the ax at Garrick. However, he suddenly and inexplicably found that he was holding nothing at all. Garrick, though, had been blessed by the gods, it seemed, with the weapon previously bound for him. He held the ax in his hands as if this was the most usual thing in the world and examined it closely before taking a few perfunctory swipes.

 

“Yep,” he said, looking back at an astonished Kroll. “As I suspected, it’s trash. I’ll take care of this for you.”

 

Without breaking eye contact, Garrick heaved the ax backward with one hand, the weapon spinning wildly with the force as it arced high up and over the trees, disappearing into the sky.

In the wake of the absurdity that had just unfolded, Kroll and his band of cultists could only gape in horror at Garrick, whose demeanor abruptly shifted from the jovial old man to someone far more imposing. The sudden drop of his façade to reveal an emotionless visage sent another wave of fear through the cultists. They trembled visibly, sensing, perhaps for the first time, the depth of their misjudgment.

 

Seizing the moment to imprint the lesson, Garrick leaned slightly forward. In a whisper that carried an uncharacteristic weight, he simply said, "Boo."

 

The effect was instantaneous and would have been comical if it weren't so pitiful. The cultists, including Kroll, erupted into a cacophony of panic, tripping over themselves in their haste to flee the clearing. Shouts of "Demon!" and "He's going to eat us!" punctuated the air as they vanished into the trees, their flight marked by the crashing of underbrush and the distant echo of their screams.

 

Garrick stood alone, the clearing once again his, save for the lingering sounds of disarray as the cultists made their escape. With a faint smile, he mused that they were likely to run until their legs gave out, such was their terror.

 

Haven’t pulled a trick like that in a while, he thought to himself. I’ll give myself high marks for execution despite the improvisational nature.

 

Turning his attention back to the carriage, Garrick called out, "The coast is clear," his voice returning to its usual, gentle timbre.

 

As if on cue, the grisly image of bloodied bodies beneath the blanket faded away to reveal Agatha and her family, safe and sound, huddled together in the carriage. Ember sat in front of them, her protective posture unwavering even as the illusion dissipated. The family's relieved expressions were a welcome sight, and he ambled toward them.

 

“Wonderful work with that illusion, Ember,” Garrick said. The little vulpid beamed at him, walking in a figure-eight pattern before rolling over onto her back—expecting belly scratches. Garrick readily obliged.

 

Agatha, gathering her composure, whispered a heartfelt "Thank you," to which Garrick simply nodded.

 

“How can yer fox do somethin’ like that?” Jeromie asked, staring down at Ember with a raised eyebrow.

 

“‘Specially something so gruesome?” Basil added, shivering.

 

“She’s a vulpid,” Garrick said. “Astara is in her nature. Her kind have a propensity for tricky things, so it’s to be expected.”

 

He knew he was being vague, but explaining the true extent of what had happened wasn’t precisely worth going into detail for them at the moment. Ember had only a part of the involvement in that little ruse; the other person, it seemed, wasn’t aware of the role he played.

 

He’ll find out, eventually.

 

“What’s a vulpid?” Jeromie asked. “And how do I get meself one?”

 

Garrick just laughed.

 

“Vulpids are quite rare. So, unfortunately, I don’t know that you’d be able to acquire one. To make a long description incredibly short, vulpids are mystical beasts. They don’t typically grow up around these parts, either.”

 

“Where do they grow up, then?” Jeromie continued, unwilling to let the matter lie.

 

“Zotto,” Garrick said. “You may not have heard of it, but it is a land across the sea. It would take two months to travel by ship to even touch down on Zotto’s shores—so it’s quite far away.”

 

Jeromie didn’t respond but simply stared up at the sky—as if he could see this legendary land if he squinted enough.

 

“What do we do about that?” Basil asked, pointing back toward where the cultists had made their mass exodus. Garrick glanced back and saw the thrennal was still parked in place, nuzzling for food in the grass.

 

“I think the beast’s been through enough,” Garrick said. “It’s not leashed or bound in any way. The best bet would be to leave it be—its kind are from the forests, so it's likely going to be much more comfortable in this environment than chained in the back of a wagon, don’t you think?”

 

The group looked at him, horrified.

 

“I feel as though I’m not understanding something,” Garrick said, looking from face to face.

 

“What if it comes after us?” Agatha asked. “Tries to attack?”

 

Garrick chuckled.

 

“That would be very strange indeed,” he said, shaking his head. “No, I see where your confusion is. However, rest assured: despite the fearsome appearance, the thrennal are fairly harmless creatures. They’re herbivorous beasts—plant eaters. You’re decidedly not its favorite snack; even if one is hungry enough, they are not aggressive.”

 

The wary look the family gave him showed they might not believe him, but that was alright. It was the truth.

 

“It’ll wander off, eventually,” Garrick said. “You have my word on that. Now, how about we get you lot back on the road?”

 

“The road to where?” Basil asked. “Once they figure out we’re still alive, Kroll and his group will come looking for us.”

 

“Oh, I don’t think you will need to worry about that, Mr. Basil,” Garrick said. “They believe you’re dead—and eaten by a demon, no less. No, they won’t be back for you—the risk would be far too great to their safety.”

 

“Ye should have just killed ‘em,” Jeromie said darkly, glaring at the path the cultists had escaped down. “Would have been better’n they deserved.”

 

Garrick sighed, leveling a gaze at Jeromie.

 

“I’m not particularly keen on killing, despite the story I wove back there,” he said thoughtfully. “Killing them might have kept the cult off of your trail, yes, but things like that have a tendency not to stay put without getting turned over. What if, when that group didn’t return, they sent another group out to look for you? No, that would be a whole new set of issues. Give them something to fear, and they’ll stay away—they have no reason to believe you’re alive as long as you don’t go shouting it from the branches of each tree.”

 

He rested a hand on Jeromie’s shoulder.

 

“Violence is something that should be a last resort,” he said. “Trust me when I tell you that it rarely resolves a problem properly—and most times, invents brand new ones. You’ll find in life that choosing not to go down that path is often more difficult than taking up the firebrand. The world works in a way that a closed fist is much easier to trade than a handshake. There is a time and place for both, to be sure, but the lines are much more defined than most people think.”

 

There was a long silence as the boy—and the rest, it seemed, absorbed these words. Thinking he was starting to sound too much like an old sage for his liking, Garrick suddenly spoke up again.

 

“But did you see when I thwapped that one gentleman with the ladle of stew? Bet he’s not going to forget that anytime soon!”

 

This made the children laugh, and Sam and Lucy decided to mime a reenactment with one another. Garrick’s eyes met Agatha’s again, and for the first time since he’d met her a few hours prior, she was smiling genuinely.

 

“Right,” Garrick said. “If you’ve a mind to trust me a little further—I have an idea on which direction you should head.”

 

—

 

“Goodbye, Garrick! Goodbye, Ember!”

 

The old man and his vulpid companion waved at Agatha and her family as they rolled away from the forest's edge, leaving man and beast beside the tree line. The expanse of the Red Summer Valley stretched out before them, the setting sun creating a beautiful alpenglow on the mountains surrounding it. This was not a view Garrick saw often, but when he did, he adored witnessing the majesty this world could create.

 

Watching the carriage roll away down the trail through the Red Summer, Garrick felt a sense of longing. The family had endured much hardship and were still together. It made him think of Skylark, Ri Aru, and Twyla when they’d left out from Maretown in their own rickety cart the last time he saw them. He took a deep breath; the fresh valley air, so thick and humid this late in the summer, invigorated him. Steadied his mind. He glanced down at Ember.

 

“Thanks for being a good sport about the illusion,” he told her. Ember just looked up at him quizzically. He smiled and leaned down, scooping her arm and depositing her on his shoulder. “The boy’s got a Sigil, but he doesn’t know how to use it yet. He just needed to borrow some of what you can do to make it all work. I appreciate it.”

 

But his words fell on deaf ears because Ember, he found, was already fast asleep by the time he finished his sentence. He smirked, patting her gently, and watched the cart bearing the family he’d just rescued. He frowned momentarily, then, as an intrusive thought entered his mind.

 

The ruse he’d used to throw the cultists off their game was clearly effective. Still, he hadn’t simply fabricated it out of nothing. No, he’d encountered a situation like that long ago, and it hadn’t been theatrical. It had been sinister. He banished the thought away again, just as his mind remembered the chilling smile on the man’s face as he’d lovingly gloated about his horrific crimes. While taking a bite of what he’d first thought was steak.

 

No, it was better if Garrick didn’t think about that. That had been an awful quest. Instead, he focused on the carriage until the sun finally set and the valley grew too dark to reveal finer details. He’d sent them on a path to Templetown—and they’d be safe there until they could make passage to Fable. A cult of the goddess of Death and Dying wouldn’t dare set foot in that province—not unless they liked being fireballed into oblivion on sight.

 

Just as Garrick was turning back to the dark forest, something popped up in his vision. Garrick, who was not easily startled, let out a light gasp at its appearance. It was something he had not seen in many, many years.

 

A golden marquee of letters scrolled in front of his eyes, floating in the air in front of the darkening valley.

 

“Well…that’s something,” he muttered, rereading the message.

 

Side Quest: Complete

 

“Wonder if that’s worth worrying about?” he said to the slumbering fox.

 

Then Garrick turned and made his way back into the dark forest.