The 5 of us sat around the table. At the northernmost part of the table sat Charolette, and, going clockwise, next to her was Zramazos, next to him was Michuas, then me, then finally S, between Charolette and me. Because that's how circles work, and that's all the geometry I ever needed to know. Eat dirt, math curriculum. 

Charolette peeked over at the oven, and then back to the table. "So... Who wants to go first?"

Predictably, Michaus enthusiastically raised his hand and shouted. "OOH! Me! Me!" 

Strangely, as Michaus spoke, I noticed Zramazos sort of vacantly stated at the table, just for a moment. Looks like he's gotta sneeze.

I took a sip of my drink. 

Everyone turned to Michuas. Well, I say 'Turned', but really we just shifted our heads a bit. 

"Alright, so, this one time, I think it was a few days ago! Or maybe weeks! It was a slow day, and I was very bored! So, I was decided to do some training over in the old ruins. The golems hadn't appeared, so I was just taking swings at my training dummies. This was also very boring!" Michaus began.

What was that about Golems? That's some sort of monster, right? And what's this about them 'appearing'? 

He continued his story. "But I kept doing that! For a while! Because training is important! Regardless! Eventually, my training was interrupted! BY 2 GIANT OWLS!"

I noticed out of the corner of my eye, Zramazos went pale, and quite seemed quite scared. Wonder what that's about?

I took a familiar sip of my drink.

"Mad beats, huh." Charolette said. 

"That's what I thought, too!" Michaus said.

Oh? Wait a minute, is he talking about..?

I noticed S perk up as well. "Were they... not?" S said. 

"Well! I thought they were, as they were HUGE! And VERY ANGRY! So, I readied my sword! I waited for them to start flying at me! With their beaks! Claws!" 

For a moment, his smile seemed to falter. For a moment, I could have sworn I saw something other than all consuming excitement. It was a familiar something, yet equally terrible. It was just for a moment. 

I took a sip. 

He continued. "But instead, you'll never believe this, they just SPAT THIS WEIRD GREEN GOOP AT ME! I barely dodged, but it hit the dummy behind me and it MELTED!"

Holy crap. Giant, aggressive, acid spitting owls. I'll drink to that.

S seemed to be listening intently. "Right, out of curiosity... what did they look like? In terms of color, at least."

"OOH! That reminds me! Yeah, they were entirely brown! But not, like, a normal brown, like, uhh... It was almost black. And all throughout the thing, the color never changed! Like someone threw paint at it!"  

"Wait, you talking about a mutation? W-Way out here?" Charolette said, uneasily. "Oh, you're just making this up, ri-"

"No! And not just one! There were 3 of them!"

"Right, what happened to them?" S asked.

"Oh, well, they're dead now! But-" Michaus began continuing.

"You fought them? Michaus, do you have any idea-" Charolette shouted, concerned. 

"That's the same thing I told him, too, first time I heard this." Zramazos interrupted. Ooh that's new. He sounded quite serious, too. "J-just let him finish." 

There was pause, for a moment. 

"Anyways, that's when I found the scariest part! See, I never saw them fly! They flapped their wings as they attacked me, and when I went to deal with them, but they never flew! Turns out, this was because they were already mostly dead when they got to the ruin!" 

Yikes. I took a sip of my drink.

"Right... know got them like that?" S asked.

"That's the scariest part! I have NO idea! And I didn't find any corpses or anything in the woods or anywhere nearby! And I looked hard!" 

"Right... man, what in the world could get a mad beast to retreat?"

"No idea! But I've been trying to find out ever since! Oh, and the guards have been keeping an eye out, too!"

S and Michaus seemed excited. The rest of us, (including me) were rather spooked, to say the least. I took a sip of my drink.

But... why did he... "O-Out of curiosity," I began. "a-and, if you don't mind me asking... Why didn't you run? From the 'owls'? And why did you look for that... thing?" I'd have run. Even if I couldn't run from the owls, I'd have at least evacuated the forest. 

Michaus looked me dead in the eye, and said "Hero's don't run away." As if it was the most natural and obvious thing in the world. Dang. He's quite serious about that whole 'hero' thing. He continued, "If any of those had made it to town, it could have been bad." 

"That mentality is going to get you killed." Zramazos said.

"I'd gladly die to protect-" 

"YOU CAN'T PROTECT ANYONE IF YOU'RE DEAD." Zramazos shouted, getting out of his chair and staring down at Michaus.

Michaus stared back up at him. 

I couldn't see his eyes. 

For a number of moments that seemed to reach infinity, there was silence. I took a sip of my drink.

Guess that's a touchy subject, huh.

Zramazos sat back down after a while, and the moments of silence continued, for just a little longer. Another sip. 

"Uh, s-so what's the oven at?" Zramazos said.

"Oh, uhhh... 213." Charolette said, peering over at the oven.

Look's like we've still got a while.

Once again, I sipped. 

"So... who's next?"