The early days passed quickly. Angis and Tommi spiked the goblin, bugbear, and hobgoblin heads amongst the goads-and-lilies surrounding the town palisade. They pyred the rest of the bodies among the burnt-out-husks that had once been the part of the town that was outside the moats. Julkounians came to watch the fire, and some of them spat and cursed as the goblinoids roasted away.
Then they worked on repairing the part of the wall that had been broken, and organising and training a new militia out of the surviving able-bodied folk. The elves helped in this task for awhile, but after a few days they made their farewells and returned to Laughing Hollow to rejoin their hunting party.
Dandin returned with the first of the supplies, and he took Findledan (and anyone else who wanted to join him) to fetch Hanar (his mule) and his cart from Oyafanen's Grove. The Dryad was overjoyed to see her friend the storyteller, and Findledan told the tale of the Battle for Julknoun. Somehow in his telling it was funnier than Dandin remembered it being, and the Dryad laughed like leaves in a breeze.
Later, Dandin collected all of the goblin horde's weapons and armour to sell to the smiths in Daggerford. Much of the money would be given back to the struggling Julkounians, but Dandin would keep a small fee, as was more than fair. He did some searching, but the only treasure left to be found was a single potion (of climbing) that had been tucked in a bugbear's bedroll.
All this time, Enseth stood in the centre of town like a statue, and as joy came slowly back to the town, children played about him - sometimes tying a rope to him to play skip-rope. He had taken a lot of damage, but somehow each day he appeared just a little less scratched and battered, with his outer plating shifting very slowly straighter.
Titus did all the tedious jobs that a Townmaster would have (more in fact, for a town after such a disaster had many many tedious tasks). He took up residence in the same room in the Jester's Pride that the Red Wizard had occupied. He tried to make sense of the few papers that the wizard had left behind. One evening as he was making his own notes while trying to finish learning a ritual that had become incomplete when the wizard had burnt or taken things in the rush to leave, Titus spilled his ink-bottle in his fatigue. The ink formed two-blobs, and as Titus gently plucked his pen from between the ink-blobs, to avoid getting too much ink on his hands, the pen left a trail between them:
Suddenly Titus was overwhelmed with a terror he had never felt. He found himself on the floor, under the desk, shaking and sweating. His vision blurred and his ears rang. He felt as if something were very far away, but coming toward him, faster and faster, as if it would roll over him like a wave if he did not get out of the way, but he couldn't move. He found himself curled in a ball, crying.
