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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eris404" data-source="post: 2629702" data-attributes="member: 5338">Our little group of novice adventurers is discouraged by this encounter and at a loss at how to proceed. After a brief discussion, Ishii reveals that gnomes can speak with burrowing animals; perhaps he could find one to question.A little way into the forest, he wakes an ill-tempered badger who seems disinclined to be helpful. But through the chittering noises and hissing the animal makes, he discerns that he did see a small green man walking in woods. He shows Ishii where he saw the little man and Ishii indeed finds a tiny footprint among the leaves. He returns to his new companions with more questions than answers.Where, might you ask, is Utresh among all this? She is alive and quite safe, though shaken by the experience, and is making breakfast and tea for the grief-stricken farmhands. The students are glad to see she is well and note that the experience has changed her. No longer is she the cringing old woman, though her smile is feeble.“I have something to tell you,” she admits. “I am not completely the old fraud I pretend to be. I am a worshipper of Xante.”“Who’s that?” George whispers to Dante.“If you paid attention in religion class, you’d know she’s the goddess of forbidden knowledge.” Dante hisses back.“Is that bad?” George asks, worried.“Depends on who you ask,” Utresh replies with a soft laugh. “I may not have been her most favored worshipper, but she has shown me a few things.” From her bundle, she unwraps several vials of dark liquid. “These are the sum of my magical training. I think you may need them more than I.”Dante receives the potions with gratitude and asks Utresh what she will do next.“Go home,” She says with a shrug. “If nowhere is safe, then I might as well be where I am most comfortable.”After breakfast, the students sit together and discuss what to do next. They are afraid, but also excited by the promise of exploration and adventure. Ishii offers to show them where he found the footprint, which seems as good a place as any to start. And so, our friends say good-bye to Utresh and the farmhands and set out for the woods. While combing the forest for the print, Jade discovers several sets of small tracks.“I think these belong to the children,” he announces. Our travelers follow the trail in silence north across the river. The tracks cross an old road and then find an old path that leads up to the foot of the mountain. There it ends among the tall rocks that rest there; nearby, a waterfall hisses and gurgles into a large pool.“Now what?” asks Serai. She is unused to such hiking and is quite fatigued and thirsty. She rests by the pool and drinks from its cool, clean water. Nearby, she notices a dam made of leaves and branches and an idea occurs to her. “Ishii, can you speak to beavers?”From the busy little builder, Ishii learns that the mines are sealed, but that small green-skinned men had climbed up the mountain not long ago; he twitches his nose in the direction the little men hiked.</blockquote>

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