Eyes flicking around, you swallowed your nerves with a shrug. “I mean…how hard could it be?”
At your shy admission, the entire bar erupted into an excited roar, as if you had single-handedly slain one of those epic beasts they rave about! Slinging an arm around your hunched shoulders, Gregor the great called out to the rest of the hunters.“A drink- to the Burning Blade, and to our new friend!” Swiftly, the bartender passed you a frothy pint, sloshing on the counter top with the commotion of the crowded bar.
The Hounds erupted in a hearty, commemorative howl as the patrons threw their glasses to the sky! But just as you really got to bask in all this attention, this great, startling bellow came from the ceiling, casting an amber, crackling glow through the gaps in the boards. However, it seemed the festivities were far more interesting than the rotting wooden blades of the windmill that housed the bar catching alight- happens all the time around here…
The hunt could wait after all the celebrating was over, and once a few more tales were shared over more liquor. However, the main event of the evening was still ahead of you…
As the lamps were growing low on oil, the guild of hunters clustered in a semicircle around the bar as Gregor the Great unfurled an old, crenellated map across his lap. “We could have one group in the graveyard, and the other…” He gestured with a fingernail to a path that could be taken through some backroads, “and another could investigate those werewolf reports in the Dark Forest-“
Chuckling, one of the other hunters elbowed him in the ribs. “Yeah? What about the marshes?”
He replied through his teeth, “You shut up about the marshes-!” You’d been getting the impression that The Hounds were less of a group of justice-dealing vigilantes and more of a frat house…