My trip back from Winterwood to Wolfspire was much more treacherous and plagued with bad luck than my initial trip. It started off promising; I was able to forage for more food and pitch a tent for a few hours before I started proper — I didn’t try to enter the inn again, I doubted the innkeeper would have allowed me another long night of screaming about bloody High Priests — but my plans turned upside down fairly quickly. I encountered heavy rain within half an hour of my trip and I was already too far from Winterwood to huddle under a roof to keep dry.

Much like my first trip, I encountered two wolves. The first was hurt and easy to kill with quick bow work. I was impressing myself with my shrewdness with the weapon, but I got too full of myself. The second wolf almost killed me. I suffered a few grazes on my legs, half a sackfull of destroyed supplies (save for the draught, miraculously), and constant setbacks and lost initiative. At one point the beast pinned me down. Growling with a mouth dripping saliva, I slowly reached for my knife and dug the blade into its belly. A loosed arrow into its side and another twist of the knife and the wolf was done. Half my poultices were spilled onto the ground and three of my five waterskins were torn. I collected what I had left, tended to my wounds with what little medicine was left in my bottles, and tried to make camp with little to no comfort. I was left completely exhausted and barely able to press on, but press on I did or else another wolf would ambush me and tear me to shreds.

I was delayed by at least two hours. When I finally returned to Wolfspire late into the night I discovered the gates closed with the wardens nowhere in sight. Surely they went off somewhere to get dizzy with drink and passed out away from their post. Flushed with anger and discouraged by the indignity, I made camp outside the gates and spent the rest of the night in discomfort away from my own bed. Sleep didn’t come.

✳ ✳ ✳

“Oi! Vagabond! This is no place to be passed out like a drunkard! If you can’t afford the inn I can point you in the direction of a mud-strewn hovel in the middle of the swamp not ten minutes from town, you miserable, unsettled vagrant!”

I was getting poked a with damned sword at this juncture. I was so irate that I could have ripped this warden’s head off. “Are you fucking mad??” I yelled, turning over in my bedroll. The warden was taken aback, white as a sheet. “Lady Jane?” he stammered in disbelief. “Excuse me, m’lady, but what in the Ironlands are you doing out here?”

I didn’t think this asinine question deserved an answer. “Open the gates now, or I’ll see to it that Chief Hannion strips you of your sword and armor and throws you into the jails for the rest of your natural life! You have no notion of how absolutely beside myself with anger I am right now. Move!”

The warden fumbled with his key and unlocked the gates. “My sincerest apologies, m’lady. Had I known… er, that is to say, we were ambushed by a pack of wild wolves and had to fend them off away from the gates! I swear an iron vow on my late mother’s grave, m’lady! Please to understand, we were only protecting the village!”

I didn’t deign to argue. I was too worn out to bother talking to this fool one more minute. “Spare me excuses. I care not about your nightly proclivities. I wish to return to my comfortable home with my warm bed. Good day, sirs.”

Upon entering my chamber, I tossed my sack, my bow, and my quiver in the corner and fell into my bed. After more melting altars and glowing pillars, I awoke at midday surprising refreshed. I supposed even horrible dreams could not stop my rest from being restorative after such a perilous evening. Like a firework going off in my mind, I snapped to attention and grabbed the draught – still wrapped in cloth – out of my sack to check to see if it was all still in one piece. I placed it back in my sack and took careful steps as I walked down the corridors. What misfortune it would be to trip and break the bottle on my way to Hirsham’s chamber. I would never forgive myself for breaking the iron vow in such a fool-minded manner.

I encountered an issue. Hirsham wasn’t in his chamber. The few bed-ridden Sickness patients were still lying barely conscious, but something felt sorely amiss. Had I known how to administer the draught to the patients I would have taken care of it forthwith, but I didn’t dare. I placed the bottle on one of Hirsham’s tables and left the chamber. This is when I was approached by Donnell, an aide of Chief Hannion. “Lady Jane! Oh, it’s awful! Hirsham has been taken out of the castle by a man named Tahir!”

My head started spinning. What was he talking about, taken? “Hirsham’s gone?” I asked stupidly. Yes, Jane, he’s gone. You’ve seen this clearly. “Who is Tahir?”

“I know nothing of Tahir. I saw the man talking to Davon but two days ago. I am trying to find him, too, but with no success.” He sized me up and down. “Gracious, Lady Jane, you look worse for wear! You appear to have seeping wounds! What horrors have you encountered on your journey?”

I looked at my legs and arms; they looked awful. And without Hirsham I could not tend to them properly. “I need to find Hirsham without haste! Please do not distract me! Tell me what you know!”

Davon ran up the corridor. “Lady Jane, Hirsham was assuredly taken to nearby Foxhovel! Tahir masqueraded over the last two days as Hirsham’s new apprentice, and… well, I suppose Hirsham did act a bit oddly, but—”

“Foxhovel? To the southeast??” I grabbed my sack and scoured the tables for potions and medicines I recognized. “I’m not going to wait here another second!” I scooped up a few bottles and bags of herbs and liquids that would help my bites and scrapes and shoved them into my sack. “I am going back to my quarters to secure my bow and quiver and I’m making headway to Foxhovel now.”

Donnell and Davon tried to stop me, but I made a royal order for them to step out of my way. Before long, I was all but running to the southeast gates and started on the path to Foxhovel.

Click here for all the boring game-related notes! On second thought, don’t bother!