>>6116203“R-right, I know!” You’d actually totally forgotten about that. “Uhh… Are there Paladins in Sunset Like?”
ZZ laughs at that, and slaps you on the back.
“Lucky you, the shit going on down South means they’re too busy for some podunk-ass fishing village.”
Well, that’s good! That means you can enjoy the hike without worrying about being smacked in the face with a <Smite Evil> the instant you arrive—you can just fantasize about fish, and all the fish-stories and urban goss you’ll be marinating in!
The walk through the woods itself is routine enough, much of the local forest being the same as it is around New Goblintown: The woods are a tapestry of towering pines, their evergreen needles whispering wordless secrets to the breeze as the party makes its way downhill. The air is crisp and carries the scent of pine sap, the kind that clings to your senses as stickily as the ooze itself to your finegrs when you curiously sink claws into a flow of it. As the elevation decreases, the sharp silhouettes of the conifers gradually give way to a more varied mix of trees with broad, leafy canopies, their fallen leaves softening the natural path underfoot.
Yeb and An are both surprisingly quiet, though their silence carries a different character from one another. Yeb-Uit moves with a practiced, deliberate silence, each step careful and calculated, like someone who knows every rustle and snap might tell a story he’s chosen not to share. His quiet is a comfortable cloak, one that doesn’t demand to be filled, but rather invites you to listen to the forest. In contrast, An-Yii’s silence feels tighter, more constrained, her eyes darting to each shifting shadow as if expecting it to spring for her jugular. It’s a nervous silence, and the few times she responds to ZZ’s attempts at small-talk, her replies are terse, brief, and a little snippy.
“Well shit, I do know how ta’ pick ‘em, don’t I?” Zith-Zi grouses, apparently almost as starved for conversation as you are.
