hwango

It had been an exhausting day, and Horuld had retreated to the tavern for a drink and some relative peace and quiet. Alas, he'd barely even tasted his ale before the adventurers showed up.

You could tell that's what they were instantly. The armor, the weapons, the racial diversity, the slightly feral look in their eyes. You could see right on their faces that they didn't spend a lot of time in civilization, and that they were automatically assessing whether or not they were likely to get into a fight here, and how much treasure they might walk away with if they did. And, of course, they were heading right towards Horuld's table, because the townsfolk always sent the adventurers to him. He'd often wondered what he had ever done to them to deserve such a thing.

"Good evening to you, sir," the one with the enormous axe greeted him. "We asked in the street for someone with a knowledge of the local wilds, and they directed us to you."

Of course they did.

Horuld was a simple hunter and trapper - he went into the forest in search of meat and pelts, not dragons and gold. He had never personally seen anything in the forest more dangerous than a bear, and he liked it that way. But every few weeks this sort of thing would happen - four or five crazy people laden down with magical artifacts who had fought unspeakable monsters and who could probably defeat a middle-sized army would come and ask him if they could expect to encounter giants or werewolves or whatever once they left town again. It was never entirely clear to him whether this was something they were hoping for, or something they wished to avoid. Most likely the former, though.

"We plan to venture up the mountain, and - " the man continued, but Horuld cut him off.

"You don't want to go up the mountain," he said. "No one goes up the mountain." This got him a patronizing smile.

"Good sir, we are not afraid of danger. We have fought ogres, giants, goblins, griffons, wyverns, several unusually aggressive mushrooms, a giant clockwork mongoose made of zinc -"

"The mountain is full of sages, sir."

"...I beg your pardon, did you say 'sages?'"

"Indeed, sir. Heroes as well-traveled as yourselves will of course be expecting to find a strange old man living in isolation on top of the mountain, and may even seek him out in the hope of obtaining cryptic advice and possibly a mysterious trinket that will lead to an epic quest of some sort. But something has gone wrong, and the mountain is positively infested with them. You can't go ten yards without running into some venerable sage who wants to impart some secret wisdom to anyone who will listen. I barely escaped with my sanity the last time I were there, and I'll never go back. Nor could I in good conscience recommend that anyone else go there."

Horuld waited while the adventurers digested this unexpected piece of news. After a moment, the elf with the pointy hat spoke.

"What about the swamp to the East?"

"Demonic crocodiles," Horuld said.

The adventurers expressions instantly brightened.

"Thank you, good sir," the guy with the axe said, and he flipped Horuld a coin probably worth more than the entire building. Then the adventurers wandered back out into the dark, and Horuld returned to his drink.

They'd been fairly pleasant, for adventurers, and more polite than most. He was glad that they had seemed to heed his advice about the mountain, and he hoped they enjoyed the crocodiles. The last bunch hadn't believed him about the sages. Horuld shuddered. He could still remember the screams.