Building before Investigating
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Last time, our four friends took part in a short history lesson with Fiona, the merchant in Feth. They learnt a lot about the fate that had befallen the village. To find out even more about the strange disappearance of the men of Feth, our four friends decided to pay a visit to the fortune teller Isabel and ask her questions too.
Now, however, only Theo is sitting in front of Isabel, as his three friends have fled from the horrible smell of incense that has taken over Isabel’s entire hut. Theo unabashedly asks Isabel directly whether she has any information about the disappearance of the men or whether she had anything to do with it at the time. She vehemently denies the latter and is also a little offended that Theo would even consider such a thing.
Nevertheless, she has some more information for Theo. She remembers that a father and his daughter lived in the forest near the village for a long time. They were never really part of the community, but the daughter Grete in particular appeared more frequently in the village as a young woman. She was a bit strange and you could tell that she spent a lot of time alone. One day, for example, she was thrown out of the inn for staring at her son Telohren for several minutes and not stopping when she was asked to do so. Isabel suspects that this girl is behind everything and has taken revenge on the village out of sheer jealousy. Because some time before the disappearance began, Grete and her father disappeared completely from the village community and were never seen again. Shortly after the disappearance of Grete and her father, large supplies of herbs were stolen from Isabel, something that never happened before or since.
Theo thanks her several times for all the new information and her predictions for the future, then says goodbye and steps back outside the door of the small house. Here he has to enjoy the fresh air for a minute or two before he goes back to the inn ‘Die müden Pferdebeine’. He meets his three friends who are sitting with Bibiane at a small table in the taproom, munching on sandwiches. He sits down and Aldric tells him what their next plan is. ‘We’re going to ride to Selbingen with Bibiane straight after dinner. We’ll help her rebuild her stable there and then ride back to Feth.’ Theo is now surprised by this, but that’s not all: ‘We’ve also bought Jannik. The old horse that Gerda still had standing around here. We’ll all get a gold coin from you.’ Puzzled, Theo asks what they want with the horse, but Aldric already has an answer. Before they set off, they make a quick trip to Carla-Theresia to buy a cart. This will enable them to transport much more luggage in future. As Theo obviously has no say in the matter anyway, he shrugs his shoulders and turns his attention to the sandwiches in front of him.
After everyone has eaten and Theo has shared his information with Isabel, they pack up the essentials and say goodbye to Gerda. Their first stop is, of course, Carla-Theresia, but when Aldric hears the price of a horse-drawn cart, his eyes bug out of his head. He hadn’t really expected such steep prices. Theo looks at his friend with a little malicious glee and gives him a challenging grin. Annoyed, Aldric turns to Kel Tuh Las and Löwenzahn, but the cart is clearly too expensive for them too, so they head off towards Selbingen without it. In addition to Jannik, our four friends can also rely on Bibiane’s horses, and so they even make it back to Selbingen that day.
After a few hours’ sleep, our four heroes grumpily dig themselves out of their warm blankets and shuffle through Selbingen to Bibiane’s former stable. She is already in the process of clearing away the charred remains of her former home. She greets her helpers warmly and tells them enthusiastically that she has found another helper: Aki. The name makes the foursome’s blood run cold. They really don’t want to have to put up with this annoying little rumpelstiltskin all day. Unfortunately, Bibiane doesn’t really care what they think, and before nine o’clock the little gnome arrives with a big wheelbarrow full of wood. But you have to hand it to Aki: he knows his trade like no other. He cuts the tree trunks to size in no time at all, and no one can fool him when it comes to assembling them. By the evening, the entire floor plan of the house is in place, which none of our friends would have thought possible beforehand. Exhausted, they pop in for a knuckle of pork and a few beers at Andreas’, the landlord of “Zum gekochten Schweinekopf”, and then it’s off to bed again.
The next day is very similar: getting up early, annoying Aki, lots of progress, dinner at Andreas’. But the third morning in Selbingen is different, because they know they’re going back to Feth today. When they arrive at Bibiane’s stable, Aki is already climbing around on the roof and covering it diligently. Our friends just have to help him throw the loads of thatch onto the roof before they say goodbye to Aki. Together with Bibiane, they now ride back to Feth, but they won’t arrive here until the next Arkanthia Pen and Paper blog.
