Maysel sighs heavily and then cracks a sad smile. "Now you have brought me to tell you a Story. Can't say that happened before." While she tells you she stops regularly to add more ingredients to her soup, adding potatoes, strange-twisted looking roots and some spices, you get a small portion after the thing she added has simmered a bit, making the kinda bland soup more and more flavourful.

"I think it began a bit before we closed off our borders. You know the beastking get's in his years. Did you know that one of the three heroes from olden times was a beastmen? And that the one currently in charge is a descendant of this hero? Well, normally when this happens another jumps up, gets him a beatdown and becomes the new king. But no one could defeat him. I heard from some that this happened before and the title was distributed to several who were able to defeat him, but that hasn't happened too. Some of the monsters really give him a nasty cut or two, of course he can still defeat them, yes but if more and more gets to him he gets weaker and weaker."

She stops for a moment lost in thought, but then continues. "The Archon had an idea… He recruited some people, I've heard. Perhaps a year ago he got through here, recruited some people, we have never saw them again. When we last saw him he got through here and he had a small elven girl on his back. We asked him what was up. And where our friends where. We wanted answers but he had none to give. The only thing we got was violence."

She gulps, blinking rapidly several times. "We try'd to get to the capital, ask what is up with him. Perhaps even get to the king. Ask him if that is what he wanted. But we couldn't get deeper into the forest. The few who came from deeper settled here, some told us that they're village was overrun or nearly empty. We haven't heard from the capital ever since or from the king. We don't know what we should do. You have been the first outsiders we have seen here for months."

Maysel wishes over her eyes and try's to collect herself. "If I was younger, I would have gone. But there must be someone here when the hunters go out. Some don't have parents anymore. I would love to get them back to them, but I can only offer some soup."