Heavy pounding on the downstairs door woke Hans. A little more than a week into winter, the snows had stopped for a day or two, but they returned with new ferocity. When the wind blew the wrong way, a snowdrift piled up in front of the front door, taller than the doorframe. He shoveled it twice a day sometimes to keep from being completely snowed in.

As he wrapped a blanket around himself and went downstairs–immediately regretting his choice to do so barefoot–he thought that perhaps he should leave the snow next time. If the door was blocked, no one could bother him at whatever awful hour this was.

Hans opened the door.

“Kane?”

The teen stood on the doorstep, his tusk skin almost as pale as the snow. “Gunther’s missing. Another kid too.”

“Come inside. I’ll be quick.”

Hans dressed as swiftly as he could, piling on layers of warm gear and wrapping himself in his winter cloak. He thought about taking the time to put on his armor but decided against it, grabbing only his sword and a torch. When people came to adventurers for help with missing people, they had usually checked all around town first. If the kids hadn’t been found yet, chances were they were out in the wilderness somewhere. Why they were out in the wilderness mattered but not as much right now. What mattered most was getting to them before the cold or a monster did.

“We should send a sparrow for Becky,” Hans said as the two stepped outside, the Guild Master pausing to light his torch with Create Fire.

“Galad is with Mayor Charlie now. He told me to get you and take you to the Tribe as quickly as I could.”

The pair broke into a jog, retracing the footsteps the tusks made traveling from the Tribe lands to Hans and Charlie. Based on the footprints, at least one other person had been with Galad and Kane. He guessed they belonged to Uncle Ed, which made sense. He couldn’t imagine the farmer sitting idle while Gunther was missing.

On the way, Kane explained that Gunther and one of the new tusk children were missing. From Kane’s description, Hans recognized the child as the girl he saw early in the fall, one of the first two tusks to migrate to Gomi. Her and her mother had been so scared then. How terrible that they felt that way again so soon.

The Tribe had already found the childrens’ tracks, but no one was confident enough in their abilities to follow them into the forest in the middle of the night. Hans knew immediately where the trail entered the woods because it was surrounded by several tusk adults, each carrying a lamp or a torch.

“Let Hans through!” Kane yelled.

The crowd parted, one of the tusk women pointing to two sets of footprints. The prints were undoubtedly both from children, one pair much smaller than the other. Holding the torch close to the ground, Hans surmised that the girl went first and Gunther followed. Her prints had a little more fresh snow than Gunther’s. Not by much, but enough that it was clear they hadn’t left together.

I wish Becky was here.

“This is the kids, for sure,” Hans said. “I’m going after them. I want everyone to wait here for Becky. Show her this trail, and tell her I promised to leave her easy tracks to follow.”

“I’m coming,” Kane said.

“No. We aren’t arguing this. We need to move faster than the cold. Understood?”

Kane nodded, reluctantly.

Hans half-jogged into the forest, moving as quickly as he could while looking for tracks by torchlight. The deeper he went, the more he was sure Gunther intentionally broke branches and kicked snow to make himself easy to follow, or perhaps to make it easier for him to find his way back. Either way, the kid was clever.

He wound his way through the woods, the twists and bends suggesting that the first tracks–the girl’s–belonged to someone who didn’t know their way. That may have been a blessing. Every hesitation and accidental doubleback gave Gunther more time to catch up. By extension, that bought Hans more time as well.

His celebration was short-lived. A pack of pawprints came in from another direction, intersecting Gunther’s. The tracks were a mess. All Hans knew is that there were several, and they circled this area, excited or anxious, before taking up the kids’ trail. Though the tracks were shaped like wolf paws, they had a prominent heel print and were sunk far too deep to be from wolves. These tracks were akin to that of a humanoid.

Gnolls.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Pushing to move faster, he saw from the gnoll prints that they decided something similar, their lazy trot breaking into a run, a chase. The pursuit churned the snow, an easy path to follow at speed.

Hans ran down a gully, splashed over a small creek, and ran up the steep embankment on the opposite side. He jumped over fallen trees with trunks almost as wide as he was tall. He pushed through brambles and briars as they clawed at his legs and arms. He ducked low branches and ran across the tops of large stones to keep the deepest areas of snow from slowing his progress.

When he heard the low baritone of canine growls mixed with the steady crunching footsteps of a predator circling prey in the winter, he broke into a sprint. Down another gully and up the other side, he found Gunther as he crested the hill.

The young tusk held a broken wooden sword in his left hand. His right arm hung limply at his side, blood trickling out of teeth marks to drip in the snow. He had pants and boots and a loose summer shirt. No jacket or cloak. Behind him, wrapped in fabric, a small girl sat in the snow, weeping.

One gnoll lay dead not far from Hans, the other half of Gunther’s sword in its gut. Another gnoll limped away, dragging a bloodied leg and gushing from another wound Hans couldn’t see. He could only see the beast leaking dark liquid onto white snow.

Five remained, circling the two tusk children. Two of the gnolls carried clubs while the others snapped and snarled, content to use their viscous teeth to finish their hunt. Gunther kept himself between the gnolls and the girl at all times, shaking from cold and from fear as he circled with the gnolls.

The first gnoll to die never saw the blade that cleaved its head from its shoulders. The second caught a glimpse of steel moving in moonlight, turning in time to look Hans in the eye as a sword drove into its belly. It snarled and half heartedly snapped to bite the human’s neck but was too far gone to be a threat.

The Guild Master turned as one of the three remaining gnolls lunged at him, soaring through the air like a pouncing wolf. With his free hand pressed into the flat of his blade, Hans kept the gnoll’s yellow teeth away from his face. Riding the momentum, he allowed himself to fall backward, but instead of landing on his back, he kept going, rolling over his shoulder.

The tumble lasted barely a blink, and Hans landed on the gnoll, straddling its chest like a schoolyard bully. His free hand still braced against the flat of his sword, he slammed down like a baker leaning into a rolling pin. The sharp motion raked through the gnoll’s mouth, breaking teeth before it broke the gnoll’s jaw and cracked its skull.

Before he could stand, a gnoll club came down at his head. A swift flick of his sword parried it to the side. As the surprised monster fell forward, off balance from overcommitting to its strike, Hans ran it through. The final gnoll saw that it was outmatched, abandoning its attack to spin and flee.

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Hans’ hand shot out, grabbing the wolf man’s ankle, the sudden yank dropping it face first into the snow. With a quick twist, he turned to the side to let his previous kill fall off his sword. The last gnoll still attempted to scurry, scraping and pawing to find footing on frozen ground. Hans jumped onto its back, hearing gnoll bones crunch beneath him, and stabbed the base of the monster’s neck with a quick thrust.

Hopping to his feet, Hans circled, searching the trees for any enemies he might have missed.

“Gunther?! Are you okay?”

“...Yes…” he managed, his teeth chattering.

“Do you see anymore?”

“No. That was all of them.”

Rotating to do one more scan, Hans raced to the children, wrapping his cloak around the inconsolable girl before stripping off a thick wool sweater and giving it to Gunther. The tusk happily accepted but seemed miffed by the too-long sleeves hanging from his hands.

“You didn’t tell me you were borrowing a training sword,” Hans said, picking the girl up to carry her.

Gunther shrugged, sleeves dangling.

“Well, you did good.” Glancing at the two dead gnolls, he added, “Really damn good. But we’re not home. Are you okay to move?”

The tusk nodded.

“Drink this. It tastes like ogre toes, so drink it quick.” Hans handed Gunther a healing potion for his injured arm. For the first time, he saw the young tusk think something was gross. “Stay close to me. We need to get her warm as soon as we can. You too. We need to hurry.”

Running through the woods carrying a child was challenging, but Hans did his best to press the pace as he retraced his trail. The little girl, who was shivering a moment ago, was now very still.

“Hey! Stay awake. Stay awake. We’re almost there.”

The path back felt four times as long as the journey in, but he kept moving. Gunther huffed as he chased behind the adult but managed to keep up. When they emerged from the treeline, several tusks wrapped the girl in blankets and took her from Hans, racing toward the nearest cabin with a roaring fire.

Uncle Ed stepped forward and took off his coat to give to Gunther. “What were you thinking?! Do you know how dangerous that was?” The farmer asked the young tusk.

“I saw her in the snow… She seemed scared, and she ran into the woods. I knew she’d freeze, and Galad said to help our brothers and sisters when they need us.”

The bluster Uncle Ed had prepared for this conversation deflated. “Come on. Lots of folks are worried about you, and we need to get you warm.” Looking to Hans. “You should come too. Warm up before you head back. I’ve got a fire going.”

That sounded nice to Hans.

Soon, Hans and Gunther both sat on pillows on the floor, wrapped in heavy wool blankets while Uncle Ed’s fire warmed their bones. Kane brought them both hot cocoa and sat in a chair nearby, keeping close to his little brother but maintaining his usual quiet demeanor. He hadn’t said a word to Gunther since he returned. Coming close to losing Gunther had scared Kane. Deeply.

The young tusk bounced rapidly from topic to topic, often forgetting he was meant to be telling a story. Eventually, Hans assembled the full story from the pieces Gunther shared.

Earlier that night, Gunther heard a noise out his window. When he looked, he saw the tusk girl walking by, whispering to herself and crying. For some reason, she moved toward the forest, walked in the field in a circle, and then continued into the dark. At first, Gunther went outside to ask her what she was doing, but by the time he got out of bed and found his boots, he saw a glimpse of her back before she disappeared into the treeline.

He had a choice. He could go get help and risk losing her, or he could go after her and make it easy for help to follow. As he bolted toward the forest, he pounded on Kane’s window as he went by, a fact his brother didn’t remember. For Kane’s part, he awoke suddenly and realized Gunther was gone, triggering the events that led to his knocking on the guild hall to get Hans.

“I did what you said, Mr. Hans,” Gunther began when his cocoa was half empty. “I kept moving and whacked them when they tried to get close. The one jumped and I stabbed him and then another one jumped so I stabbed him too.”

It wasn’t the most technical description of putting training to use, but the tusk’s practice had clearly paid off even if he couldn’t describe it well. “I’m proud of you, and I’m proud of you too, Kane.”

“Me? Why?”

“You thought as quickly as your brother. If you had waited, this would have gone different. It’s also clear you’ve rubbed off on Gunther. Not a lot of kids would be that brave if they hadn’t learned it somewhere.”

Hans spared a glance over his shoulder. He saw Uncle Ed beaming with pride. The Guild Master offered him a nod. They both knew Uncle Ed played a large part in Kane and Gunther’s life, so he deserved credit for the boys’ good deeds as well. He would never accept it, of course, so a nod would have to do.

“Is she going to be okay? She was really scared,” Gunther asked.

“I think so,” Hans said. “She might need to rest for a while before we can see her, though.”

Gunther nodded, agreeing that made sense.

“Mr. Hans?”

“Yes?”

“How did you get so good? The wolf boys couldn’t even touch you.”

Glancing around nervously, Hans said that Gunther was being creative with his storytelling.

“No I’m not! There were five of them left and Mr. Hans was like ‘swoosh’ and then was like ‘whack’ and blood was spraying everywhere and he was SO fast!”

“I think you’re overselling me a bit, but thank you.”

Gunther looked at his brother and Uncle Ed and yelled, “It was amazing!”

Quest Complete: Do something amazing!

Yeah, that has to count. Kids can be hard to impress.

“Alright, Gunther. I’m glad you’re okay, but you should rest too. Also, you owe me a new sword.”

***

Galad waited for Hans outside of Uncle Ed’s house, unbothered by the cold. He asked if he could walk to Gomi with the Guild Master. Hans obliged.

“Did she say anything to you?” Galad asked.

“Not a word,” Hans said. “She was in shock.”

“She told her mother bad men and orcs were coming for her. They were taunting her in her dreams. When she heard them coming, she ran into the forest.”

“Poor kid.”

Galad agreed. “She talked like she didn’t have a choice, like she had to leave. Her mother said she wasn’t acting like herself.”

Childhood rarely survived horrific conflict. The tusk children had been outcasts in their towns even when times were good. Gomi wasn’t an awful place to live, but moving to nowhere because no other community wanted you took any comforting doubts away. You can’t rationalize that “not everyone” hates you for having orc blood when your exile is all but an official decree.

“I don’t think it’s anything, but other new arrivals have talked about their kids having nightmares. I definitely had my share of them when we first came here, but the squonks and all…”

“Understood. As far as we know, squonks don’t affect dreams. Monsters that can are very very rare. I don’t blame you for being concerned, though.”

Nodding, Galad replied, “I figured as much. Oddly, having a monster to blame would actually be easier. The best we can do otherwise is to be supportive and comforting.”

“I feel that way about most problems. When I’m on a job, I know exactly what I need to do. Most of life isn’t like that. I have to ask, though. Has Gomi always been this strange?”

The tusk chuckled. “Only since you got here.”

New Quest: Find ways to support new tusks in their transition to life in Gomi.

***

With thoughts of a warm bed filling his mind as the sun began to rise, Hans saw Becki sleeping outside the guild hall and knew his blankets would have to wait. Inside the guild hall, Becky sat at one of the tables, flipping through the guild’s bestiary. Her already stocky build was exaggerated by several layers of furs from various woodland creatures.

“Becky, I’m sorry you came all this way. We found the kids.”

Becky shrugged. “That’s the best kind of bad news an adventurer can get,” she said chuckling. “I needed to come back anyhow.”

“What’s up?”

“It’s hard to explain, but winter didn’t come to the flower patch.”

***

Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

Mend the rift with Devon.

Complete the manuscript for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

Identify the unknown purple flower from Olza.

Protect your place in Gomi and maintain control of the Gomi chapter.

Find a practical solution for a planar leak. Bonus Objective: Find a solution that uses only resources available in Gomi.

Expand the Gomi training area to include ramps for footwork drills.

Convince Olza to call the purple flowers “Polzas.”

Find ways to support new tusks in their transition to life in Gomi.