Roused from his mid-day nap, the boy groggily turned to face out the window. To his surprise, someone looked back at him. Outside the train, a man wearing no shirt and an incredibly bloody jacket turned to look in the window. The man drove some bizarre metal contraption the boy had never seen before, keeping pace with the train, surprising the boy greatly as the Cardige rails are supposedly the fastest means of travel on Hoenheim. The man raised two fingers to his brow, and tipped them forward in a salute, and the boy lazily waved back in response. The man sped up, and disappeared into the horizon.

It was nearly evening when the pair arrived at the base of Snake Tree. Far outdoing any drawing or photograph, the real tree exceeded both Novos and Remus' expectations by a long shot. The tree stood easily three hundred feet tall, its canopy disappearing into the sky far out of view, and the colossal serpent that wound its way up the trunk of the tree was far thicker than was previously anticipated, its body nearly forty feet in diameter. Even from the ground, gazing up at the tree's boughs, the pair could hear the slithering and hissing of the snakes that occupied the tree at all levels, and even occasionally saw a snake slip from the branches above and plummet to a gruesome death below. At the base of the tree, numerous serpentine cadavers were feasted upon by all manner of scavenger animals and fungi, leaving a horrid pile of snake bones buried beneath the tree's roots. It is no wonder that the tree has grown so well, with the great number of snakes to nurture it.

"I wonder if lightning has ever struck this tree," mused Remus quietly to herself, picturing the flaming ball of serpents falling from high up in the tree's canopy down to earth like some kind of fucked up meteor.

"FUCK YEAH!" Novos shouted as he drew both his swords. "SNAKE TREE!" Novos flourished both of his swords, then hopped up into the air. "I want a big-ass snake to leap at me," Novos knelt down and held one of his swords in front of him, miming the act of slicing a snake in twain, "and then I'm gonna be all like 'fshhhhhhhhhhhhhh-'"

Remus stared at him blankly.

"-Shhhhhhhhhhhwng!" Novos finished the motion of slicing a snake in half. "You know what I mean?"

"...Yes. Absolutely." In spite of her boundless understanding and emotional intelligence, Remus found herself at a loss as to what kind of emotion to display at this moment.

"Excuse me, travellers?" a raspy, masculine voice called out from behind the two.

"GOD DAMMIT!" shouted Novos, his mood ruined. "WE'RE RIGHT HERE, MAN!" He turned around to face the source of the voice. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT OLD MAN?!"

The owner of the voice was a small, hobbled figure, clad entirely in rags and shawls so thoroughly that not one piece of skin was permitted to show. Around its head was a tightly wrapped cloth, similar in construction to a turban, but designed in such a way to cover the whole head, rather than just the top of it. A myriad of articles of jewelry wrapped around the figure, its head wrapping adorned with gold ornaments, its wrists wrapped in gold bracelets, and its neck glimmering with numerous gemmed necklaces. The volume of wrappings made the figure's build hard to determine, but from its outstretched hand it could be assumed that the owner of the body was rather scrawny, or perhaps malnourished.

Perception Check: 16

Remus passes.

The wrapping on the wrist of the outstretched hand was loose, which portrayed a stark contrast to the impeccable attention to detail with which the rest of the figure's wrappings were tightly bound. Remus mused to herself, as the tattoo beneath the wrappings caught her eye, that this must certainly be on purpose. Its skin was brown, withered, and somewhat glossy. On it, a simple tattoo of bizarre design: From left to right, a line arced to the left, a vertical line, and then three dots in a >-pattern.

Intelligence Check: 15

Remus passes.

Assuming that the tattoo was meant to be shown to another, the actual shape of the tattoo was a line arced upwards, above a horizontal line, above a V-shaped pattern of dots. The significance of this mark was lost on Remus, but the care taken to reveal the mark, coupled with the unknown meaning of it, led Remus to assume that is was some kind of mark of identification among peers, likely meant to be recognized only by those supposed to recognize it.

"Allow me to introduce myself," the figure greeted them. "My name is Giriah, and you could call me the caretaker of this tree."

"Caretaker?" inquired Remus, immediately turning the conversation towards interrogation. "Snake Tree has no caretaker. It is a natural landmark, devoid of interference from the rest of the world save for the few scholarly expeditions. And in all of those expeditions, there have been no reference to any sort of caretaker figure, nor has there been any edict from the High Court of Hoenheim to appoint someone to such a position. Who are you, actually?"

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Giriah chuckled from beneath its wrappings. "Quite the talker, I see. Allow me to return your question with another: Are you yet blind, to the way of the world?"

"The hell is that supposed to mean?" snapped Novos.

"I see," it chuckled once again.

Remus' mind immediately began to race. She understood that its refusal to answer Novos' question indicated it was some kind of code or secret phrase, a question that was meant to be answered only by those who knew the answer, and that any level of ignorance was met with secrecy. Knowing this, Remus figured an attempt at embedding herself as one aware of this question could not go amiss.

"I am... not," lied Remus.

"The fuck?!" Novos gasp-shouted.

"Aha!" Giriah clapped. "And you have not told your travelling companion? How wonderfully disciplined of you."

Remus smiled to herself, masking it as accepting the compliment, grateful that her lie worked.

"So tell me," an edge of malice crept into the voice of the figure as it continued, "who was it that informed you?"

Sweat formed across Remus' brow as she grappled with how to answer this question. She knew from what the figure had just said that sharing whatever secret information this figure or organization guarded was frowned upon, and from its tone of voice she understood that an incorrect answer could mean death. She elected to err on the side of caution, and withhold as many details as possible.

"My academy instructor," answered Remus.

Giriah shook its head, and a chill shot up Remus' spine as she knew she had answered wrong.

"Oh? What a shame, to have sentenced your own teacher to such a wretched fate to come. Unless of course, you lie?"

Wit Check: 35

Remus fails.

Remus grew pale, and told the figure all it needed to know without uttering a single word.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," it chided. "It is not the first time that I have been lied to, but as you are in possession of... that-" it pointed to the Caravan parked beside the tree, "and as I have yet to make use of you, I shall let it slide this once."

Suddenly, the figure of Giriah was directly in front of Remus, staring down at her. It was far larger than the halfling woman, though most creatures are, and its size and horrid smell intimidated her greatly. Novos readied his swords and stepped close to intervene, but Remus stopped him with a quick gesture.

"But know this," continued Giriah, "no matter how intelligent or how sly you may think yourself to be, you will not outwit someone like me. And with regards to the Order Absolute... errors are very rarely tolerated. Consider this your one warning."

Silently, the figure stepped back, and Remus at last was able to breathe freely again. She figured it best not to continue her line of questioning from before.

"Now," Giriah began again, an air of whimsy creeping into its voice, as if all the tension it had built up for itself was being waved away, and as if it wanted to approach the duo as a new friend. "You two are adventurers, are you not?"

"I guess so," Novos said halfheartedly, seemingly undaunted by the intimidation attempts of the figure. "But we don't do lame jobs or cheap jobs. You gotta make this worth our while."

"But of course," smiled Giriah with is voice. It reached behind itself, and withdrew- seemingly from thin air- an iridescent blue crystal. "How is this?"

"...And what exactly am I looking at?" asked Novos blankly and unimpressed. He turned to look at Remus, whose color was returning to her face. "You know what that is?"

"Nothing for certain," she stuttered back.

"Then allow me to enlighten you," the figure pulled the crystal close and gestured to it with its other hand, as a mad vendor would. "What I possess is colloquially known as a 'Class Crystal.' It-"

Remus gasped.

"I see one of you understands the significance," chuckled Giriah. "Allow me a quick tangent; are you aware that Experience is a physical phenomena? More specifically, are you aware that Experience can be, let's say, siphoned from living beings?"

Novos rubbed his chin, considering how he could do such a thing himself. Were this true, it would mean his Experience gains from killing people could soar.

"This 'Class Crystal' possesses enough coagulated Experience to allow a person to create a class. Not achieve- create." Giriah held out the crystal, and slowly waved it between the two, allowing them to fully drink in its presence. "Imagine: to go down in history as one of the prestigious few to have created their own class."

A droplet of drool hit the ground, and only then did Novos realize his mouth was agape. He was won over.

"What's the job?" asked Novos without hesitation, ready to die for this figure.

"It will not be easy," began Giriah. "You will be looking for a needle in a haystack, or perhaps a hay in a needlestack." The figure laughed heartily, while Novos and Remus stared at it blankly. Clearly, it thought it was much funnier than they did. "But I digress," it coughed. "You will be in search of an artifact; an old artifact, sealed away long ago. The seal of Phlegethos, the Deus of Hell."

Intelligence Check: 45

Novos and Remus fail.

"Doesn't ring a bell," admitted Novos.

"Can't say I've heard of it either," affirmed Remus, "but why should we be finding a sealed god of Hell?"

"That is my business," Giriah replied.

"I won't push it, then," shrugged Novos. "Where do we look?"

"Phlegethos was sealed away by Dhrukash, dubbed the Hero of Dreams. Dhrukash hails from Grimvield, to the east. Hence, you will go to Grimveld."

"That's it?" scoffed Novos. "All of Grimveld? That's what we've got to go on?"

"I am certain the dwarves of Grimveld will be able to direct you to places that were important to Dhrukash," replied Giriah, somewhat irritated by Novos' tone. "If you fail to find it there... well, I'm sure you'll be able to use that-" it again pointed to the Caravan- "to find it somewhere on Hoenheim."

"Bloody lovely," Novos sighed. He looked again at the Class Crystal, then back to Giriah, then back at the Class Crystal, then to Remus, then back to the crystal.

"We'll take it," Novos smirked.