There's this spot that someone used to love in the Tulip Forest. A large, oval shaped clearin', filled with dandelions, 'cus -

"What?" 

What do you mean what. 

"Dandelions? Where're the - "

- tulips? Okay buddy, here's a news flash: there ain't no tulips in the Tulip Forest. They're all gone. That name stuck because romantics kept pickin' flowers outta the place and later than sooner nothin was left. Every flower 'sides those stupid yellow weeds're gone. Snatched up. Carried away. Vamoos'd, or however you want to say it. Shut up about them and listen to my story instead of complainin about some dead, forgotten flowers. Okay?

"Sure, whatever." 

Thank ya kindly. ... So, the clearing's filled with them dandelions. Someone loved that spot 'cus it had a nice little creek that ran through it and all sortsa fish would flow through there. All kinds! That creek would turn inta a river if a big'un flowed through, and would shrivel up if only a few shrimp're passin' by. It was like a one-way magic express from ocean to ocean for them aquatic types. 

One day while this lady's sittin' by the creek it slowly starts to grow more, and more, and more - starts to get real big, and there's not much she can do but backpedal until she's outta the clearing. All of the picnic stuff they'd brought falls into this new, massive canal, and then what comes through after awhile is a sea serpent. Giant thing, shaped like a noodle, but it's got a sloth's arms and a dragon's head. It has a pirate ship built into its back too and it pauses there for a moment, like it's just as confused to be here as she is to witness this sorta thing. I cannot imagine that something from the sea's ever been in any neck of wood before ... nor am I thinkin that some village lady's seen somethin like this in her short lifetime. 

" ... How about as confused as me?" 

Cool nobody asked. Anyways. 

It's confused. She's confused. The captain on top, he's this scaled freak of nature kinda like those desert snake people, only this one's got three heads and the same colors as the serpent it's ridin'. All of them heads are jutting this way and that, scared of the woods, then they spot her picnic blanket floating in the water - and what's he do then?

"Who knows." 

Gods, show some enthusiasm. Puh-lease.

"I'm very enthused. Woohoo. Serpent. Woohoooo. Pirate. Woohoooo. Fake stuff. Yaaaay." 

None of this is fake. It actually happened. 

"Could you prove it if you had to?" 

No?

"Okay, so it didn't happen."

That's not how this works. 

"It kinda is?"

Prove you have a ma then.

".. whuh?" 

Go on.

"I'm walking around this stupid forest, aren't I?"

Yes, but where's your mom?

"She's probably sleeping right now dude. It's late."

Cool didn't ask. Speaking of: time to set up camp.

"... but you did ask ... "

With that retort his companion goes silent and he shakes his head slowly. It is always the same thing between these two - 

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bickering, bockering, joking and the likes, though both rarely hold it against the other. They are friends after all. 

There is a clearing up ahead: it is a small rectangular stretch of land that seems to have once housed a cabin. The log foundations are still jammed into the dirt - they're infested with bugs and moss and grass and such things now and don't really seem nice to be near. That's why they pitch their tent a healthy two meters away from the ruins, on a small patch of packed dirt pecked with grass tufts. No extra measure is taken to ensure their safety as this forest is supposedly abandoned. Both of them are also too tired to be cautious.

Those who lived here no longer do, and the animals that dwelt before them have migrated elsewhere now. The only predatory creatures here are owls and carnivorous plants, whom don't often catch more than a rabbit. It is a quiet place, seldom interrupted, ... 

until they'd came plodding along on some sort of quest. The limited details are on a soggy paper stuffed into the man's shirt, which he helpfully pulls out to give a futile read. Futile, because, .. well, just look for yourself. 

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/804010790431621151/888599528691863594/ae7f76cfcbd1f06ea5d2219c466f4f04.png]

It wasn't the most convincing contract he'd happened upon in the city of Baredale but it seemed sincere enough. 

When he had reached the village they'd spun him a tale of these tiny reptilian burglars tiptoeing through the night, slinking into homes and making off with all sorts of foodstuffs and valuables. They clarified several times that the thieves had been coming from the Tulip Forest too, since the bounty they posted hadn't exactly been descriptive. The only real solid piece of information was the reward, and asking about it got him a pretty blunt response: they did not have 100 coins now, but they would once they got their stuff back. That's not the type of thing you want to tell a man who just spent two days traveling to your village. 

Yet he didn't care much about the money - his worse half did, though it wasn't indulged - and then, with quest in hand and mind, into the woods they'd somewhat begrudingly went. 

... Hey. What do you mean by worse half. 

"You know what I meant." 

Don't be mean to me. 

"I'd never be mean to you."

Then what about what you just said?!

"The truth isn't mean."

Bullcrud. It's terribly rude.

"You wouldn't make for a very good bailiff then."

They lay on down into the tent and resolve to continue this argument of theirs once they'd both gotten some shut eye. It'd been a long day of travelling, after all, and it'd been a very boring trip. So little to see and so little to do out in these pillaged woods. They had entertained themselves with squabbling over minute things, and throwing rocks into the toothy gobs of starving meat eating plants. This would often produce a dulled, hollow dunnnn noise as the stone's impact echoed within nature's belly.

Hearing that noise made them both giggle madly each time without fail.

That giggling, ... it'd been overheard, unbeknownst to them. Once they had their second fit of tittering a little bipedal lizard had poked its head out of a burrow in the earth. It watched everything they did with glee and an arrogance of its own. In its head, it must've thought these humored words;

'Why yes, I, Lizard Covered in Mud, am better than this buffoon.' 

What haughty, senseless, inhuman superiority!

It only made sense for the self righteous crop thief to then plod along a safe distance behind them. Out of curiosity and caution, of course: those taller than itself were to always be watched in this stretch of wood. When they had set up their camp the lizard performed its final appraisal of them, and came to the safe conclusion that they were touched in the head, and that they likely didn't know how to effectively use the giant boom stick strapped to their back. The way they clumsily stomped through its territory, entertained themselves with trivial things, and then pitched tent on accursed land, ... 

yes, they were quite mad indeed! It seemed satisfied with letting time take care of this particular problem and settled in for an exciting scene. 

It takes an amount of bravado to camp out in the woods without setting a watch, and then a great amount of unluck to be sleeping atop of a haunted site. If they'd dug around in the foundations a little they would've found a skull-and-bones effigy planted down in a hole dug underneath one of the logs. They hadn't, though, so now they would be wholly witless to what's coming to them. 

Time was definitely not on their side. Without knowing that, they could do nothing but snooze through the night and await whatever fel thing approached.