"Daltos I have a request for you," his father said, letting muscular hands guide his little clay tea cup to rest on the hardpacked dirt floor "for you and Eiya."
Daltos drank the last slurry of his own tea, some of it now stuck in his mustache, before giving his father an acknowleging nod. The calm but comfortable evening mood now replaced with something more serious. His father, an old accomplished grizzled gladiator hailed as "Ulvar the Unbeatable", did not often ask for help. While he had now been retired for decades he was still in good enough form the wrestle a bear as a stretching excercise.
"I know it is ill-mannered of me to ask this of the two of you when you´ve come all this way to visit your old parents, but it would put my mind at ease knowing you were on the case." Ulvar continued, bowing sligthly with his whole body at the end. Daltos looked at his father, bald but with a beard that would make dwarfs envious, more scared tissue than skin and muscles that could fit on a statue, what could it be that had this old warrior in such a tizzy?
Daltos threw a glance at the other side of the little shack that was his childhood home, spying his mother trying to teach both his wife and daughter how to sew. Eiya, her long brown hair ussually well kept now dishelved with frustration, seemed about ready to blast the thread and needle into oblivion with a fireball spell or something similar while their daughter, Vira, was so focused on her grandmother´s teaching she did not even notice her tounge sticking out of her mouth. The comic scene of his daughter´s tounge wiggling in sync with her grandma´s needle going up and down and the sheer speed of it made Daltos chuckle.
"Ofcourse we will help, what else did you did you have me for?" Daltos answered as he refocused his attention on his father. Ulvar seemed relived as he rose again, 2 pairs of brown eyes full of determination focusing on eachother as Ulvar begun his explention.
"Thank you Daltos, thank you" He started, before taking a deep breath in preperation for his request. "I would like for the two of you to inspect the forest. And before you come with some snide remark; no not all of it , only the part closest to the village."
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Daltos who was just about to tell his father that it would be impossible for just him and Eiya to survey the forest of Djupskog, wich was as big as a small country with a literal elven country int the deepest part of it, by them selves as there are limits to adventure´s capabilites, even as good as they were, "harumphed" in faked grumpiness but continued to listen.
"A few days ago some of the village hunters found strange tracks to the south-west, unlike any they had seen before, and then they started complaining about feeling unsafe and vulnerable in the forest so yesterday Grimholdt and myself took it on ourselves to find this beast but we are not directley well versed in the art of tracking..."
Ulvar coughed nervously but Daltos understood, a retired gladiator and a old city guard turned pig farmer was not the ideal hunting party for a beast. If they did happen to stumble upon the beast, even a Manticore or Chimera, would fall before the prowess of "Ulvar the Unbeatable" and "Pegleg Grim" but if they could not find it there was no real point.
"After a whole day of searching all we found of the beast was a grove of broken trees and some boar fur. All we know so far about this beast is that it has a strange two toed foot print, courtesy of the hunters description, it hunts boars,which is just speculation, and that it is powerfull enough to break trees." After finishing Ulvar almost felt angry that he could not provide more information.
Daltos took a quick glance at Eiya to confirm that she had overheard the conversation and he had made up his mind.
"On behalf of the adventurers´s guild I accept your quest." Daltos said as he bowed with overdramatic flair. But before anything else could be said his mother intervened.
"Now now, adventuring will have to wait for the morrrow. This little lady here needs to sleep and so does the rest of you." The old lady said as she gently stroked Viras´s head, a big yawn escaping the little girls mouth. Daltos´s mother, an old wrinkled womman by the name of Matilda, was not someone that either her husband or son dared to argue with. With wrinkles and her gray hair, some of it framing her face some of it up in a bun, she looked like time hade taken its toll but her bright blue eyes and big smiled told another story. She had a neclace made of old ivory and animal bones that Vira was fiddeling with while her parents and grandfather started making preperations for the night.
"And who knows, with the extra energy you gain with a good night´s sleep mayhaps you will catch a boar for me to prepare for tommorows dinner."