The people of Champippe were grateful, as a stranget wandered into town. They had almost resorted to dire possibilities, and they promised this stranger that they would hold on for him to defeate this creature. They even gifted him rations of bread, berries and wine as thank you, before he ventured in.
The forest that night was silent. There was a cool breeze between each tall pine, and not much else. Usually a soft howl, or a hoot of a bird could be heard, but since sunset everything had stilled. There was a strangeness to it.
The trees allowed the sound of his voice to carry, amplified by the silence.
Distantly there was some farmland, but it would be a couple hours of trekking to reach it. There were some groups of farmers, patrolling their land. Of course less then usual, as the ones who remained didn't even want to be outside as they were at great risk of being picked off.
As he went deeper, and as things got darker, perhaps there was a distant warm light, and the distant, rhythmic thud... of someone... lumbering wood?
With a gentle whistling and the consistent sound of chopping of wood, a glow came from a lanturn perched on a stump of wood. If this stranger were to peer through the trees in full cover, he could see a tall, lean man, in the light of this lantern, splitting wood, not far from a little stone and wood cottage which blended into the background. The man looked quite normal, as he loaded a wooden barrow with the split wood.
Smoke pillowed slowly out of the chimney of the cottage - perhaps that was why he was chopping.
He wore commoners clothes, as well as a dark cloak which seemed lined with a black linen, it was cold. His eyes were too shadowed in the dark to see, and he wasn't particularly tall, fit, or thin. Just a man. Perhaps a lumberjack, or just a forest-dweller. A farmer, or some kind of cartographer, mapping the forests... He tossed a final piece of wood to fill the barrel, and approached it, lifting it by the handles and making his way towards the cottage.
