Ivan thought his ring wasn't a good enough reason for coming back as his lungs suck up fumes of a creature unknown to himself. He had only just found out his ring was gone after he got just past the Darkbough Forest, but this ring was special, as it came from his old elven friend Juliper.
He recalls a blistery cold night sometime in midwinter while Ivan felt as his toes have frozen and cracked off.
"Hey Ivan! You look as though my aunt Nelly has just chewed you out for using her garden for rabbit hunting!"
"Yes, I guess I am a bit cold. Though your aunt said she was having problems with rabbits."
"Yeah but not in her garden. Take this ring for your cold, I did pay seventy platinum for it, you may have to pay me at least half for it."
Juliper always had a liking for money Ivan thought as his life could be at a close end. This creature was very much like a wolf but with a much rounder snout and a big plantlike hump on its back. The creature strikes at Ivan with a long vine much like a rose's, which results in Ivan, a crumpled blood mass on the forest floor.
When Ivan awakes he finds himself staring up at the beaming face of a middle aged elf. It took him a moment to realize it was Juliper. In his surprise he sat bolt upright narrowly missing Juliper's head. He took a moment to examine his old friend, Juliper's features looked much more pronounced as though he has been active lately and his hair was much more greasy than he thought Juliper would ever let it get.
"Sleeping not so beautiful has finally woken up from her deathly slumber, has she?"
"Juliper! It's been much to long since I've seen you old friend. What happened to me? Why are you in the forest, I thought you liked big cities?"
"My uncle Harvard needed some help exterminating the Gray Thornhound looks like that's what did you in." Ivan notices a very unpleasant feeling of hunger and throbbing pain in his stomach. "You were poisoned and you were coughing up bloody phlegm all night. It's not very pretty sight to see your best friend in that bad of shape."
"I would think not." Ivan replies.
"What brought you out to Darkbough?"
Ivan goes into his story on how he's heading out to a town called Mistfield near the ocean and how he noticed he lost the ring in the previous town.
"I'd love to come with you but my uncle would appreciate some help from you and I before we leave."
"Uh, yeah, sure."
Juliper's uncle was nothing like his wife Nelly, in fact just quite the opposite. Harvard have a very humble hard working man, but that meant a full days work for Ivan and Juliper.
"How many of these Thornhounds have you and Harvard killed, Juliper?"
"As many as we could. There seems to be more of them than we started, but maybe Harvard's delusional." Juliper pants just after slicing the hump off a Thornhound.
"I didn't see any on my way through the first time."
"That's luck on your part."
"Hey have you noticed how all these Thornhouds are all male?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I think I'm going to stay for another couple days."

OOO

Later that night Ivan brings up the thornhounds around the dinner table.
"We think there's a queen, what have you seen them doing?"
"Well taking stuff from my vegetable patch."
"Exactly, just like ants, the males go out to collect food for the queen. That's also why there's so many of them."
"That settles it! We've lost an impossible war!"
"Not necessarily Harvard, we just kill the females."
"We haven't seen a single female thornhound, and we live in this forest! I think we would notice something in our own home!"