Otho Broadbelt and Albra Lowbanks sit together at a table with piles of food in front of them.
"Did something happen?" Albra asks "You had a really funny look on your face when you came in."
"I saw something really strange," Otho says.
"Good strange or bad strange?"
"Part was bad strange the other one was good strange."
"Well that sounds interesting at least," Albra says. "Besides I love a good story."
This one starts with a trip with my cart going from Overhill to Brockenborings. As I got to the bridge giant spiders come out of no where and attack me."
"There are giant spiders in the Shire too. They sound even worse than the ones here."
"You have the same giant spiders here?" Otho asks.
"They live in the marsh. The ruins are covered in webbing."
"I wonder if they are related to each other."
"Probably," Albra says "I mean how could they not be. I'm glad you got away from them."
"I ran back to Overhill and got the bounders to protect me. That's not the interesting part though."
"You have something more interesting than giant spiders. I'm listening."
"Well I wanted to find the spider next and destroy it so I got the bounders to help me search for it," Otho says. "We did find it. An entire little valley in the side of the mountain was coated in webs. It was impossible to even start walking into it without cutting the webbing away."
"They really filled an entire valley with webs? They're more ambitious than the spiders we have here."
"I didn't have much time to look around. As soon as we cut the webs spiders came out of the trees and we needed to kill them. It was hard to fight through them but we wanted to find their queen."
"You managed to kill a queen?" Albra asks.
"We didn't actually see a queen. What we did come across was the walking tree."
"What's a walking tree?"
"It's an old story in the Shire about a tree that can uproot itself and wander around the forest," Otho says. "I always thought it was just a myth but it's real!" Several other patrons look at the hobbit when he yells.
"You mean you saw it get up and move?"
"The poor thing was struggling with all the webs around it. After we cut the webs away the tree stood up and walked out of the nest while stepping on every spider it could catch."
"Sounds like it would be a lot of help when fighting spiders," Albra says.
"I think they made it angry with all those webs. I don't know where it went now but at least it's free."