A red haired man steps into the Prancing Pony pushing through the crowd and holding onto a small bag at his side. He makes his way to an empty seat and sets the bag on the table smiling at it. Curious I wander over to him.

"My I join you?" I ask.

"Of course," the man says "I'm Warstang."

"I am Owen Oaks."

"It's so much nicer being in a warm place. I thought I was going to freeze when I had to sneak around the snow fields."

"You didn't have thick coats?"

"You can't sneak around in a heavy coat," Warstang says. "At least not in any effective way."

"I had never thought about it. My living is made by making noise so sneaking around isn't really important to me."

"The rest of my group makes a lot of noise so it can be tough to stay hidden."

"Everyone does things in their own way" I say smiling. "What's in the bag?"

"My marbles, they are very useful tools. I almost lost them."

"How did that happen?"

"The bag was torn by something and the marbles must have been spread out over the hill I was on," Warstang says. "I saw a bear eat one."

"It ate your marble?"

"Deer and the snow beasts gobbled up the rest. It was disgusting but I had to go and start killing the creatures on the hill and rooting through their stomachs."

"That's a lot of trouble to go through for a bunch of marbles," I say.

"It is but you never know when you're going to need some small trick. If I found myself in a situation where I needed my marbles and I didn't have them someone might get hurt."

"I can understand that."

"It felt like everything in Forochel hated me," Warstang says.

"Well having the animals eating my supplies would make me feel the same way."

"It wasn't just that. While I was hunting down the beasts taht ate my marbles one of the wild men managed to steal my pouch. I had to hunt down the thief to get it back. I don't know what he wanted with it but it was covered in wolf hair."

"Maybe you should avoid Forochel in the future," I say.

"I would but there's a treasure there my group has been searching for. We will find it and leave the horrible snow forever."