A young woman walks into the Prancing Pony carrying a lute. She stops and listens to my music before finding a seat. After I finish my performance I walk over to the table she's sitting at.
"Hello," I say. "May I join you?"
"Please so. It has been some time since I got to talk with another minstrel. I am Burgthryth."
"I am Owen Oaks. It is a pleasure to meet you."
"This seems much better suited to minstrels than the cold northern lands."
"Are you part of the group that got lost in Forochel?"
"Yes," Burgthryth says. "I don't know what caused the rest to be lost but I was trying to retrieve the sheet music for a wonderful song I was working on."
"That is a problem I am lucky to not have to deal with here. Other than that one time Barliman used some of my sheets to start the fire in the morning."
"That sounds horrible."
"I still had some notes I had made about the music so I was able to recreate it," I say.
"I didn't have any sort of notes so I was forced to hunt the sheets down. I was able to get help doing that though. They ended up in the strangest of places."
"What do you mean?"
"The things that wander the snow fields seem to really enjoy having paper," Burgthryth. "I can't figure out why some of them were interested in my work."
"What had them?"
"Most of the pages I was able to collect from the ground where they had fallen. However there were three that were carried off. I can almost understand why the Gauredain and Peikko wanted them but I am still lost as to why a bear was keeping one with it."
"That does seem odd," I say. "You'd think bears would take no interest in something like a sheet of paper."
"The Gauredain and Peikko don't play music as far as I know so the sheet would be filled with meaningless symbols to them. So it makes as much sense for them to keep them as the bear."
"I suppose you're right. The entire thing seems to be an unusual story. I doubt there are many minstrels that could match it."
"I am certainly hoping that none can match it as I would not wish that kind of luck on anyone," Burgthryth says. "That wasn't even the end of my bad luck."
"That seems to be the story of everyone from the north I've spoken with."
"The frozen tundra is unforgiving and makes all luck worse."
"Fair enough," I say.
"When I was looking for my music I came across a terrifying saber cat. It was a frightening thing to look up and see."
"How'd you get away?"
"I tried playing it music," Burgthryth says. "The old saying is music has charms to sooth the savage beast. I can tell you that it's completely wrong."
"I don't think I'd have ever thought to play music for a wild animal."
"It doesn't work. The beast reached out and broke my last lute strings with a single swipe of his claws."
"That doesn't surprise me," I say. "You're lucky that's all he managed to do."
"You're right but I still needed new strings. I did have an idea though. I hired the next strong adventurer to slay the beast and bring his guts to me. I made a nice set of strings from him."
"I'll drink to revenge leading to music."