A few hours later, after the philter stopped its effect, everyone was resting, and Coelho was rolling his eyes as they laughed about their debauchery, when someone knocked.
"Come in."
A human entered with a letter.
"Excuse me, this is for master Carrios."
"I'm here," said the merchant.
After tipping the messenger, he started reading the letter.
"Hey, isn't that the seal of the Red Claw?" said with surprise Cletus.
The Red Claw was a group of mercenaries, the one with the best reputation. Even though they were mercenaries, they had a code of honor, refused missions that were downright criminal, and were extremely competent. Even Vathek, who normally had nothing but contempt for mercenaries (except for a certain orc ), respected them.
"Yes," answered simply Carrios. "Why do you look so surprised?
"Well, before the boss hired me, I intended to try and join them," explained the orc. "So I"m a bit surprised to hear from them like that. You hired them?"
"Duh."
"Why, if it isn't too much to ask?" asked Vathek.
"To explore the summits of Birakath and see if making settlements and towns there is possible."
Birakath was a huge mountain range, and the territory of the Troll empire. But they were occupying the entrails of the mountains in a gigantic network of caves and tunnels. The summits were officially uncharted land, and out of any of the four nations' dominion.
"It was my father's dream, but his attempt to send a group of settlers years ago... It ended badly... The settlers purely and simply disappeared, and the rescue efforts never brought anything that could have told us what happened... My father, Rokk, was among them..."
A grim silence fell over the little group in front of the implication.
Carrios forced himself to shake off his sadness.
"That's something I absolutely want to do, realize his dream and discover what happened to him... I sent another expedition of settlers recently, and hired the Claw to watch over them."
He started reading the letter.
Apparently, the efforts went well. As they went higher in the mountains, they built many small settlements as they progressed, making sure they'd always have a safe point to fall back onto in case of snowstorm or other problem.
Meaning it went slowly but surely.
But the ending of the letter was a huge shock.
The author, the leader of the Claw, was fending off wolves when arrows came out of nowhere, helping him.
Meaning there were natives on the summit.
But the shocking thing was the description of the native.
"A dog man?!"
A dog man, indeed, those were the exact words used to describe the unknown creature, who had left before anyone could say anything.
The letter ended by a line saying they saw other dog man joining him as he disappeared in the snow.
A silence fell upon this.
Broken when Carrios got up all of a sudden.
"I'm going there! I must see that by myself! If this dog man is real, maybe he knows what happened to my father and the first settlers!"
"We're coming with you!" exclaimed Coelho.
"What?! No, Coelho, it's personal!"
"If this story of dog men, and the fact they apparently can use weapons, is real, that means the settlers discovered a brand new sapient species! That's something that concerns all of the four governments, including Rireven's High Council! Of which I'm a member, remember?!"
"If boss goes, then I go too," said Cletus. "I'm his bodyguard, don't forget it."
"And I'm Birakath's observer on Coelho, I'll have to go too," added Vathek.
Carrios tried to protest, but gave up.
"Fine, just hurry to do your bags! And take warm clothes!"

Art by  SpiderDaSquirrel
Original here: https://twitter.com/buckdasystem/st.....74955792863233
Mysterious creature (okay, yeah, it's a Gnoll) © me