Gregory looked at the quest detailed on the piece of paper Mirlini had handed to him, the other two girls did the same thing, getting a bit too close to his face for comfort.
Gregory moved back, feeling like he should say something about this quest but suddenly forgetting the words he wanted to use.
"Why did you pick this one?" he asked the catgirl who only shook her head.
"No idea, I just extended my hand and this one was the one that I picked off the board" she explained.
Gregory couldn't help but feel like something was off, looking at Allema and Kolgat for support, he only saw that they were also on board, clearly not noticing the discrepancy he was experiencing at the moment.
Unable to combat it, he ended up not saying anything and a few days later, it became clear what it was that he had been unable to say for some reason.
'This quest is way too far and it doesn't look like the other quests too...' he thought as he looked at the piece of paper, he had only managed to realise that when they where too close to pull back, his three companions had also noticed at almost the same time as him.
But being almost on the doorstep of that quest, they thought that it would be preferable to at least take a single look at things.
As such, an otherworldy human, a cat beastfolk, an orc and an elf set foot in a misty village, though calling it a village was giving it too much credit.
It was not more than five house arranged in an U shape, two on each of their sides and one right in front of them.
Gregory took another look at the map on the back of the quest but it seemed like it was indeed the right place.
'Looks like the kind of place teenagers get brutally murdered for having sex' he thought half jokingly, if this was true, this meant that he would be safe at least.
The houses seemed to be in good states but definitely appeared uninhabited, not a sound was to be heard around here, not even the sound of the surrounding wildlife, the wind was slow and especially soft at the moment.
Everything was perfectly silent but something soon broke it, the sound of wood creaking, the mist cleared a slight bit, allowing the group of four to see that this place wasn't uninhabitated, on the porch of the house right in front of them, sitting on a rocking chair was an old woman that seemed to be sleeping peacefully.
The creaking was coming from the rocking chair as it balanced back and forth, only making noise when in the middle of its movement.
'That's definitely a trap, she's dead or she's not, either way I am not approaching this-' thought Gregory almost immediately.
"An old lady, we should go check on her!" spoke Allema, her pointy ears moving a slight bit as she spoke.
"Huuuh" Gregory was now in a bad position, the normal reaction would be to inform her that it was highly suspicious but Gregory did not have normal reactions.
Seeing the cute elf so worried for this old hag, Gregory forgot his fear and moved forward, he was so deep in act to look tough and courageous that he failed to notice the piercing gaze coming from behind him.
His stalker had been so amused by the display that she had accidentally dropped her focus as she focused too much on avoiding to laugh out loud.
Gregory, closely followed by the three girls, approached the old lady.
"Ma'am? Are you alright?" he first asked, the old lady opened her eyes and looked around a bit confused before letting out a loud 'OH' as she grabbed Gregory's hand with her thin and wrinkly hands.
"Oh, young man... You must be here because of the quest..." the old lady was speaking slowly but he felt a sense of urgency in her voice.
"Yes, it says that it is to find someone, could you elaborate?" he said, noticing that despite her appearance, she had quite the strong grasp.
"My granddaughter went into the forest to pick some mushrooms and such, you know, summer is starting and with the recent rains, it is the perfect time for them..." the old lady went on a bit of a tangent for a few moments but quickly went back on track.
"She hasn't come back since! It's been more than a week now..."
"Oooh, I hope nothing bad happened, she's the only family I have left now and I couldn't bear to know that she passed before I did..." the old lady let go of his hand and looked down in sadness.
"Well, in which direction did she go? Do not worry ma'am, we will find your granddaughter and bring her here safely!" he said, perhaps promising a bit too much.
The old woman weakly pointed toward a certain part of the forest.
"She always follows the small path and she knows this place like her pockets, I don't understand what could have happened..." she explained after pointing, giving Gregory less and less certainty that her granddaughter was alive.
"Also, she always wears a red hood, you couldn't miss her..." added the old lady.
Gregory, like a hero in shiny armor minus the shiny armor walked straight into the forest followed by his beautiful companions who just like him, had failed to think of something obvious, the four of them were truly similar when it came to thought capacity.
The four of them slowly moved through the small path that the granddaughter was said to always follow, carefully inspecting the surrounding as they went.
Something that surprised Kolgat, the orc girl was that no mushrooms seemed to have been gathered at all, despite the granddaughter's whole reason for going in it to be to pick some.
Mirlini also noticed that it looked like the granddaughter had been covering her track from the very beginning, as if she didn't want to be followed at all.
'Did she run away from her home?' wondered Gregory, that seemed like the only logical reason.
They walked along the path for quite a long while, until they ran into the first thing that made them question this whole quest.
Laying in a puddle of its own blood was an ogre, its big belly had been opened up and its gut ripped out, some could be seen hanging from branches a bit further away, its body had been somewhat devoured and its corpse bore many harrowing claw and bite wounds.
Almost no skin was left on its face, its teeth had been shattered by heavy impacts and worst of all...
Gregory winced in pain as he imagined it.
The ogre's male attributes had been eaten and so was any part that was somewhat soft, the eater had only taken what was simple to devour.
Only after being met with such a gruesome sight did the group started to think back on this whole thing.
If what that old lady had said was true, then only her and her granddaughter lived around here, then, who had posted that quest?
It had been put far away from here and from all appearances, the only person who could have done it was the old lady, yet there weren't any carriages or even marks that one had passed here recently apart from theirs.
It also reminded Gregory of how strong the old lady had seemed and also how weak she had appeared, it was like she failed to realise that she wasn't just an old woman.
The rustling of a bush attracted the attention of the four of them, they turned to the source of it and saw a red hood protruding from behind a big bush.