Xess laughed as he watched Pan step over the unconscious thief. He then walked over to his horse.

"Ok then. The Grove is about a half's day journey up the road and then right at the fork."

Xess loaded his supplies on his horse and saddled up.

Pan hopped on her horse and off they went. There wasn't much conversation between the two of them for a little while, Pan was deep in thought. The last time she was on this road, she had been traveling with her family. She could still smell the caravan and hear it's canvas sides flapping in the wind.

"When was the last time you traveled in this direction?"

"I have never been up this way. Like I said yesterday, I have always wanted to go, but I have never been able to."

The travelers took the road to the right and slowed the horses down to a trot. In front of them was a groove of massive trees. The only sound was of the horses, "caclop... caclop... caclop...." The riders stopped and there was absolute silence. Pan and Xess stared in awe for several moments taking in the beauty.

"Well.... There it is Pan. The Golden Wolverine Groove. Are you ready to begin our search? I have no idea where to begin honestly. So this should be fun!!!!!" Xess said as he turned and smiled at Pan.

"I meant this general direction. To the east I mean. I have been much further east than this grove. In fact, my family often avoided going through the grove. It can be considered a shortcut if you want to face the wolverines. Although Domina is a nice trading village. You could say its the central town leading to many important places: Earldom's Country is to the north, while Howe mountain is to the south. There are many other roads to take, leading to various places."

As they led their horses down the path, Pan stayed silent as she listened to Xess, smiling back. She nodded, and continued moving forward. She scanned the tree-line, and she did not see a pack or any wolverines.

"I don't see it yet. What did the request say the pack looked like?"

"Just a simple brown pack it says. With a green ribbon on the zippers. Not the easiest to find, but I think we will manage." said Xess while shuffling some leaves.

"What do you think the best way to find this pack would be?"

"Locator magic would be incredibly handy right now. Would you happen to know any magic?"

She looked around the grove, at least it wasn't too big. Still, she dismounted her house and continued the search on foot, leading her horse around. At least being closer to the ground will help.

Xess got off his horse and tied it to the nearest tree.

"I do not have any magic! I am a skilled swordsman though, but that doesn't help me find things. HMMMM, where is this bag......" Xess lifted a stump and looked under it. "Not here...."

*Yawn* "Whew, been a long day already. I think I will take a nap..... Getting kind of sleepy." Xess gathered some leaves together. He placed is bag down and laid his head against it.

Pan looked around a bit, then started towards finding a stream where she could refill her canteen. She also looked around to see the pack. They hadn't seen it yet, but they hadn't checked the whole grove. Still, someone might've passed by and already taken it. Finally she came to a stream. The birds were chirping, bugs were buzzing, it seemed like a perfectly normal day.

Walking back, she noticed something in the distance. It looked to be a green backpack. If she hadn't just splashed some water on her face, she would wonder if she was hallucinating. She took a step closer to it, and it lunged back.

"Ok Xess, very funny. If we've already found the pack then we might as well take it to it's owner." She said sounding a little bored. She didn't here the mans footsteps, but the pack went flying. She began to chase it, and boy did the pack move fast. Was it attached to some animal? Or was it enchanted? Maybe this is why the owner couldn't get it back, perhaps he put the wrong spell on it and now no one is able to get it. Or maybe the owner is around right now snickering at the stupidity of whoever is trying to retrieve the pack.

Eventually, the pack went up a tree! Pan was not very adept at climbing trees, so as soon as she hit the tree and tried to climb up it, she just slid right down. In the tree she could hear snickering. Not just any snickering, goblin snickering. This was going to be a lot more complicated than they originally thought.

After returning to Xess, she pushed her boot into his side, "We have a problem. Goblins have the pack."

Xess rolled over and stretched, and yawned deeply. "Oh Goblins you say? Ya right Pan, I am sure there are. Scary Green Goblins have the pack. OoOoOo." Xess said as he rolled his eyes. "Why wouldn't it be called Golden Goblin Grove if there were Goblins here?"

"Well since you say you have seen the pack! I might as well help you against the sccaarryy goblins. Following you." said Xess still a little drowsy after being rudely awoken from his nap.

She stopped Xess in his tracks and put her hand on his chest. "Ok, are you just pulling my leg here and pretending you don't know they exist? Or do you actually believe it yourself that they don't exist? Even as a traveling merchant family, just in case we would put out milk for them where ever we could. Goblins don't like being indebted, so after they partake in some delicious milk or whatever you leave out for them, they will likely do something nice for you. Maybe you'll find a pack go missing and when it shows up again, it's been patched, or perhaps it's been replaced with a better one. Now, these are the praire and woodland goblins I'm talking about. I've never dealt with the mountain goblins that I've heard plenty of horror stories about."

She took a step back and looked around. "We're gonna have to figure out how many goblins we're encountering, and trap them. Or just figure out some other way to get the pack back. Do you happen to have any extra supplies? Ones we could offer the goblins?"

"Oh really, three types of goblins you say? Well considering we are in the woodlands I am going to guess that's the goblin breed that has the pack." Xess went over to his belongings and started searching though his stuff. He pulled out a brown fur pouch and untied the laces. "Luckily I brought so milk along! So you take it and try to approach them to give it to them. Then I will sneak from behind and run them through. Then we can take the pack and find out whats insi- Er take it back to the owner!"

"They won't let us just walk up to them with a bowl of milk."

Pan thought for a couple minutes. "They don't normally take things for no reason, so I imagine the owner of the bag must have angered them in some way. Not sure what he could've done, but it will be quite hard to get the pack back. We can't just capture one, that will anger them more. And I don't know how fast you are, but I couldn't catch up to them. Who knows if the pack even has anything left inside of it."

Pan walked a couple steps, kicking some leaves around with her boot. "I don't know what we can do, but maybe we'll get lucky and if we leave some milk out for them they might be nice enough to leave the pack. If we're unlucky, then we'll just have to think of a way to capture the pack back tomorrow." She looked up at the sun, which was beginning to dip towards the horizon. "So shall we camp out here then?"

"I just woke up, I don't want to just make camp! I am going to see if I can take a look at these goblins with my own two eyes! Feel free to start collecting firewood if you want to get ready for camp. I will be back in a little bit." Xess said as he started to walk away, leaving his bag at camp.

After a walking a short distance outside of camp, Xess turned back and walked up to Pan. "Uh.... which way were the goblins? heh..." Xess said nervously with a bright red face.

Pan was already on her way over to her horse to start unpacking everything. She began taking out her tent and the stuff she had recently bought to help make a fire. She pointed in the direction she came from earlier. "In that direction will be a river. About half way there is when I noticed a pack laying on the ground. Happy goblin hunting." She finished with a wave.

After a couple minutes of arranging her supplies, Pan began to look for some rocks and dry wood to start a fire with.

"THANKS!" Xess yelled over his shoulder as he ran off in the direction Pan pointed.

It seemed Pan believed his charade about not believing in goblins. Xess did not want to come off like a know it all.

Xess began to day dream about his last encounter with goblins. About a month ago they came and raided his small camp when he was out adventuring in the southern kingdom. 5 goblins snuck into his camp in the middle of the night and took most of his stuff. Xess had to chase after them barely awake, crashing into trees and tripping over sticks. Luckily, one of the packs busted open and his jar of milk rolled out. As soon as it did all the goblins fought over it and then ran into the woods dropping all of his other belongings. Xess then had to pick all of his stuff off of the ground and carry them back, alone, half naked, and in the dark. "...It's true they really do love milk..." Xess said to himself.

Xess focused, he snuck up the edge of the forest, the part the butted with the river. *Twig snaps in the distance* Xess paused, careful not to make a sound. His eyes scanning the forest for movement....... There! His eyes narrow in on the leaves rustling. He looks up, sees the pack sitting on the limb with two child-size goblins jumping around from branch to branch.

"Hmmm...." Xess thought to himself. "Wait... why are two children goblins here, but no adult goblins.... That doesn't seem right...." Xess continued to look around trying to find the Adults goblins. The children kept playing, running and jumping and having a good time.

After a few minutes of seeing no one else. Xess decided it was time to act. He looked backwards to make sure Pan wasn't around to witness. Xess took a deep breath in. Focused deeply. The wind started to pick up, *WOOSH* the pack flew from the tree. Xess dashed forward, leaped and caught the pack in mid air.

The wind caused the two children goblins to slip from the tree. Thankfully, there was enough brush on the ground to soften their fall. Xess turned and saw 5 Adult goblins staring at him, mad.

Xess sprinted back towards camp. "PAN THE MILK!!!!!! GET THE MILK!!!!! PAN!!!!!!! MILLKKK!!!!!!" Xess yelled with all his might as 5 angry goblins chased after him.

While Xess was gone, she had started cooking some soup. She took the canteen that she had just refilled with water, and other various ingredients. Potato and rice soup, what a great combination. And the milk would do nothing but help the soup taste better.

As she boiled the other ingredients, she sat thinking about the little she knew about Xess. There can't be anyone on this planet sheltered enough not to know about goblins, especially if he traveled. Unless he had some goblin repelant, did they make such a thing? God, that would make so much money if it actually worked! Maybe if I ever ran into someone who made potions I would ask them to attempt to make that very type of potion.

In the distance, she thought she heard someone calling her name. After squinting a little, she noticed it was Xess. "Hey!" She said smiling and waving. After he got a little closer, he could hear something about milk. She actually had it in her hand at the moment, since she was about to add some to the soup. Behind him was a trail of dust floating into the air, I wonder if something was chasing him. As he got closer, she noticed it was some goblins.

Why in the world would goblins be chasing him right now?

"Did you find the pack?" she asked confused.

"Ya i found the pack! Gimmie the milk!" Xess snacked the milk from Pan's hand. He threw the milk towards the goblins.

"Lets get out of here!" Xess grabbed Pan's hand and pulled her towards her horse. "They are pretty angry, the milk will only stall them for so long."

Xess and Pan both got on the horses and rode during the night back to town.

--

The arrived in town around 2AM. Xess rode his horse right to a house. *BANG BANG BANG* Xess stood outside the man's house waiting. *BANG BANG BANG* Finally skinny fellow opened the door, "What in the gods name are carrying on about at this hour?"

Xess held the pack up in front of the guys face. "YOU FOUND IT!?!?!?!" shouted the man.

"Yes, but we had to fight a horde of goblins to get it. So I will be charging you extra."

"Only if everything is still in it...." The man opened the bag and started to look through it. "Yup everything appears to be in order. Let me fetch my purse." The man disappeared from the doorway, and returned with a small coin purse. "Here you are," he handed the coin purse to Xess. "I paid you double for the hazard and getting it back quickly."

Xess nodded his head, "Thank you sir, have a pleasant evening." Xess walked down the steps and emptied the coin purse on the ground. "Alright lets split this up." Xess and Pan evenly split the money.

"Well... what do you want to do now!?!?!?" Xess said with a big smile on his face.