You are a traveling tinker, leading your pack mule through the forest. Branches criss-cross the path so much that you walk continuously in shade. Ferns and moss carpet the forest floor. The day is peaceful.
You are half a day from Bobeck village. You've traveled this route many times, to Frankfurt and back to Dresden again.
2) Take the left path to a meadow.
3) Take the right path to a creek.
You enjoy your lunch in a meadow full of clover and chamomile. You can hear songbirds. They rise from a tree nearby and wheel around the meadow.
You notice their shadows join on the grass almost in the shape of a man. The shadowy form steadies. It is a man. It appears to leap across the meadow as the birds fly about.
The birds circle you, closer and closer. The shadow man capers around you, drawing nearer on each round. You've never seen anything like this.
4) Throw bread to the birds.
5) Dance with the shadow.
You break apart the remainder of your bread and toss it up to the birds. Their shadows break apart into individual birds as they swoop for the bread crumbs.
You collect your mule among the usual confusion of birdsong. What a fine day it is, with the sun shining and the breeze blowing and the bees buzzing.
8) Leave a good luck charm behind you.
9) Pick some flowers before you go.
You pick some flowers as you cross the meadow. You weave them into a crown and place it jauntily on the mule's head. The mule perks up its ears and tail. Its walk seems more spritely.
When you reach Bobeck village, a boy walking his hoop tags along with you. "Got any toffees?" he asks.
"I might," you say, "Is anyone looking for a tinker here? Repairs, knife sharpening, odd jobs?"
"Daggen's cart is broken, and there's Aga Merth who dented some of her plates throwing them after the cat." The boy looks up at you hopefully and you hand him a few candies.
18) See Daggen.
19) See Aga Merth.
You spend the remaining daylight helping two apprentices replace a cracked axle. The tanners and dyers who share the work-yard loiter here smoking and sharing stories.
"That odd shadow you saw was nothing. Many strange things happen in these parts," says the master tanner. He gestures around the group, "Remember last year when the chandler's son came home from play with new ears sprouting like mushrooms from his head? They fell off with the first snows."
"That's so," says one of the dyers, "And just last month there was a bushel of turnips at the market, each one as big and knobbly as a horse's heart, by my word. And when they were cut open they were as red as raspberries."
"There's all sorts of ways in," an apprentice whispers to you under the cart, "if you go looking."
"In where?" you ask.
"In, across, beyond," he grins, "If you look."
You pass the night quietly at the inn. When you rise the next day, you've decided to explore the village.
36) Look for something out of place.
37) Look for something just right.