They spot a griffin, but it's a ways off and doesn't bother them. The woods give way to grassland eventually but it continues pretty hilly.

City Frostbound was highly vertical, built into hills and a mountainside. She picks paths that trend as flat as possible while maintaining the correct overall direction. It's faster than constantly going up and down.

Though perhaps they should hike to the very top of one and take a good look around at least once?

"It's weird being able to see this far. - Village, over there."

"Telescope, another thing I should have made- Not much use underground. I'm not thinking of any reason not to go to the village in five seconds..."

"I think it'll take us longer than that to get there. - you understand you have to do the talking, right, I am your wizardy adventuring companion and you vouch for me and I shut my mouth."

Eye-roll. "The thinking being five seconds. I'm a little nervous about that part and maybe want to go over what we know about Taldor and what's expected of random adventurers in Taldor again."

"You've got what I know of the language, the rest of it's more... stuff I picked up from novels and tall tales, you know? I think adventurers are probably the same - kind of weird - everywhere. Rich, foreign, wacky, violent but hopefully in a useful direction."

"Hi, Desna's cool, got any local menaces with bounties? In somewhat more words."

"Well, I mean, maybe get a look at the local church and see if we can figure out whose it is before we go announcing we love Desna rah rah. - it's probably safe to talk to them in Taldane and me in drow, act like I can't understand them."

"Yeah, she's the one I'd pick if someone presses me for some god, though. Okay, I think I can do this."

"Lead on, fearless party face."

She leads on, trying to look and feel like she knows where she is and is supposed to be there.

They reach the village around dusk. It's just a cluster of houses, and not a close cluster, but it does have a temple - "Erastil," Niss identifies, when they're closer - and a tavern.

Erastil... Farming and family? Humble and straightforward then?

She slings her launcher over her back. To the tavern they go. She says 'hello' politely to anyone within polite-greeting range on the way.

That'd be a lady sitting on her front stoop spinning with a dog lounging at her side, and a man on his way out of the tavern. Belmarniss gets double-takes when a hint of purple peeks out from her sleeves or her hood, but she shadows Waltana pretty closely and Waltana looks like an exotic but not fundamentally outlandish adventurer.

The tavern is very small and it has only three customers in it when they enter, all men, teasing the barmaid about how much she probably wants to sleep with them. (The barmaid is shrugging it off.) There's a shrine to Cayden Cailean in a corner; when she clears away the tankard of the fellow who just left she shakes a bit of the remaining foam into a little bowl on the shrine. When she notices the new entrants her eyes go quite wide.

"Hello there, miss! We're just passing through and looking for good food and a room for the night. And news."

Flash a saddle-shaped gold coin.

"- yes ma'am! We've got stew and I think there's a loaf of bread left, will that do ye?"

"After a while travelling, bread and stew sounds good."

She picks a table for both of them, and says in Drow to Belmarniss, "Making conversation to demonstrate the language barrier."

Nod nod.

Two bowls of stew (it's thick but the chunks in it are too small and cooked down to identify individually) and a loaf of bread for them appear. "We have one room to let to travelers, but if you're not accustomed to sharing I can give mine and find another - you lot shut up -" she adds warningly in the direction of the men. "For news, well, the baron's married, just last month, a lady from a bit north of here?"

"One room, I was figuring, so if anything happens I'm right there and you're not trying to explain yourself?"

"Good for them, I hope! We got a bit turned around in the mountains, which baron would this be? Oh, and might we get some water? From the well is fine, and thank you."

Barons are supposed to protect the locals with force, right, so they're sort of like static and very proud adventurers... Hmm...

"Yeah, one room sounds right," agrees Belmarniss. - oh WOW she likes bread. She has to pace herself a bit on the bread. (The bread is absolutely nothing special if you are accustomed to bread.)

"Our baron is the lord Gulian," says the barmaid, "of Velus."

"One room," she confirms.

Belmarniss can have most of the bread. She breaks hers into chunks and dips it in the stew. And thinks for a bit how to phrase it, composing things.

"Would you know if the lord Gulian or anyone else around would appreciate travelling adventurers to introduce themselves? It's only polite to make ourselves available and useful if we can."

"I can only imagine that he'd surely like to make your acquaintance, most particularly if you outclass his own wizard."

"We naturally don't mean any trouble. Do you know who to go to, for introductions?"

"It would be very suspicious for us not to speak to the lord Gulian. Nobles are like that about unknown elements but I think it's much less bad than the houses below."