Down the Hobbit Hole

[Scaramouche Fandango]

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted purple, with a shiny silver knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with papered walls and carpeted floors and ending directly in a ball-pit. This was not the home of your average hobbit. A wooden signpost outside the hobbit's hole pointed in three directions; the first arrow pointed to a building directly behind the hole's entrance. This arrow read "Kiln," and it was a bit charred as if it had spent some time in the kiln itself. The middle arrow pointed westerly of the hole, towards a large, dark forest, and it read "Phoenixes". This arrow, too, was charred, though the charring was more thorough and a few feathers were stuck in the cracks. The last arrow was chewed nearly through and was barely readable; it pointed east to a large field and read "Hippogriffs." Paths led around the hole to all three places, and for better or for worse, you went down one.

Let's see where your adventure leads you, hmm?

 

[Scaramouche Fandango]

You take the western path first, ignoring the kiln for now. A brief meander leads you to a clearing in an ancient part of the woods. The trees seem to grow with a deep serenity here, and near what appears to be a well-used (it is certainly shiny) seat between two roots, you see a discarded journal. This book, written in a cramped, spidery script, details the names and temperaments of the phoenixes within. The first page has a list of the first names of the birds dwelling within the forest, and it reads as such:

Fiero
Boco
Hina
Cleo
Sepulcher
Clagan
Fenghuang

The book itself contains pages of pictures and information about these birds, so that, if one were to land, you would be able to identify it, hold a brief conversation with it, and potentially not be pecked to death.

 

[Scaramouche Fandango]

Had you taken the eastern path, you would have discovered that it led to a wide-open field with a very small hut, no bigger than a bedroom, at the end of the path. The hut seems to be some kind of temporary quarter with a cot, a table, a chair, a larder cabinet, and the sundry trappings of an impermanent lifestyle. In here, you find another book, identical to the one about the phoenixes. This one is much thicker, though, and contains information about hippogriffs. The front page reads as follows:

Herd A:
Rokku
Silyim
Solange
Rhapsody
Corin

Herd B:
Moonglow
Marcus
Mika
Sven
Spük
Banshee

Rogues:
Intoh