Our heroes are walking through the Flüsterwald, the Whispering Woods. Some of the trees have already began changing into beautiful shades of yellow and orange. Autumn is about to begin. A time of change and evolution.
The forest is dense, a narrow gravel path winds its way between great fir trees, with trunks as wide as houses and canopies (צמרות) as tall as castles. As you walk, you see movement from the corners of your eyes. Some of the times you turn around to see a startled hare or squirrel, even the occasional fox. But some of the time there's no animal there, just the trees. And you're almost certain that you saw one of them just move.
It's been a week and a half since you left the Empire: Four days on a ship across the strait that marks its Eastern border, and now is your sixth day within these woods. You haven't seen other humans since you left the small outpost that the Empire own on the shore.
One day, around mid-morning, you begin to hear voices and smell cooked meat from further ahead along the path, and within the hour you find yourselves in a small town. A sign at the entrance reads "Abiesberg", town of the fir. The town is built in a slightly sparser area of the forest, and most of the houses seem carved into the trees.
What do you do?