Dear Dad,

  It was pretty early when we left the castle. Reese and Zunair couldn't sleep either, so even though we went to bed early, we were all up and allowed ourselves to be escorted to the main room around dawn. This morning, when we got sent out into the woods again, we were at least sent away with some food, not a lot, just enough to keep us going a little longer and remind us how hungry we were throughout the rest of the day. Reese wouldn't stop complaining about it even though it didn't help.

  I know why he complained because I wanted to complain about it too, but it didn't help anything, and he was just so. Annoying.

  Zunair told him to shut up after a little while, which did cut down on the complaining, but didn't stop it entirely.

  We saw a lot less of the little evil puddles today, too. I think we either killed a lot of them yesterday, or they all just fled in the night. Or we were just in the wrong section for them? We did go in a different direction this morning, so that could have something to do with it.

  We saw some pretty cool things, like a couple stone squirrels, little statues of them. I don't know where they came from or who left them there, but they seemed to all be made out of the same polished-looking dark grey material. I wonder why anyone would have just left them out there? A couple of them were broken, and had legs and tails missing, but I think the sculpture just had to expect that by leaving them out in the woods. I wanted to bring one back with me, but the guys said no, they didn't want to carry it when I got tired, and despite pushing them, they made me leave the whole one I found. Which sucks. You might have liked it. It would make a good paperweight or something. Bookend? It's probably not a bookend, you really don't have a lot of room on your bookshelves for those.

  We walked around for a while, looking for monsters or any signs of them, and other than a huge hole in the ground, we didn't find anything in the morning.

  In the afternoon, we watched a herd of deer resting in a little clearing. There were about a dozen of them. It looked like they were all but does, cause it didn't seem like any of them had antlers.

  They didn't do a lot, mostly ate grass, and a few looked like they were sleeping. Zunair told us about some camping trips he used to take with his mom, and how they'd look for different wild animals and take pictures.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  But then something scared them all off. We couldn't see what scared them off, but I thought I saw a rabbit with them.

  When I told them, though, they thought I'd watched Bambi too many times. Zunair thought that whatever scared them might be whatever monster we were supposed to be looking for, so we followed him to the clearing and looked around for any sign of monsters.

  Nothing, though, just a lot of deer poop.

  After we killed a few more puddles, we looked around for the deer, pretty lost until the beacons had been lit so we could see the castle again and head back.

  Unlike last night, we all had to sit with the mayor while he ate, and we weren't allowed to eat until he'd finished every morsel on his plate, which took way too long, considering how much and how grossly he ate. Finally, though we were allowed to eat, and the food all tasted pretty good, but we weren't allowed to talk to each other. We just had to listen to terrible live music that the mayor had hired to play, and anytime any of us so much as made a peep, the mayor would shush us.

  It didn't matter who had done it. All that mattered was that we were interrupting his time. He made us listen to the musician play the same piece literally five times in a row, and the poor guy looked so embarrassed the whole time, like he literally wanted to be anywhere else.

  Then the mayor made us all compliment the guy, and if he decided that the compliment we paid wasn't good enough, he'd make us do it again. Riley had to give three compliments because, apparently, commenting that the guy sounded like an excellent dying rat wasn't a good enough compliment.

  The mayor sent us to bed again, and Altiva brought me more salve. It helped so much, Dad, and she asked me if we'd killed the beast yet.

  I told her we didn't even know what we were looking for. She told me about a legend of a great creature that turned its prey to stone before eating them, that it was killing so many farm animals in and around the town, that it was a menace, and that people were going to starve, were already dying cause of this beast.

  I asked her if it was a basilisk. Cause I at least knew what that was. She said none were in these parts, that this was far worse, and that we needed to be warned of the one-horned beast.

  One-horned beast was a good descriptor, so I thanked her cause it was more than we'd had up to this point. Then she left, saying she had other errands to run, but she was still able and willing if I needed any help.

  I'm scared of what it could be, and if it was turning things to stone, maybe it's better that I didn't bring home any of the squirrel statues.

  Love, Jack