The sign on the front of the weathered wooden building said the “Smiling Fool” with an all too ironically happy looking mans face, now weathered and peeling, painted on the sign as well. Indeed one would have had to be a fool to smile at anything in this mean little excuse for a town, barely hanging on to the outskirts of the “civilized” lands with the huge dark forest looming all around it like a predator waiting to pounce and swallow the tiny flicker of humanity before it even got going. The inside of the pub wasn’t much more welcoming than the outside, but they did have plenty of barrels of good ale and a fire so…. The old man that owned the place and his grown daughter that served as cook and barmaid stayed busy enough, especially on blustery cold evenings like this one when the sun was fading behind the mountains and the winds came howling down with icy teeth to gnaw on ones bones and make them ache. Best place to be in town on a night like this was inside the worn walls of the Fool.