Turton and Brontispa left their village to travel north-west through the forest toward the mountains separating Zingara from Aquilonia. After several hours of travel into the shady depths of the woods they were set upon by a Serpent Of Unusual Size. The massive snake struck Brontispa a terrifying bite to his leg(s) - it's hard to be really exact with a bite radius that would impress an allosaurus. The brothers responded with different philosophical modes: one by screaming like a little girl while flailing uselessly, and the other by grabbing the snake by the mouth and ripping its head in half.
The snake was sporting two serrated fangs of impressive cleaving capability, which were then ripped out of its skull and had strips of snakeskin wrapped around the roots to make handles. It was also noticed that the monster snake was slightly bulged at one spot along its length, and upon opening it they they found the smelly remains of a Pictish adventurer. Amongst the decayed remains, they found a few surviving metal artifacts - a couple minor magical rings and a battle hammer.
After several hours of roasting the metric tonnes of snake meat over a bonfire, a trio of dark-hooded assailants converged on the brothers. Armed with wicked stabbing blades, they inflicted some unpleasantness on both Turton and Brontispa. However, the Zingarian Brothers prevailed. Two of the oddly-shriveled men were dispatched irrevocably where they lay, while a third was allowed to regain consciousness for questioning. He taunted them, claiming success at their purpose, and then killed himself with a grotesquely muscular snapping of his own stick-like neck. Inspection of their weapons revealed them to be magical, but in their wielding (an obvious mark smears Brontispa's hand), and probably in the wounds they inflicted. The marks are magical in nature, and not useful to those actually wielding the blades...
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