Spice up my life - The Art of Hunting [HxH]

Prologue - The Hounds Inn

(Credit to giaonp on DeviantArt for the image up above)

"talking"
'thinking'
narrator
"background story"
The author talking
(this is a general idea, there might be a few discrepancies)

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It was not a dark and stormy winter night, in fact, it was the evening of what had been a nice and mild fall day.

Somewhere in the middle of Nowhere's Wood stood an old and creaky tavern named 'The Hounds Inn'. It was a small and dusty building that stood between colorful falling leaves and ancient trees.

The owner and bartender of the establishment was called Frank. He was a stale, tall man who went through his everyday motions robotically, completely lacking compassion. Frank's wife Rosy had passed away 16 something years ago and ever since then he went into a sort of monotone.
She had been the love of his life, his ray of light and when she died, she took the friendly, compassionate bartender who was always welcoming and told amazing stories to his guests with her, and solemnly left the shadow of a man.
While the beautiful couple never had children, they loved each other dearly and that love made the tavern a place full of people, a place of life and laughter, just how it had been with all of Rosy's ancestors before. The inn had been in her family for generations prior, since the very beginning, and was visited by lots of passer-bys, travellers, hunters, famous hunters, merchants and the lot.
But that was long history. Now rarely anybody visited the tavern, a retired hunter, who had gone blind and senile and lived not to far away in a musty hut, came by every day and somebody passing through the large forest stepped in once in a while, nothing more.
Today however, something much more interesting should occur.

Three hooded figures had entered the inn an hour prior, ordered a drink and nervously sat down in a dark corner. They were conversing with a low voice, speculating about why they had been called here and waiting for an old friend.
It had been the first feeling of nervousness for all three of them in a while and you could practically taste the anticipation in the air.
Soon another figure stepped through the door, encased in a large, heavy black cloak, their features completely hidden. They moved gracefully and walked silently up to the table of the three hooded figures. Reaching a slender, elegant hand out of the darkness, the figure pulled back a creaky wooden chair and, with a beautiful, melodic voice, greeted the three figures. "Isaac Netero, Maha Zoldyck, Zeno Zoldyck, it has been a while, my old friends."

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When Isaac Netero, Chairman of the Hunter Association and the literal embodiment of 'wise old man', woke up on a nice Saturday morning, a few days prior to the aforementioned fall evening, and found a familiar pitch black envelope, with his name in cursive glowing red letters on it, stuck to his bedside table with a peculiar rose-shaped dart, surrounded by an even more familiar Nen, he had been surprised. Scratch that, he jumped back against the opposite wall of his room, forgetting all calm, flattening himself against the sturdy septum and gaping wide-eyed at the small letter as if it was a death threat.
Suddenly he was no 100+ wise man and skilled Nen-user or hunter, no, he was a twenty-seven year old boy, inexperienced and trying to find himself.
The reason for that was mostly, that the last time he had seen such a peculiar envelope, was 55 years ago, when he was 46 years old and when his closest friend had disappeared one night, without saying a word, only leaving the envelope with the promise to 'see them again sometime'.
After calming from his initial shock, Netero slowly and cautiously approached the envelope. It was definitely her Nen, but what was this about?
Reading the letter, the only information he got was to meet her and the Zoldyck brothers, Maha and Zeno, at the old Hounds Inn they used to frequent. Hesitating for only a second he went to his phone, dealing the number of the Zoldyck estate.