Interlude – Adventurers (Pt. 2)

Interlude – Adventurers (Pt. 2)
Interlude – Adventurers (Pt. 1)	Interlude – Adventurers (Pt. 3)
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Interlude – Adventurers (Pt. 2) is the 34th chapter of Volume 9.

tl;dr[edit | edit source]

Erin starts to investigate Nerrhavia's curse on her.
The adventurers in Liscor find Stalker's corpse and Snatcher comes to the surface only to be chased away by Lehra.
The adventurers at Albez discover Udatron's lab and the loot gets taken underhandedly by some of the teams.
Rasktooth and Infinitypear find the Ashfire Bee Hive being tended to by Grass Shell.

As the adventurers continued their delves, life went on in and around The Wandering Inn. Lyonette's party had evolved into a much longer affair with merchants still hawking their wares and the new connection to the Unseen Empire extending the party's lifespan. Erin herself went to the Unseen Empire to have the [Witches] investigate her curse. Through a combined effort, they were able to craft her a dowsing charm to point in the direction of what was causing her curse. Other noteworthy events were that Liska had gained a new class - [Door Gnoll] - and Nanette busied herself by exploring the inn. First, she went to spend time with Bird who appreciated the respect she gave him and regaled her with facts about birds as well as some of his opinions in general. Afterwards, she found her way to the Garden of Sanctuary and the hill within containing statues of the dead. Erin found her there staring at the statue of her mother, Califor. Distraught by the neglect of leaving Nanette to wander and not telling the girl about the statues, Erin decided to bring her with to bribe her with books and help find the curse. She also brought Grimalkin, Mrsha, and Ser Dalimont along with.

The real focus of the chapter though, was adventurers. Both of the groups mentioned previously and a new one in the form of real [Adventurers] in Rasktooth and Infinitypear. The duo had been going on adventures all around Liscor regularly, subsisting off of Erin's promise of free food as well as any adventuring loot they could find. Rasktooth was carried on Infinitypear's back and Infinitypear himself used a plundered spear from Spearmaster Lulv of Manus as a walking stick. On one of these adventures, the two stumbled across the ashfire bee hive from early on. They got too close and the hive was unplugged unleashing a horde of dirty Ashfire Bees. Just as they were about to be attacked, another much cleaner horde came by and fed the other group until they returned, plugging the hole back up. At the same time as the new horde of bees came in, an acquaintance, Grass Shell, arrived informing them about the danger of the hive and his job of feeding them. Grass Shell had become a [Beekeeper Shaman] and was content with his job. Grass Shell also informed Infinitypear that he had been ordered back to the Free Hive by Klbkch. Although it was not allowed, Rasktooth decided to come with, braving the danger together with his friend.

Meanwhile, the other adventurers made their own progress. The large group fully unearthed the staircase which led into a laboratory owned by Udatron. This laboratory was guarded by dozens of elementals which were taken care of fairly easily by the sheer number of high-level adventurers gathered. The real issue came from the distribution of loot as the rest of the lab was untrapped, and much of the loot was still in good condition. Rumblings got to a boiling point when an army from Remendia and Ocre was sent forth seemingly to strongarm the adventurers into giving up more of their loot. The leaders of the group went forth to meet with these soldiers, but they realized too late that the army was a distraction. While they dealt with the miscommunication as to why the army was here, other local adventurers ran away with all of the loot from the lab. Deniusth managed to hurry back and kill two of them, and others managed to capture some, but most escaped with a fortune in findings.

On the other side, the Horns' group had slowed down immensely once Snatcher started giving his full vindictive attention to destroying the skeletons entering his lair. They were at a standstill until Pisces had the idea to call in help. He teamed up with Ama and her cabal to get more necromantic reinforcements. It turned out that Scottie the Scout Skeleton was too fast for Snatcher, and was able to outmaneuver it enough to eventually get a full map leading towards the body of Stalker. Unfortunately, this final view was also a dead end and they could not retrieve Scottie. The death of Scottie was extremely upsetting for Ama and her cabal, but they had helped plan the route. Now, the adventurers needed a plan to get to the boss monster. They recruited the cabal and were discussing their plan when Snatcher, furious at his failure to catch the skeletons, climbed out of the crack they'd been using to send skeletons in. It alerted all of the nearby adventurers, and the city of Liscor, but none of them were able to significantly hurt it. The Horns, Colthei, Tessa, and Saliss all attacked it with full strength, and they did little damage. It wasn't until Lehra showed up that she managed to inadvertently scare it back into the dungeon by showing Snatcher the Blade of Mershi and reminding it of the City of Stars. Before it escaped, Colth branded it with a brand from Roshal which would allow them to track the monster in the future. Pisces was horrified, but Colth told him that "It's just a tool. We use every tool we have. It does not define us. Any more than chains or scars." He informed the group that they would hunt down the monster even if they had to bring in all of the name-rank adventurers to do so. Ceria also managed to catch that he'd said "Azam’du says hello."