+You sure we couldn't just stab the blacksmith and cheese it?+, the sword asked as the pair wandered into the tavern, +I mean, usually the monsters drop money, so I'm kind of at a loss here.+
"How would anything we fought drop money? Look, just-"
+-Wait, WAIT. There's totally a demon in here, Billy.+
"...Sunset?"
+No, a different demon. Definitely in this tavern, I can smell it!+
"How can you smell? You haven't got a nose or anything."
+Same way you can stand despite not having a SPINE. BURN.+
"That was uncalled for."
+You're just mad because you don't have a good comeback. Less talking, more finding and stabbing repeatedly.+
Billy walked up to a red-skinned man at the bar, getting the strangest sensation of deja vu as he did so.
"Excuse me, sir? You haven't seen any demons around, have you?"

Morthos had spent a few days in town, after helping out a travelling priest who was lucky enough to escape an attack on his adventuring group. Morthos liked him, he didn't judge the deals his ancestors made which gave him his appearance, and he appreciated that. He found himself doing odd jobs for people in town, using his simpler magic to help out with tasks. Currently he was in the tavern awaiting Kenneth to return so they could discuss when they would be leaving, "that house call must be taking longer than he though," Morthos said to himself as he had some ale while he sat at the bar. Before he could ponder more on where his friend was a boy came up to him asking if he'd seen any demons around.

Morthos looked at the boy curiously, he couldn't have been older than 16 or so, and he definitely didn't look like an adventurer. Then again, Morthos didn't look like much of one either, at least the boy had a large sword to let people know right away he could fight. Or perhaps it wasn't the boy fighting at all but the sword, Morthos could feel a strange energy about it. Morthos also found it strange the boy didn't recognize he was part demon, what with the red skin and horns and all that. Still, he was fairly certain he couldn't start a fight here, and if he did Morthos figured he could get away.

Morthos turned towards the boy, giving him a better view of his front, making his horns more visible, "well I haven't looked in a mirror in a while so no, not recently," he said to the boy with a cheeky grin. "I believe I'm the only one around here who would fit the description of demon, though technically I'm a tiefling, basically half human half demon. I haven't seen you around here, did you come from the surface?"

Rasa turns to look towards the person speaking to her. She notices the hood and the possibly creepy smile, but doesn't seem to have much of a reaction to them. "No, I don't think I'm lost. Though the rest of my companions are off purchasing supplies, and I'm not entirely sure if there's anything I can do. I don't think I require any supplies. Why do you ask?" Her voice isn't entirely monotone or anything, but it is a bit less expressive sounding than most people's. Her face is similar. There's definitely something unusual about the girl, especially as she doesn't seem to be carrying any adventuring gear or other items.

Billy and James were in the Tavern, so Rue would avoid it for now. Instead she headed towards the Bonfire and began glancing around for signs of intelligent life. As she walked, she idly began sketching the strange towers in her book. What purpose did building them all the way to the ceiling serve? Collecting rainwater? Sunlight for crops? Convenient natural light sources?

She caught herself before this analysis got too deep. Right now was not the time to ruminate on the customs and inventions of the locals, first and foremost, was getting the group to the bottom of this place and back up intact. With that in mind, she surveyed her surroundings.

Gabriel mused on Lily's pondering of how a deaf and blind village would communicate. He snapped his fingers together, "Eureka! I remember the exact play that covered it. There is the Legendary Village of Xjss'velp..." Gabriel somehow managed to pronounce that, whether due to sheer luck, or an impressive bardic skill of recounting stories, even he was not entirely sure. Or he was, but didn't care about it. "Anyway, the villagers marked each other with various scars so that they could know each other. They relied entirely on touch to convey messages, from their names, which they marked parts of their body to name, and through various carvings in walls. They inherited the village earlier, as some sort of disaster killed the original population and cursed the grounds that anyone who lived there would remain deaf and blind. Anyway these stories concerning this village were told to me back in the Carnival!" Gabriel glanced at Lily and his beast friend as he dramatically raised his hand upwards, "ANYWAY, LET US BE OFF TO THE LOCAL INN, OR PLACE TO PERFORM. THE BEST PART OF PERFORMING IS THE FACT THAT YOU CAN DO IT ANYWHERE AND EVERYWHERE!" Gabriel pet his beast, as he smiled, "I'm sure Rue won't mind if you come into town with me! So come along, and maybe I can get you some cool toys. Maybe teach you a few tricks!"

Lily nodded at Gabriel's explanation. "Yeah, that makes sense. Sounds painful though, wouldn't want to live in a village like that."
"Yeah, let's go," she chimed, following Gabriel towards the tavern. Of course, that was assuming that he knew how to get to said tavern. Then again, it was not like Lily had any idea one way or another, so all she could really do was follow Gabriel and asume that he did in fact knew his way around this place.

Somewhere during their trek towards the tavern, their paths crossed with Rasa's."Hi, miss Ra-," Lily started, falling quiet upon noticing the man she was talking to -- the hand she had raised in greeting floating in the air. Wait a minute... Wasn't that...
"KENNETH!," The Sprite loudly called out, running towards the man in question. "You're alive! Oh, thank the Greats you're alive!" One giant leap later, the young woman had her arms wrapped around Kenneth. "What happened? How did you make it out? Did anyone else make it?"

Kenneth had seen all kinds of things during his travels, many of them quite strange. This girl was odd, but not the strangest fellow he'd ever met, and considering how...colorful adventurers could be a lack of gear wasn't particularly noteworthy to him. She didn't seem to be undead, at least. "Oh, no reason, you seemed lost so I was just trying to be helpf..." And then there was Lily "Uh, one moment please". Before he could even ready himself she was already over him, throwing one question after the other. He couldn't help but feel a bit bad for her. She tried hard, but sometimes she just wasn't ready to face how cruel the world could be.

The priest patted the young girl in the back, letting her gush. "I'm glad to see you too, Lily. I got lucky and found help. A decent fellow by the name of Morthos, a fiery one, we helped eachother make it to this place. I haven't seen any others these past few days, but if you and I made it then there's no reason they couldn't have, right? We'll just have to keep our eyes peeled" He flashed his best, most confident smile at the sprite, positively beaming with hope. He didn't feel quite as confident as he let on, but hey, he'd thought he was the last survivor from that party and had just been proven wrong. "And you? I suppose these folks helped you out? What about the others?".

Gabriel glanced at the Tavern, as he stared back at his dear animal compatriot. "Hn, I don't think I can take you in. Well, unless we probably want to cause some potential property damage, which would be inconsiderate for the owner of this establishment." Gabriel peered inside the tavern, "Ooooh plenty of people to perform in front of! This should be fun!" Gabriel began petting his animal compatriot, "Oh yes, I need to find you some toys to play with... I'm sure this place will have something you can play with! Anyway, hm, probably should begin training you in important stuff..." Gabriel glanced back at the tavern, then at his animal compatriot. "I should get an alcoholic beverage. After all, that is one of the many purposes of the tavern. Besides gathering large groups of adventurers to entertain."

Rasa turns to look at Lily as she approaches, but quickly falls to silence when it becomes clear the two know each other. Ah, that was it. They were from the same doomed adventuring party, and more people had survived than they'd originally anticipated. She decides to stay silent, since her own role in the situation was little more than helping rescue Lily from the monsters.

The way she stands and looks at them is also a bit off. She's more still and quiet than most people would be, even when they're standing like that.

"Yes... YES!," the Sprite called out, a wide smile plastered on her face. "They must be alive, right? After all, we both made it, so they must've made it too! We just have to find them, right?" Although somewhere deep down, Lily knew that the fact that both she and Kenneth had survived was little short of a miracle, her recent discovery had given her a new spark of hope that she didn't want to give up just like that.

"As for these people, yes, they saved me," the young woman continued, breaking up her hug with Kenneth. "Those evil beasts had me trapped in an underground spring. If it weren't for Gabriel and the rest, I would probably still be stuck there." She paused for a moment when she realised that Kenneth couldn't possibly know who 'Gabriel and the rest' would be. "Oh! This is Rasa, and that man would be Ga-," she started, turning around as she spoke but falling short upon noticing that the man she was following had left her behind "..-abriel. Oh, not again...," she sighed, more annoyed than anything else. "Either way, the others are Billy, Rue and... James, I think?" Lily paused for a moment, thinking things over. "Hey, I know! Why don't you join us to the tavern?"

Billy stared at the man a moment, somewhat confused. "But demons are made of fire. Are you sure you aren't just foreign?"
+Lotta different sorts a' demons out there, Billy. Anyways, how does that work, izzat like, right-half-demon-left-half-human?+
"I'm Billy Bane and this is-"
+Or, hold on. It he demon from the hip down? Does he have goat feet? Billy, check for hooves.+
"Sword, I'm not checking his feet for hooves, that's rude. Anyways, I'm Billy and this is my-"
+Okay, wait, is the back of his head human but his front half is- OUCH!+
"-My name is Billy and this is my sword. You?"

"There you go, that's more like it. One should never give up faith". Kenneth turned to Rasa gave her a polite bow "Thank you for helping Lily out, Miss Rasa". Kenneth nodded when Lily suggested heading to the tavern. Bit stereotypical, adventurers meeting at a tavern, but sometimes stereotypes were grounded on reality. "I was heading there myself, actually. Mister Morthos and I have been staying here for a few days while we recovered, he should be there at the moment. I should warn you though, he looks a bit...devilish. You'll see what I mean".

"My name is Morthos, nice to meet you Billy, and I'm definitely not foreign," he said to the boy, his tail coming up from behind him, "also while I may not be made of fire I do have quite the proficiency with it." To show his point, Morthos created a small ball of fire in his hand for a second before dispelling it, the barkeep didn't appreciate the open flame, even though Morthos assured him he had complete control. "That's quite an interesting sword you have there, I've never seen an intelligent weapon in person before, I've read a lot about them before. Apparently the stronger the bond between the weapon and the user, the stronger they both become. Does he have a name?" Morthos was looking at the sword a bit too intently, he wanted to know everything there was to know, sometimes it made him a bit oblivious to things around him.

"Uhm... okay?," Lily answered, not exactly sure what to make of Kenneth's comment about mister Morthros being 'a bit devilish'. Did that mean he liked to play tricks on people? In that case he was probably a fun guy to hang around with. "Well, I'm sure he's a nice person though if he helped you out and all that," she shrugged. "At any rate, let's go!," the Sprite called out, mentioning for Kenneth and Rasa to follow her as she started walking... only to stop and turn around after having taken five steps tops. "Uhm... Where is the tavern again?"

+Had a lot of names over the years. None of 'em ever really stuck.+
"I just call it magic sword."
+-And that is the one of the very, very few things you've done right on this little adventure of ours.+

"Oh, it's this way." Kenneth pointed towards a different direction from where Lily was heading. "Your friend can come too, she seems a bit bored with nothing to do and I'm sure she could use a drink as well." It wasn't that big a town so it was a short walk, not a lot of time to talk things through and Kenneth had little to say at any rate. At least until he saw the apelike creature waiting around while a small man, a halfling or perhaps a gnome he couldn't really tell, talked to it like one would a pet. "Most remarkable, those are rather savage creatures, usually quite hard to tame".

Gabriel glanced over at the new person who walked over to the tavern. Gabriel's creature moved towards Kenneth as he begin vigorously sniffing him. Gabriel peered at the man, "Savage to the untrained eye!" Gabriel said while he held up his lefter finger while the creature continued peering at Kenneth. Gabriel glanced at his beast friend, "Come on Taliesin!" The creature, who was given the name Taliesin eagerly returned to Gabriel, as he was sniffing at him. Gabriel waved at the man, "Hi there! Gabriel Knotts, Professional Entertainer and Freelance Adventurer. As you can see here with my dear friend, Beast-taming is one of my skills of Entertainment. Though I haven't taught Taliesin any tricks yet?" Taliesin glanced at Gabriel, as he began begging. Gabriel glanced at his friend as he pulled out a small chunk of horse-meat and held it out to Taliesin, who began to eat it. "Woah! Remember no biting!" Taliesin paused for a moment, but then began to eat the horse-meat again. Gabriel glanced at Kenneth and smiled, "So who are you now?"

Rasa looks over at Kenneth as he thanks her. "Of course. It is only natural that I use my skills to help those in need." She's visibly unsure what to make of the bow though, just kind of staring for a little while. But it doesn't take long for the conversation to move on. "I'm not sure of where this tavern is, and I don't need to drink, but I shall accompany you regardless." It's not hard to tell that she's not talking about drinking alcohol... Infact it sounds like she doesn't even know what the purpose of a tavern is.

Rasa does seem to take it on herself to introduce the two, though: "Kenneth, this is Gabriel, a member of our adventuring party. Gabriel, this is Kenneth, a member of the adventuring party Lily was a part of."

"'scuse me sir" a feminine voice called out. "Pets ain't allowed in here. If you sure can be so kind as to escort 'yer animal outside, that be great" she said. Standing before Gabriel and Taliesin was a waitress, about twice the size of Gabriel. She was blonde with fair skin. She had a sizeable chest and thin waist, bulges seen through her clothing suggesting that she was wearing a corset. She was a human woman who had the essence of a Southern bell. In her left hand, she held a tray full of drinks.

"Anyway. Can I get y'all anything?" she asked.

Gabriel eyed the waitress up and down, as he glanced at Taliesin, who was staring back at Gabriel. Gabriel returned his attention to the waitress "Of course fair maiden, I won't disobey the rules of this establishment. But before I tie up my dear animal compatriot may I ask for your name, so that I may hear that sweet voice a bit more..." Gabriel glanced at the others for a moment, before returning his attention to the waitress, "I'll have an ale."