[center][img]https://txt.1001fonts.net/img/txt/dHRmLjE0Mi4wMDAwMDAuVkdobElFMXZkWEp1YVc1bklFRm1kR1Z5LjE,/shangrilanf.lanf.png[/img][/center] [indent][indent][indent][color=gray][sub][right][color=black][b]Location:[/b][/color] The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria[/right][/sub][/color] [hr] [center][i]‘I'm sorry. For everything.’[/i][/center] “Sorry” would not be enough. By the time Graves dug a spade into the earth to bury the three men the crying had stopped; only awkward, melancholic silence remained. Luci had cried all she could cry before she left the dungeon, so when the others returned from Thorinn with a carriage in-tow she was spent. She had stood up, moving the bodies into the back of the cart as she turned into a woman of little responses. Her words she said to Kazuki echoed in her mind and she did not forget them. When Alja went to console her she had smacked her hand away in reflex. Her pain and grief was insurmountable and a hug from her friends would not help her grieve. Priscilica worried about her as they put Enos, Atlas, and Aaginim to rest as the green-eyed swordsinger stood in silence, sharing no emotion or kindness. It was how their first day in Aetheria following the “glitch” ended. The original roadmap was different. Aaginim was going to talk about inducting Benkei and Alja into the guild proper and likely given the circumstances they would’ve offered membership to anybody who survived. The glitch would’ve been manageable if the two could’ve made it out. The most Priscilica could do was to tell the group to stay together while everything got sorted out. She knew having Benkei, Kazuki, or even Rael in the guild hall would make Luci uneasy. She didn’t need immediate reminders of who got to live and who got to die. She couldn’t offer shelter to them. It wouldn’t be fair to Luci. Priscilica never liked hard decisions. She liked making decisions, but never hard ones. But Zain was gone. Luci near-catatonic. Leaves worrying to death over Shev. Aaginim was dead. Enos dead. Amaranthe gone. All of the people who had formed the Mystic Prophecy were either non-factors or dead. So it was Priscilica who had to make [i]all[/i] the decisions. Benkei and Rael didn’t cause a fuss. They may not have needed to sleep in Aetheria in the past, but they knew their options. Some of the group had houses in the city. Others were scoping out lodging. Alex and Seele had the option of going to the Heroes Guild of Thorinn for rest without cost to them. Whichever their choices all of them seemed to coalesce at the largest tavern in Thorinn that served all manners of people. The Laughing Worg Tavern. [color=2E2C2C]- -[/color] [color=gray][sub][right][color=white][b]Location:[/b][/color] The Laughing Worg Tavern, The City-State of Thorinn, Aetheria[/right][/sub][/color] [hr] [color=B269A2]“Tch.”[/color] Qoren had been in charge of observing the wayfarers in Thorinn since their initial descent into his world. As far as he was concerned, they were as unwanted as they were needed. The consensus among his inner circle that included some very powerful citizens of his native-born city was that the wayfarers ability to bind and destroy the dungeons that sought to destroy all living things was a sick and cruel irony. If he had his way, wayfarers would not have been given license to trample and defile his beloved city; they would've been captured and studied to the point of dissection. Whatever it took to understand the abstract magic that they held in their bones. But unfortunately they had been given protections -- and for the last few months he had been tasked to observe and nothing more. However, something had changed in the air and in the wayfarers themselves. Their lawless bravado had been shaken and tons of them flooded the city in fear of something he did not understand. It amused him, but it also concerned him with curiosity and caution. Their strange ramblings about game masters, becoming braindead, and never returning home was something he picked up on as he wandered the tavern and even earlier, the Wayfarer's Hall in the city. As far as he could tell, whoever was behind the manifestation of dungeons had made their first move to attack those who could stop their plans to wipe humanity off the face of the planet. This unseen evil was not the only problem, however. With the Wayfarers acting scared and beginning to panic they could soon unleash their despicable powers upon his fellow countrymen of Thorinn. He needed to talk to the Queen of Thorinn. Convince her to expel the wayfarers. Convince her to save Thorinn before they turned on them as their madness overwhelmed them. Convince her to give him the full authority to do as he wished. He moved forward, a lone wayfarer in his way. Normally he would've politely manuevered around them. But as far as he concerned, they had lost their protection. Their armor. He grabbed the shoulder of the wayfarer and for the first time since the wayfarers arrived in Aetheria, a denizen had not acted like a “NPC”. The female wayfarer was tossed to the ground as Qoren moved past in a huff, brows narrowed. [color=B269A2]“Move.”[/color] He spat, as he left the building. It was only the beginning. [center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLL_MgRVh1M[/youtube][/center] [color=tan]“Hey!”[/color] The wayfarer shouted as she was pushed to the floor, dropping an assortment of books she had collected in the process. [color=tan]“...ow. What the heck?”[/color] Sif quickly moved to gather the tomes before her as the denizen stomped off, exiting the tavern as he did so. Another quirk of the glitch, she supposed. Normally it would’ve been fascinating to consider, but after only one day removed from the Dungeon that had claimed Atlas, Enos, and Aaginim’s lives she wasn’t really thinking like herself. It was nearing noon and Siegfried was still sleeping in the room they had rented. She had seen Rael outside in the streets, lounging on a tree branch. She had seen some faces in the tavern as she had went to move her books from her bags in her room to the table in the corner she had selected to be her “place” for most of the day. She was certain nobody from the group who ran the dungeon had left Thorinn. Everyone was still reeling and coping, though she did notice other wayfarers had started to act way more tense. She didn’t blame them. Some of them had lost friends doing simple quests. Others were just panicking about the greater consequences. It had only been a day and there hadn’t been another GM message, though she did wonder how much time had passed in the real world. Considering the fact they were in an altered dreamscape it could have very well been only a few hours or even a mere few minutes. She was no expert on technology she had no idea about. Nobody was. Right now everyone had to keep their spirits up. Hope for the best but expect the worst. Survive. [/indent][/indent][/indent]