“Adventurers? Here?! Not if I have anything to say about it! Nothing’s come out of the forest in decades; we don’t need that kind of riff-raff causing trouble.”
- Jeb McKallum, Mayor of Honningbrook, the day before he was eaten by giant spiders.
MAYOR’S OFFICE, BRIDGETOWN
“Really? The Butcher of Tahrim’s Hold? And he’s not even the worst of the lot you’re letting come through into my town.” The halfling behind the desk wore a truly impressive scowl. It was one he seldom used, but which everyone in town knew to be wary of when it appeared.
Well. Almost everyone. The ordinary-looking human woman in a military uniform bearing the brunt of his ire seemed completely unperturbed.
“We’re aware of his history. Of all their histories, Mr. Mayor. They’ve all been licensed by the Adventurer’s Guild, and are bound by its strictures. If he, or any of the others, slip up in town, the Hellrazers are less than three hours away by Bridge, and until they arrive I have full confidence in my personnel to be able to handle them.” She raised one of her hands, conjuring a miniature whirlwind of blue arcane energy above her palm. “I’m fully capable of putting ‘the Butcher’ away on my own, frankly. That epithet was almost entirely earned as an officer in his world’s military, anyway, not as a lone combatant. I strongly doubt that the cult he’s joined since then has given him enough power to beat me.”
“Hmph.” The mayor looked at the other guest in his office. “And you, Captain? There aren’t any in there,” he gestured at the folder of dossiers on his desk, “that you feel would be a threat to the town?”
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The captain, a brown-furred catfolk bearing a painful-looking burn scar across the lower left of his face, flipped through his own copy of the folder. “Ehh, this one will give them another look… let us see: shaman convicted of stealing an elven cultural artifact, black-market soul-monger, undead abomination who can’t be killed permanently, brownie with a talking magic sword, an elemental apparently made entirely out of a magically toxic mineral, soldier discharged from the 16th for disciplinary reasons, minor nature demigod, giant lizard who thinks he’s a dragon, cleric of the fae goddesses of bad luck, full-blood orc with a boar twice as big as he is, and last but not least an honest-before-the-moons succubus… Ahh, no, no, that all sounds about right to this one.” He gave a carefully-toothless smile. “Our previous batches of adventurers were almost offensively stereotypical, sir. The fact that this lot are so, ehm, unusual doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re more of a threat to the town, yes?”
He paused a moment before continuing. “Still, this one understands why you have reservations, sir. He will see to it that they play nice with the civilians.” Nodding at the woman seated next to him, he added, “And he is certain that the Major’s usual warning about the Hellrazers will be received loud and clear, especially by this group. The ones you are concerned about have all stepped a bit too close to Federation law before this, and they’re likely even more aware of the consequences of slipping up than the average adventurer we saw in the past.”
The mayor seemed to visibly deflate as he sighed, dropping the scowl and taking up a more weary expression. “Fine, fine. So long as you two are unconcerned, I should be able to calm people down when they inevitably learn all the gory details of our new visitors. When did you say the first of them were coming through? Three days, yeah? Well, then, we’ve some work to do before that, hmm?”
He picked up the first file and flipped it open, revealing a lumen-print of a tan woman with straight brown hair, dancing blue eyes, and a prominent nose set above a wide grin. “Let’s start off with that sticky-fingered shaman, the Arbodor woman and her pet hawk...”