We took our time walking down the hill. Couture had stayed at the top, waiting to see what would happen as we approached. From what I had heard Dengin telling him, he’d be able to send a message somehow to the other group, Mimic Bait, that had setup at the dungeon entrance. They’d either be rushing out of the dungeon to get help, or making their way to the outpost.

As we got closer, we could see a few more details. We being my party, we hadn’t thought to think of a name for ourselves last night and hadn’t had time yet to do so. The items and spells that the older group had used were not anything we had. The Mark 1 eyeball could only see so much. Really the only thing of note, at least that I saw, was that there was a small building on the far side of the outpost, a few yards from the side wall.

The guards at the gates had been standing at a relaxed kind of attention, and along the tops of the walls and towers the guards had been pacing back and forth or simply looking out towards the forest. They had all put their attention on us as we approached. It was kind of intense.

Each of them wore a military style uniform of dark brown pants that had been bloused into black boots and some sort of metallic chest armor under a tabard of green and white. They wore helmets of leather, at least I think it was leather. There was no shine to them.

An elf dressed in a similar style uniform, tabard included though no helm, walked out of the building as we got near the gates. “Good morning, ladies, gentlemen. Welcome to His Imperial Majesty’s Outpost of Kesiver’el. I am Sergeant Illanna es’Vayear and I will be taking charge of you for the time being,” the woman said.

Did I mention all these elves were tall? Mind, I’m short, I know that. I might stand at five foot nine. Sergeant es’Vayear easily had me by four or five inches. Her golden blonde hair was tied into a braid that she had wrapped around the top of her head, like a crown. Jade green eyes measured us up as she spoke.

Dengin took the lead, for which I was grateful. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact I was expected to lead my party. The older man had a slight grin on his face and he’d taken a relaxed stance with his thumbs tucked into his belt. “Well, it is nice to meet you, Sergeant. Amongst my guild, I also am ranked as a Sergeant. I am Dengin Leander. Might you be so kind as to explain the… take charge of us?”

The elven woman grinned back, and I felt for a moment some kind of unspoken bond had been formed between the two. “Well, Sergeant, I suppose you can think of me as the on-boarder. To get into the Outpost proper, you have to prove you can be trusted to have our interests in mind when you are within the walls.”

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The party leader from the Order of the Sacred Helm nodded, a hand reaching up to let his fingers scratch at his chin. He shot me a questioning look and I nodded at him. From what I could remember, this sounded about right. Though the method wasn’t anything like I could remember.

“All right. What have you got for us then, Sergeant es’Vayear?” he asked, turning his attention back to the elven woman.

es’Vayear turned back towards the building she’d come from, waving at us to follow. “Oh, it’s about standard. Farmers nearby have been complaining that some of their animals have been disappearing,” she started, pausing only long enough to open the door of the building and walk in. She continued as we followed her in.

“The forest and the mountains can get a bit touchy at night. Our patrols think that one of the abandoned caves to the west might hold some kind of nasties,” she paused as she walked around behind a counter and hopped onto a stool. Leaning her arms on top of the wood, hands clasping in front of her, she gave a nod towards a large board on the wall to the side of the door. “We have just enough soldiers here to patrol, but not enough to spare to go into the caves. So, your first job will be to find the one the tracks lead to and take a look inside.”

The inside of the building was sparse. The counter she was leaning on, the stool she was sitting on, and a large wooden lockbox sitting on the counter against the wall. The only other thing was a banner hanging on the wall behind her. The same green and white as the tabards they all wore, though this had a griffon rampant stitched on it.

We all turned to look at the board. It held several sheets of paper, though only one had anything on it. I reached out and pulled it down, blinking as the sheet came off the board to only have another exactly like it still in place. The other three in my part had given a small jerk once I’d pulled the sheet.

Orthan was the first to say anything. “Ian, I’m going to guess we should accept this quest?”

“Eh?” was my response. I looked at the sheet, reading the text on it and then thought of my status screen.

~Quest Accepted!~

The Sergeant of the elven Imperial Outpost, Kesiver’el, has tasked you and your party with discovering what has happened to the animals of nearby farmers. Patrols have pointed at likely locations within the mountains west of the outpost.

(This quest has been shared with your party)

“That’s going to make things easy, I think…”