"Hey," was all Levi managed to say.

"Hey," Paige said with a smile. "Is that for me?" She gestured to one of the wooden cups in his hand.

"Oh…yeah." Levi almost fumbled the drink as he passed it to her.

She caught it deftly. "Catlike Reflexes," Paige explained with a grin.

"You just keep that active all the time?"

"Sure, why not? It's useful and doesn't cost me anything except a used Trait slot. But Catlike Reflexes is probably the best one I've got anyway."

"Makes sense…” Levi decided now was his best chance to stop putting things off. “...so I wanted to apologize for being an asshole that night..."

"Yeah, me too. You obviously wanted to be alone, and I was pushing your boundaries..." Paige replied.

"...Yeah, I still shouldn't have snapped at you."

"Well, it seems so long ago, now." Paige took a sip of her drink and slightly grimaced.

"It has been over a month." Levi noticed Paige had the faint smell of flowers. 'How does she smell so good when the rest of us just smell clean?'

"Really? A month. Guess there's no more free rations." Paige, with her heightened sense of smell, was also noticing something about Levi. He was attracted to her. Very attracted, at that moment. She internalized her happiness about that, trying not to make it show on her face.

"Hey, can I ask something?" Levi had to make his move before someone else snatched Paige up.

Paige's heart skipped a beat. "Um, sure."

"Would you be interested in joining me and Joe in a group? We are trying to get people together to explore the portal. You're a solid fighter and can stealth around, plus you have the crows. You'd make a perfect scout."

"Uh..." Paige took a sip of her drink rather than answer. She had to reset her train of thought.

Levi's shoulders slumped a bit. "You don't have to join, but me and Joe are just trying to get a group together."

Paige cleared her throat. "No, that's...I mean I expected...I mean I didn't expect you to ask that. Yeah, sure, I'd be willing to join your group." Her eyes brightened a little more enthusiastically. "Maybe there's some new beasts in there."

Levi smiled, "Yeah, maybe. We've got to get a couple more people on board. Pretty sure we have someone for ranged support and damage. Healer is kind of still in the air."

"Yeah, just let me know." Silence stretched for a bit before Paige worked up the courage to make a move herself if Levi wasn't going to do it. "Hey, Levi, do you think you'd want to go for a walk with me after the party? There's this huge pond, not far from here. Maybe we could even go swimming."

Levi's stomach flipped. He was an idiot, sure, but a person could only be so blind. Another small silence fell between them before he answered. "Yeah. That would be nice, actually."

Levi had thought about what Grace had said. He had thought about saying no. He really did. But, he was only human, and Paige was... incredible... in every way.

Paige smiled up at him, her pupils expanding to black orbs again.

"Hey, why do your eyes do that?"

"Do what?" Paige asked, looking down in embarrassment.

"The pupils get all huge all of the sudden."

Before she could answer, a drumroll, followed by a slow but loud and commanding beat, drew everyone's attention.

As everyone looked to the makeshift stage, Agnis stepped up in front of Kenny the Bard, smiling. As the beat died down, Agnis quickly glanced at her palm, seeming to read something, before she began speaking.

"Well, we're here to celebrate some exciting developments." Agnis began, before giving another quick look down to her notes.

"But, first, I have to say, I haven't seen everyone so cleaned up since the system arrived. If we'd have known it would have improved the air quality so much, perhaps the council would have put their support into such a party much sooner." Agnis giggled at her own joke, but no one else seemed to be very amused.

"Yes, well... The first big announcement is that one of the groups brave enough to adventure out finally found something of interest. Maddy, do you care to introduce your group and tell us what you've found," Angis called out. After a moment of no reply, with Agnis scanning the crowd, she continued. "Well, I guess they must be enjoying other aspects of tonight's celebrations, or maybe their adventures have tired them out…

…Well, in any case, their team found..."

As Agnis trailed into her explanation, Paige tensed.

"Something is wrong," she said.

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"Huh?" Levi leaned closer to hear Paige. "What do you mean?"

"I mean something is WRONG. I talked to them earlier. No way they'd miss this," Paige elaborated.

"They're probably just running late."

"No, they'd be here. They should have been here before me. Trust me." Paige's eyes were scanning the crowd.

Levi gave Paige a long look before nodding. "Okay. Let's find Joe. We don't really know what's going on, but Joe can help us figure it out."

Paige nodded, but her eyes kept scanning.

Levi's eyes were hunting for Joe, but he couldn't help but feel like he kept seeing faces he didn't recognize. He knew it was mostly paranoia. He wasn't that familiar with most of the people in the safezone, and when he looked closer at those that caught his attention, most looked like people who stuck to the safezone practicing Professions.

But every so often, he caught a hardened glare or gear that looked suited for a fighter, even though he didn't recognize the person from the pits. Levi didn't say anything to Paige, not wanting to make her even more concerned.

He found Joe leaning against a table, sharing a lot of personal space with Iara.

Grabbing his arm, Levi pulled at Joe. Joe's initial reaction was to tense and give Levi a look that said he was about to knock his head off, but after one look, Joe straightened. "What's wrong?" Was all he asked.

Levi quickly explained the situation, not leaving out the part about the unfamiliar faces he'd seen.

Joe quickly gave the crowd a glance, then leaned back onto the table slowly. Levi could tell he was trying to act relaxed but saw the tension you couldn't hide from a regular sparring partner.

Iara looked confused. "Are you sure?"

"Take a look around," Joe said. "I only see two so far, but theres some faces that are a little too hard for us to not know them from the pits."

Iara nodded. She scanned the crowd, and then seemed to shrink back against the table.

"What do we do?" Levi asked.

"I don't know," Joe replied in a quiet rasp.

"Well, we have to do something!" Paige insisted in a loud attempt at a whisper.

Agnis was explaining the rules of the war games in the background. She'd reached the point discussing drawing names for teams.

"But what?" Levi asked. "We don't even know what's going on."

Joe nodded. "We should keep quiet and watch for now. We may not know what is going on, but we lose the only advantage we have the moment they suspect anyone has realized something is wrong."

Paige huffed but didn't argue.

Levi didn't say anything. His mind was going through every possibility he could concieve, finding he had nothing to add to Joe's wisdom.

Iara just bit her nails, which Levi found unsettling from a person he'd always seen as strong.

"...and so, if you want to participate in the war games, please approach the stage and put your name into the hat so you can be selected." Agnis was finishing.

Several people moved towards the stage, but before they made even a couple of steps, a loud voice called out from near where the pigs were being spit roasted. As the bald man with a red beard spoke, his words sounded like a slow taunting laugh.

"What...a...fucking...joke. War games? Who are you carebears kidding? Most of you are softer than the bottom of my scrotum, with half the spunk." The man was wearing a patchwork of leather and mail. None of it matched the same way everyone's starting gear did. He had a tattoo under his eye and another covering one side of his neck. He had a mace at his hip that looked to still have dried blood caked to the dull, yet still intimidating, spikes.

"Umm... excuse me, young..." Agnis began but was quickly cut off.

"Shut up. This is your only warning." The man's tone grew serious. Lethal.

"I will not have y..." Agnis tried to speak but was cut off again when the man twitched a finger and someone lept to the stage, drew a sword, and put it to Agnis's throat.

Levi was tensed and ready for action, and he could sense Joe coiled like a spring next to him. "What do we do?" he mumbled as quietly as he could.

"Hold. We don't know how many there are." Joe kept his voice low, too.

"Ah, fuck this," Paige said, almost leaping in the man's direction.

Levi barely managed to catch her arm. "Wait," he said quietly. "Let's at least wait until we know how many we're dealing with."

Paige jerked her arm away and glared at Levi, but she didn't try to leap into action again.

Someone else did, though. The younger man who'd dual wielded in the pits earlier that day stalked his way to the man, with the crowd parting to let him through.

Without a word, the dual wielder set into the stranger, his swords in a flurry of blows. Yet his opponent seemed to simply step through the flurry, smoothly pulling his mace and caving in the younger man's skull from behind.

As the boy fell, someone had already cast a healing spell on the dual wielder. The bald man looked into the crowd and waggled a finger. "No, no, no," he said, a touch of humor in his voice. Lazily, he reached down and plucked up one of the boy's swords in his empty hand.

As the healing worked on the young man, and he began getting to his knees, the bald man swung the sword, removing his head. As soon as the decapitated head touched the ground, it was kicked into the nearby fire.

The bald man looked around, dark smile of half rotten teeth gleaming in the firelight, "Now, are we all ready to listen?" The man let the silence hang in the air for a while.

"Good. So, here's how things are going to go. We're going to take your food and the alcohol you have tonight, and you aren't going to do a damned thing about it. In two days, we're going to come back. You will have half a cow or a whole pig for us slaughtered and waiting.

You will also have all of your gear and potions ready for us.

You will place these at the edge of camp, that way," the bald man pointed, "Just on the other side of your gardens. We aren't going to demand any other food or alcohol right away…but you know how goodwill works and all that."

Again, the man paused, waiting for any objection. "Good. I'm so thankful you all seem such a hospitable group of nice people. But, just in case any of you think of doing something stupid, please do remember Maddy, Tara, Brittney, Jennifer, and poor little Danielle... If anyone tries anything stupid, one of them WILL pay for it."

The man stood for a moment, casually glancing around like he hoped someone would challenge him again. After a moment, he shrugged. "Men, grab the pigs and alcohol and let's head out," he called out.

People began to move then, some of them coming from shadows or behind buildings. Some had just hidden well in the crowd. They did as the bald man instructed and grabbed the whole spits from the fire, carrying them two people per pig. The remaining barrel of the apple juice cocktail was bearhugged by a giant of a man and carried off without any apparent effort.

Levi tried to get a good count on them as they left, guessing somewhere between 15 and 20. When they were far out of sight, he somewhat relaxed and realized he'd had a death grip on Paige's arm. He'd probably bruised it.

She pulled away when he let go, but her eyes stared after the men who'd just robbed them. "I'm going to kill them," Paige muttered under her breath.

Levi tried to gather his thoughts and get his anger into something resembling sanity, but before he could, his lips moved, "They need to die."

"Agreed," a raspy voice said from beside them, sounding colder than Levi had ever heard before. "Now, let's plan how to make that happen…”