The Boar’s Head Tavern, one of the most popular and widespread of establishments on the continent, with even some people claiming that the franchise can even be found all over the world. Though, naturally, most people can’t confirm this, as most people have never even set foot outside of their city’s territory or even that of their respective kingdom or empire. The only people who can confirm the widespread nature of the business is traveling merchants and adventurers, who would normally see at least one Boar’s Head Tavern in any major settlement, and even some larger than average towns and farming villages. For most people, they honestly wouldn’t even be surprised if they were to find the franchise to be also operating in Demon territory. They are just, quite simply, everywhere.
Here in the city of Silest, Boar’s Head owns a couple of locations, but the most popular one is by far the one next door to the Adventurers Guild. Open 24/7 and always available to serve cheap fried food and booze, the place is nearly constantly busy with hungry adventurers coming to fill their bellies or to drown their sufferings at the bar. Others can be seen actively looking for a group to join. A merchant can be found enlisting people to help escort his cargo. On a board by the wall, posters have been put up, advertising different Adventurers Clans that are looking for members to join. And as with almost any good tavern, there is always that shady looking fellow sitting in the corner booth. His name is Danny and is actually a regular at this particular establishment. He has a crush on one of the waitresses, so he always spends his free time here, trying to work up the courage to ask her out.
But Danny isn’t what everyone is focusing on right now. Instead, most people's attention is currently focused on the loud adventurer that is leaning back in his chair with a tall tankard of frothing ale in hand. The thin and agile man, dressed in leather armor, plenty of knives and daggers, and a green scarf wrapped around his neck, is loudly telling the tale of how he and his friends had just barely escaped the Dungeon with their lives.
For the regulars at the tavern, those that do more drinking than working, this a story they have been hearing nonstop for the past couple of days. But for the rest of the customers? They are enthralled as they listen a tale of bravery and desperation, of survival and wit. They hear about how the party of brave adventurers had delved into danger, fighting off hordes of not just monsters but even the Undead. How they had been chased through the giant forest of the second layer and avoided ambushes set by a pursuing Necromancer, hot on their trail. A race to see who would be the first to reach the bottom.
A couple of tables away, off to the side and out of the way, Hannah sighs as she listens to Jakub tell his embellished tale to a crowd of midday drunks and parents feeding their kids cheap hamburgers and deep-fried potato sticks for lunch.
Naturally, not a single part of the story has Bug in it as their companion. Instead, it has been altered to where in, Bug is instead pursuing them as the Necromancer. As the villain of the story. Which isn’t too far from the truth.
For obvious reasons, the adventurers don’t want to tell people that they inadvertently helped her get away. Regardless of whether they were being tricked and manipulated or not, it doesn’t help to be known as the people that assisted in the biggest Bounty in the land getting further away from justice. To know that they, all be it inadvertently, helped in potentially furthering the destruction of this very city.
That’s the sort of stuff that gets people stoned in the street or with a shiv in their back.
On top of this, the Adventurers Guild itself is of the opinion that what exactly happened in the Dungeon needs to stay on a need-to-know basis. And random drunks in a tavern don’t need to know. Even it does hurt Hannah to hear her friend being talked about like she is a villain in a children’s story book.
She swears that every time he tells it, Bug becomes more clichély evil and over-the-top. This particular instance of the story even has Hannah playing the role of damsel in destress as Bug attempts to kidnap her.
Blushing, Hannah takes one of her fries – One of the hard ones that she wasn’t going to eat. – and chucks it at Jakub, somehow managing to hit him a satisfying little 'thwack' as fry meets the back of his head.
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“That didn’t happen!” She calls out in a desperate bid to defend her honor.
People laugh and Jakub looks back with a wave and a halfhearted apology.
“Sorry, sorry, hahaha. Just trying to keep it interesting for the crowd.” He says with a winning smile before taking a swig from his drink.
As he continues to tell their tale, the crowd not caring in the slightest if the story is altered at all, Hannah returns to grumpily nibbling on her cheeseburger beside Sam and Max.
For the audience, even those regulars who have already heard the story told a dozen different ways, the validity of the story isn’t really all that important. They might ask, “Did that really happen?” But honestly, they don’t care. All they care about is getting the story for themselves, so they can then claim to know about what is happening inside of the Dungeon. So that gossiping housewives can tell their neighbors the big story about what everyone wants to know.
There isn’t a single person in Silest that doesn’t know about the One Platinum Bounty. The Necromancer of the Silest Dungeon. The Midget Wanted by the Church. The Gremlin who made an enemy of the Raingarden’s youngest daughter. And on and on and on, the titles varying and changing with each passing day. And by extension, people know that a single party has managed to escape the Dungeon alive. The only one to escape since the Dungeon's being sealed by the Guild. Even if most people don’t even know who The Green Scarves are…
Everyone knows about the Necromancer, and even people coming into the city from neighboring regions already know. Even further, despite knowing that the Dungeon is and has been closed, there has actually been an influx of Adventurers coming into the city, lured in by that one platinum bounty that is on Bug's head. Each one of them is probably hoping that they will get a chance to delve into the Dungeon and try to hunt her, just waiting for the Guild to swing the gates open and let them through…
Regardless, people just don’t care about what version of the story they have. They just want to know what is happening in there and to be able to tell it to others themself. People are eating it up left and right, and naturally, rumors and stories are spreading like wildfire across the city as they are spread from mouth to mouth and undoubtedly changed and altered again and again with each retelling.
Hannah doesn’t doubt for even a moment that there are probably dozens of versions of the story now floating around out there that don’t even have their proper names in it anymore or even the fact that their adventurers party is called The Three Scarves or that Hannah is a hired-on guide.
All of this, regardless of how much Jakub is absolutely eating up the attention and enjoy the free booze, is being done for one purpose. To warn people that the Necromancer plans to destroy the Dungeon and all of Silest, spreading plague and hordes of the Undead in the process to bring countless death to the surface.
Jakub nears the end of his tale, speaking of how they were trapped and fighting for their lives against hordes of endless spiders, trapped in the same room as the Necromancer who had been tailing them the entire time. And while the brave party fought desperately, scraping by the skin of their teeth, how the Necromancer had fought not one, but two bosses at the same time. How even the Dungeon itself -Something that most people generally agree are alive and aware on some level - even seemed to want to stop the Necromance and her devilish plans from reaching fruition.
The story ends with Bug gloating and revealing her evil plans as she graciously spares the poor adventurer’s lives. Telling them, “Go, go and tell your bounty hunters that they will never be able to stop me! Be grateful that you are too weak to be worth killing!” Jakub says with an exaggerated look of pain on his face, as if he can still feel the humiliation of not even being worth killing. He is obviously acting it up for everyone and is clearly very happy to be alive and whole, accentuating this point by downing the rest of his cold drink and letting out a satisfied belch.
People laugh, feeling in on the joke. After all, regular people aren’t going to complain about getting to keep their lives because they were too weak. Only stupidly powerful people and battle maniacs care about stuff like that. For regular people, they just want to be left alone by the powerful individuals that are able to ruin their lives with one hand behind their back.
Still, with this, another dozen or so people have learned of what is coming. Even if they don’t fully believe the story or even the idea of the whole city being destroyed, something that would seem unimaginable or even outlandish for most people, Jakub did his job.
They will spread the story, and more will spread it again and again. Slowly, more and more people will hopefully start to realize that their lives are in danger. Slowly, people will start to question whether they should pack up their families and lives and get the hell out of here. Slowly, too slowly, they might be able to save a few more lives before Bug inevitably manages to obtain her goal.
Because for Max, Sam, Jakub, and Hannah, they have no doubt in their minds that she will and that no one will be able to stop her. Not anymore. Not after what they witnessed down there…