Elarma Tor was not happy. This was both a summary of her state of mind after the meeting with the local authorities, and her general state of mind in life since she and her team had been sent to toil away in a backwater settlement like Hor. It was far from uncommon for the Adventurers Guild to send "problematic cases" to such places to help "broaden their perspective on adventuring". In reality the point was to remove incompetent or inconvenient teams from the important sectors. Either to avoid that they cause harm or inadvertedly die in the process of adventuring, or to remove a politically obstinant team from making waves.

Elarma and her team the Hornstalkers fell into the second category. They were mostly non-human and actively sought to root out corruption when they worked rather than give favors to the aristocracy. Unfortunately this did not exactly make them popular within the guild and therefore they ended up in Hor. The Light Tamers on the other hand...well it was their fault that all Adventurers would be suspected of rampant alcoholism if they ever stayed in Hor.

It had taken her two hours after the meeting to not only assuage the worries of her own team, but to also find the Light Tamers and deliver the message that they were to go out on a fact finding mission in the morning. In their case she had not bothered to explain anything more than strictly necessary, and she had not even begun to try and assuage any worries on their part.

Now that the morning was here she had to enjoy the wonderful embarassment of her team being early and the Light Tamers being late. The Baron had elected to not use horses for the mission, so her team, Heraclius, and a small retinue of bodyguards and locals who knew their way around the forest, just stood by the gate and waited for the last team to show up. 8 Adventurers and 7 locals were the overall size of the planned expedition group.

While the awkward silence of waiting filled the group, Elarma took the time to appreciate the equipment of the locals. Heraclius wore proper plate armor and carried a compact mace and a shield, but with a proper hatchet in his belt as well. His guards all wore mail and carried long spears as well as shields and hatchets. The Woodsmen did not have much in the way of proper armor, but they wore hardened wool and metal helmets and they carried with them crossbows, bows, and spears.

This was all rather clever as the only confirmed sighting of the threat had involved a large insect-like monster with metallic and chitenous plating, in other words the worst opponent for those who relied on swords. Her own team was prepared but as they were all specialists they could not exactly boast of having their equipment being as focused on the present threat.

Elarma herself carried her staff with its glowing ruby crystal having blue light coming out of it, under her traditional robes she wore hardened wool underclothes to serve as some protection, and she had several scrolls in her large bag. The two warriors of the team wore armor but seemed not to not carry any weapons of note. Crabs Toria was her most unusual companion in that he was a fencer that did not rely on metal blades, he was the rarest type of warrior who had learned to channel certain magical energies without actually becoming a spellcaster or ritualist himself. He was a ossific swordsman, in other words he wielded bones and channeled power through them in combat. He wore a light mail shirt with secret bone blates woven into the hauberk he wore above it. Mariam Du Eralt wore heavy plate armor that her aristocratic family had been more than willing to pay for, she carried no blades or clubs or axes, however, which Elarma knew wasn't a problem because her hands were her weapons.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Lastly, there was the wildcard of her team, Listig. They had an abundance of tools on their person, but he eschewed all conventionall ranged or melee weaponry. Elarma and the others had asked him multiple times why this was the case and he always replied either cryptically or nonsensically. Usually it involved something about a "MacGriver" or something like that, or some other type of reference involving a man who liked bats apparently. The team had long given up trying to understand Listigs strange ways and references, as it seemed like they used them to annoy the rest of the world.

But they were undeniably useful in a pinch as he seemed to whip out outlandish contraptions and tricks out of every day materials, and they stored these in their ever present magical containment bag. Which let them magically call these items into their hands whenever they needed them. It had taken Elarma weeks to convince Listig to actually wear armor, but they now did wear some cheap composite crap made out of hardened wool, metal rings, and hardened leather.

The eclectic group stood around waiting for almost 30 minutes until the second team actually showed up. The Light Tamers stumbled bleary eyed into the gathering and Elarma couldn't help but snort as she looked at how they had prepared themselves. Swords, Swords, and more Swords without any thought given to the enemy up ahead. The Light Tamers were a rather one note team that focused on heavy armor, shields, and swords and trusted to their heavy infantry formation to carry it out. The living embodiments of being a hammer and thinking everything were nails.

"Well now that all of us are here, we can march out. It might take us days to find anything, but we will try to learn what we can."

Heraclius glared at the recent arrivals who did not have decency to look ashamed of their tardiness and with that he spun around and gave the order to march. As the group began to walk out through the gate, then one of the bodyguards went around and handed out bundles of wooden charms to every member of the expedition.

Elarma could sense the magic coursing through the charm as she held it up before her half-elven eyes. It was a weak shimmer more than anything else, the magic seemed to be tinged with the scent of burnt pinecone and something charm.

"It is a bug shielding charm. It will cause living things the size of insects to be stopped or killed if they try to get close to you. Since the only thing we know about those who have disappeared is that several of them have been bitten by insects, that made my lord ask the local sorcerer to take certain precautions."

The Bodyguard turned and walked back up to Heraclius as he led the retinue down the road towards the thick and uninviting forest. Elarma on her end twirled the charm between her fingers before she put it on.

"A bug zapping charm? Maaaan that would have been useful back where I come from."

Listig added whistfully as they slung the charm on and Elarma wondered for the 100th time where the strange Cat-Kin came from as they strutted forward with their dark tail swishing in the morning light.