The four day journey back to Naraak, had been incredibly unenventful for Megan. They did not encounter many people on the road, and for three of the nights they simply camped outside. They stayed the fourth night inside an old barn at a farm. Each of the nights, Megan was tormented by the nightmares, often waking up in a cold sweat. Then she would get onto her horse and continue forward feeling a cold numbness through her.

During the day, Megan sat listening to the discussions that Yukali had with Dafter. The pair of them began to bond over swordplay and the path of a warrior. Occasionally Ritalassa would interject with her viewpoint, often waving her tentacles to make a point. By the fourth day, the conversations was so over Megan's head, she found she was growing bored out of her mind. There was only so much she could listen about the difference in blade edges and the proper angle which to sharpen them.

Her limit for it was reaching the end, thankfully the city of Naraak finally came into view for her. The line to get into the city was fairly long. They were in luck, as the lockdown on the city had been uplifted while they were away. Though Megan noted the price to enter the city had doubled in price. The guards were a bit startled by Dafter's appearance but let them through after Megan paid the entrance fee.

The journey to the mine where the airship dock would take three day's, so they would be staying the night here in Stolen Hearts. As Megan guided her horse towards her club, she looked up to see the sun having crossed into the afternoon position. She tsked as she had several things she needed to get down before they left. Turning her horse down the corner where the club was, Megan was startled to see that her building's roof, and part of it's wall was torn open.

Large pieces of the roof and wall were collected into piles near her club, as she looked she could see several cleaners currently picking up and moving pieces to the piles. On the roof, several workers wearing ropes were cleaning and looked to be repairing the damage.

Getting closer, Megan spotted Jena the otterkin chatting with a group of people wearing hard hats. They were speaking around a short table, where Jena was gesturing towards a blue colored document. Megan swung off her horse, and attached it to a nearby post. Jena looked over and spotted her as she approached.

Dropping what she was doing, Jena rushed over to Megan. "Megan you're back!" Jena excitedly said and jumped up and hugged Megan tightly.

Hugging the otterkin back she said "I'm back. I notice Stolen hearts has a new skylight. Care to tell me what happened exactly?"

Jena gigled and let go of Megan then said "You know it's the crazyiest thing, a massive bird came along last night and landed on the roof. While it was up there it tore open the roof above your room and the walls. Luckily none of the workers were harmed, but Baron Liefield was in your room when the bird landed. The girl that was with him, said the bird reached into your room and grabbed the baron. We think he was eaten by the bird."

"What?" Megan said confused "How did a giant bird get past the city defenses?"

"No one knows, it's got the city on edge. It hasn't been seen since last night."

"Why was Baron Liefield in my room? And with a girl?"

"That's the thing, he got word that you left the city. A few day's ago, he forced himself into the club. Despite my efforts he took over your room, and was trying to take over the club. I gathered he was actually in quite a pickle for some reason, and needed a great deal of coin. The Baron froze in fear when the bird tore open the roof. He never had a chance when the bird took him."

Dafter the Mushroomman walked over looking curious. He asked "Do you know what sort of creature this bird was? Sounds like a jolly good challange."

Jena startled by Dafters appearance, took a closer look at him and said "Are you a Mushroom man?" Being nearly the same height, Jena could look almost directly into the fungus eyes.

"Quite so lass. For your eyes are correctly showing you the truth. I am Dafter, I was summoned by Lady Ritalassa, I am a proud Knight of the mushroom kingdom. It his a pleasure to meet you miss." Dafter took Jena's hand and kissed it. "May I ask what do you call yourself?"

Jena blushed and said "I'm Jena an Otterkin. Maybe you can tell me later about your Kingdom?" 

"I would be happy to." Dafter said.

"To answer your question, we are not sure exactly what kind of bird it was. We have no records of such a beast ever being seen. It also landed late at night, so no one got a good look at it. After it ate Liefield, a group of passing mages fired several spells at it, and it flew off. Though the mages told me that they didn't think they did any damage to the creature."

Jena frowned and then said "Oh yeah, while I was cleaning up the mess in your room, I happened to find a feather that fell off the bird." Jena pulled out a wrapped package from the small spatial bag Megan had once gifted the Otterkin. "I was planning to get it checked out by an expert to see if it has any value, but you can have it. I wrapped them up, because they left black crud everywhere."

Taking the heavy package from Jenna, Megan unwrapped the feathers. The feathers were extremely heavy for what they were, it was unatural for a bird to have such heavy feathers. Unwrapped, she saw that it was a giant black feather. The quill of the feather was thick, almost double the size of her fist. The feather was also broken, and running her finger along it, she found it was incredibly sharp barbs. Black marks like soot covered her finger where she touched the feather.

Taking a sniff of the feather, she found it had a strange pleasant smell. It was sort of like the smell after a summer storm, yet it also had a hard heat to it as well. Curious, Megan examined the feather, but the resulting screen proved useless as all it had was question marks. What ever the bird was though, Megan could tell it had quite a massive amount of magic flowing through it. She wrapped the feather back up and placed it into her inventory. 

Turning her attention back to Jena she asked "So they don't know where that bird went?"

"No, like I said the city is on edge. The City Lord has requested the Magic guild to double check the city barriers to make sure they arent failing. He even put up a mission at the Mission guild for any information about the bird. It's a big reward too, ten thousand big gold coins. There are rumors that if you find it and kill it, you might be able to get a title from the king."

Megan nodded, and then said "The club seems pretty tore up, how bad is the damage?"

"Honestly besides the roof over your room, not too bad. I've hired a local construction crew to begin repairs. They estimate they should be able to repair all of it within a week or so. Till then I put limits on operating just for safety's sake."

"That's good to hear." Megan said happy that none of her girls were harmed, but the loss of the Baron was a problem. Though it irked her that he attempted to take over while she was gone, he was also a decent shield to keep the vulture's of the city off her back. Now that he was gone, her club would be under far more pressure from others in the city.

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"Where is Henrik and Bob?" 

"Well once the City lifted the lockdown they took their honeymoon vacation. They are scheduled to be back within two weeks." Jena said, then snapped her fingers. "Oh yeah, you mother left after she got a letter. She said to tell you that your wedding is still on, and that you should contact her when you get back to find out the arrangements she made."

Megan snorted and said "That ain't happening." She took a deep breath and said "Thank you Jena for managing the club while I was away. Can you keep doing so? I am planing on going on another trip south to the Empire. In return I will triple your salary."

"Thank you Megan, though I don't like the thought of you going down to the empire. It sounds dangerous. Speaking of dangerous, how did you expedition go?"

"I'm sorry Jena, I don't feel like talking about what happened right now. Maybe later, but now that the baron is dead, I'm afraid you will face more pressure."

Yukali who had been standing quielty off to the side interupted "I have a suggestion. I could send a message to Lady Niadas for help protecting your club. She is knowledgeable about these sort of things, and probably could find a new backer for you."

"Could you please?" Megan said "I would be grateful. I don't like the idea of leaving my club with so many eyes on looking to take it." Megan looked at Jena and said "Do you know where Alexia's mother is?"

Jena nodded and said "She is currently helping clean up the mess in the courtyard." Jena looked around and asked "Where is Alexia?"

Megan shook her head sadly and said "She didn't make it."

"oh." The otterkin looked shocked then walked up to Megan and hugged her. "I'm sorry to hear that. I liked her." Jena said holding Megan tight. Megan kneeled down and hugged Jena back. After some time Jena broke free and said "Will you be staying the night?"

Megan nodded.

"Alright, I shall show your friends to some rooms they can use for the night." Jena led Yukali and Dafter into Stolen Hearts.

Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she walked to the courtyard and looked around. Alot of debris from the roof cluttered the courtyard. She spotted Alexia's mother Christie sweeping some of the smaller pieces of the roof into a pile. Walking up to her Megan said "Christie, May I have a moment of your time? I have something important to discuss with you."

Christie looked up and smiled "Oh? It's you Megan. I see you have returned. Where is my daughter...." Christie stopped when she saw the look on Megan's face. Dropping the broom she said "Oh... oh no. No... is she?" 

Taking the woman into her arms, she led her to a nearby bench and sat down. The woman broke down and wept for a while, until no more tears came. "How did my daughter die?"

"She died saving us." Megan said her heart hurting. She briefly described the circumstances of Alexia's death, but did not go into to much detail both to spare her mother the gruesome events, and to speak the painful memories that tormented Megan. Afterwards Christie looked absoulutely broken. One of the workers from the brothel came over.

He said "Are you okay Christie?"

"No, Jerry, I'm not okay. I think I need to lay down for a bit. Could you take me to my room? I don't think I can make it on my own."

Jerry helped Christie up and walked her inside the building. Taking a while to collect herself, Megan simply watched the clouds floating overhead. After a while, Ritalassa whom Megan had forgotten was still attached to her belt asked "Are you doing alright Megan?"

"Yeah, it's strange. Everyday I am hit with the realization of Alexia's death. I know she died and still it feels like I'm alway's surprised and hurt when I think of it."

A tentacle emerged from Ritallassa and patted Megan on the arm. "I know how you feel. I've lost so much, that it is hard to bear sometimes. I try to keep my focus on the present, but every so often I see something that makes me recall what I have lost and I am hit with a wave of sadness. Still Megan you are not alone in this. You have friends that will help you."

Megan nodded and said "Thank you Ritalassa." Just then Jena came to the courtyard. "Megan guess who is here to see you!"

Thinking for a moment, she said "I'm not sure. Who is it Jena?"

"Beryl, let me go get her." Jena dashed back inside and a few seconds later, Beryl came walking out.

She was wearing a very expensive looking set of armor. Beryl let out a big smile when she saw Megan. Walking up they embraced in a hug and she said "I'm glad to see you made it back to us in one piece."

"It's good to see you too Beryl. It feels like ages since I saw you last. How are you doing?"

"I'm doing great actually. I've managed to become leader of the guards. The city lord said I was the best choice for the matter. I've been spending the last few day's going through the remaining guards to clear out the corrupted ones. Now that is over we are slowly getting back to our duties. Of course now we have that Giant bird to worry about, so we now have double patrols going on."

"How is Oliver?"

"He is doing better, he will be on light duty within a week. So Jena tells me that you are headed down to the Empire tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I need to get stronger.  In order to do that, I need to kill monsters. The best way to do that is to visit a dungeon. We have access to one to the south in the empire."

"Is that so? For your information, I have been in a small dungeon before. I can give you some pointers." Beryl said.

"You have? I don't remember you telling me this."

"It wasn't a big dungeon. It was part of the training the guard does. They send us to a small dungeon in the east for a two week period. We had to learn how to deal with monsters that are typically found in cities. I am confidant that you will be able to deal with monsters, so I won't tell you how to fight. The real problems of dungeons are their other tricks."

"Like what?"

"First off, you have to deal with traps. Each dungeon is vastly different, but within the same dungeon, traps often follow similar themes. For instance if you find a poison spike trap, the next trap might be a poison gas trap. Or it may be a fire spike trap. The core of the dungeon typically latches onto an idea and just offers varieties of the same thing. That is not to say that the traps are easy, not at all. If you are not careful you could very well die."

"I see, what do you recommend?"

"If you were going into a unknown dungeon, you need several trap experts. They would slowly scout out the dungeon and you would follow carefully behind. If you are going into a known dungeon, you can hire an expert guid of the dungeon to help you. Owners of the known dungeons often make books of traps that are found within the dungeon. My best advice however given my understanding of your abilities with Jack is to pick up a trap disarming skill."

"That is good advice. What are the other tricks the dungeons could throw at us?"

"The next one isn't as dangerous, it's mostly time consuming. Though it may activate a trap if you get it wrong. Dungeons like to have puzzles of various sorts. They come in three mains flavors. The first is the key puzzles, they require you to find a specific key to unlock the puzzle so you can progress."

"A key, like what?"

"It can be anything really. I've even heard of a rock being the key to a puzzle. The next kind of puzzle are the riddle ones. The dungeon gives you a riddle that you must solve in order to pass. It can be in the form of a word riddle or it may be a physical riddle like moving a set of rings around three poles."

Megan frowned and said "I'm not a fan of riddles."

"Yeah, but it's not the most annoying one. The last one is the worst. I can barely call it a puzzle, they require a set of specific tools or abilities. Often times you won't even realize that you need them at times."

"Why is it the most annoying?"

"Unlike the key and riddle ones, the dungeon will not give any obvious hints of what you actually need. For instance the dungeon I went to, it was thought that it was a smaller dungeon then it was actually. Several years back, they wanted to make a shortcut between two paths, and set up some bombs. When they went off, they found an entirely new level of the dungeon behind the wall. Apparently if you blow up certain colored walls in the dungeon you can find things behind them. But the dungeon never told you that was the case."

"I see, is there anything else I should be aware of about dungeons?"

"One last thing. It's not as important, but Dungeons do change over time. It mostly slow, but occasionaly they do change fast. Maps often more then a map ago for a dungeon are rarely completely accurate. There are a few rooms within dungeons that never change, though they may be in different places. As the dungeon ages, they typically get deeper, as that happens the higher levels tend to change far less often."

"Thank you for your help Beryl."

"No problem. I need to get back out there. Still some problems I need to solve. Be careful out their Megan." Beryl said and walked off.

Going into Stolen Hearts, shef ound Yukali and Dafter waiting for her. Yukali said "Jenna showed us rooms we can stay in. I'm going to head out to the bank and withdrawing the coins we will need for the Airship ride. Dafter want's to see more of the city so he agreed to come with me."

"As long as that is okay Lady Ritalassa?" Dafter asked.

"That is fine. I'm going to see if Inky want's to come out and play."

Megan said "I'm going to rest. If you need me I'm going to take a look at the damage to my room."