Chapter 32: New Plans?

As a new morning arrived the party gathered in their dinning room for breakfast and a discussion on the information that the Lord had let slip about Isla the night before, and what they were going to do now. With curiosity getting the better of all of them they decided to take a break from hunting down void bosses or a while and instead try to hunt down information on their temporary party member. Once they had finished their food and actually got around to washing everything up, the party set out into the city to find some of the information brokers scattered around the city to see if any of them had anything on Isla. The first problem was actually finding some of the brokers as Aromi and the others had forgotten where in the maze of streets the info broker they had previously spoken to had set up, so the party decided to split up and try to seek out whatever information they could find. Once a few hours had passed, the party regrouped in the center of the city having not found a single information broker the entire time they were out. Leaving the party only one final option asking in the adventurer’s guild if someone there could point them towards a broker, so the party set off hoping that someone would be willing to give them the information so they could start asking for other information. With the adventurer’s guild bustling the party once again split to ask as many people as possible if they could give up an information broker and within half an hour the party had gathered a list of nine brokers and the directions on how to get to them, even if it had cost them a small amount to get people to be a tiny bit more cooperative with their requests. Having the locations nine information brokers the party set off in their attempt to gather some more information on Isla, as they approached their first broker those who saw the state of the previous brokers shop were stunned to see that this one had a shop front that seemed to fit in with the rest of the city and internally had some actual space. As they filed inside, they noticed that it was unusually empty for such a large building, ignoring that they headed up to the counter and rang the small bell that sat atop the counter. A second later a small elven girl appeared at the counter.

“Welcome, how may I assist you?”
“Hi there. We’re looking for somebody named Yojeong.”
“How may I help… and you might be?”
“Oh I am Ilev. And I take it I’m already speaking to Yojeong. Well, I am in need of some information on a person by the name of Isla, whose occupation is Void Hunter.”
“Isla. Well, I have heard from the grapevine that she is someone of this world that suffers from heavy amnesia because of a tragic or at the very least some very traumatic event occurring inside a void long ago. Apparently, she forgets everything she knows on the same day every year because of that event. That event supposedly also how she got the void powers she possesses. But those are rumours that have been passed around the mill many times over and so are probably not the most accurate.”
“Well Yojeong do you know anyone that might have more solid information surrounding Isla’s past?”
“Unfortunately I personally do not but I do know that there was a broker in this city, I forget who, that supposedly met someone on the outside who had some knowledge that they said was unreputable because of how crazy it sounded.”
“Well thanks, hopefully we find this person so we can track down the supposedly crazy information broker.”

Ilev throws a few coins on the countertop as the party turn and leave the first of nine information brokers, which gave them a possible lead on a reputable source for Isla’s past as whatever this person that’s been labelled as crazy has to say might in fact be more of the truth than what the information brokers of this city have to say. As when they spoke to Isla, she spoke nothing like how all of the inhabitants of this world speak, she spoke close to how each member of the party spoke. As they rounded the rest of the brokers they didn’t bother asking about Isla as they knew whatever the rumour mill has spat out after the information being within for so long was now more than likely completely false and therefore pointless to even have, so instead of that the party asked about the broker labelled as crazy by Yojeong. That too was unreliable the only consistent thing about this person was that they lived outside of the city walls and they all had something that was unbelievable to offer up as information so many of the brokers avoided him because of the lack of useful intel they could get from him. As the quest to find out about where they could meet this insane broker and find out about Isla’s past for real was seeming doomed, they arrived at their ninth and final broker.

“Hello, we would like some information about the broker who lives outside the walls and has some crazy theories.”
“Well you’re in luck, I know where you can find them. Why you would want that I won’t ask but I will warn you that you probably won’t get anything useful from them, you’re better off sticking to the cities broker network. But if you insist and pay well. I’ll tell you where you can find this person.”
“Yeah, we would like to meet them, and we can arrange payment.”

Ilev tosses a small cloth bag full of coins onto the wooden plank being used as a countertop, with the large sum of money and the looks in the parties eyes the broker hands over the location of the outsider to the party but once again with a warning that they probably won’t get anything they want from them, to which Arano fires back with a remark about that person sounding more and more like just the person to ask about the information they want to get.