A Well Earned Reward Plus A Bonus Rogue

“Hey, where are going!? Get back here and let me kill you!” Ember shouted before his rage suddenly ended, the pain of all the damage he had taken catching up with him, and he fell flat on his face.

Up on the cliff, Lian breathed a sigh of relief as she resisted the urge to just lay down and pass out right there. Moze looked around, watching the hoplites go by before letting out the deepest sigh of his life. Maggie meanwhile looked more cheerful than ever seeing their success while Koumei turned and made her way back towards her owner. Finally Thordon… Thordon looked around at his allies, completely thrown off by seeing how exhausted they all looked.

“Hey, guys, I know it was a long battle. Heck, I worked up quite a sweat myself, but aren’t you all being a little overdramatic?” Thordon joked.

“Shove it Thordon!” Ember growled. “When I get back, how about I shiv you in the stomach and you can see what it feels like!”

“Heheh, woah, kay, point taken.” Thordon replied jovially.

Meanwhile, the hoplites began to spread around the camp, checking tents and investigating corpses, but mostly seeming to gather around the tunnels at the cliffside. Ember proceeded to slowly rise up as the camp became reoccupied by soldiers. Sore and tired, he slowly made his way to the middle of camp where the others had begun to congregate.

“Hey uh, Moze, what’s with these soldiers?” Ember asked.

“Huh, guess they did show up after all. Yea, this would probably make more sense if you picked up the quest normally. You get it from the general of the lizardman army in Santa Rio. He says they’re preparing an assault on a nearby bandit camp to stop them before they become a problem. The quest says we’re to find other adventurers and disrupt whatever’s going on here before the assault. Dunno if we took too long or something, but I guess they weren’t lying about the attack.” Moze mused.

“Wow, all that and we didn’t even get to finish off the boss?” Ember grumbled.

Ruori meanwhile sauntered over to them. “Actually, I think this is how it’s supposed to go. I’ve done this once before and the same thing happened. Main difference is that the bosses were nearly dead that time and there wasn’t much left for the army to do when they got here.” She bragged

“Well, okay then… but what about the loot!” Ember replied, his eyes darting about the camp as he was clearly growing a bit frazzled.

“If I might alleviate your worries, adventurers, we have already been instructed to leave the lion’s share of the loot to you.” Said a red lizardman who had begun approaching them. “Greetings, I am Paris, Lochagos of the hoplites you see here. I was commanded to lead an attack upon this camp after you lot had infiltrated. It would appear that you had handled the bulk of the conflict, though unfortunate that the leader appears to have absconded.”

“Wait, if you had a whole army, why the heck did you bother sending us in!? “Ember grumbled.

“Hopes are high for you adventurers. The merits of your profession are well known worldwide. Santa Rio has put a lot of stock in making use of your services and the strategos in charge of the Chystodon empire’s operations here saw it prudent to test your abilities firsthand. Of course, we also didn’t want to leave matters too much to chance. These bandits have had a feud with the Santa Rio Company for a long time now and were in all likelihood waiting for an opportunity to strike the town if one ever presented itself. The strategos worries little of course, about the capabilities of these brigands against our hoplites. Regardless, the message needed to be sent to their leadership that their presence will not be tolerated and that their schemes stand no chance against the might of the Chystodonian army. Perhaps their fleeing leaders may bring word of this to their superiors on the mainland, if the creatures of the Thogor Strait do not drag them under during their crossing.” Paris explained.

Ember looked on, confused. He knew full well what they were saying, but there were a few names mentioned that his brain had become hung up on. Thordon however seemed to take notice of this. “Ask Clarissa if you wanna know more about this stuff, the Chystodon empire is what this group of lizardfolk are part of, and the Thogor Strait is the strip of water keeping this island separate from the mainland. That’s probably why they need us to liberate the bridge at the fort.”

“Yes, I would say that sums that up. Regardless, the fact of the matter is, we have been instructed to allow you first claim to the spoils. Everything you leave behind will be considered property of the Santa Rio regiments.” said Paris.

Bit by bit, the troops began to slowly amass the loot into separate piles, separated by item types. Money and valuables were set to one side while weapons were set to another. Armor and miscellaneous goods were both placed into their own respective piles as well. It began with loot from the tents and pockets of the deceased bandits, but steadily, the soldiers had all begun to make their way inside the main building, hauling out entire chests in the process.

Nobody seemed particularly interested in interrupting their work. As much as Ember would have loved to explore the place, he and the others felt exhausted. By now any food buffs they had prior were now worn off, and instead, they all now bore the Tired status ailment which did a number on their mana and stamina maximums and regeneration rates. Not only that, but they just felt sore. Each of them had taken plenty of hits while they were out there, and even as they took the time to patch themselves up, there was still a lingering soreness that felt as if it went beyond the previously mentioned ailments. Still, not all business had been concluded yet. Ember turned his attention to Ruori who he suspected was only waiting around now for her loot. Standing up, he made his way over to her.

“Yo, Ruori! That was a heck of a fight huh? Couldn’t help but notice that it sounded like you did this before?” Ember asked.

The elf glanced over to him. She had been in the middle of sorting through her pack when Ember approached. “Thanks, you did pretty okay yourself… Ember” She said, clearly taking a moment to focus on his name. “And yea, I did. What about it? You can repeat content you know, though I can’t turn in the quest more than once. There’s also other versions of these Pillage Zones you can unlock later, but I haven’t gotten that far. Was gonna see if I could non-lethal it this time, well, until after I got the goodies in his vault. Was totally gonna try and kill the leader after though to see if it was possible, but, I got caught at the very end. Still getting a feel for picking locks. Anyway, then that’s when you guys showed up, fancy that.”

Ember’s ears twitched and he perked up with surprise. “Wait, so, you didn’t know about us before we jumped out to help you? Then what was all that about having backup then!” Ember shouted, throwing his arms up.

“Hee hee, funny coincidence I guess. I thought I was just pulling one over on him when I said that, but I guess I ended up accidentally being right. Good thing too, that was getting pretty hairy.” she said with a grin, flicking grime from beneath her pointed and painted purple fingernails.

Ember took a moment, uncertain of whether he wanted to laugh or scream about that revelation, but he wound up doing neither as he recalled what it was he actually wanted to talk about. “So, Ruori, we didn’t actually just charge in to be nice. I was inspecting your character and found out we’re all in the same boat. By that I mean all of us aside from Thordon have the chosen symbol, just like you do.”

Ruori’s eyes seemed to gleam with sudden realization and she expectedly went silent for a moment before breaking out into a chuckle. “And here I thought I might’ve been special. Well, this certainly changes things, but what exactly is it that you want from me?”

“Same thing as the others I guess. We came here cause we wanted to get some gear. Come tomorrow, we’re going straight to the keep to kill the boss and get some answers as to why we’re here in the first place.” Ember explained.

The elf returned her pack to her back before staring up at the clouds wistfully, tapping on her shoulder as if in thought. “Oh, sounds like you guys are in a rush. That said, I’m not opposed to the idea of getting across that bridge to the mainland. I’ll have to clear that place eventually anyway so, yea, I don’t see why not. Sure beats trying to do it with a group of randos, that’s for sure, and at least your tank looks like they know how to actually do their job.”

Ember looked to Moze who seemed to be having a conversation with Thordon at the moment. “Yea, he’s pretty good. Today was a bit rough, but hey, we got some more levels in and we’ll be snagging ourselves some more gear. Honestly, feeling pretty confident about our chances.”

Eventually, the stream of troops into and out of the log house had declined to a trickle as everything worth taking was now lined up before the group. This of course finally got everyone off their keisters as they surrounded the collection of treasures before them.