Camila threw her head back and chugged the rest of her ale. She let out a satisfied sigh before returning the emptied flask to her inventory. Then she yawned audibly. It was nearly half-past noon, and they hadn’t found any useful information. Not that Camila knew where to look, they had just been asking merchants and random people about the Lanthinus company. Ty mostly took the lead, but all they had heard was stuff about the notices posted by the guard telling everyone the company was selling illegal shit. That, and some vague suspicions surrounding how quickly they had packed out and vanished. Needless to say, Camila needed a break, and some lunch.

“What are you doing drinking in the streets in the middle of the day, Cam?” Ty grilled, his tone wavering somewhere between commanding and ridiculing. “We’re already on our way to the pub.”

Camila snorted. “I dunno, haven’t you ever heard of pre-drinking cuh?”

“You’re a fucking idiot.”

“Aye foo, but that’s what you like about me, isn’t it?”

“Nah, it’s your ass,” Ty replied immediately, grinning. “You’ve got one thick dumptruck ass, babe. It’s a ten out of ten, I would clap those cheeks so fucking har—”

“—Is that the pub?” Camila interrupted, pointing at a building on the left side of the cobblestone road.

Trevor barked. Ty chuckled but didn’t give an answer.

The building was near the rougher part of the village, and it was fairly well worn and unassuming, but it still had a sign that clearly made it out as the pub. It wasn’t nearly late enough for happy hour, but there were still more than a few people loitering around. There were a few rough and tough types as well as a group of six or seven armed Warriors and Rogues. A few of them raised an eyebrow at the golden retriever trotting obediently at Ty’s side, others just snickered to themselves.

Camila met their leering gazes with smirks of her own. “Adventurers?” she thought, giving the group standing together a once over. They were all somewhere around level three-hundred and they were definitely part of some group, but none of them had Guild plates out. “Not adventurers then? Bandits… or maybe just idiots?” She snorted to herself as she walked into the pub, Ty following after.

The place was small and a little rank, not really Camila’s idea of a good time if she was being honest, but it was the only pub in the village. There were other ‘restaurants,’ but those places didn’t talk. She needed information, second to food of course. She still didn’t have enough points in endurance to go more than a day without feeling hungry.

The three of them, Trevor included, made their way straight to the bar in the back and sat down on stools. Ty’s creaked dangerously underneath him while Trevor sat himself down to the side with his tongue lulling out.

“Ah, welcome to the Whiskey Barrel, name’s Garret” a man began, sliding up to Camila and Ty from the other side of the bar. He leaned forward and smiled through a full beard. His thick arms stretching against his outfit of flannel and leathers gave him a handsome lumberjack aesthetic. “What can I get you two?” he asked.

Name: Garret

Human – Worker – Level 135

“Ale,” Camila said.

“Whiskey, and a lunch menu.”

His smile went flat when Trevor stood up with his paws on the edge of the bar and sniffed around. The Garret’s eyes watched Trevor for a few tense seconds, neither man nor dog moving or blinking. “That’s a weird fucking dog…” he muttered before turning his attention back to Ty and Camila. “If it shits in my tavern you’re cleaning it up.”

Ty nudged the golden retriever back onto the floor and returned the bartender a brusque look. “Yeah, of course.”

“He’s very well trained though, doesn’t even need a leash,” Camila added. “Besides, whatever he really is would probably be worse for your place. Best not to start anything,” she thought.

The bartender harrumphed and walked away, though Camila didn’t miss the light smirk in his eyes. “Hopefully he knows something. I doubt we’ll get anything else just asking normal motherfuckers.”

Garret came back with drinks and a menu before moving along to other customers. Camila’s perception wasn’t the highest, but it was good enough that she could listen in to any one of the few ongoing conversations around the pub, but nothing stood out to her, so she focused instead on lunch.

Ty got a massive loaded baked potato with several rolls of bread and a pork chop. Camila ordered herself two racks of ribs, three bowls of hearty stew, and an entire jug of beer. They both ate in silence for nearly half an hour, Ty even got Trevor some water.

Ty leaned back and groaned contentedly when he was finished. “I haven’t picked up on anything, how about you?” he asked.

Camila downed another mouthful of beer and cleared her throat. “Nothin’. Somebody earlier was blaming the razorcats for those disappearances, but we know that ain’t it.” Camila groaned and put down her jug. “If we already know it’s Lanthinus, then what the fuck are we still doing here?”

“We don’t know for sure, Cam. Allen seems to think they aren’t really a major player,” Ty said. “It’s not the cats, but it could still be anything else, maybe those bandits out front,” he continued in a more hushed tone.

“So, you figure they’re bandits too?” Camila shrugged. “I guess, but what does Allen know?” She snorted and threw back another huge gulp of beer.

Ty huffed and shook his head. “Do you even know who he is? What kind of group he’s part of? He might be a completely insane and borderline evil, but if he’s got a head for anything, it’s this kind of shit. I mean fuck, do you have any idea how long the Empire has been looking for those psychos? Have you just been living under a rock this whole time?”

Camila took a deep breath and glared back at him. “Ey, maybe I have,” she said. “I’ve spent years in living dungeons deep in the jungles with kobolds, undead, and goblins. Allen’s friends are cool, but not all that.”

Ty grunted. It looked like he was about to say something else when someone else spoke up from the other side of the big man.

“Pardon me,” the voice said. Ty turned around and Camila leaned forward over the bar to past Ty. There was a man, a Worker leveled in his fifties, slouching over a single drink. He looked way too haggard for a quarter past one, or whatever it was, there wasn’t clock Camila could see. The dead look in his eyes was something not typically seen until the late hours. “Alright, is this guy gonna give us something?” Camila asked herself, forcing herself to pay at least a little attention to the Worker.

“Aye,” Ty began amiably. “What is it?”

“Ah, well, y’see… I couldn’t help overhearin’ you two,” the stranger began. He had that same pleading look on his face that people usually had when they wanted Camila to find or kill something for them. “D’you two know what happened ta those villagers? They just left to collect firewood, mushrooms, and the like, but they never came back… My wife and my son were with them!” The man’s hand started to shake as he squeezed his glass of whiskey. “Please…” he trailed off.

“Captured by slavers is our best guess,” Camila replied, “but bandits might also be holding them for ransom or something.” The stranger let out an unsteady breath as he turned to look down into his half-empty glass. Ty turned and glared at her, and she shrugged. “What was I supposed to say?” she muttered.

That was when Garret walked by again. He seemed to pick up on the vibes and paused in front of the stranger. “Hey Don, what’s wrong buddy?”

The stranger, Don, nodded solemnly over towards Ty and Camila. “Those two say they know what happened to my family, say it was slavers… I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again.”

Garret gave Ty a look. “That true?” he asked.

“Seems that way,” Ty said with a sigh. “Rest of our, uh… group seems to think it’s the Lanthinus company who abducted them before they fled West.”

Garret cursed and leaned in over the bar. “And you’re sure about this?”

“Ninety percent sure. It’s not those razorcats though,” Ty said.

Garret’s eyebrows pinched together as he scratched his beard. “Well, now that I think about it, those traders did pack out pretty quickly, I figured it was just because they were selling illegal potions.”

“They were pretty proud of their reaper basilisk venom,” Camila added with a grin.

Garret shook his head and cursed again. “Well, suppose I can ask around. Lots of folks here said they were hired by those Lanthinus people. One of them’s got to know something.”

“They hired locally?” Ty asked.

“I believe so,” Garret began.

Ty, Garret, and Don continued talking with each other, but Camila tuned them out and sipped at her beer. They were probably going to spend the rest of the day in the tavern, it seemed. There was no sense in wandering around when there weren’t any other pubs in the village. As a bartender, Garret probably had a good idea of what the local gossip had to say about the missing people.

Camila stretched her back a sighed. “It’s good to delegate these things.”

She waited and listened around for a few hours while Garret, Ty, and a few others talked around about their suspicions and the odd thing or two they had found. There was one guy who had briefly recalled hearing from some of the other workers in the Lanthinus camp about one of their magicarriages getting hijacked and stolen. Apparently nobody knew why, and the mercenaries they had sent against the thieves had failed in their pursuit. Shortly after, everyone had been laid off before the camp disappeared. The story made Camila chuckle, though neither she nor Ty decided to comment.

It was nearing the dinner rush when a group of men came and sat down at the bar. Camila looked to her side and immediately regretted it. She could tell they were the probably-bandits from out front, but that wasn’t the problem.

Name: [unknown]

Human – Warrior – Level 334

“Hey there,” began a man dressed in dirty worn leathers. He was grimy, but not sickly and hideous like bandits usually were. Nevertheless, he leaned in grinned like a cat. “You look a little lonely there, anything I can do for ya?”

Camila eyed the man dispassionately and chugged another few mouthfuls from her jug of ale. The guy watched her the whole time, refusing to drop his cocksure smile and fuck off. His teeth were perfect though, which sort of threw Camila off. “Not the typical bandit ey.” She set the jug down and retuned the bandit’s stupid smile after a quick once-over. “Probably not,” she said.

A few of the guy’s mates laughed behind him, except for one who leaned over to whisper something.

“Boss, I don’t think we should be fucking with those two,” he began. The first guy continued to smile at Camila like an idiot, as if nothing was happening. “Look at that dog… it ain’t right.”

Everyone, including Camila, glanced down at Trevor who was lounging on the floor. The dog cocked his head to the side and started wagging his tail.

The first bandit slapped his subordinate away and snorted. “It was worth a try,” he said and took a deep breath. “First off, my crew and I ain’t bandits, we’re mercenaries. Now anyway, I just couldn’t help overhearing you and your big friend there talking about the possibility of slavers snatchin’ folks away. We’ve been standin’ around all damn day, and nobody’s been talking, so let’s just say I’m a little interested in anything you’ve got to say.”

Camila raised an eyebrow at the man. “Huh, well maybe there is something you can do for me then,” she began. “What’s your job?”

“We’ve been hired by the guard in the capital up North,” the mercenary began immediately. “Somebody’s been cutting a path through the countryside, buying and selling slaves left and right. We’re to find them, dead or alive.”