"Where's my apprentice? That's what I would like to know!" The alchemist spat on the floor of his own shop. "Took that boy in like he was my own son, I did. Just up and disappears one day, the ingrate. What are ya? Loan sharks?"

"Not loan sharks no," the armed individual smirked, "quite the opposite in fact. We're with the army."

Usury was illegal in most counties.

"When was the last time you saw your apprentice?"

"Oh, I'unno... last week? And that's former apprentice. He'd been shirking all month. Now suddenly, everybody wants to know about him. What's all this about?"

"Just keeping abreast of things, sir. Who else has asked you about this?"

"Huh? Some local kids. That George from the stables. He kept talking about a barn being cleared out, I told him I didn't know about any barn.

Are we done? I have actual work to do, and I no longer have an assistant."

"Just one more thing. What would you say this is?" The knight held up an attractive looking flask of clear liquid with golden flakes glittering inside.

"I don't know... I would have to run some tests."

"Please do... we will come back tomorrow."

The flask was pressed in the alchemist's hand as he grumbled about being made to do unpaid work, and the knights moved on with their patrol.

-

Twenty minutes later they were standing in front of the horse stable asking for a George.

"George? Don't get me started on George," the woman sweeping the curb said, "a drunk and a gambler. At that age! Useless. So many times visitors have come to our town, finding nobody here to take in their horses! You know the new owner isn't going to let him carry on like this, no sir."

"So George is absent a lot."

She sputtered. "You could say that again. Doing dirty work for the thieves' guild, that's what I suspect. Don't tell anybody I said that though."

"Has he been here recently?"

"What do I look like, a sentry?" She became slightly angry. "I'm not out here sweeping at every hour you know. How should I know?"

"What do you make of this Fiona?" The lead investigator asked his sister.

"James, can you just keep your cool for once? We're glorified town guards, okay? There's no conspiracy that needs to be solved."

"There's more to this, I'm convinced. This town hasn't seen blood spilled within its walls for three years, now eight commoners have disappeared in one month. There must be something going on with the thieves' guild, a cleansing, a secret war, something."

"Or they ventured outside the walls at night and were dragged away by monsters, like what happens all the time in every city in all the four kingdoms. Just..."

"Just what?"

"Don't piss the captain off any further, please. I don't know what job he can give us that's worse than this, but he'll make up something."

"...Yeah."

-

As it happened, George was sitting in an underground speakeasy less than a mile away.

Normally he would come here to skip work and gamble away his income on the roulette.

Today he wasn't gambling however, he was watching others play while nervously smoking a cigarette. Anxiously awaiting being called in by the guild leader.

Today they were supposed to have a conversation with the young alchemist. And it began to strongly look like he wouldn't show.

Likely, Mac would hold him responsible.

"Sour face huh?" One of the gamblers laughed, "you must have gotten on the bad side of sweet crimson."

"What? The stuff they sell at the barn?" Another asked.

"Yeah man, if you stop taking it you get all sick. Dry mouth, jitters... just a rotten feeling. It's real."

"The more I hear about it the more it just sounds like bitter crimson with sugar."

"Anyway," the first turned to George, "if you're looking to get it back, I can hook you up."

"You can hook me up?" George threw his cigarette on the carpet. "Are you running a business now!? Who sanctioned that?"

The men were users of illicit services, not fully fledged members of the guild.

"Hey, hey, easy. It's not a business, alright? I'm just passing on some product, okay? I got it from my cousin Vinny, he says 'everybody's desperate for the crimson now, you buy in bulk you can sell what you don't need at a profit'. I mean it's not like I'm stealing Mac's business, right?"

His friend was less interested in diffusing the situation. "Better get with the program George, business is changing around Eston. Everybody's falling over each other to be part of it, and I don't just mean flogging crimson. Anybody that has a useful skill gets the money to make something out of it from Papa Scratch. That new cobbler is doing healing without asking questions, there's three new mugging groups at the shipyard raiding merchant sloops, and there's like ten new cocette basements that I know of. Ain't nobody's not part of some business or another."

"Your cousin Vinny," George began, "were does he get the sauce? Did he get it recently?"

"Heck man... I don't know..."

"Where's he live?"

"What?"

"Do I have to BEAT it out of you? Where does the damn man LIVE?" George near shouted and grabbed his collar.

"Second floor above the wash-house? George, what's gotten into you?"

"Take me to him, NOW." The young guild member forceful dragged the client out of the gambling den.

-

Just as they'd left the door to Mac's office opened up.

"George, why don't you come in," one of the dark sorcerer twins said.

Inside, the old man Mac sat dazed and horrified at his desk, a burning hand print wrapped around his neck.

"...George?"

The patron pointed vacuously at the exit, distracted by the horrible violence inflicted on the owner, "they just left."

In front of the Harkness manner, in the middle of the Promise, which was at the far end of the goblin warrens, sat a boy in a cage.

He seemed to all the world to be a young cadet of the knight caste in a by now rather tarnished summer uniform.

But the goblins knew what he was. A demon.

The appearance of a young boy was only derived from the mind of Lydia Harkness, their brood knight.

So he was left locked up next to the boarded up well, from which came an incredible smell.

"Managgia!" The minister of waterworks cursed as he got close to the well.

"See so you can smell it, Aimone!" said Gildo, who had taken him there. "What's that smell? Is it dangerous?"

"That smell is why we're making the filtration lakes. It's slimes, they've multiplied in the sewers and their runoff has seeped into everything."

"Can we still drink the water?"

Aimone conjured a small mote of fire in his palm and held it over the gaps between the planks. It lit up greener and stronger. "We'll run it through the purifier gem twice, but at this point mana's a concern. Fuck."

Gildo was surprised. "The groundwater is so filthy we might not even have enough mana to purify it? Can it really be that bad?"

Youthere chuckled in his cage. "Gentlemen, it does so warm my little black heart to be reminded that every achievement of mankind must come with a dark shadow. Five tribes! You have labored much to collect and move the filth of five large, thriving goblin tribes, and now even men are willing to call them home. But," now his smile widened, "as you see. There has been a cost. The caustic excrement of five wild growing towns of people flows together and is collected here, with your noses it it."

"What are you saying you little punk?" Aimone shook his fists at him.

"Aimone go easy, he's just a kid." Gildo urged him.

"Just a kid? What are you *stupido*? It's a demon Gildo. That one-eye conjured him up using dark magic."

"Yeah I know but..."

"That's right," Youthere leaned against the bars in what could be considered a seductive pose, "I am a bearer of the stolen power of Eriad. My master locked me up because he was afraid of my power."

"What power?" Gildo asked, intrigued.

"You wish to escape this nowhere hamlet of outcasts."

"Yes."

"You wish to become a man of renown, who is bowed down to and can go where he pleases."

"Yes!"

Gildo now had his face to the bars and Youthere gently touched his chin.

"My power can flow into you and remake you. Into a fierce-some warrior! All you need to do..."

"What do I do?"

"...is accept my seed."

"Your... seed?"

The boyish looking spirit lifted itself up by the bars and thrust its crotch in front of Gildo's face. "You guzzle the cum from my fat demon cock!"

"Argh!" Gildo recoiled in disgust and hurt his hand reflexively swiping at the metal.

Aimone slapped the back of his head, "It's an incubus."

"You could have warned me!" Gildo spat. He was nursing his painful knuckle, which was chafed.

"It's your own fault for being taken in by a demon."

Youthere was on his back belly laughing at the young man's reaction

"Let's get out of here," Aimone said, "this place stinks."

-

Somebody had kept an eye on them. And as soon as the men were out of hearing distance from the square, a little girl came out from her hiding place behind a weapon rack and trotted towards the cage.

"Hello again, little girl," the demon grinned, "have you come to show me your results?"

"If you're lying I'll tell Papa Scratch and he'll hang you from your toes on the tanning rack." She said.

"Then I swear it on the goodness in my heart." The demon said with an unnaturally wide grin.

"Good." She put a child-sized suitcase on the ground and opened it up, revealing the toy seamstress kit.

"I see," the demon nodded, "very good, very good. And you took my advice?"

"Mhm." She held up the fruits of her labor, a handsome hand-sewn shawl with little abstracted goblin faces and the red-crowned visage of the mourning tree. "The secret herbs are on the inside."

"They looked just like the ones I described to you?"

"Mhm."

"Wonderful Cobaline, you do your mother proud! Though we promised we wouldn't tell any adults, didn't we?"

"When I get rich selling my special shawls, I'll buy my momma some papers," the little girl beamed, "and then we can live in a real city in a real house!"

"That's good, but she would be very worried if she knew you were visiting strange goblin nests. So lips tight, okay?"

He mimed sewing his lips shut and she mimicked him, signaling their mutual secrecy.

But while she was doing so a warg wolf ran up to them and began sniffing the recently unpacked shawl.

"Doggy, no, that's m-"

The animal growled angrily and yanked the meticulously crafted piece of clothing out of her hands.

"Nooo!"

He ran a few yards away from her and then began tearing it up in the square.

"Cobaline! The doggy is destroying your precious handiwork!" Youthere said with fake concern.

"I knoooow!"

A poof noise came from the fabric and a cloud of green spores enveloped the wolf.

There was a moment of silence, then he burst out of the viridian haze and ran off whining.

"W-what's that?" The girl said through her tears.

Youthere set up a serious face. "Go up to it and breathe it in."

She hesitated.

"Go on then... DO IT!"

The shouting made her start bawling but she didn't follow his order.

He sighed, but then a smile appeared. "Oh well. My plan was for you to poison your customers and be attacked by them, but your tears over seeing your precious work of art be destroyed is worth the effort at least."

"You- you're mean!" She yelled at him.

"Mean!? Don't be conservative girlie, I'm evil! Pure demonic evil! Hahaha!" He made an obnoxious slurping noise as she ran off.

-

A shadow glid over the square and a billowing cloak fell to the ground.

Then, from under the cloak, the figure of an old woman rose up.

She draped the cloth around herself for modesty.

"You there, what is your name?"

"Yes."

"Ugh, I don't have time for this. Where is your master?"

"Oooh," he pouted his lips, "I'm afraid I cannot divulge such information without a flair of demonic discretion."

"You listen to me, spirit," the witch wagged her finger, "it is me that controls the steel mill and its surroundings. Your goblin master answers to me."

"Is that so? Do you feel in control?"

"That's, I-"

"My lord Scratch has sworn fealty to many masters, will he serve them all? Or did he... what's the word... lie?"

"I know your kind, I will not let you sow division so easily. There are no other masters."

"So you have faith then, that the little goblin lord will follow your agenda."

She hesitated. "Yes."

"That being the case, why come to the surface at all? Are you not here to monitor his activity?"

"It is wisdom they lack. He and that... woman of his. The fairy queen grows ever stronger, I can feel her influence creeping closer. They must..." she paused to sniff the air, "poofweed..."

The smell she picked up was the dispersed trap in Cobaline's ruined scarf, but she attached a different meaning.

"Weapons of the forest, already here. Keep the entrance to the caverns closed! They must not find me!"

In a composed hurry she returned to her owl form and flew off with the cloak in her claws.

Youthere gleefully watched her go for as long as he could.

-

It wasn't much later that Huckabee strolled by, eating an apple.

"Sho," he wiped his mouth, "you shtuck here huh?"

"Indeed I am my simple-minded friend. Trapped in body, but not in mind."

"Musht be boring all day on yer own, no-one to talk to."

"Ha.. Haha... Hahaha!" The demon laughed long and heartily until Huckabee became so offended that he left.

"There's another one," the oldest elf said, while not trying to look.

"Sister Farith, shallt I tell him to make scarce?" Another said.

The shelter they had been provided had little privacy, so they couldn't help but feel the eyes of the hobgoblin lurking shyly in the distance.

"No, goeth not near his ilk. Who knoweth what he mi- Liorin!"

She called out in vain as the youngest elf jumped onto the sand of the troll garden and ran up to the hobgoblin.

-

Seeing the elf come his way will instinctively adopted a nonchalant demeanor.

He rapidly cycled through a number of poses until he came up with leaning against a cactus.

Unfortunately this resulted in several painful needles getting embedded in his skin.

"H-hi Liorin, have you-"

"Out!" She demanded, and began to slap at him. "Out, out of this place! To us was made the promise that subhumans wereth not touch us without our saying so."

"Hey, ow, stop, I'm not touching you." Will protested but didn't stop her. He was secretly happy that her hands were touching him at all.

"Then wherefore art thou here? Dost thou wish to drink us with thine eyes?"

"Drink you? I don't have that magic... I'm a messenger, a messenger!"

The truth was that the boys had fought over who was allowed to relay this message, just to be around the captives.

"Message? What message?"

"I uh..." he looked around for excuses to extend the interaction, "so maybe the Farith wants to hear it, and Albwynn, and-"

"Then I shall tell them. Now be quick about it."

"We're moving the devil altar in here."

"The devil altar?"

He pointed to a place behind the shadow of the canopy, in the harsh light of the sunstone. "There. See it normally digs itself, but it's a long way down going from Lacrima's place to here so we're moving it. Second has built-"

"Is it dangerous?"

"...maybe."

She put her hands on her hips. "Then I must tell my sisters that our hobgoblin jailors doth punish us with evil magicks in our confines. That the stench of agriculture and the threat of trolls were scarcely enough for them and they wisheth to further evoke our tears."

"No, don't tell them that." Will said, a bit panicked. "We don't- I don't..."

"Don't what? Tell me in earnest." She cut him off to keep him on the back foot and feel in control.

"It'll be safe, we'll make it safe. I promise."

"Safe it is not whilst we are exposed to the world. Thee must give us the walls of a home, so that we may be protected against scurrying beasts and the eyes of predators."

"Yes. Absolutely. Before the devil altar's here, we'll add to the house, definitely." He didn't know if he could really make that promise unilaterally, but he took the threat of tears very seriously and was desperate to please.

"Off with you then, speak to your mistress." She dismissed him like a servant and he dutifully turned back.

Liorin turned around triumphantly. The brood knight had made it pretty much explicit that even something as simple as exterior walls were contingent on one of them putting out to the hobgoblins. But she had been able to press for it without adding even a promise to the subhuman army.

However, when she joined her sisters again, they did not look pleased.

"Sorry, none of the staff is here."

"Sorry, upstairs is closed..."

"Sorry, nobody's here-"

Again and again the receptionist had to explain to adventurers that the bureaucratic facilities and training was closed and only the cafeteria was open. One would expect the information to spread among the membership, but apparently Eston's entire adventuring population had decided to see for themselves.

"Hi, can I-"

"Nobody's here, okay!?" She fell out against the stunned visitor.

The woman stood wide-eyed at the counter for a moment. "I just wanted drinks for seven."

"Oh. My goodness, yes, of course. Just a moment." A bit embarrassed, the receptionist began to pour beers. "You're Margaret aren't you? I remember you, you were here with the nightshade hero... aren't you cold in that?"

Suddenly self-conscious, Margaret began to fret over her frankly indecent outfit, hovering her arms over her exposed skin. "Haha, no. It's just... ancient paladin armor, you know how it is."

"Huh?" The guild girl raised a skeptical eyebrow, she didn't know.

Margaret stole a glance at the table she came from. Laurus, the nightshade hero, surrounded by his other party members.

Each of them a beautiful woman in her own right, and each of them hanging on to his lips, loudly agreeing with everything he was saying.

The receptionist winced. Party members to heroes were more like worshiper than peers. "What's a rank A adventurer doing in Eston of all places?"

Margaret slammed her palms eagerly on the table, giving the girl a non-consensual eyeful of her lewd attire. "He's here to save elven-kind! Isn't that amazing? This girl belongs to the hidden people, but she had to flee because of hobgoblins. So Laurus is going to save her village!"

"Yeah yeah, really amazing." The receptionist sighed and handed her a tray, "you can pay when you leave."

"Thanksss..." Margaret picked up the stack of foamy beers and quickly joined the party.

She used putting down the tray as an excuse to push her cleavage into Laurus' face.

"Bwuh-wuh ah?" He blushed intensely like a child that had never even seen a woman.

"No fair, feel mine!" An elegant black-haired woman in a kimono dropped her katana to compete with her, and soon there was a pile-up of young beauties on the hero.

Only the petite elven girl, Sylphie, sat quietly in her chair, sipping foam with a distant expression.

-

"It was disgusting, I thought they were going to fucking right in front of me on the cafeteria floor." The receptionist told a regular.

"Yeah it seems like they have that sort of relationship," the adventurer said while biting into a chicken wing, "but actually he makes them sleep in separate rooms at the inn."

"What? Why?"

"I dunno, performance anxiety maybe? If they're here for the warrens you should tell them the count's claimed it."

She sat down next to him and took one of his wings. "They're not here for the quest board, they want to save the hidden people. If the count wants to get between them he can do it himself."

"But wow..." the adventurer said, "Rank A. I'd never dreamed I'd see a rank A adventurer in Eston. Dichtershire only has a few..."

"He seems carefree, doesn't he?"

"Yeah. Must be nice being so strong everybody wants to please you..."

-

"What are you doing here!?"

"Oh no."

The bratty baron's son that had registered a few days ago was seeking confrontation with the high level adventurer.

"Let's all calm down-" The receptionist was about to come between them, but both drew their weapons.

"I'm here to defeat the brood knight, who are you?"

"I see, so you weren't content humiliating me, now you're planning to take my quarry from me. That's it?"

"Seriously? Who are you?"

"Don't play dumb!" Sebastian Tanner charged with his epee, which the nightshade hero effortlessly deflected.

"Take this, and this!" The noble attacked again and again, and the hero did not counter-attack.

Until he finally managed to nick him in the wrist and black tendrils began to spread under the skin.

"Eat my curse of weakness, you damn peasant!" Sebastian cheered as he drove the point in further and Laurus sank to one knee.

"That's a cursed steel weapon!" One of the girls yelled, "that's evil magic!"

But a surge of will possessed the hero. He gripped his sword tighter and jumped to his feet, spinning around in the air. "Blade Storm!" He yelled, and an enormous slash cleaved a gash into the far wall.

Sebastian stood still, staring blankly at his opponent. When he tried moving his arm he found that it was a little stump gushing blood. The limb holding on to the forbidden weapon was lying lifeless on the floor.

He fell down.

"How did he get that cursed weapon?" An adventurer asked the guild girl.

"That's what I want to know."

Poofweed

This special herb releases a poisonous cloud when broken. Can be found in temperate forests and plains.

Poofweed poison irritates the eyes and nose and can cause health complications when inhaled.

Intelligent forest monsters such as pixies often use poofweed as ammunition against intruders. However, as a weapon it is inferior to regular flint-tipped arrows and the monetary value is negligible.

Poofweed is not a harvesting priority.