They spent the next few days and nights traveling around the outskirts of the Rangon forest visiting a few villages. The merchant sold many of his wares and the trip had a few bumps in it. They were attacked a by bandits once or twice but whenever a large force gathered to attack them Dominit sent word to get ready through Stella to Jaslyn.

Before they got in range he was slowly cleaning out those in the back of the group. So when the bandits did the whole “Leave your stuff and we’ll let you live” stuff and then threatened them with more men he didn’t have to many extra waiting for his signal.

They’d be finished off and the journey would continue. Word quickly spread of a wraith that would kill any would be thieves or bandits along the road. Or that this one caravan had a demon watching over it. Either way after three attacks there was no sign of any more bandits.

The group made it to a village to the north west of the city Ilada. It was in between the dwarves to the north and elves to the east. After arriving they heard a strange rumor of people disappearing from their homes all around them. Jaslyn growing bored of the monotonous caravan wanted a break from the nothingness that she’d been on lookout for.

She began asking everyone she came across to see if anyone had more information about the missing people. She had too much information to sort through so she decided to bring Dominit along to help her out. Eventually he managed to piece together that it was somewhere further north-west in the Rangon forest.

Jaslyn gathered them all together at a local pub for a meal and began to tell them about what she wanted to do. “So we’re a team now right?” Cassandra nodded for everyone. “Good. I’ve got a plan to help get our name out there.” She beams a smile at them. “It’s simple we go and find these missing people.”

“It’s strange I doubt it’s supremacy as every type of race has gone missing but mostly humans. As for the Void’s they don’t need people alive so what’s really going on?” Cassandra shakes her head not knowing. Justin does the same but Dominit speaks up.

“Let me guess we’re going to find out though aren’t we?” She starts nodding still smiling. “That’s right we are going to.” As they are talking the mouse merchant they’ve been working for who they found outs name is Sven comes in. Jaslyn waves at him to get his attention “Sven can we talk to you for a moment?”

He walks over to his new favorite team of mercenaries or adventurers as Jaslyn called them. “What can I do for you missy?” He leans onto the table they are sitting at which is up to his chest. She explains that they are going to investigate the rumors of people going missing.

He shakes his head and tells her if they do he wouldn’t be able to wait for them. He’d leave in a day or two and what they were going to do would take a lot longer. He was sad to see them go but was sure that if anyone could get answers then they’d be one of the best to do it.

He left them for a moment and went back to his caravan. He came back carrying a large sack of coins. “You four have been the best group of guards I’ve seen in my career. If you need a job again for some coin I’d be happy to provide it for you.” He dropped the sack of coins on the table.

Jaslyn and Cassandra gasped Justin almost fell back in his chair. Dominit wasn’t sure what was going on. “Don’t think me a fool now. I know the only reason we had such a comfortable journey thus far was because of that one.” He points at Dominit. “I know you gave us a heads up when we were coming up on bandits but I didn’t ever say anything about taking out a group of them before we fought.”

Dominit shrugged and looked closer at the bag. There was mostly silver in it but there were several gold coins. Jaslyn tried to push the bag back to him. “No we may have done a very good job but for there to be this much gold you must have grabbed the wrong coins please go and take them out.”

Sven chuckled “No missy I’m very good at deciding what things are worth. For you three.” He nods to Cassandra, Justin, and Jaslyn “If I were to hire all of you for one trip I’d say it would be a few gold coins because of how powerful you all are. You’d be a very good deterrent for would be robbers.”

This time he looks at Dominit “But for him I don’t even know about him. If I were to guess you could pay him a hundred gold to kill a noble or royalty and he’d do it easily. Not someone’s bad side I want to be on.” Dominit smiled and leaned closer to him so only Sven and his group could hear him.

“I could have killed a king not too long ago but found it boring quiet a good instinct you have there.” He was smiling coldly again like when he’d killed the Voids in the alley. Then begins laughing and the cold smile disappears as quickly as it arrived. “But we do appreciate your good will. If we ever need work or have work for a caravan we’ll make sure to keep you in mind.”

Sven, Justin and Jaslyn weren’t sure if what he’d said was a joke or not but one look at Cassandra said that there was some truth in what he’d just said making them all rather uncomfortable. “Ah ha yes please do now I’ll leave you four to your devices. I do hope we can meet again.” Sven takes his leave and joins a table with his head guards.

Justin and Jaslyn immediately look at Cassandra and beg her to explain. She does and they both look at Dominit horrified. “What? He pissed me off.” That was all he had to say about that. Jaslyn letting what he said go took the bag and began to count.

“This is ridiculous. This is a small fortune what kind of merchant pays this to four guards?” Dominit looks back over to Sven and notices him and his guards were eyeing them with sweat running down their foreheads. “I’d say a merchant who wants us to take the coin and not take everything else.”

He nodded his head their way showing thankfulness and he saw several sighs of relief. After counting several times they had two hundred silver pieces and four gold pieces. Apparently one silver is the usual currency used here. An adult can live for a full month off of three silver. There is also copper but they didn’t have any currently.

But one hundred copper is one silver and on hundred silver is one gold. Gold was a kingdoms currency or the very wealthy. Not many people have seen a gold piece they are meant for building castles or buying wagons worth of supplies for armies. With the amount of money they had it would be enough for them retire and live comfortably right there.

But Jaslyn took half the coins and gave them to Dominit. “You did most of the work plus it’s easier to hide if you hold on to some of it.” She smiled and gave the other half to Justin saying anyone who wanted that half would have to fight the big guy for it.

After having their meal they went to pay when the hostess waved them off telling them Sven took care of it. The four thanked her and left the pub. They then gathered their belongings from the wagons and began heading north-west into the forest. It took them two days until Stella told them she found a cave with ominous mana coming from it.

Her instincts were very sharp so they all headed their while complementing her for finding it. When they arrived they could also feel the mana coming from it. Only incredibly powerful magic’s could be felt like this according to Cassandra. Dominit took point with Justin and the Ladies twenty feet behind him.

Upon first look the cave wasn’t anything special but after getting a hundred feet in they could smell blood and rot. They continued in slowly checking their surroundings for hidden adversaries and traps. They weren’t sure how long they’d been inside the cave but it felt like hours.

As they traveled the cave’s rough floor and walls smoothed out and began to look like masonry work with blocks of stone hewn right from the cave itself. Upon reaching this section of the cave they began to hear a strange chanting voice and screams from people young and old.

They picked up the pace and after a few turns through the tunnel found a large room with strange markings on the floor. There were ten people wearing all black standing in a circle around villagers. On a raised platform on the far wall away from the group stood an old man with a large black book with the same strange symbols as the floor on it.

Dominit grabbed the group and held them back issuing orders before allowing them to see what he saw. “Jaslyn I want you to shoot the old man up on the platform. Justin, Cassandra I want you to go and break into the circle to protect the villagers fight and kill the black robed men and women only if they come after you or the villagers.

Don’t chase after them you must protect the villagers. They all nodded and began to work. As they rounded the corner Dominit seemed to disappear from sight but the others were too busy worrying about what they had to do to really notice.

Jaslyn had her arrow flying the moment they all broke around the corner. It was about the hit the old man when a black shadowy hand caught it an inch from his chest. Justin and Cassandra were able to kill one of the surrounding people each. Saber also managed to end one.

Now there were seven of them and as soon as they realized what was going on they pulled out long serrated daggers while the old man spoke. “Well greetings young “heroes”. He laughed when he said the last word with disdain. “You are all just in time to join these fools in giving us our god’s power.”

He kept chanting while the seven cultists kept Cassandra and Justin in the group of people. Jaslyn wasn’t having any of it though as she fired arrows and the seven cultists. Killing four of them before Justin, Cassandra, and Saber took care of the other three.

As they killed the last three they were all gripped by their own shadows holding them in place. “HAHAHAHA you fools. You may have killed those simpletons but there are always more to fill their place.” He kept chanting and everyone felt their strength drain from them.

He seemed to be drawing to a close on his ritual when he started gurgling. They all looked up in alarm when they saw a shadowy claw sticking out of his chest. “Why lord I am only doing your bidding.” He coughs up blood and everyone looking at him see the shadow claw morph into a dagger.

“Shut up about your god will you. Stupid fucking zealots.” The old man falls from the ten foot platform landing on his head with a soft thud as his skull hits the floor. Standing behind him is Dominit wiping his blade off. “You guys ok down there?”

They all nod but Cassandra gets a little angry. “Where were you and what took you so long?” He laughed and jumped down from the platform slamming his boot into the old man’s head crushing it. He then bent down and took the book from his dead fingers.

“Sorry about that but it’s not exactly easy to sneak through a room full of assholes and sneak attack some kind of shadow mage.” He opens up the book and starts reading. “Strike that a shadow and blood mage.” Jaslyn and Justin began rounding up the villagers and led them out to the mouth of the cave while Dominit stayed behind to look around.

Cassandra was going to stay with him but he waved her off she’d be close enough to not have the slave seal affect her before he’d catch up. He spent some time making sure they were all dead and taking a few things from their dead bodies. The old man hand nothing special except for two black rings on his fingers. After cleaning up slightly he looked around noting that under the plat form seemed to be a door blocked by rubble.

He joined his friends and after a brief rest for the villagers began taking them back to the village they’d first came from. During the two day travel with hardly enough supplies for twenty some villagers they went hunting and foraging to keep everyone fed.

When they finally reached the village of Titanvale. The villagers had happy and tearful reunions with their families. Many thanked the group and offered rewards but Jaslyn refused all of them as she was happy to help them. Dominit began stocking up on supplies while the others were busy being thanked for what they’d done.

When they were finally able to break away from the happy villagers Dominit told them what he found and was going back to make sure there weren’t more of the Voids hiding in the cave system. Cassandra immediately began readying for the journey as she didn’t have a great amount of say in where he went. To his surprise however Justin and Jaslyn also began preparing.

When they were all ready they left. Much to the three’s displeasure as they hadn’t rest from their last journey. Dominit convinced them for every day they were resting they were allowing the Voids to regroup or escape. They agreed and once again journeyed back out.

When they arrived they were all weary so Dominit allowed them to rest for however long they needed before venturing past the rubble covered doorway.

Several hours after, Justin began shoving rocks to the side. After clearing a path large enough for him and Saber to pass through allowed Dominit to once again take the lead. They traveled for five hours with no signs of any one using this passage in years.

At a certain point water droplets fell from the roof of the tunnel they were in. Reaching a point where the tunnel began to slowly go upward Dominit warned the others to be ready for anything. They found a wooden door and slowly crept through it. Exiting the tunnel they found themselves inside of a stone building of some kind.

It took them a little while to clear the building and then to make their way out side. Looking around the outside of the building they were in they realized they were in a keep of some kind. They walked to the center of the courtyard when they heard multiple low growls.

On high alert they put their backs together waiting for whatever it was. A minute passes and they see a red lizard begin walking towards them it was around two feet tall on all fours and over six feet long to the tip of its tail with wings on its back. Jaslyn slowly walks towards it and pets its head.

It immediately purred and shoved its head into her leg asking for more. After it began purring twelve more lizards of different colors some red, blue, brown, and green came from behind buildings. Crowding around them hoping to also be pet. Jaslyn and Cassandra were ecstatic and happily obliged giving all of them a bit of attention.

Dominit just watched and waited for something bad to happen when he felt something bump into his leg. He looked down and saw a lizard like the others but black instead. It looked up at him with large puppy eyes. He gave in kneeled down and began scratching it under its chin.

While they were all purring they heard a loud roar from above them and a massive green lizard Dominit could only guess was a dragon landed in the courtyard. It roared “GET AWAY FROM THE CHILDREN!!.”