4th Day of Morning’s End 2660 AC

Two wooden saloon doors swing open as a red headed girl kicks them wide open. The force of the kick was enough to almost cause the doors to fly off their hinges. This racket causes the bar's current customers to all turn toward the sound of the noise. A group of four adventurers walk in as their appearance is covered in shadow due to the position of the sun.

“Nerva did you have to kick the doors like that, if that broke we might have had to pay for it,” an elf girl scorns.

“Calm down hoe, I did it cause it seemed like something Akane would do,” the red headed girl responds.

“Yup definitely seems like something master Akane would do,” a short black haired girl claims.

“Nazuko, Akane isn’t someone you should have as a role model. You should imitate someone who’s dependable, strong, beautiful and tall,” Remi lectures.

“But Akane is all of those things,” Nazuko affirms.

“She’s not the last thing,” Remi argues.

“She’s 5’9.”

“Her heels are 9 inches tall! You can’t count that as part of her height! She’s probably only a little taller than you without those stilts.”

“Her shoes are an integral part of her identity, therefore it should count as part of her height. She doesn’t even seem hindered running around in those things; it's like a part of her,” Nazuko concludes.

“Fine I’ll give her that, but she radiates a kind of charisma that attracts weirdos. Role models should be someone like that Imperial Knight Marianne. Did you see how many fans she has when she walks through the streets it's insane,” Remi notes.

“Guys people are staring, you probably shouldn’t argue in the doorway,” Ryder butts in.

A small line has started to form outside the stone building with unhappy looks forming on the faces of the winery’s usual patrons. The four adventurers walk inside and head towards the bartender who’s using a white cloth to clean a wine glass.

The bartender looks up to see four individuals but only the heads are visible for two of them.

“I see you’ve returned, does that mean those monsters were finally taken care of?” he asks.

Remi simply takes a seat at the bar, points at a particular bottle on the wall behind the bartender before talking.

“We took care of your little man eating plant problem, now give us that reward and you’re going to answer everything this little midget has to ask you,” Remi demands as she distracts herself with her drink.

The bartender starts reaching for a bag of gold under the counter as he turns his attention to Nazuko.

“You could do without the short comment hoe, but anyways I’ve heard rumors from a friend about a plant in this region that’s capable of granting someone their ideal physique if they were raised in the proper conditions. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?” Nazuko asks.

The bartender places the glass down on the wood, rubs his chin as he thinks to himself.

“I know I’ve heard of something like this before, it's just at the tip of my tongue. Hmm… ah yes I remember there’s a magical herb in the deepest parts of the vineyard called Dwarf’s Lavender that has those kinds of effects. The legends say it was planted and cultivated by a dwarven alchemist who helped raise this entire vineyard,” the barkeep informs.

“Great, where can I find it!” Nazuko rushes to say.

“Hold on there young lady, it's called an urban legend for a reason. First of all its exact location is unknown and secondly it’s said that the herb is useless without an alchemist that knows how to use it,” he quickly notifies.

Hearing this news Nazuko ends up headbutting the counter of the table with an expression of great disappointment.

“Does that mean we came all this way for nothing? We should have just let this place be consumed by man eating plants,” Nazuko laments.

“I knew it, you can never trust those urban legends, at least we got money from this trip,” Remi nonchalantly says as she sips her wine, acting like a connoisseur.

“You know I’ve investigated a lot of urban rumors in the past and typically the ones about miracle drugs are usually true if you have to fight people to get it,” Ryder chimes in.

“I usually have to fight everyone to get what I want,” Nerva says.

The bartender stares at the disappointed girl with pity as he can feel the desperation leaking from Nazuko’s aura.

“Now, now that’s as far as my information goes, but there might still be some hope for you yet. Here’s something that has a bit more truth to it than an urban rumor. One of the customers in the past has mentioned something about actually using that drug and she happened to be quite the alchemist. Perhaps she may have what you seek, although she hasn’t been seen around here in the past 2 weeks so I’m worried something could have happened to her. A group of suspicious people have shown up asking about her so something may have happened. It was also around there that those terrible plants started popping up,” he lets out.

“This is starting to sound like burning time,” Nerva speaks up.

“That’s right we’re going to interrogate those guys Nerva style to find that alchemist,” Nazuko decides as she raises her head as the room literally brightens up.

“What’s Nerva style?” Ryder asks.

“It’s basically Warren style but with more burning,” she responds.

“Oh boy you have no idea what you’ve just enabled,” Remi tells the bartender.

“I’ll keep that in consideration, if it gets rid of those thugs then it can’t possibly be that bad. Anyways these individuals were wearing lion masks when they were roaming around here, that’s the most I can tell you.”

“Thanks you’ve been a greater help than I thought, Heh heh heh, it's time to get my hands dirty,” Nazuko chuckles as she hops off her seat exiting the bar.

The other three members of her party also thank the bartender (with the exception of Nerva as she called his counter ugly as shit) and walk out the front door.

“Ok so what is the great plan our team leader has come up with now? I’m not giving you any ideas this time,” Remi says out of spite of the last plan.

“No need for your ideas this time or any time. It's time to start Operation Lion Tamer and I know exactly what it is I need to do. I’ll be taking it from my lifelong collection of Nazuko’s trademarked thief tactics,” she claims proudly as she crosses her arms and closes her eyes giving off a smug aura.

“Oh boy here we go again,” Remi sighs.

“We simply need to survey the city at night as we look around for guys with Lion masks and stalk them back to their hideout. It’s what I do when I’m trying to track down someone’s home in order to steal something. And if we don’t find what we’re looking for we interrogate them Nerva style,” Nazuko decides.

“Does that mean we’re splitting up while we do this and how will we know when to regroup? Will isn’t here to get us with his portals and launching a firework might spook the guys with the Lion masks,” Ryder says, resisting his urge to hand out explosives against his better judgement.

“Nah we’re doing this the old fashioned way since we’re not on a time limit this time and our enemy isn’t expecting us. Just explore the city during the day time, and we’ll regroup in the local inn in the evening,” Nazuko decides.

“And then it's burning time,” Nerva chimes in.

“And then it's burning time,” Nazuko agrees.

“Or explosion time,” Ryder says.

“Typically things end up burning after the initial explosion so it's kinda one and the same,” Remi concludes.

“Alright then it's time for Operation Liontamer,” Nazuko declares as she hops onto a nearby rooftop.

“We’ll meet later tonight!” she yells before running off in some obscure direction.

“Alright imma go beat up anyone I see with a lion mask!” Nerva asserts as she marches off in the opposite direction.

“Think she’ll be mad if I just go around drinking at local bars and wineries?” Remi asks Ryder.

“Just don’t tell her when we meet up later tonight. I got stuff I wanna check out later tonight as well so catch you later,” Ryder tells her.

“What are you going to do? I’d feel guilty going around drinking if you're actually going to do something productive,” Remi states.

Ryder holds up the small black vial of liquid from earlier.

“The bartender said something about an alchemist that claimed she used Dwarf’s Lavender right? I think Nazuko and Nerva might be rushing to assume that she got kidnapped by the guys in the lion masks. We should at least confirm that something happened to her first,” Ryder assumes.

“Yeah Nazuko seemed pretty hasty about this whole deal, she might not be thinking straight, but she’s always a bit of a crackhead so maybe this is normal,” Remi tells him.

Remi and Ryder begin asking the locals about the alchemist and eventually find the location of her shop. They come to a small stone building on the outskirts of the city right where the land starts to turn to more vineyards. The building seemed as if it was about to fall apart as vines grew all over the sides and the roof of a building. A wooden sign dangled beneath a wooden post held together by rusty chains and started to fly back and forth in the wind.

“Are we sure this is the place? Seems kinda run down for an alchemist shop,” Remi observes.

“Out of the 15 people we talked to, 10 of them said this place was the alchemist shop. So this has to be the place,” Ryder assures her.

Ryder walks up to the front door of the decrepit building and begins to knock. After knocking about 10 times and waiting for what seemed like 5 minutes. It seemed like no one would answer the front door.

“Hmm, well either the alchemist isn’t here and actually got kidnapped by the people in the lion masks or this just isn’t the right place,” Ryder assumes.

“So what now, should we break in?” Remi questions.

“If Nazuko were here she could probably pick this lock no problem, but I guess we can just break the door down... dammit,” Ryder swears as he puts away the miniature bomb in his hand.

“What?”

“It’s unlocked. And here I thought I would get the chance to use a few breaching charges,” Ryder exasperates.

“You can blow things up later, let's just investigate for now,” Remi tells him.

Remi and Ryder walk inside the old alchemist building and are shocked as they witness the scene inside. Broken bottles and shards of glass lay on the floor with the smell of chemicals rushing to their noses. The damage to the building extended further than just the customer area as the two checked out the back storeroom finding similar damage there as well.

“This place is entirely ransacked, it looks like the guild on a friday night. There definitely had to be some kind of fight that occurred here,” Remi inferred judging from the scorch marks on the stone walls of the building.

“Guess Nazuko was right about the kidnapping, I wonder if there’s anything here we could use to find the alchemist,” Ryder decides as he overlooks the various miscellaneous objects that weren’t broken throughout the shop.

“Look for articles of clothing, my wolf may be able to trace a scent from any object here if it's not too late. Objects containing a person’s sweat or blood should work. Hopefully all the chemicals in this place haven't masked the scent of anything we can use.”

Ryder investigates the area attempting to trace how the fight went down. The trail of bloodstains on the floor leads him into the basement eventually encountering a few dead bodies.

“Remi, come down here, I think I found something,” Ryder calls out.

“What is it?” Remi questions as she walks down the wooden stairs.

“That,” Ryder claims as he points to the two dead bodies lying in the corner of the basement.

The two dead bodies were emanating a noxious odor as they had already begun to decompose, yet not that quickly as they were in a damp cold basement. As Ryder lights up the area by lighting a torch on the wall, more scorch marks are revealed. Now with light illuminating the room it could be seen that the dead bodies also burnt, indicating the alchemist utilized fire in her fight. A lion mask could barely be identified as the mask was also badly burnt.

“It seems that the alchemist at least put up a decent fight,” Remi notes.

“Appears so, but I’m not sure there’s anything we can use here to track whoever kidnapped her,” Ryder sighs.

“That might not be the case yet, there’s another trail of bloodstains that leads to a different door we came from,” Remi observes.

As they follow the second trail, opening the basement door they come across a piece of a lion mask similar to the ones in the basement. Remi walks over, picks up the piece of the broken mask and holds it up for her wolf to pick up a scent.

“If this piece of the mask came off of someone who’s still alive we should be able to track them down if they’re within the city at least. My tracking skills are so good they should call me a CSD!” Remi boasts.

“What’s a CSD?” Ryder asks.

“Crime Scene Detective.”

“Would have been better if it stood for Crime Scene Demolitionist.”

“That would be entirely counter intuitive as you would end up blowing up the crime scene,” Remi bluntly states before realizing that Ryder could effectively cover up most murders.

“Hey it sounds cool, and someone has to get rid of the dead bodies eventually,” Ryder says, further cementing Remi’s idea.

“Ok um, I’m not gonna think about what I just realized. Let’s go track down these lion mask guys. We still have time before we meet up tonight,” Remi says, changing the subject.

Remi’s wolf starts to run in the direction of where the scent is strongest as Remi and Ryder follow close behind. The smell of alcohol in the city eventually is subsumed by the smell of smoke and ash as they go after the wolf. Accompanying the smell, the sight of smoke and cinders could be seen coming off of what looked like a type of distillery. The building was constructed of brown brick, but the now burning wooden roof appeared to have a large hole directly in the center of it. The spirit wolf comes to an abrupt stop indicating the fact that the source of the smell lied within this building.

“Oh great we get a lead on the bad guys, and the first suspicious building we come to is on fire. You know what that means,” Remi sighs.

“Nerva couldn’t wait until we all met up to set the building on fire?” Ryder suggests.

“Something along those lines I bet. I’ll quickly put out that fire, we can’t have whoever is in there burn to a crisp before we get what we're looking for. You hurry in and investigate the situation,” Remi commands.

“I’m on it!” Ryder says as he gets his cannon into position before rushing inside.

“AND DON’T BLOW UP THE BUILDING!” Remi shouts right before Ryder enters the burning distillery.

“Great, I don’t think he heard me,” Remi exasperated.

Entering the now burning building made it much harder to breathe as smoke could easily enter one's lungs. However Ryder was used to dealing with smoke as that happened to be a rather common occurrence when dealing with explosives Typically he didn’t mess around with explosives indoors and he did it was always in safe, sturdy environments. Ryder remembered the time his parents made him an underground bunker so he would stop blowing up his room. That bunker which could probably withstand one of his MOABS if put to the test, but due to his time there he carried with him gas masks to help him breathe during his tests. Ryder pulled out one of those same gas masks and plunged further into the building.

There was the possibility that this whole fire was an accident. Distilleries often ran the risk of fire hazards due to the build up of dust which could lead to a dust explosion. Also the rooms where wine is distilled into brandy tend to typically be hot and certain types of alcohol are flammable. However this kind of fire was definitely magical in origin, as Ryder could feel the distinct energy coming off of those flames. Ryder thought back to who could have caused this fire, Nerva was definitely candidate number one given her reputation, but seeing what he saw earlier today the alchemist made very liberal use of fire as well. Ryder would find out as he plunged deeper into the basement.