I Hate Dungeon School

We hurried our way through the dark streets of Revenstahd, weaving one way or another, taking a great deal of shortcuts to cut down on our time. Danica being in the guard house was concerning for a great deal of reasons. I didn't like to think what she might have done, or what was going on.

I had a bad feeling, and it wasn't just my irritated nose from all the tree pollen. The itching was super distracting, and I feel like I would sneeze the damned thing off if I wasn't so distracted by everything going on.

I swear, as we tore through the city, I saw more trees than I had ever seen. I admit that I hadn't paid much attention during the small bit of spring I had experienced in Revenstahd before, but I swear it wasn't this bad. Was it a mild winter comparatively, thus making the trees thrive? I'm not a tree person, so I just shoved it out of my mind.

We had to make a few stops to give Farina some time to catch her breath.

"You really need to work out more, Farina. You get winded awfully easily." I chided as she gasped in a back alley.

"I'm a secretary! I fill out documents, make appointments, and deliver messages! Neither of which requires running and jumping over things! Gods above and below, why did I let you drag me with you?! You both suck!" She groaned and hunched over, sweat dripping off her face.

"Oh, don't be like that. Especially when you're kind of the middle of everything, in a way, right?" Eira chipped in.

Farina only grumbled and straightened back out. "Whatever. We should be close now. Can we stop with the back alley stuff?"

"I guess. Do we have a story to give the guards for when we try to get in to see Danica?" I asked.

"Yeah, I think so. We are going to claim to be representatives from the school looking for information about her arrest for personnel purposes. To see if we need a sub or a replacement. Pretty standard procedure, really." She said, taking her glasses off and using her blouse to clean some sweat off the lenses.

"Standard procedure? Do teachers get arrested a lot? That seems...like a problem, actually." Eira noted with a confused tilt of her head.

"It's a dungeoneer school. Most of the teachers are retired adventurers and dungeoneers themselves, and that comes with a certain reputation that isn't entirely undeserved. In the past, some teachers even had their names on specific cells in the drunk and disorderly section of the gaol." Farina explained.

"It's Walther, isn't it. He seems the type." I laughed, imagining the old man drunk off his ass in a jail cell.

"Oddly enough, no, but even he's no stranger to being a guest of the town guard." She joined me in laughing. "In any case, I have some documents that allow me access to those files at least, so they'll let us in, and I guess we can go from there."

"And what about us? We're clearly not administrative types." Eira had a good point.

"Simple. I needed a protection detail since I'm such a frail, weak little thing who needs to work out more, apparently." Farina drawled sarcastically.

"I'm not sorry. You do need to work out. Seriously, woman." I snipped back at her.

"Stow it, you two. Let's get going. I don't like being out in this part of town more than I have to." Eira looked around nervously. I was going to have to dig into that more later.

We composed ourselves, walked out into the main streets, and made our way towards the guard station.

I wrinkled my nose in displeasure as I saw that the guard station was heavily decorated with trees on each side. I had never seen it with trees before. In fact, I was sure that there weren't any when I got dragged in when I stabbed Cavendish in the hand.

"Farina, is there some kind of public works thing, with adding trees or something? There's just an awful lot more greenery than I remember there being." I asked quietly as we approached.

"Not that I know about, but I don't keep tabs on decorative projects in town. The City Lord doesn't really care much about beautification." She said with a subtle shake of her head.

"Weird. I hate these trees. They make me want to sneeze my damn head off. Ugh." I groaned as I pulled out a handkerchief and wiped my dripping nose.

"Remind me later about that. I think I remember the school apothecaries have something for that. It's apparently a risk in some deep forest dungeons, and they mentioned it as part of the rescue kit. I probably have some." Eira added, patting my shoulder softly. I gave her a grateful look.

"Halt!" A stern voice interrupted our conversation. We looked, and a guard stepped out of the station, slamming the door behind him and locking it. In his hand was a rather wicked-looking halberd. Definitely not standard issue from what I had seen of the town watch before.

Ok, that struck me as strange. The guard station was usually open all day and night. It was just the prison section that was closed off, but the administrative section was never locked up. I felt my hackles rise as I started getting a distinctively bad feeling about this.

"We're here to do some administrative paperwork for one of our school attendees. Just a quick in and out, if you don't mind, sir." Farina pulled out a piece of paper and held it up for the guard to see.

He didn't even look at it. In fact, he didn't seem to look at anything. His eyes were completely glazed over, like I had seen from Myth during her herb-fueled trances.

"No entrance. No one is allowed inside." He said, almost too slowly.

"Is there a problem, officer? This is routine and above board. We're well within our rights." Farina said firmly.

I swear I saw a small flash in one of the windows of the guard station out of the corner of my eye, but my attention was drawn to the guard tightening his grip on his weapon.

"No entrance. No one is allowed inside. S-stayyyy away!" He slurred at us, levelling his weapon at us.

I heard rustling in the trees, but I definitely couldn't see anything hiding there.

I saw Farina looking like she was about to get indignant. I put my hand on her shoulder.

"We should get out of here. Something is deeply wrong here." I hissed at her, keeping my voice low. I looked at Eira, and she nodded at me.

"Very well. I'll try again in the morning, and I'll be speaking to your supervisor!" Farina huffed dramatically, turned on her heels, and started walking away. We joined her, and I kept looking over my shoulder as we went, hoping we weren't followed.

We ducked down a side alley for a moment to collect ourselves.

"Ok, that was really damn weird to everyone else, right?" Eira said, before looking around the corner to check one more time that we weren't being followed.

"What was going on? I've never been stopped like that. And he seemed drunk or something." Farina fretted. She really looked freaked out.

"Not drunk. Didn't smell any alcohol coming off him. Maybe a drug, but if he were drugged, he likely wouldn't be working at the guard station. Something very wrong is going on." I nodded.

"Absolutely, and in a way worse than you could possibly imagine." A fourth voice joined us. The three of us let out little yelps, and I instinctively drew my knife, and Eira put up her fists, ready to fight whoever snuck up on us.

I really didn't like being snuck up on. It then occurred to me that I recognized the voice.

"Noah?" I asked the darkness.

A shape stepped out, wrapped in a dark cloak, followed by a second one. They removed their hoods, and it was Noah Scarletti and Adhara.

"Got it in one, Miss Marchesi. I'm going to guess these are some of your dungeon-crawling companions?" He bowed to us.

"In a sense, yes," I answered noncommittally. "Are you going to tell me why you're here, or is this a situation where I have to fight you because you're secretly shady as hell?"

He held up his hands in a placating gesture, which Adhara copied the motion with an annoyed sigh.

"Yeah, let's not do the fighting thing. Alley fighting and knights is a bad combo, especially against dungeoneers. We're here investigating the guard station. We had a contact get arrested for seemingly no reason, and we went to look into it, and the place is locked down tight. Which, judging by your little attempt, is not normal."

"Definitely not normal, Ser Scarletti. Something is very wrong here, and it's not just the arrest of Danica." She said with a huff. I winced that she gave away who we were there for.

"Ah, you're working with Danica, too? Well, that's going to save some time." He looked around the corner and above him a few times.

Satisfied, he turned back to us.

"Come on, we've got to fill you in on a few things. It seems we might be involved in the same things without realizing it."

"I'll take up the rear. Make sure no one is tailing us." Adhara said sharply.

"Good. Let's hurry." Noah said, motioning for us to follow him, and disappeared into the darkness of the back alley.

"Great, more hurrying. My favorite." Farina growled sarcastically.

"I told you. Work out more. With the rate at which you keep getting roped into conspiracies and mysteries, it'd be for the best." I nodded and gave her a little push forward.

"How you deal with this, I have no idea." She grumbled as she tried to keep pace.

"I don't. I just wobble from one crisis to the next in a state of crisis." I shrugged.

"Ain't that the truth! It's one of your charm points, my sweet!" Eira laughed.

"Stow it, people. Stop attracting attention." Adhara snapped.

She was right, of course, but I stuck my tongue out at her in playful petulance. And immediately regretted it as I bit my tongue. Ouch.