Header image: https://imgur.com/zr4a6y2

I ran into the Hero's Welcome, my heart thumping in my chest.

My sister cried out from the room at the back, which served as both our kitchen and storage room. When I came in, she was alone, curled up into a ball on the floor. Pots and pans, and bits of broken glass and wood were scattered all around her, a fine layer of dust already beginning to settle on every surface.

"What happened? Are you okay?" I asked frantically.

"It's not here," Lia moaned, covering her face with her hands.

"What's not here?" I asked again, realizing that the store was a lot emptier than I'd remembered leaving it. She didn't answer.

I ran back to the front room. Verona stood by the doorway with a calculating look on her face. I looked the spot on the floor where all the big man's junk had been, ran my hand along the shelves, feeling the spots where the dust had been disturbed, looked for the locked box where I kept our petty change.

It was all gone. All of it. I checked every place again, in the same way you'd turn out your pockets another time, hoping, praying they'd left something behind, but apart from dust and garbage, there was nothing. From the back room, I heard a crunch. I turned around to find Lia slowly, and methodically, driving her fist into the wooden floor. One of the planks was already cracked, and every punch was making it wider and longer.

"Stop!" I said, grabbing her arm. She threw me off, with no apparent effort. She turned to me, her teeth bared, and eyes wide in anger.

"Did you know?" Lia demanded.

"Know what?" I said, confused. She shook her head, and made a start for me, but Verona suddenly appeared between us, and shoved her back. Unprepared, her right leg gave way, dropping her hard onto the floor.

"Take it easy!" Verona said, motioning for me to take a step back. "What's going on here?"

Lia's bulged in surprise as she stared up at the beautiful half-elf dressed in white leather. "Who're you?" she asked numbly.

"I am Verona de Araphine, Baroness of the Fourth House of the Night, and Grand Mistress of the Hunting Moon," she declared with a flair, "and I would very much like to know why you were about to attack your friend here."

Lia's eyebrows raised in awe, but her expression quickly closed up, and she looked away. "It's none of your business," she said guardedly.

"I'd say it is," Verona replied. "This gentleman owes me money, and your...establishment," she said, looking around at the dusty remains of our store, "Appears to have been ransacked."

Lia's lower lip trembled for a second, but she remained silent.

"If you tell me what happened," Verona coaxed, "I can help."

"There...there was a man," Lia said, finally caving in. "Tall, muscled, big beard, weird armor, carried one of those bags of holding-" At that last one, Lia clamped her lips shut, and looked embarrassed.

"Crystal sword and shield?" Verona asked, frowning.

Lia looked up at her in shock. "How'd you know?" she asked.

"He came to our store," I added, as surprised as her. "Sold us a lot of stuff. We didn't have enough gold, so we stepped out to get some, and..." I trailed off, looking at Lia expectantly.

"And when I came back to the store," she said, nodding, "It was all gone."

"All of it?" Verona asked. "Just like that?"

"Yeah."

"Typical," Verona swore, looking up at the ceiling.

"You know him, don't you?" I said, a cold realization dawning on me.

Verona nodded. "You might say we're part of a group," she said.

"You're a Hero, aren't you?" Lia said, realizing it too. Her eyes went cold.

"And he's part...of your Party," I said.

This was bad. The land was host to thousands of heroes who spent every day exploring and fighting, but it was the Parties that you had to look out for.

Formed whenever three or more heroes decided to travel together, an adventuring Party could have enough power to take on a small army. Going against one usually spelled disaster, so the laws of this land had come together to develop special...regulations for them.

One of which was that those Heroes were usually allowed to take whatever they liked, as long as it was in service of their adventure. Most businesses didn't mind too much, since Heroes always brought in good money, and they usually limited their thefts to things like food and drink, but you heard stories of some Parties taking a store apart, and leaving nothing of value behind.

It had never happened in Sweetroot. Nothing ever really happened in Sweetroot, but of all days, it had happened today, and it had happened to us. It was technically legal, but it was only because most towns didn't have enough strength to stop them from doing it.

Lia and I looked at each other, the horrible reality of it all slowly sinking in.

We'd lost everything.