At this time of night, the various bars of Sweetroot filled with townsfolk--farmers looking for a taste of their own harvest, soldiers in search of an escape from their duties, and all the rest. The Sweet Surveyor was no exception. The potato liquor flowed freely, quite a lot of it slopping onto the wooden floor. The music was loud, the conversation even louder, as each person struggled to be heard above the noise. Squeezed onto the benches, people sat back to back, jostling elbows and pooling their body heat into a warmth, that although damp and stuffy, was a welcome respite against the cold night.

Despite the crowd, one hooded figure in a blue, fur-collared cloak strode across the room, her movements smooth and unhurried as she walked towards the stairs that led up to the rented rooms. She touched no one, and no one touched her. If anyone had noticed her pass, they didn't say so.

Once she was upstairs, she turned left, and stopped at the door at the end of the hallway. She quickly unlocked it, and stepped inside. The room was cold and dark, the sheets on the bed unwrinkled, the closet empty. Verona threw her hood back, and leaned against the door. She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, they glimmered with tears.

"He looks so much like you, Varyn," she whispered to the empty, silent room.

Nothing changed.

Verona sighed, and nodded. She walked slowly towards the other end of the room, her hand stretched out at waist level until she stopped, fingers clutching at nothing. She turned her wrist, and pulled.

Light streamed into the room as a door appeared from out of thin air and slowly began to swing open. Standing tall enough to meet the ceiling, the portal looked like it was carved out of pure obsidian, the pitch-black material carved into the jagged, swirling shapes of a hundred demons screaming in agony.

Verona rolled her eyes and wiped her eyes dry before she stepped inside. The menacing door shut behind her, leaving the room dark and empty again.

Verona walked into a lobby that was a stark contrast to its entrance. It was several times the size of the rented room, and in fact, the Sweet Surveyor itself. Marble pillars lined the walls, and red shag carpet stretched along for dozens of meters in all directions, save for in front of Verona, where there was a receptionist's table, carved out of purple marble. On top of it lounged a gnome dressed in rich, purple fabrics, who was fiddling with a panpipe. When he saw Verona, his face broke into a grin. He jumped up, and landed on the floor with a flourish. Although his head barely reached up to Verona's hip, he bowed, and tipped his hat.

"Took you long enough, Ronnie," he said. "Come on. They're waiting in the lounge."

Verona nodded, following the gnome down the hallway. It stretched out for as far as she could see, which was quite far, even for a half-elf. Hundreds of doors of various shapes, colors and sizes lined it on each side. Some were small and rounded, others lopsided, or of some unusual design. None of them were quite as menacing as the entrance.

"Haven't I asked you to sort the portal out, Gavin?" Verona sighed. "Demon faces? Really? What are people supposed to think?"

"People are supposed to think 'That's a scary freaking door--I probably shouldn't touch it," Gavin chuckled, skipping along at a pace that matched Verona's steps. "Besides, it's not like I'm running a hotel. Gavin's Magnificent Magical Mansion is open only to friends...and lovers," he added, winking at Verona. She wrinkled her nose.

"We could always meet someone new," she said. "What then?"

"New people that won't screw us over?" Gavin said, shaking his head. The bell on the top of his purple hat jingled. "It took us years to form a party that wasn't filled with terrible people, and even then... We just so happen to be terrible together."

Verona bit her lip. "We're not...we've done a lot of good, Gavin."

Gavin turned to look at her, a puzzled look on his face. "Yeah. We've done a lot of stuff. So?"

"That's got to count for something. Right?"

The gnome snorted. "To who?"

"To me, damn it," Verona said hotly. "To us."

"I mean...I guess," Gavin said, surprised. "But us, this group, we're a family now. We don't have to worry about that kind of stuff."

Verona didn't reply. Gavin scratched his neck, and looked down.

"Don't think about it too much," he chided. "I was just kidding. Now come on. The others are waiting."

In comparison to the massive lobby, the meeting room was small, even cozy. An assortment of couches and cushions surrounded a merrily crackling fire pit, atop which a few spits of meat were slowly cooking. The two walked in, and took their seats.

"Good to have you back, Verona. We were just about to get started," a portly dragonborn in blue academic robes said, nodding from his seat, which was close to the fire. On the couch he sat on were stacked an assortment of notebooks and scrolls. A couple of them had fallen onto the floor, and were beginning to smoke.

"No we weren't, Nazaari," a tanned human, dressed in brown fighting robes said airily as she jumped from one seat to another, at times skipping across the glowing coals of the fire. She seemed unbothered by this. "We've been here for like, an hour."

"Preliminary discussions, Bati," Nazaari said, picking up a stray piece of paper and glaring at the sooty footmark on it. "Now that Verona's here, we can start collating our findings, and forming a plan."

"What findings?" complained a tall, blonde, bearded man, who knelt on a tatami mat, and carefully polished a long curved blade with a oiled cloth. The sharp, elegant blade gleamed in the firelight, the wavy patterns on its metal shining with every stroke. "This small town holds no interest for Makaze. Not a single honorable combat to be found with its people. Only drunken farmers and stupid soldiers."

"Come now, Makaze," Nazaari said, "I'm sure we'll find you a battle yet. But before we do, we need to know what Verona's learned from her reconnaissance. How fares the halfbreed? Will he be any trouble to us?"

Verona winced at the slang, but decided not to pursue it.

"Lang's...undecided," she said, frowning. "On one hand, he's acting like a man in hiding. Rarely leaves the house, wears a hat to cover his ears, avoids crowded spaces. Paranoid for sure, although I don't know if it's out of shame or fear. If we left him alone, he'd probably try to live a quiet life here for as long as he possibly could. But something about the way he acts feels like he's waiting for something to happen."

Makaze snorted, and set aside his cloth. "His retribution, I'm sure. Langolier Stonestreet is a coward. A worm who knows no honor. Of that, I can be sure." He raised the sword up to the fire, looked down its length, and slashed it across the flames. For a moment, the fire appeared to split into two segments, before reforming. "I say we head out at dawn, and challenge him to a duel to the death—force him to take up arms, if need be. My blade thirsts for his blood."

"Whoa there," Verona said, raising her hands up. "That's a little much, isn't it? We know you have history with him, but we can't just drag him out into a fight. That's no better than murder."

"Not if the half-elf wins," Bati suggested.

"Against me? He's a hundred years too young," Makaze sneered.

"And you'd still cut him down?" Verona asked.

"I swear it on my sword," he replied, his face stony.

"You can't be serious."

Nazaari peered over his wire-rimmed spectacles at her. "It appears you have a vested interest in this Lang."

Verona frowned. "What makes you say that?"

"You speak of him as if his character is a sure thing. Yet it's only been three days since we staked out Sweetroot, and only a day since you've made contact with him. Is there something about him that we don't know about?"

Or me, Verona silently filled in. Nazaari was a good friend, and he'd saved Verona's life many times, but he could be a prick sometimes.

"There's nothing more to it," she said calmly. "I just think we can do better than just another battle."

The six were quiet for a moment, before Gavin spoke up.

"That boy's the reason we're in this town in the first place. And you want us to just leave him alone?"

"He's not the only reason we're here," Verona defended. "We're here for the Shards of Corruption first, and its bearers second."

Gavin raised his eyebrows.

"Verona, the people who sent us here marked him as a Herokiller," he said, fixing his gaze on her.

Verona looked away. "I know that."

"They don't give those kinds of titles away for nothing."

"I'm aware, Gavin," she replied a little more testily than she'd intended.

"And you still think he's worth the benefit of the doubt?"

"I do," Verona said curtly.

A moment of silence passed, broken only by the creak of wood as Bati balanced upside down on a chair with only one hand to support her. The chair tilted back onto a single, but it didn't fall. Nazaari wrote something down on a piece of parchment.

"Honestly, it's his sister that worries me," Verona said hurriedly filling the silence.

Bati grunted in surprise, and fell off the chair.

"The nasty redhead with the scars and the arm?" she asked incredulously. "They're related?"

"I've seen them argue," Verona confirmed. "You only get that way with family."

"But she's human," Nazaari said thoughtfully. "Some form of transfiguration magic gone wrong?"

"She's pretty hot," Bati remarked, but Verona ignored her. "Lang told me a story that said as much, but I'm not so sure. You can't get a half-elf by transforming a human, and then stopping halfway. Our kind are more than...half-breeds," she finished, glancing pointedly at Nazaari. He blinked.

"Anyway, she's trouble," Verona continued. "We know she's been heading out to the forest to grind, although gods know what good that'll do with her body like that. If Lang's paranoid, she's tense. A fighter. A powder keg waiting to explode. Damn near took a swing at me tonight, for no reason. Except now someone's given her a reason to fight."

At this, she turned to the only person in the room who hadn't spoken yet, a hulking shadow of a man who sat in a massive couch in the corner.

"Chad, did you really have to raid their entire store?" she said, exasperated.

The barbarian, who looked smaller without his armor, shrugged.

"Why?" Verona pressed.

"I, uh, had to get the staff back," Chad mumbled.

"Which staff?"

"The...the magic one. With the black wood and the ruby," he said sheepishly.

"The one we found at Wolfacre, where all the Shard stuff started," Bati added helpfully. "Stuck in that tree."

"Ah," Verona said. "That one." A moment passed as she digested that information. "In the giant, evil tree that grew so large it smothered the entire village. That staff."

Nazaari coughed. "Most of the village, to be exact. Though I remember we helped evacuate some townsfolk before--"

"Why does she have it?" Verona demanded.

"I sold it to her," Chad said quickly. "In my defense, it was in the bag we use for the junk and stuff we sell, and I usually just dump that out--"

"You put it there in the first place!" Verona exclaimed.

"No one was using it!" Chad said defensively.

"I was using it to track the Shards down!" Verona growled. She felt like screaming.

Chad scratched his head. "It's been a while since you've had to, Ronnie. The last shard we found was like, three months ago. A whole lot of other stuff happened in between then and now. We took down a camp full of goliaths, we saved that orphanage from the invisible ghasts..." He trailed off when he saw the look on her face. "But that's why I cleaned out that little store. I was going to get it back. Totally would have given the rest of it back after. Except..."

"Except it wasn't there," Gavin finished. Verona turned towards him.

"You all knew about this before I did," she said, frowning. "Why haven't we gone out there and looked for it yet?" Then, she realized.

"Oh, gods. Lia has the staff, doesn't she?"

"She went into the forest with it two hours ago," Bati said. "Majesty was in the area, so he went in first, you know? To do his whole...psychalogy thing. Get the target talking."

"The target?" Verona asked dully. "Is that how we're dealing with this?"

"Majesty's hurt, Verona," Gavin said. "Something went wrong, and when the tree sprouted, they got caught up in it. He's still in contact with us, but he's stuck up there with her until we can help."

Verona looked at the empty hammock where their last member usually lay for their meetings. She felt a twinge of shame for not noticing it earlier. "So it's already sprouted...Shouldn't we get going,?" she said.

Nazaari coughed. "Indeed. However, you might be right when you said a situation like this requires some delicate handling. The person who was the catalyst for the staff in Wolfacre was treated rather roughly, and as a result the tree's growth was...aggressive."

Verona swallowed and nodded, remembering what the bodies had looked like. Some of those faces were seared into her memory.

"If we deal with this with our usual, er, tactics, I fear things may not look good for our friend, and the town of Sweetroot in general," Nazaari continued. "I myself have no doubt we'll be able to handle the situation ourselves, but it could help to bring someone the catalyst might be familiar with, as a means of bridging the gap."

Verona blinked. "You want to bring Lang with us."

Nazaari nodded.

"As a negotiator?" Verona asked. "Or as a hostage?"

"That's really up to him," Gavin said, scratching at his beard. "But let's put it to a vote. Should we bring the undecided half-elf with us?"

"It's for the best," Nazaari said, sweeping up a few books into a leather bag.

"Yeah, why not," Bati said, tying her hair back into a ponytail with a brass ring. She glanced at the mirror, and winked.

"Okay," Chad said, strapping on his gear and weapons.

"Hai," Makaze grunted, already fully dressed.

"Verona?" Gavin asked.

They all looked at her.

Verona bit her lip.

"One condition. I'm taking responsibility for Lang," she finally said. "Until I say so, none of you are to harm him."

Gavin glanced at Nazaari, who shrugged. Makaze scowled, but said nothing.

Verona walked over to a chest, and pulled out a longbow, carved out of black stained yew. With it, she brought out a quiver full of black-feathered arrows, and slung it over her back. She turned to her party.

"Alright. Let's go save the day," she said.

Imp snorted, and waved a hand in front of his face, as if to ward away a bad smell.

"Adventurers?" he said derisively. "A bunch of poncey bastards with too much money and power on their hands. Nothing but trouble, I say. No, I'm much more comfortable on my own. My whole life has been a series of sharply applied lessons on how to be alone, each more pointed than the last.

Someday I might pen a tragedy, but tonight, I feel it'd make for awful...I fear I'm not drunk enough.

But you, madam...I sense there is much more to you and your scars than you've told. We've plenty more moonlight and drink, and we've yet to get to the largest scar of all. What say you carry on?"