“Hey there cutie. My name’s Thaelia. That’s my sister over there, Jael. *Jael waves* so, who are you?”
“Buuuuhhhhhh…..”
Tina rears back and clobbers Feral on the side of his head with her staff.
“Butter!”
“Hehe, so you’re Butter huh? Nice to meet you.”
“Huh? No, no. Sorry. I’m Feral.”
He goes around the table and introduces Thaelia and Jael to the rest of the group. Blasto looks questionably at Thaelia.
“Ya know, we already have a fire expert in this group.”
”Oh really?”
“Yeah, really.” Blasto looks over at a bottle sitting on a barstool. It suddenly lights on fire and melts in three seconds flat.
“Impressive.” remarks Thaelia. Thaelia looks over at another bottle. A giant pillar of hellfire and brimstone erupts from under it and blows a hole through the roof of the bar.
Blasto looks up the hole, looks down, and rubs his chin with his fingers.
“Hmmm…I guess we could…uhh…umm…well…” Phaedra looks over at Blasto.
“Face it Blasto. You got fire-served.”
Having gotten over his initial infatuation (a little) Feral turns to Jael.
“So, why exactly do you want to go with us?”
“Aren’t you guys a ragtag group of adventurers with unclear goals and good hearts?”
“Um…well, yeah I guess.”
“Perfect! We’ve been looking for a group like yours to travel with and better hone our abilities. You don’t mind, do ya cutie?” Jael takes her finger and runs it under Feral’s chin.
“Buhhhhhh……”
Tina once again reaches over and nails Feral on the head with her staff.
“Weasel!”
“I’ll take that as a ‘We don’t mind.’”
Tina walks over to Jael to more thoroughly discuss her powers.
“So, I assume your power is that if ice?”
”Yeah, but I don’t only have magic skills.” She reveals her katana sheathed by her side.
“OOHH! *Tina’s eyes light up* Sharp pokey thing!!”
“Yeah, or as I like to call him, ED. Thaelia has twin kodachi blades by her side.”
Thaelia reveals the blades strapped to her back.
“I’m also a highly skilled thief and shadow-walker.”
“Wow.” says Phaedra. “How ironic that Feral just had to kill our thief and we meet a new one just ten minutes later.”
“Hmmm,” ponders Thaelia, “that is odd. Kinda like me and Jael were fated to meet ya’ll.”
Feral looks toward Jael and Thaelia and extends his hand.
“On behalf of all of my friends, and especially me, Jael and Thaelia welcome to the team.”
He shakes the two new team members’ hands and looks over at Blasto, who is sitting down in a chair in front of a window.
“Oh, come on Blasto. Are you still mad you got fire-served?”
“No man, I’m just thinking why the people of this town are just casually passing by after there’s been an attempted robbery and a giant fire eruption.”
“Oh, well, that is kinda odd. Hey, there’s something I gotta go and take care of. I meant to do it when we first got here, but we got sidetracked. I’ll see ya’ll later.”
As Feral leaves the bar, Tina runs up behind him and whacks him on the head with her staff.
“Ow! What was that one for?”
“I don’t know, but its fun.”
Feral leaves and everyone else just talks a bit, getting to know the new members a little. Feral returns a short while later and suggests that they get on what they had initially intended to do. Seeing as how they were already in a bar, and bars are normally are good place to gather information, and seeing as how everybody was STILL sitting at their tables (even after the robbery and fire and everything), they decided to go out of the bar until an anonymous person walked up to them with an odd request. Shortly afterward, a middle-aged man walked up to them and gave them the odd request.
“Are you people adventurers?”
Tina replies, “Kinda. We like “ragtag group of adventurers with unclear goals and good hearts” better.”
“Well, listen. My daughter has been captured by a gang here in Fiziks called the Knirds. I need someone to go rescue her, please! She means the world to me!”
“And just how big is this gang old man?”
“About 5,000 or so members, give or take a few hundred thousand.” Feral perks up.
“Now wait a minute. Why the hell should we go against a hundred thousand people, according to you, to save your daughter? What did she do to piss off the gang?”
“It wasn’t her fault, it was mine. We were driving down the road and I noticed a person being robbed by the side of the street. I stopped to help out, but the robbers saw me and hit me with their gun. Then they took my truck and my daughter…damn it! If only I was stronger.”
”Can it gramps, I didn’t want your fucking life story. Why should we do it? I mean, what’s in it for us.”
“I’ll pay you whatever you wish.”
”TEAM MEETING!” Feral gathers the team over so they can discuss their payment while the old man watches, but he can’t hear them. Feral starts the debate.
“Okay, I say 50 thousand. Blasto?”
”No, that’s too much. We should do it for free. This is a man’s daughter for crying out loud.” Feral can’t believe Blasto just said the word “free”.
“Tina, would you please?”
Tina rears back and clobbers Blasto on the head with her staff.
“Hehe, I love that.”
Phaedra then speaks up.
“I think we should wait until after we get back form rescuing her, so we know exactly what kind of hell we had to go through.”
Jael and Thaelia were being quiet, so Feral spoke to them about the situation.
“You guys have been quiet, what do ya’ll think? You’re part of the team too ya know.”
“Well, Feral,” replies Jael, “I was kinda agreeing with Blasto.”
Tina clutches her staff, smiling like a crazed lunatic.
“Calm down Tina.” says Feral. “She’s new, I’ll let it slide.”
Thaelia has an inquisitive look on her face, like she’s thinking hard about something. Then, her eyes light up and she blurts out…
“One million dollars!”
Feral looks wide eyed at Thaelia, then grabs her hand and drops to one knee.
“I love you…*CLOBBER* damn it Tina, I was talking about the money.”
Feral looks back at Tina to see her still clutching her staff but now she’s giggling non-stop.
The team meeting disbands and they approach the man. He agrees rather reluctantly to their terms and informs the group that the gang is based underground and all its members are highly skilled in combat. He also gives them a picture of his daughter. The old man then takes them to an old, rusty, beat down elevator.
“This takes you to the underground. Not many people go there anymore, as you can see. Please be careful and get my daughter back alive.”
“You got nothing to fear old man. Group, lets move out!”
As the heroes are lowered into the bowels of the city, darkness slowly surrounds and engulfs them. After a few minutes, it lightens back up and the elevator stops. The team exits and finds somewhat of a miniature city. Our heroes head out on their quest, unaware of the danger that is now following them and growing larger by the second.
TO BE CONTINUED…