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[indent][indent][indent][color=gray][sub][right][color=#98A9B1][b]Location:[/b][/color] The Laughing Warg Tavern-- The City of Thorinn, Aetheria[/right][/sub][/color]
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Benkei had spent many full days in the Laughing Warg, piling over maps, discussing and trading information with various traders and traveling wayfarers, and doing his part to try and set up work for the rest of the group. [i][color=98A9B1]"We have to start pulling our own weight here because, at this point, we're in the same boat as the people living in these cities. There's no reason to rile them up and have them chase us with pitchforks and torches.[/color][/i] That had been his main fear lately, especially after seeing what the Matron was capable of doing. Seigfried [i]lived,[/i] but that had only been the start of the tension between the two. 

[i][color=98A9B1]"If we don't go out there and close that dungeon, we will have an army of monsters at the gates of the city! There will be nowhere to run or hide![/color][/i] 

[i][color=DD9C00]"And there's no way in hell I'm dragging my sister into a place like that just to die!"[/color][/i] 

Tensions ran high that day, but things had never gotten as bad as it had between Benkei, Kazuma, and Graves. Between them, things were...better, to say the least. And with Graves off on the job for the city, he could work off that aggression on the monsters, regardless of how weak they were. 

[i]But that was the point. The only thing anyone felt comfortable doing was taking on the safest tasks, the ones where the threat of death was almost completely impossible. If only the dungeons had been like that, they would be able to find comfort and safety in this place. But that threat kept looming.[/i] Benkei read over a letter he'd sent for and sighed. [i]Another village was lost.[/i] He went to the map of Thorinn's lands, and crossed out a large red X over the area the village was supposed to be. How many was that now, three? And they were moving closer to the larger towns. 

How much longer until refugees began pouring into the city? Where would they stay? And how many beasts would be following them behind? His mind wandered back to the wounded dire bat from the dungeon, and wondered how many people the creature could have killed if it had left the dungeon with no wounds? How many players could that thing kill? How many denizens? Just sitting around and waiting for someone from the game to appear and tell them everything would be fine wasn't working. And he'd still heard no word back from the party that had left. He'd begged them to wait just a little longer until they could get a large fighting force with healers and supplies, but no. [i]This was their duty.[/i] And when the time came to venture to the dungeon, would they bury them outside it, just like they'd done for their friends? 

And if they died too, [i]who would bury them?[/i] 

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