While there was certainly some degree of care taken to select well-designed furniture for his new estate, there was no question about it: Ames had shallow pockets and no furnishings of distinguished quality. It was ultimately [i]just[/i] a tavern populated with Common rarity items, after all, lacking in any fanciful designs or comfortable textiles. Rustic then, could sum up the Sweet Maid. Simple and unassuming, if one ignored the erratic cultural clash. Still, compared to squatting out in the plains, having a cushioned chair and a mug of beer, as well as a cute maid delivering steaming bread to your table, Ames’s Nuclei was certainly one of great luxury. Time was whiled away there as discussions were had over battle plans, but in the end, there was only one alpha-sigma chad-male amongst them.

Whereas everyone else enjoyed freshly baked bread straight from a firewood oven, Leif was working as hard as always. Who cared for moneysink real estate decorations, when one needed to piss his virtual scent over the dirt and then drive off to get shit done? Mission over bitches, that was the way of the alpha pack boss, and with his bladder empty, his MP full, he let the rest of those loser betas stagnate in the embrace of the Sweet Maid as he drove off into the daylight once more, Arion fuming like a thundercloud.

Cruising through the plains at a comfortable pace, the Wolfpack Shaman did a good job at avoiding any monster encounters as he crested over the small hills that popped here and there. The perimeter that he drew around the Sweet Maid looked to be fairly bereft of noteworthy targets, however. The plains, flat as they were, offered little in the form of actual cover, and while Leif managed to spot a couple more parties off in the distance, chasing after them would bring him much too far away. The most frustrating thing, however, was the lack of any obvious identifiers from any traveller in the area. Nothing screamed ‘Mora-Sho’ [i]or[/i] ‘Gakui-Re’, especially when the main army had already passed by the area. It really did appear as if only unaffiliated Immortals, seeking to profit from war without being permanently tied to a particular side, had been hired for the work of both maintaining [i]and[/i] disrupting supply lines. Which, of course, was a problem.

Did the Mora-Sho seriously expect his party to indiscriminately PK any other party that was travelling in this direction?

As Leif contemplated such thoughts, however, he saw a glimmer of light from the mountain range. A glimmer of light, growing brighter and brighter. A glimmer of light? No! A twitch of his wrists upon the handlebars, and Arion drifted to the side, moments before a beam struck the space he had been moments before, detonating in a blast of psychic energy!

From the mountaintops, someone was sniping him!

…

The smell of baking bread out in the middle of literal nowhere attracted more than just the appetites of those who were friendly with Ames. A party of six, looking as ragtag as any crew of Immortals, practically collapsed into the tavern, their boots tracking dirt and their cloaks soaked with what definitely appeared to be many battles worth of blood and mud.

[b]“Phew, safe!”[/b] spoke the one at the front of the group, a short-haired youth with a metal headband.

The five others murmured their own sighs of relief, pulling their cloaks off and jamming them into their inventory pouches. [b]“Thank god for a safe spot here,”[/b] a more scholarly-looking individual said.

[b]“Hey,”[/b] waved a dual-axe wielder at Britomart. [b]“How much is a couple of rooms here?”[/b]