Chapter One: Nightstone, Part Three

Slayer, Phil, Ace, and Midnight wandered into the church. It was vacant and untidy. Chairs were dusty and destroyed, some were flipped over. Bibles littered the floor. The ceiling had fallen down, exposing the giant bell at the top. The altar where the pope spoke was the only thing that was semi-clean and undestroyed.

"Ugggggggh, why are we even here?" whined Slayer. The dragonborn only just was promoted to the rank of novice fighter and was assigned towards joining the group as his final trial to become a fully fledged fighter, but due to the stigmas assigned towards dragonborns at birth, it is unlikely such an ambitious wish will occur. The dragonborn may lack any form of combative skills, and yes, the dragonborn may be a bit of a blubbering idiot, but what he lacks in having any semblance skills, he makes up for in fighting walls, wooden ones to be precise, as stone walls are rather tough. Trained at a young age to fight walls, he grew up without a father, for a wall killed him before he had a chance to meet him. His mother was also killed by the same wall when he was a young lad of five, then his dog, then his girlfriend, then his uncle, then his wife of 5 minutes, and his lunch when he was out to eat during the tournament, like the wall just straight up waddled it's rear end towards him, stopped in front of him and smacked it out of his grasp and left, but not before kicking a puppy on its way out.

"Well suck it up, our job is to find out what happened to this town, and this place may give us some hints," stated Phil. Phil was a great leader. He's led many missions with different parties, but they can never fully give a rogue 100% of their trust.

Midnight nodded in agreement, as the fox would much rather remain quiet as talking seems pointless.

"Who knows, we might find some smoking hot babes hidden somewhere in this very church!" exclaimed Ace, his perverversion quite noticeable within his voice.

"How ironic would it be if we found a lustful woman in a holy church?" joked Phil. "Okay," he clapped his hands together while exhaling, "let's split up and look around. Me and Ace will search the 'first floor' while Slayer (he jokingly remarked) and Midnight search the what was the 'second floor,' got it? Okay, split!"

Phil and Ace started to turn over all of the rubble, looking through everything, for signs of what happened. Phil retraced what he knew.

A mercenary came up to him and his friends one day with a letter. The content of the letter stated that in a faraway town, its civilians suddenly disappeared and the town was destroyed by an unknown force.

"So? What do you want us to do about it?" asked Phil after he read the letter out loud. Everyone in his party turned around and faced the mercenary, also questioning him.

"Your party has a high reputation of completing all of the quest you have been assigned so far, and your tales of your past adventures have finally landed upon ours and the Queen's noses, so we decided to personally pick your party for this operation. You should all feel honored." The mercenary smirked. He had a thick english accent, and his pride and ego seemed to surpass far beyond what he and his company accomplished.

Phil, being the smart ass of the group, mimicked the mercenary and stated, "Oh yes good sir I am very honored to serve the company that killed all of the hostages that they were assigned to save. Oh yes, very honored. Please thank the Queen for hiring us and not you, for I'm sure you and your company would surely screw up like last time." He stroked his invisible mustache, making the effects last longer. Ace snorted, and then stopped himself.

The mercenary's face was red with anger and he balled his hand into a fist and let it fly into Phil's face. Ledias jumped in front and stopped the blow with her palm. He was shocked at how surprisingly strong this small, 17 year old girl was.

"Lieutenant Timbel, I wouldn't advise resorting to violence in this public space," stated Ledias as she tightened her grip. He looked around at the people staring at him.

"I didn't know that the Seven Snakes are so violent," one whispered.

"They killed all of the hostages they were trying to save? How pitiful is that?" another commented.

"I don't think we should hire the Seven Snakes from now on."

The crowd started to whisper rumors and looking down on the Seven Snakes. Lieutenant Timbel faced Phil and Ledias with anger once more and removed his fist from her palm. He walked away while mumbling curses towards them.

"Well then," said Phil as he turned around towards his party. "We got a mission to do." They all cheered.

Phil was shaken away from the past as the bell suddenly chimed on top. He looked up and saw shadows dance in the bell. Snickering and chatting could be heard faintly.

"...There's something in the bells," whispered Midnight. The bell rang again as the sound danced across the empty sky.

"Just ignore it, it's most likely children playing in the bell. The noise might actually draw out any villagers left in the village," Phil remarked. The faint sound of stretching string soon made itself apparent within the room.

"I can totally hit the rope from over here," Wall Slayer stated confidently.

"No! Don't!" yelled Phil. Midnight reached out to stop him, but the arrow was already sent flying. The arrow hit the bell's rope perfectly in the middle, letting the bell fall to the ground with a large crash, the explosion launching Phil and Ace away. Phil flew towards a pillar, his back smacking against as he yelped in pain. Ace reacted in time and flew to the top of the building and perched on one of the stabilizers.

"Told you," spoke Wall Slayer, lacking empathy towards his allies as he looked at them.

Inside the bell, a child like screaming could be heard. "The children!" Phil cried. "Ace, help me lift the bell, Slayer, leave." Ace and Phil placed themselves on each end of the bell and prepared to lift.

"On three" Spoke Ace. "Ready? …. One, Two…. ThreeeedwaAAAH!"

Goblins started swarming out of the bell, screaming and cursing at the group in their native tongue. Six of them came out of the bell, crawling with daggers held aloft. One of them charged at Phil who was still holding the bell. The goblin went for the only thing his blade could reach while prone, Phil's heel.The goblin's attack was mostly successful as Phil began to drop the bell to hold onto his heel, save for the fact that an arrow has found its way into the creature's skull a moment later. The arrow was held by Phil as it went through, piercing through its jaw as it exited through his cranium. The goblin went limp without a moment to waste.

After getting up from crawling out of the bell, another goblin charged Phil, screeching incomprehensible babble towards the Rouge. Phil waited until late it was within reach of him and tripped the goblin using his undamaged leg. As the goblin fell, it landed on its own blade, piercing its chest and heart, turning the goblin limp. "That's why you never run with a dagger," Phil spoke in a weary voice.

The other four goblins got up and ran to attack Midnight and Slayer. A loud "caw" from Ace echoed the room as he flew down and shoved his beak into one of the goblin's skulls, shattering it. Slayer completely shaken from the surprise; he was too slow to unsheathe his sword before a stray goblin on his flank jumped upon him and begun to climb upon his back. He attempted to swing his unsheathed sword, but it only clanged against the intimidating walls.

"Curse you walls!" Slayer yelled at the walls as the goblin crawled on his face, clawing at whatever skin that was exposed while screaming in an almost gleefully manner. "Help me you useless mutt!" he screamed at Midnight. Midnight, however, cared not for Slayer's words as he had his own goblin to deal with.

Magic filled the air as he started to cast a spell. He softly whispered the enchantment under his breath as air was pulled towards the tips of his fingers and turned into plasma. He cupped his hands and aimed it at the goblin. "Release!" he yelled. The fireball flew too quickly for the goblin to comprehend and hit its target. The goblin flew back and hit the wall with only its ashened arm left remaining.

Slayer soon began screeching in horror as the goblin started licking him in a crude and disgusting manner. Phil, having stopped the blood flow caused by the wound using rags, walked up to Slayer, grabbed the goblin by the back of its head and smashed it into the floor. Blood leaked upon Phil and the floor as the motion decimated the goblin's skull, letting loose the blood stored within.

"What were you thinking!?" Phil scolded Slayer. "There could have been children in there, and you would have just slaughtered innocent civilians!"

"Look, Mr. Banshee," stated Slayer. "had I not have shot that rope, I wouldn't have stuck to what I said, and lying just isn't how I live." He stood up and posed like some kind of archer. Both Phil and Midnight stood motionless for a moment, then Phil stuck the dragonborn with the back of his hand, leading the dragon to stumble into midnight's own smack, which lead to Ace joining in the impromptu smack fest as he gave Slayer one last good hit from his hand.

"Woah, what was that for?" spoke Slayer in a confused tone.

"You know EXACTLY what you did!" yelled Phil. Slayer's face was still dumbfounded. In rage, Phil took out his dagger and raised it to his throat, but the sudden scream in the distance took the fire out of his eyes and heart and replaced it with a sense of dread.

His eyes widened with fear and worry. "Ledias!" he yelled. He sheathed his dagger and ran to where he heard the scream. He didn't want to lose a close friend of his. He ran out the door.

As they ran outside towards the scream, Phil saw what he dreaded the most. He saw Ledias lying outside a tomb with no entrances. She was covered in plants and tears covered her face, her mask lowered, revealing her beautiful tear-stained face. Phil ran up quickly and cradled her in his arms. She was cold, like a corpse. Tears started to fill Phil's eyes until he saw her chest rise and fall slightly. She was still breathing, barely holding onto life, like holding onto a spiders web over the gaping chasm of death.

Her whimpering was faint as she kept saying a name between breathes.

"Grog…"

In her hand, she held an old pocket watch. In her other hand that she cradled, she held two large familiar hands. They were Grog's hands.

Phil lifted her up in his arms like a princess and started walking towards the middle of town. He was dead silent. Had Slayer would have cracked a joke at that moment, a dragonborn's head would be joining the collection of the dead along side the hands. The three of them decided to also follow him in silence. As they marched towards the town's center, a limping elf and Rogue approached them.

"Man you should have seen Justin Time! He was like, 'WOOSH' and then, 'STHAAAP', and then…" Sorvex fell silent as he saw that Phil was carrying Ledias's limp body. They too followed them in silence.

They found a building that wasn't in shambles with lights flickering inside. They opened the door to find Cyprus jugging a whole barrel of alcohol on the spot, her face red from being drunk.

"Hey ya'll!" she yelled at them, not aware of what just happened outside. Riley sat there too. He was too young to drink booze, yet he still downed the beverage.

"Hey!? Where are y'all going? Come and enjoy a nice drink!" she tripped over her feet, trying to approach them. They ignored her and went to the second floor where all the beds where. They chose the most tidied up one and placed her unconscious body on the bed and started to take off her armor.

They let Midnight clean her, since he felt no lust towards anybody but his own species, and gave her new clothes and wrapped her in a blanket. They placed the Goliath's hands on the counter next to her and left the room. They all sat at the bar in silence, as Cyprus and Riley fell asleep on the cold floor.