By the time we were let in and parked the wagon in the main plaza, the sun had completely set. I notice real quick that there is no light coming from any of the houses, except for one building which I identify as being some kind of tavern as it had an insignia with a badger skewered by an arrow called “The set’s den”. Other than that though the village was gloomy, the houses being made of rough lumber and the silence made it even more gloomy to me, but, well, I’m still used to things being made of squared-off concrete and bricks, so I probably just need to adjust.

Evan bumps me gently and says in a hushed tone: <You look like a child who saw a house for the 1st time… might want to be less conspicuous>

I shake my head to clear my mind and say: <S-Sorry, in the last village I could only really see the walls… I expected houses to be made with stone>

Evan sighs: <look, just come with us and don't space out… also you probably don't want to talk to anyone unless they talk to you first>

<Yeah Yeah, I’m weird, I know, I won't> I say annoyed, I might look like a child, but being treated like one it's getting more and more irritating.

I swallow my annoyance and follow the adventurers into the tavern, I expected the place to be noisy, but there are only what looks like two groups of people sitting around a table. 

One group is made up of two humans both of them look in their late 30s with nothing remarkable about them and they are both males, and wearing leather, but I spot a glint of metal under it, probably chainmail, one has a spear leaning against his chair, while the other has a two-handed double ax leaning against his; the other 2 are more peculiar, they look like wild cats, but they are the size of a fully grown human, one looks Linx-like with light brown fur and dark spots, the other instead looks like a panther, with pitch-black fur, my best guess is that they are female, or very slim males, as they lack breasts, they are wearing light armor, and both have a bow & quiver next to their chair and also a mace, most likely the demi-human version of the cat people. 

The other group is made of only 3 people, and one is an older man with white hair but trained body, another is a young male, must be 18 at most, well built but other than that unremarkable, the last one is a nice looking girl, around 20, with braided Caramel colored hair, she is wearing leather armor too and has a bow and a short spear leaning against the chair.

They all are talking about something being in the woods and when they notice us they stop talking and look at us, Lionel steps forward and says: <I’m Lionel and we are a group of adventurers, the people at the gate seemed pretty upset, did something happen?>

The group with the Demi-humans look at Lionel with distrust and the man with the double ax says: <I’m Pick, we are an adventuring group from the Dead peaks, due to circumstances that are of no concern to foreign adventurers we were chasing a group of renegades, they seem to have gone past here.> He sounds very stiff like he is choosing his words very carefully.

The girl from the other group says sounding sad and exhausted: <Many of my rangers went missing, there were about 20 of us, and now half of them are missing including my father and the other half are too scared to go out, we keep a good relationship with the magical beasts around the forest so it can't be them, it must be whoever these “renegades” are.>

The old man gestures for our group to join the table and says: <There is no point in being stiff here, I understand wanting to keep the matters of your kingdom secret, but your group is not familiar with these lands.>

As the old man is talking all four of the adventurers cross their arms as our group joins the table.

Lionel says: <while coming here we ran into undead animals and a weak Necra, we also found a dead body, but we didn’t think of trying to identify the body, not that there was much to identify, but if it was one of the rangers he is resting in a grave now>

The Lynx-like cat-girl says barely holding disgust in her voice: <and I assume you took a “token” out of the Necra?>

Lionel nods and says nicely: <yes, I was planning on turning it in the nearest city, but if it was your query we can sell it to you>

The man with the double ax raises his hand in front of the Linx woman as she seems like she was about to shout and says: <we do no take tokens, we are not keen on desecrating corpses, you can turn in your “token” for whatever your guild will give you, it is undoubtfull that that Necra was part of the renegades, in fact it might have been the group leader… the fact you killed him tells me the others might have scattered or hidden… hopefully hidden> he gives a big sigh and continues <they are as unfamiliar of this kingdom as we are, so I doubt they went far, and we can spend time arguing around this table as much as we want but the fact is, if the renegades have scattered or are in hiding they are gonna leave soon, wich means regrettably I will have to ask for the help of your remaining rangers> he says looking at the girl and then looks at Lionel <And I would like the help of your party, given that to work with us there is gonna be some rules to be set> he says as if he was being nice by letting our group join in, when it is clear that they are running out of time before this supposed renegades go their merry way and they cant follow them all.

I can see Lionel rolling his eyes as he says: <well I can at least entertain the thought, though know that we are going to the capital, we can't waste much time, but if the requests are fair we can aid. Also, and excuse me for having gone straight to business, can I ask you all for your names and who you are?> more focussed on the old man side of the table, probably knowing he wouldn't get much out of the foreigners.

The girl nods and says: <The name is Layla, Layla Walsh, I’m not the leader of the rangers, the leader is one of those missing, but the others will listen to me, the leader is my dad.>

The old man says: <I am the governor of this village. My name is George Huges, and this next to me is my son, he is a bit shy, though he works hard, his name is Scott> as he gives a kind pat on his son’s shoulder next to him, the boy just nods

Layla says to the foreigner group: <you can have the help of my rangers IF, you can assure me their wellbeing, they all have families, and I’m not keen on risking their lives especially against hostile magical beasts or demi-humans, we are supposed to guard the forest against overhunting not do an adventurer’s job.>

The foreign Adventurer’s party is clearly not liking our group words nor do they like Layla’s worlds and seem like they don't even wanna share their names, but Pick says still being very stiff: <I understand, our conditions are: first, for you adventurers, won’t take “tokens” or desecrate the bodies of the renegades in any way, maiming while fighting is understandable. Second, we are in charge, we will give orders and you follow, we know the enemy, you do not>

Bothersome… if we can't act on our own accord I doubt I can do anything “foxlike” and it's gonna be hard to harvest life energy like that.

Lionel says: <Fair, though we will need to be paid for our work if we cannot take a token, and as the Ranger girl said, we are gonna follow your orders only if we are safe in doing so, I don't want to put the life of my teammates in danger for a few coins, another thing we require is to know what kind of danger these “renegades” pose, how many are there?>

Man, this is all boring stuff, they discuss stuff I don't care about, but still, I listen to most of it. The gist is that there are 5 cat Demi-Humans, 3 of them are dangerous as they know how to set traps and hide, one of them is a decently powerful mage that uses wind magic, and another one was supposed to be the Necra’s bodyguard, the plan is to have the Ranger guide us to points where the renegades might be waiting and kill or capture all of them, or if they are scattered find as many of them as possible.

The thing that makes everything boring is that Pick and his entourage are all stuck up and what should have taken an hour of planning, instead takes what seems like 4 hours with Lionel and the ranger lady having to pry every bit of information out of him like he was a drug dealer being questioned by police. I do not look forward to this mission, not one bit, I can't wait to be ordered to march straight into a trap, but whatever, I just need to use my keen senses and hope for the best… no point in being negative, I already did plenty of that in my past life.

Anyways the Prying stops and George offers us a room in the tavern to get some decent sleep as there was no point in walking through a possibly trapped forest at night.