(going to be skimpy because I was stupid and waited for too long and my brain leaked all the details)
The Second Round and Rivals of Destiny came into the Emerald Loop and had a moment of respite among the merchants that had stopped there for the evening. Tarre went about doing the mundane tasks of camping as Annalch puttered about with her alchemy set and tried to process the fact that her mothers were now dead. As for the heroes of the two adventuring parties, they gave the merchant some space and moved about on their own interactions.
Imvenda and Snype had interactions with the small family of goblins that lived upon the horizonback turtle that was stopped at the crossroads for a moment, while Esoh went to the assorted merchants to purchase a driftglobe and discuss things with the other merchants and Elara interacted with the Rivals. Among other things, coming to the conclusion that they needed to alternate scouting and guard duty, with the hope that the scouts would encounter problems away from their clients.
Over the next few days, the groups encountered a drow scout named Justice and his moorbounder being beset by a pack of hostile and wild bristled moorbounders as well as the site of a battle between the Aurora Watch and several demons. Unfortunately, the Aurora Watch were on the losing side and there were a pair of shadow demons along with several quasits sitting in wait for anybody that investigated the scene. The fight got dicey in a couple of places, but eventually the Second Rounds were able to put down the demons and lay the bodies to rest, collecting the dog tags. In the same couple of days, the Rivals encountered a bandit clan that they had to fight off twice and dissuade from interfering with their travels.
At the end of the travels the image of Bazzoxan appeared ahead of the towering spires of Betrayer's Rise, the cursed fortress that had housed the legions of the Betrayer Gods' minions back in the days of the Calamity and was now the site of a renewed influx of demons. The guards are quick to let the mercenaries into the building talking about how much they could use the help and after some exploring the group starts to congregate in the city's only inn, called The Ready Room.
They paused a moment to work out a help for an orc trying to aggressively weed a garden of demonic weeds and passed along hearing a drow mother lecture her children on what they needed to do in case she was killed. The city was filled with clearly abandoned buildings and the population that remained seemed to involve far more soldiers than any healthy city should have. Everybody seemed downcast and grim, whether they were in despair or holding to tight determination, cheer was far and away from this besieged realm.
As the group looked up to the spires, Elara had flashes of memory of coming through the city sometime long ago in her prior life, before the demons poured out of the mines. It had been on the watchlist as a former Betrayer God stronghold, but wasn't active at the time. Esoh remembered vividly being in the city as the first rampage of demons had torn through the town... just before her past life had died. Imvenda's sword whispered quietly into her mind and Snype vaguely remembered the sound of beating wings.
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