"You've noticed it too right, the atmosphere in here is..." - Kaz, in a low tone.

  "Like we are being watched." - Sleth said while seemingly unbothered.

  Kaz was surprised, he didn't pinpoint the feeling until Sleth said it. the party's faces all slightly darkened, except for Al, who has not arrived yet.

  "..yea, I also felt this on the way here." - Celi

  "me too.." - Zack

  "I didn't, what about you Sleth." - Kaz

  Sleth shakes his head, confirming he also did not feel it on the way.

  "so you both were being followed, did either of you somehow get on the bad side of a gang or black guild?" - Kaz

  "How could I have, I am too busy with my books to do anything." - Zack

  "I was helping with healing at the local church..." - Celi

  "..Then why would they follow both of you?" - Kaz thought aloud

  "Both essential to party" - Sleth

  "what?" - Kaz, Zack and Celi

  "Mage, powerful and unpredictable. Healer, Heal party." - Sleth

  "I get that, but why follow them and not me or you." - Kaz

  "Less, easy, weak physically." - Sleth

  "Ah, because they are easier to deal with without us." - Kaz

  Sleth nods

  "... then we have to stick together at all times." - Kaz

  "Speaking of, when will Al get here." - Celi

  In a dead-end alley

  "Arg. You Cowards! Fight Properly!" - Aldric

  Al looking up from his battered and scratched body up, sees 3 people before him, each wearing cloaks with a dagger in each hand. Even in daylight, Aldric could not see their faces due to the sun hanging in the sky behind them.

  Just as last time, all 3 people began to move at once towards him. Aldric who has not yet gotten a new shield, raises his backup weapon, a wooden 2 handed hammer. Though not the best, it does it's job in stunning monsters when needed, it's only weakness (aside from being made of wood) is fighting more than 1 enemy, which he is doing right now. Alone, in what he thought would be a quick shortcut, was in actuality a dead-end alley with no-one around. The perfect place for an ambush, even in daylight.

  Al manages to block 1 of the hooded assassin, but has to quickly jump back before he could fight back, receiving even more scratches where daggers had nearly been stabbed into. This dance with death had been going on for an hour, and it showed. Aldric who had only recently been healed, is now littered with all new scratches and grazes, any of which could have been fatal. Though such injuries did not affect his mind, it did his body, which was becoming more and more sluggish Along with having to be fully alert for this long is not something Aldric is used to.

  Though Aldric may be dumb and brutish, he was not a complete idiot, he knows if this continues he will lose. He has no choice but to take a gamble and pray it is not that durable. At least being brutish gives him ideas others would not easily come up with.

  When Celi finished speaking, A loud noise accompanied with a the noise of countless heavy object hitting he ground occurred outside, drawing the attention of everyone in the building, along with the 2 guards stationed at the entrance, who immediately rushed outside.

  While everyone was still going out to see what was going on. The clang of metal weapons suddenly began to resound, causing more than just a few to pull out their weapons and hurry out, including Kaz, Sleth, Zach and Celi.

  When they finally made it out and past the crowd, their blood went cold as the first thing they saw was Aldric. He was laying in a pool of his own blood as bones poked out from various places along his arm, which by the looks of it, was completely shattered.

  Everyone, after the shock had faded, immediately ran toward Al, Celi being the quickest to reach him and began to heal the various, still flowing holes of blood. The rest of the party arrived shortly afterwards, checking on him, seeing if he was still awake, which he was, though completely delirious making it impossible to communicate.

  After everyone but Celi arrived and realised they could not do anything to help, they turned their attention to the source of the clashing. They saw a group of 3 men, 1 blonde, 1 ginger and the last with black hair, each man had a tattoo on their neck, they were too far away to make out any details of the tattoo's.

  the 3 men were engaged in a fight with both of the guards that were in the building, who were wearing the standard inner town guard uniform with mostly leather armour with iron pads along with an iron helmet. Their leather chest plates each have an engraving of the towns inner guard. Leather strips covering a wolf with 2 spears crisscrossed in front of it.

  The guards, now identified as the inner guards, were clearly winning the fight, with nobody daring to step in, after all this is now official town duty ever since the guards began to attack, not to mention the now evident damage in the surrounding area.

  A completely collapsed wall along with countless pieces of rubble scattered all over the place, some having landed on a few unfortunate people nearby, the most severe injury, aside from aldric, is an unconscious man with a leg facing the wrong direction, the rest of the injuries range from broken fingers to bruises across various other people.

  After assessing the situation, the clashing began to die down as one of the assassins, the blonde one was pierced through the chest with a spear, after his associates saw this, they immodestly surrendered, not wishing to share the same fate, it is clear that one would be dead unless a saint came to heal him, which was impossible.

  Kaz felt a slight strand of happiness seeing this, but lost it immediately, falling back into his normal self which was worried about Al. Kaz who was about to tell Sleth to get another healer paused, he saw more people arriving, more inner guards who were escorting someone he could not see until he got close enough.

  Stolen story; please report.

  "EVERYONE IS TO REMAIN HERE, ANYONE WHO TRIES TO LEAVE WILL BE CUAGHT!"

  the voice belonged to the same person who was being escorted, and the person who Kaz along with a number of people know as 'The Eastern Inner Guard Captain' who is also known as Sir Guskis Alizar.

  Sir Alizar, after he finished his shout, walked over to the 2 guards who caught the criminals, at which both guards straightened up and put a fist to their chest, Sir Alizar exchanged the same greeting, spoke to both guards then began walking over to Kaz and his party. Everyone but Celi, who was on the edge of mana overuse trying to stabilise Aldric to notice Sir Alizar approaching.

  Kaz straightened and clenched his fist, at the sound of Sir Alizar's heavy metal boots striking the ground with his heavy full iron armour adding to the sound, Zach immediately tensed all over after feeling the aura of Sir Alizar, a recognised Knight approaching while Sleth remained as usual, unreadable and expressionless.

  Sir Alizar, after approaching and seeing Aldric in a near death state looked at Celi who was healing him, then to each party member, scanning each of them before finally landing on Kaz, the one closest to him.

  "Explain." - Sir Alizar

  "Y-Yes, we believe out party member was on his way here before being ambushed.. Sir" - Kaz said, nearly forgetting to finish with sir due to the pressure.

  "You 'Believe', are not certain" - Sir Alizar said while looking back over to Aldric.

  "No, but we do have reason to believe that, 2 of our members said they felt as if they were being followed. Sir." - Kaz

  "Hired knives. Cowards" - Sir Alizar muttered.

  "Why your group, are you a group of nobles bastards or the like?" - Sir Alizar

  "No. We discovered something of immense value. Sir." - Kaz

  "So it was greed then. Do you know who hired them?" - Sir Alizar

  "No, it could be anyone in the town. Sir." - Kaz

  "So, of how much value is this 'Something'." - Sir Alizar

  ".. It cannot be measured by wealth. It is a Dungeon, we still need the investigators to confirm it. Sir." - Kaz said in a slightly lower tone.

  Sir Alizar's face hardened and immediately looked into the crowd gathered around.

  "We will confirm if what you say is true, meanwhile you and your party are forbidden from leaving town. You may leave after we confirm your story." - Sir Alizar said sternly then walked away.

  Zach's knees gave in and he fell to the ground, while Kaz simply sat down, they had both run out of energy.

  "Hey Hurry Up. Carry Him To The Temple While I Heal Him!" - Celi

  Kaz and Zach immediately regained their lost energy, jumped up and rushed to carry Al, who is now unconscious and pale as a ghost.

  Elsewhere

  "Tsk" - A man with hidden intentions clicked his tongue, while he watched the party carry their friend away from among the crowd.

  'Lucky Bastards. I guess I should have put in more resources to get the job done, 3 were clearly not enough. It is time to discard some liabilities, we don't need useless idiots' - A man with hidden intentions.

  "Time to discard some cards." - A man with hidden intentions, said under his breath

  After he said those obvious code words, various people in the crowd along with a guard or 2 looked towards the 2 now prisoners.

  'At least they think those guys are hired, not that it will matter. That dungeon will be mine.' - A man with hidden intentions

  'Now to slip away. Even if I overlooked this crowd it would be impossible to notice is a single person gets away.' - A man with hidden intentions thought as he turned around, walking off into a shaded alley, leaving the guards none the wiser.

  "So he failed. Now it is my turn, why bother with all the shadows and mystery, we need a more 'Forceful' method. That dungeon will be mine no matter what." - A rough man

  "Yes sir. We will make sure of it." - Subordinate of a rough man said while bowing

  "Go, gather the boys, we will prepare for a hunt." - A rough man

  "Understood." - Subordinate of a rough man said, stopping his bowing he walked away and closed the door, leaving a rough man alone

  A rough man sat, staring at the backs of Kaz and his party, a bloodthirsty and cruel smile stretched across his scarred face

  While countless forces began to shift and move within the dark and light. The party was simply trying to survive... and claim their dungeon

  "We should give up on the dungeon, let's just say we were wrong or lied. This is getting too dangerous, I don't want to worry about some assassins killing me in my sleep or some noble getting involved." - Zach said resolutely and sternly

  "No, we have come too far, it is not like they will be like 'Oh, you give up, ok bye', if we give up the dungeon we will just end up being used as forced guides then fed to a dungeon." - Kas shrugged

  "Hate to say, but I agree with kaz on this one. Sorry Zack." - Celi

  "Agh. You are all idiots you know... But I can't disagree. We are going to die in some alley, aren't we." - Zach said despairing