The party stayed in the inn that unfortunately only had one room left due to how crowded the city was due to the sand national this year. normally it wouldn't be so bad but this years sand national just so happened to be on the same year as the prince turned into an adult making it a once in a lifetime event. alastair tried to back out of staying in the inn since they could only get one room but he was vetoed by the girls and even erik who simply said he wasn't at risk in this situation.
In the end the entire group settled into the inn room that barely had enough room for everyone to stretch out comfortably. alastair slept on one of the two beds with erik separated by a makeshift leather barrier down the middle of the bed. the other bed had the three girls who simply cuddled with erisa in the middle due to her being the largest. like this the party turned in for the night and got a good amount of sleep before the early risers which is to say alastair erik and erisa all woke up.
The trio decided to leave a note for the sleeping twins before heading into the city to look for clues about this reinbow as well as sell off the excess materials the party had collected from monsters. alastair handed over the materials to erik "out of all of us you would be the best to sell these without getting a raw deal so I'll leave that to you." alastair said honestly. "right , I'll take care of this before catching up with the two of you." erik said with a thumbs up before walking away. after erik left alastair began to ask around about the reinbow while erisa followed along.
While asking around alastair found no less than ten different quest and this was only in this quarter of the city. this abundance of quest excited alastair since it almost guaranteed that he would level up at least once before he left the city. most of the quest were simple things that were common during large events with crowds such as being unable to find someone or a lack of product from over buying. these quest took alastair almost no time to complete with the exception of the supply quest since it sometimes required things he didn't have.
This is not to say alastair couldn't solve these quest because he still did but it required a little creativity on his part. out of all the quest he came across exactly seven throughout the city that had unique conditions to fill. the first required alastair to wrangle an untrained stallion that had escaped from the stables into the race track slowing the progress of the workers there. this was simple for him as he used the summoning whistle the village chief had given him to summon his horse , slate. the stallion seemed to show up out of thin air in all its majestic glory amazing everyone watching.
Slate was a huge horse thanks to alastairs feeding and training regiment towering over the other horses nearby by at least a foot and a half. alastair simply had slate follow him to where the rogue horse was and the result was to be expected as the horse noticed slate and immediately submitted from slates intimidation. the knights of gallopolis saw this and immediately tried to convince alastair to sell slate to them since he was the most impressive stallion they had ever seen but alastair could only reject them after explaining slates temperament.
The second unique quest was for alastair to participate in a duel as a stand in for a merchant. which to no surprise ended almost instantly with alastair parring the opponent and resting the tip of his word against his throat. the third quest was for alastair to pose for a sculptor who noticed his impressive physique. alastair removed his shirt and took the position the sculptor wanted which was ironically a standard bodybuilding pose that highlighted ones chest muscles. this quest took an entire hour which is a credit to the skill of the sculptor who finished in that time.
Erik caught up to alastair and erisa with the twins in tow and as a result the fourth quest happened were a street performer made a big spectacle of challenging erik in a test of dexterity. this test was a fairly simple but dangerous one were both people stab a sharp dagger between their fingers at increasing speeds until one of them ends up cut. unfortunately erik was extremely dexterous and won easily while the performer cut of his index finger at the knuckle. alastair and serena stepped up to reattach the digit with magic only leaving a thin scar as proof it happened.
The fifth quest gave alastair a headache as he had to keep metalbane away from a group of high smiths who had noticed it while the group was walking around. the smiths insisted that the weapon be studied since it had almost reached legendary proportions with the shear amount of effects it had. to the smiths no other weapon that they knew of had more than two effects while metalbane had exactly five not including its ability to eat other equipment. alastair allowed the smiths to examine the cursed blade for an hour but took it back when its influence began to show.
The sixth and seventh quest had the group running all around the city fetching various ingredients for some soup. then the same person gave them a quest for collecting the ingredients for a desert to go with the soup. by the end of this quest chain the entire party decided to simply ask the sultan directly about the reinbow. thankfully alastair gained a level and a half from the huge amount of quest he completed bringing his athletics skill up by thirteen which put it at seventy nine. the face like muscles on alastairs back grew more pronounced and he grew another two inches. as for the skill point alastair decided to hang onto it.