A day has passed since they had withdrawn from the Bogro mines. The loot they sold at the town square provided a decent reward. For the total of the broken armor pieces, about 4 glass-bead necklaces, and even a golden ring, they were able to receive about 65 silver. Despite the high reward for the group, it was clearly a high-risk job, especially for their current skill set which clearly me\ant they needed to change their environment.
Recent news came up that the ruined city of Azawe has become a battleground between the migrating Djinn, Kobolds, and adventurers from Manda, and the freshies were said to have not been having a good time at the battleground. This had naturally led to a sharp increase in deaths among adventurer parties, especially among Auxiliaries, who in disorganized war parties rush into their deaths. Despite being somewhat skilled, the party believed that rushing into the ruins again would have been suicidal, for the Djinn's did pose to have been a capable foe, and their last encounter was challenging.
However, a local Zanziyin merchant had informed them of a new area that adventurers seldom travel and has been under the radar, but recently has been a new visited area by adventurers who stumbled on this place. It was situated about a few leagues south of the ruins of Azawe, but it was a small town that was overrun by gnolls, but compared to their city brethren, they were only slightly better than their forest brethren only by gear and better formations, but that was really about it. The name of the town was Zarada.
What difference does it make? Wouldn't it have attracted the roving Djinn's? well the local had not informed them about why it fell out of the Djinn's radar, but he said it could be because human bandits who lived by the borderlands have made incursions within the town from time to time, and as these bandit warbands usually consisted of veterans, it could be probably that their experienced combat skills could have led the Djinn's to avoid a site of little to no importance.
Of course, the new opponents they will have to contend with now is humans, but it is definitely a more manageable threat than the Djinn who outpower the group in both skills and magics. In the following day, the party made their journey to the town of Zarada. The path to the town was shared with that leading to Azawe, but took a divergence where the group had taken a detour inside of a forested path, which seemed to have already been traversed by existing parties, evident from the fact that there was another auxiliary party at the path, except they seem to have consisted of locals instead of foreigners like themselves. Yet it did not stop the party members to smile and enjoy a friendly company.
"Hello! guess you must have heard from the locals about the town of Zarada?" a rogue from the group asked, as she approached the party, meanwhile the rest of her mates were taking a rest.
"Yeah, the local told us it was already public knowledge already. First time heading to the ruins?" Zemfina, surprisingly, engaged with the priestess. Usually she would have taken a back seat and watch the conversation, so it was shocking, yet pleasant to see her take charge of social events. Aitana seems relaxed to be spared from social duties.
"Nope, second time actually! we were supposed to meet our employers at the town, but they seemed to have not arrived yet, so we returned back to the path just to wait for them. They are fresh blood, so I can't blame them for not being punctual." she mentioned with a friendly tone, displaying no sense of anger or impatience, much like her party.
"Employer?" Diacrao's question arised from the back of his group.
"Yeap! you see, we are mercenaries and we were hired to be an extra hand to the auxiliaries!" the party turned their heads towards Conrad, whom the puzzled Rogue just looked at of in visible confusion, not knowing that they remembered his suggestion from a few weeks back about mercenary work.
"Right...so how much do you guys charge?" Diacrao came forward and took over Zemfina's spot, now having a few questions in his mind.
"Well, we charged them 10 silver, we decided to charge less for the new ones, don't wanna burden them you know? and besides, we consider the gnolls to be an easy prey, so it is no hard task for us to manage! Not to mention that some of the spoils will be divided to us as well! We see this as a win-win situation!"
Well it seemed like Diacrao had a new spark of idea, and he turned his head to the party, before turning back to the supposed group leader. "Right, so if you don't mind me asking, how long have you guys been engaged in this activity?" He asked.
"Oh we have been offering our services for quite some time, but now there seems to be a increase in demands! especially for parties heading inside the ruins of Azawe and recently, Zarada! Let me give you lot a few tips, if you do wanna offer your services, don't be pompous with the price, just offer your services for a cheap price and build your reputation, and soon, you will find your group to be highly sought after by even the lowliest of parties, of course, my personal motto is to treat every employer with respect and with an equal footing!" she shared her personal experience and tips to the party, and this was promptly jotted in the back of Diacrao's head.
"Right, thank you for the information, this was really great stuff and I can't thank you more for what you have shared, guess we gotta now, right guys?" He looked back at his comrades, who promptly nodded their heads. Their party gave their thanks to the mercenary and went on with their.
"I got a feeling that you are going to suggest mercenary work as one of our new side income, Dia?" poked Aitana who smirked at the swordsman.
"I hate you can read my mind." the swordsman responded with a tone of defeat, now that his thoughts has been exposed.
"Uh HELLO? I swear I remembered I brought this idea before!" Conrad joined the conversation.
"Sounds like a profitable one, but I shall say that we should gauge our own skills first and discuss this further after we explore the town Zarada!" Chiasoka reminded the group to not be sidetracked with the success of others, and the others seemingly agreed with her, yet Diacrao still kept the idea reserved in the back of his mind.
Thus the party marched forward to the town of Zarada, that laid ahead of them.