Kat found herself being led through a town, or perhaps a city? The lines between the two blurred somewhat when you could see the people walking everyone and there were no cars. The town itself was a strange mix of brick and wooden housing alongside perfectly smooth structures that looked like they were made of this ash grey marble substance. *Why would you ever have such ugly buildings around.* Kat poured some energy into her eyes to get a better look at them and quickly found the answer. Any grey building was layered in countless runes, and while the grey buildings were by far the least common, they all stook out like sore thumbs.
The other thing that stood out to Kat was the surprising number of flowers around the place. They didn't seem to be particularly well kept but every building had at least a flower patch nearby and most had them thrown all over the place. Using the same trick to try and find anything about them all Kat could see was normal flowers. Even ramping the energy up significantly slowing down her perception and seeing the crazy detail she had to be careful with, there wasn't anything to suggest they were anything but normal flowers
"What's with all the flowers around?" asked Kat
"It was discovered that high concentrations of magical energy that gather in places such as cities tend to cause issues given enough time. The solution that was found is to plant excessive plant life, specifically a few varieties of flowers, and replace them every year or two. This prevents a great deal of magical catastrophes" said Nixilei
"Huh, I never knew that" muttered Gareth not intending for the others to hear him, and yet this statement only missed by Kress, though the others chose not to comment.
The group continued making their way through the city and the crowds started to thin out. Kat thought this might be a decent chance to find out what had happened to the previous fifth member of the team. They were still in a public enough place, but at the same time, the team had picked up the name 'unfortunate four' so Kat assumed that whatever had caused their team members to leave, it was fairly common knowledge. "So, about your previous members. What happened exactly? Green said I'd get told once I accepted the deal"
Gareth paled ever so slightly at this, Kat was only able to notice using the remnants of her enhanced vision, as he started to speak with a thinly veiled calm "Well, some strange things happened, none of them were really our fault, actually most of them have nothing to do with the rest of the team at all"
"Aren't you responsible for the arrow though" asked Kress 'innocently'
"I was holding off five other goblins at the time. I'm not a babysitter, I'm the defender" said Gareth with confidence that only came from repeating a line countless time.
Kress and Gareth looked like they were about to side-tracked so Nixilei stepped in quickly before things spiralled out of control. "As you have heard, we have been assigned the moniker 'unfortunate four', this is due to the number of strange things that have occurred to our fifth members causing them to leave our team for one reason or another.
"We have no reason to believe that any of these individual instances are connected, however a few rival teams started to spread a number of rumours saying that we were responsible for all these problems, or that we were cursed, and even some that say we'd gone through more than twice the true number of applicants.
"To start, please realise that we built the team with the four of us in mind, and the fifth person was always a bit of an unwanted addition. We always understood that we would have to enter the tournament, and that we'd need a fifth, but it wasn't until recently that we'd even bothered to look.
"The first person who joined us was perhaps the best fit for the team we have ever had. He was very quiet but was able to observe the battlefield well like myself, casting spells from afar and never getting in anyways way. Well, he was called to attend his mothers funeral and had to leave the party"
"Oh, I'm sorry for your loss" said Kat
"Don't be, his mother was the most wanted serial killer in the neighbouring five kingdoms. Her death was sought after by many people from other criminals, to bounty hunters, to the church. Hell I even heard of a few innkeepers that figured out who she was when she was staying at their place that tried to poison her" said Kress
"Um, what?" asked Kat confused "Is it rude to ask what killed her in the end?"
"Heart attack" said Kress "Feel sorry for the bastards that found her. They didn't even recognise who they brought into the guard station. They were shocked with they were handed the bounty and a medal of honour"
"Ah, um… right, well what about the others?"
"Oh, there was that guy that got trampled by Tauronoks" said Kress
"Ah yes I remember that, how is he by the way Kress, you knew him better than I did" said Gareth.
"Well, you know about the court hearing, right?" Gareth nodded "Well, turns out that one of the Tauronoks broke their leg stampeding over him, and technically he was trespassing at the time so he's still working of the debt from that" said Kress
Green, not wanting to be fully left out whispered to Kat "There was this one girl who stepped on a teleportation circle in the ruins"
"Indeed, we never did find her again. I initially thought that it had to be a genuine sabotage attempt but after I investigated it seems like that circle was ancient. We did here a loud voice saying something about a demon lord, but only Green and I could hear it, perhaps it was our imagination" said Nixilei. Green pouted at her friend, not truly upset she'd stolen the story from her but a little put off.
"There was also that time our wizard took an arrow to the knee, all Gareth's fault really" said Nixilei
"I already told you, I was holding of half a dozen goblins, I couldn't block an arrow on top of it all" said Gareth.
"Don't you have healing magic? Why didn't he recover?" asked Kat
"Well, I did heal him, but a piece of the arrow was lodged into his kneecap, and I can't heal metal out of a body, I can only fix what's broken" said Nixilei
"There was that other poor sod who got forced into a marriage by his parents so had to join his fiancés' team instead. Poor guy" said Kress wiping away a fake tear.
"Hey, Wiltrud is a nice lady, and a decent combatant. There is nothing wrong with joining her team" said Gareth.
"Right, except for that fact they hate each other's guts and were raised to fight about every little thing in that stupid dick measuring contest their houses were having at the time. I give it 3 years, no 2 tops" said Kress
Gareth looked to refute Kress' point but seemed to realise that he was probably right so thought better of it.
"Um, who else was there" muttered Gareth
"There was Geor-" Gareth immediately cut Nixilei off "We don't speak of him. We do not even utter his name. He doesn't exist, he will cause us no more problems. Correct"
"Ah, yes you're right, actually. What are you talking about Gareth? I can't remember the person in question at all. There only other person who tried to join our team was Una, but she had a house fall on her" said Nixilei.
"Did a house she was in collapse? Did everyone else make it out alright?" asked Kat
"No, Una had her house ripped out of the ground and dropped on her head" said Garreth.
"And she deserved it to" said Green.
"Now now Green, it's rude to speak ill of the dead like that" said Gareth.
"But she did. She was marrying into one of the strongest earth mage families in the kingdom, apparently her husband really liked her, and instead of spending time with him she spent all his money traveling around sleeping with anyone she could get her grubby little hands on. Disgusting behaviour from a disgusting woman" said Green, and Kat was surprised at the vitriol contained in that statement.
"Um, I'm surprised you seem so, ah, insistent that she deserved it Green" said Kat.
"She tried to take my Gareth away from me. I hated her, she already ruined her own love life, why did she have to try and attack mine too. It's just plain rude. If I was an earth mage I would've dropped the house on her as well" said Green.
Gareth slowed down a bit to pat Green on the head. Green responded with a big grin on her face and pushed into his hand in response. "She was never going to sway me Green, you didn't have to worry"
"I wasn't worried, I trust you. Doesn't mean I wouldn't want to drop a house on her though" said Green with a pout.
Kress just laughed at the two, enjoying the look of a pouting Green getting pampered by Gareth as he whispered under his breath "I'd do the same thing Green" though this time, only Kat caught the whispered message to the winds.