Mostly griping.

It's not hard to make out what the strangers are saying—they're apparently in the midst of a particularly heated argument.

"UUUUUGH, I can't be-LIEVE this. Seriously? You told me about this "super cool new quest" and we're fucking killing spiders? I hate spiders! I thought you said this game was 'fucking awesome' and I needed to play it. This is like VRD&D but, like, totally lame."

"Chill out, Meg, stop being such a bitch about this—it's a brand new quest in Ondell, what more do you want? We already killed the cats twice, this is a quick way to get more XP before we head into the Foothills, without having to wait another week in-game for the cat quest to proc again. I already made a burner character to level with you babe, stop making this a drag so we can get to the cool stuff."

They round a corner, and come into view—still far enough away you're at no risk of being discovered, but you can make out a few details. With a quick Perception check, you see...

Meganalia Emberwind, Level 2 Paladin of Samoht
Hero, Human, Active, Explicit
Time Since Created: 79 hours
Time Played: 13 hours

The bitchy one is a paladin, great—paladin means tank, and tanks are probably the worst ones you could come up against given your limited damage potential. Hitting armor would probably break your weapon, same with Jitter. As a small bit of fortune, though, Samoht is a fire god, and these storm sewers are nothing but wet stone; her powers are probably less effective than they would be otherwise.

xXx_ShoobyWoobyWoo_xXx, Level 2 Rogue
Hero, Human, Active, Explicit
Time Since Created: 80 hours
Time Played: 17 hours

Rogue. Okay, squishier—but more familiar with your type of fighting, which might be trouble. Plus from the way she was talking, you get the feeling xXx_ShoobyWoobyWoo_xXx (damn, and you thought Milky was a bad name...) is a lot more experienced than she seems. You wish you could get more detail on both of their abilities, but your gods-forever-damned-eye and its crippling 50% Perception reduction was in the way. Fortunately, it looks like the two women are the only adventurers in the sewers at the moment. Un-fortunately, it also looks like they're heading your way... until they take another turn, out of your view and down a tunnel you had never seen before.

Wait. You have never seen that tunnel before. Ever. These sewers were your home, had always been your home. You know them like the back of your hand, but... this was new. Looking at the others, you can tell they're thinking the same thing; together you creep forward down the tunnel, making as little noise as you can on the wet, puddle-dotted stones. As you reach the entrance of the new tunnel and peer down it, you hear shrill screams and the sound of a fight going on. They must be fighting the spiders "Meg" was upset about—not that you blame her, you hate spiders, and are really not looking forward to having a nest of them as neighbors.

But that's going to be a matter for whenever they respawn. For now, though, the adventurers are your focus, and this is a perfect opportunity for a quick ambush. Sticking close to the wall by the door, you wave Ratty across the archway, and she takes a position on the other side; Jitters, the smallest of you, climbs the thin ridge of masonry around the opening to ambush from above. Then you wait for the heroes—marks, now—to come back from their spider-****.

And soon enough, the battle sounds (and screams) die down, and the arguing resumes, as they head back towards you.

"I thought you said this was going to give me XP?! I'm still Level 2, I barely got anything from that at all! Ugh, and there's fucking spider juice all over my stuff now."

"Babe, chill. You did, like, zero damage in that fight. All you did was spam Hands of Fire in, guess what, the wettest environment in this entire city. If you'd used your shortsword you could've made Level 3 easily, when instead you were useless and I took literally all the damage from them."

"Why didn't you tell me that? You don't even care about your character and it's Level 3 before me! Now we have to deal with yet another barrel slime infestation, or kill those stupid cats again!"

Well now you don't even feel bad about this. The two players keep bickering, growing louder and louder until finally out steps the rogue, and the trap springs. You leap for her, knife out, while Jitters jumps on top of the rogue and Ratty jabs with her makeshift spear. And then... she crumples almost instantly, to the mutual surprise of all four of you. She must've taken a lot of damage from those spiders, so much so that your combined attacks were enough to knock her out.

"Oh my God! You goddamn cats, you killed her!"

And now the paladin is pissed. Great. Before she can draw the shortsword the rogue mentioned, you and Ratty are on her like a flash; your knife jabs into a soft point in her partial plate armor, while Ratty brings down the iron like a club on her head. Surprisingly, she crumples too—another perception check, and you see that she has a status called [Stunned—Short Duration] and a timer ticking down one minute.

Almost as stunned, you and Ratty stare at her, then each other.

"Fuck, Ratty, how hard did you swing that thing?"

Without answering, she swings it again—there's a sickening crack, and you hear two dings. Above each body, you see

You have fallen **** and there is no conscious party member to revive you. Respawning in town in 10... 9... 8...

You did it. The three of you actually did it. You took on adventurers and won. None of you had even died! And that meant that you got to keep the spoils, too!

As soon as the count ends and the bodies disappear, the three of you dump out the two bags of loot. There's not a huge amount of loot, but you're all more than happy with it. It looks like the paladin dropped an iron shortsword, plus three potions, 17 gold, a smaller amount of silvers and coppers, and a non-magical silver ring. The rogue, on the other hand, dropped a rondel dagger, a pair of boiled leather bracers, and an astonishing (to your eyes) 43 gold. But more than anything, what draws five eyes to it is the gem. The massive, blood-red gem that's labelled "Claimant Crystal." All three of you stare at it in amazement.

Jitter breaks the silence.

"We a-a-are going to eat like f-f-f-ucking kings."

You've never heard a better idea in your entire gods-damned life.