Final Target: Warworld

Introduction
After returning back to the village with a large haul of fish, the group had another celebration added to their list of rewards the job completion. Through the party, people kept asking whether or not the fish was really dead and all they got was how they no longer had to worry about them being hurt again. After the party died down and everyone went to sleep, Minerva and here group were sleeping off the party in their separate rooms.

Suddenly, Minerva woke up with a cold sweat as she felt a powerful magic surge from outside their hotel, She slowly walks up to Leo's bed shaking him. "Leo, wake up"

Slowly rolling over, Leo looked at Minerva, "You know what time it is?" he moaned. However, he instantly picked up on the same source of magic that she had. He quickly got out of bed, "The hell is that?" he asked quietly as not to wake the others.

"The same energy I felt before when we were looking for Sheely's bag, it's returned. I've noticed it somehow following us ever since we left the guild, come" Minerva said putting on her shoes and sweater as she waited for Leo.

Grabbing his muscle shirt, Leo quickly followed her out of the room and down the hallway. As they reached the frond entrance, they felt the source of the magic had begun to change. It was coming from behind the hotel, but seemed to be decreasing in power. "Come on, through here." Leo said as he sprinted of through an ally.

She followed quickly as they were now both on the chase for a powerful source of magic that seemed to be moving at every corner they could find. Eventually the magic was running out of places to hide and they were about to be right on top of it when they came into a clearing into the swamp as it disappeared.

"Damn it" Minerva said looking all around her to find the magic but couldn't sense anything as she turned to Leo, "Whoever that was, they were really tricky"

"Yeah, really." Leo said, pausing with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. "What do you know of that can generate magic like that?" he asked, scanning the trees for any sign of movement.

"Some with powerful magic, someone with a lot of experience, and very skillful if they could evade the both of us" Minerva said taking one last look around before sighing and looking over to Leo. "It's late and we have our last beast hunt coming up, let's head back to the hotel"

Stoping to think for a second ,Leo muttered, "Powerful magic, a lot of experience, very skillful..." he trailed off, then smiled. "Yeah your right, we need to stop this habit of night walks." He said laughing. "It can't be good for our health." Then he turned and began making his way back to the hotel.

After entering their separate rooms, Minerva found themselves in their beds as they slowly returned back to sleep to prepare for their final confrontation. As they slept, a shadow figure was standing on the other building looking into the window of the group's room.

"Damn youngsters, really know how to give there pursuers a hard time." Jaina muttered, munching on a fish she had cooked. One last glance at the 4 mages in there beds Jaina said "Guess I was worried for nothing." Then she took off down the street and out of sight.

After awakening the next day, the 4 mages boarded a train to go to the location of there last target, the forests outside Lowindell, the capital of Bantia. Arriving at a station just outside of the city, the group disembarked, and began walking towards a nearby shopping district to ask about information on the monster they where suppose to eliminate.

Stretching his arms, Leo said, "Good thing the train was quiet. We had a late night last night didn't we?" though he wasn't asking anyone in particular, just bantering.

"No kidding, I've always thought hangover's were worse than they looked, and my hunch was correct" Freeda said drinking from her canteen, trying to lower the pain of her headache.

"In any case, it's lucky that we still have a walk to regain our strength before we take down the last beast, speaking of which how much information do we have on the beast?" Minerva asked looking back at her team as they were trudging behind her.

"About as much as we had on the last two." Leo said sarcastically, "Though I don't think the counsel put a lot of thought into this."

Swaying tiredly behind him, Shelly said, "Though I can bet it's more powerful than the others. Something this close to a major city must be a danger to everyone."

"If that's the case, no more holding back this time, the beast must be stopped by any means" Minerva said as she kept walking with the others following.

"Is there a town near here where we can find information?" Freeda asked the siblings.

"Yes." both answered in unison, though Leo prompted Shelly to explain. "The capital is just a couple miles away." Pointing to some of the shops and stands ahead of them she said, "That's just the outskirts, but I'm sure we'll get the info we need there."

"Then that's our next destination" Minerva said as they all cheered and continued walking down the path to continue towards their destination.

Walking through the market, the group split up and began questioning other shoppers about there target. While everyone had heard of the attacks, nobody had any specifics about what they where up against. After an hour of fruitless searching, the mages reconvened at a small outdoors café to discus a change in plans.

Scratching his head in frustration, Leo said "Damn it, this is getting us no ware." Leaning back in his chair he continued to complain. "If I'd known finding out about this thing would be this hard, I'd have tracked down Kat and asked her to come with us. She a lot better at information gathering than me."

Shelly was drinking some juice she had ordered from the café. She didn't say anything about her brothers comments, but nodded when he brought up another member of there guild.

"Nothing is ever easy with these sorts of missions, but still we are almost done, we just need one good solid lead to find this new beast" Minerva said as she kept looking through the papers they gathered to see if there was any possible lead for them.

"Maybe this last beast is nothing more than rumor, so far almost no one has ever heard of it, and maybe the people who wanted them gone had the wrong information" She said looking at her group.

Leo thought for a second, then laughed, "Yeah, because the information we've been getting up till now has been so reliable." This prompted the others to chuckle along with him, but he continued "But the attacks are real, so something's out there."

After thinking for a moment, Shelly spoke up, "What if it's not a monster, but just thieves?"

"Maybe, but why? What possible thing could they gain by attacking the people and making them believe it's a beast?" Minerva thought out loud as they all started to think, "I believe we must ask the last known people to have been attacked by this "beast" "She said.

"Agreed, maybe they might have seen something out of the ordinary" Freeda replied as they nodded in agreement and got up, paying for their orders and heading to the location of where the last couple were attacked.

After a fifteen minute walk, the group arrived at a small trading guild. Though the outside looked similar to the other buildings, it was obvious from the condition of the place that the owners where going through some financial troubles. Approaching the front door, Leo looked back at his companions and knocked. "Hey, uh, anyone there?" he asked through the door.

Minerva slowly entered through the door first as to make sure there were no suprise attacks waiting for them, when she saw that it was all clear, she motioned her allies to follow in after her.

"...There's someone in here" Freeda said using her advance sense of smell to sniff around in the dark, making them all stand at the ready with their magic's powered up.

Just as soon as they braced themselves, a bottle rolled out from behind one of the counters, and a womon stumbled out after it. it was clear from her appearance that she was drunk, and from the multiple bottles laying on the floor, that she had been for a while. "Ho'b 're you?" She slurred.

Still a little stunned Shelly said, "Well, we were sent from a guild to deal with the monster problem around here." Brushing aside empty bottles with her foot, she began to approach the woman. "We were hoping you had information on it."

Minerva could smell the stench of alcohol coming from the entire house as saw multiple bottles on the floor, she knew that something had happened to cause this, but was unsure as to what. However, before she could say anything, a man jumped out from the shadows at Minerva. However, thanks to her fast reflexes, she managed to flip him over as he was slammed right near the group.

"What the hell?? Who is this person?" Freeeda said as she looked at the man to see if he was sevearly injured in anyway.

The man scrambled to his feet, grabbed a broken bottle and pointed it at the group, to which Leo and Minerva took up defensive stances in front of Shelly and Freeda. Quickly looking at there attacker, it became obvious he had been in a fight very recently. "Hey, Sto' Bugg'n my Husban'." the woman stuttered. "Leave, We'r' Closed."

After taking a closer look, Shelly realised that the man was just as drunk as his wife. "Hold on ,we're here to help." she pleaded, "Let's just take a minuet and explain what happened."