Page 1315 -- CXLII.

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Chapter One Hundred Forty-Two: ‘Thine avaricious fever...’
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Finding a place to stay for the “night” turned out to be more difficult than expected. With so many in their party, no single location had enough space for them, and given everything the Rainlords had been through recently, Hector couldn’t really blame them for wanting to stick as close together as possible, especially with so many apparent hostiles afoot.

From everything he’d seen and heard so far, Hector didn’t think Babbadelo was giving him a very accurate first impression of what life in the Undercrust was like. Gangs roaming the streets, citizens hiding in their homes, businesses afraid of customers, no local law enforcement in sight.

The full story that they’d gotten from the Hun’Kui that they’d subdued earlier hadn’t proved very comforting, either. Apparently, there was some sort of recent political uprising in a place called Acacero, and Babbadelo just so happened to be one of the cities that it had spread to. And this business with the treasure hunt had only served to compound the problem. According to Mevox’s information, all sorts of unsavory types had been flooding into the city, and now they were clashing with not only each other but also the newly-formed government.

And as one might’ve expected, said government wanted the treasure, too. No doubt, they were hoping it would help to consolidate their power here and stifle some of this chaos--chaos, which, Hector had already witnessed several more times.

Such a large procession of foreigners did not go unnoticed by the locals, and when the Rainlords weren’t being attacked themselves, they frequently witnessed the Hun’Kui fighting amongst each other.

Hector was beginning to see differences among them now, too. Most Hun’Kui weren’t wearing much, but certain bands of treasure hunters distinguished themselves with colorful scarves, hats, or sashes--the latter of which were often lined with weaponry.

Which was another issue.