The rest of downtime is resolved.
Dareth Lion'el keeps his downtime secret for a little bit.
Mikhail spends the rest of the week with Arilki Rayshine at the Central Temple, learning some new things about him, the Temple and Zendria Rayshine in the process.
Zora talks with Captain Ukren Schwerter, asking for the password that Zora needed for The Hole, thinking it's for a fight pit, and Ukren gives Zora a strong warning and some advice regarding a certain topic.
Sooty transfers some spells into their spellbook.
The morning after their week off, the Agate Seekers were told to come into the cafeteria later for lunch than usual. When they did so, they couldn't help but notice some adventurers passing them with a little bit of well-meaning envy on their faces. Going inside, they saw a smaller group than usual, consisting out of several silver-star leaders of the Liwilai Adventurer's Guild, Ukren, Maylin Aeleni, Beheilu Assefa, Arrelcu Prasinus and Esme O'Doherty. A bit weirded out, the party sat down, only for party-poppers to go off and a feast to be rolled out, with fancy appetizers, good wine and a whole roast pig. Derath himself was quite pleasantly surprised, not expecting for Ukren to go so all-out when he told him of the idea of a feast... Only for Kilbi Leaftooth to pipe up that most of the food choices were her idea.
A party is had to commemorate the things the Agate Seekers have gone through so far, copious amounts of alcohol are consumed and Dareth gave a short speech (after drinking quite a few glasses and mugs of wine), and Dareth gives the party one pendant with an agate each, which he procured from the jeweler last time.
Eventually, Zora (under adult supervision) drinks a little too much, but is helped by Ukren with a well-placed Lay-on-Hands, while Dareth, drunk out of his mind, calls out Philomena about how he thinks she doesn't like him; which she gladly corrects. She doesn't dislike him; if she did, she'd have stolen all his clothes and armor, and let him wander the city in his underwear.
Dareth then shifts his attention to Mikhail. While completely drunk, he asks why he looks so girlish, it's confusing him, and making him feel funny things. Sooty took this as a cue to cut things short, cast a sleep spell and put Dareth to sleep. Everyone else then brought him to bed and also called it a day; but not before Ukren told them to please meet him the next day.
The next morning, Sooty told Dareth about what he said, and he, frantically, apologized to both Philomena and Mikhail during breakfast. The party then met with Ukren; as Maylin also joined the conversation for a little bit. Ukren is going to approve the party for a rank-up mission to Rook Rank soon, which would allow them to go on missions all across Liwilai soon. However, the party needs to finish at least one more mission before the rank-up mission can be finalized, so he recommends them to look on the quest board.
The party notices that Ukren is a little out of it by the end, and Ukren confesses that he's been thinking about an old member of the pawn rank, who was let go due to an incident that include him firing a fire-arrow in a warehouse with black powder. This man, Tovic Skotini, has been ambushing rookie adventurers in the south with his brother as revenge, trying to get people to quit the guild, due to his own frustrations, as being in the adventurer's guild was his dream. Ukren's feeling a bit out of it, as he heard that they apparently ambushed the wrong people and Tovic's brother and several of his buddies who joined in were killed. He's thinking of paying their mother for the funeral.
Philomena then admitted that the party did that. Ukren was not happy, as he was planning on getting him off the streets with a new job in the support rank, but reluctantly accepted that it was done in self-defense. The party apologized for giving him more paperwork and then went on to look through the available quests.
The party eventually chose two quests; as one of them may be related to the kobolds the party helped, as an explosion was heard near Vant'ra, before undead monstrosities were sighted near the town. The party took on the quest to investigate that, as well as a quest of a local dairy farmer to protect his livestock, before leaving the city. While making their way to Vant'ra through Castra, they stayed at an Inn owned by a dog-loving Orc man with two labrador retrievers and a golden retriever.
On their way to Vant'ra though, the party found a sketchy merchant who apparently was selling stolen ceremonial daggers, growing hostile when questioned. A fight ensued and was quickly finished when Dareth (accidentally) killed him by chopping off his leg. His bodyguard, a man called Roger Moonflower, immediately apologized and surrendered, and Philomena let off an insensitive comment, jokingly calling Dareth a psychopath, leaving him hurt, with Philomena following him, frantically apologizing.
That night, Dareth proceeded to have some heart-to-hearts with Philomena and Mikhail, the latter of which once again left Dareth quite flustered. And with that, the party approached Vantra just a few days later.