About a week after Alice and the others had passed through Danville, the same party of four hostile looking adventurers had returned from their trip to Canada, headed back south toward Vegas and beyond while talking about dragons. Jenni had tried to strike up a conversation, being friendly but also trying to elicit information from them. The woman adventurer had mentioned Iowa at one point, and Jenni had lit up, talking about how Alice, Bridgette, and Colin had passed through recently and wasn't it such a coincidence, more adventurers from there.

  Unfortunately, that had not gone well, the young couple growing angry and resulting in them assaulting Jenni, demanding every piece of information she could provide about the trio. When Dan tried to intervene, he got thrown through the front of the tavern by Xavier. The dangerous looking leader had held Dan down, making him watch as the creepy fourth member of the party, cd in a dirty and ripped robe, pressed his hand to Jenni's head and a sickly green light enveloped the woman. Jenni had colpsed, the adventurers ughing cruelly, as they threw around spells and lit different buildings on fire. Once their petty tantrum had run its course, they had left the town, warning Dan to mind his own business in the future.

  After that, the vilge banded together and resolved to grow stronger - repurposing a building into a bcksmith's shop as Dan began forging the kobold steel into weapons and creating a militia to protect the town. Jenni had not woken in weeks, her body slumbering and growing thin as it consumed itself.

  "Where is she, Dan?" Alice asked, sitting next to Dan on the floor, continuing to hold his hand. "Let me see her. I can't promise anything, but at least let me look."

  With a sob, Dan stood and led them back across the town to the tavern, unlocking the back entrance and leading them inside and into the bedroom he shared with his wife. Jenni y in the bed, sheets tucked up around her shoulders, her face as pale as a ghost and her body wasting away. Alice blinked, tears running down her face at seeing the friendly innkeeper's wife in such a state. As she stepped forward, Colin grabbed her hand quickly.

  "Wait, Alice. Something isn't right here." At Alice's curious gnce, Colin stepped up beside her, channeling a spell as his eyes began to shine with blue light. As he gazed across the prone woman's body, his mouth tightened into a scowl. Muttering profanity under his breath, he cast several more spells in succession, unhappy with the result of each. Finally, he dragged Alice a step backwards, turning to her and Dan.

  "Jenni has a series of overpping curses pced on her, from what I can tell. My speciality really isn't curse magic, but I can do enough of it to read the high level of what happened. The first yer of the curse is just a wasting curse - she's unconscious and will starve to death in probably another week." Dan sobbed at that, trying to step to Jenni before Bridgette restrained him.

  "Let me finish, please. It gets worse. The second yer of the curse is almost like a detection spell yered in with the wasting curse. It detects when someone starts to remove the wasting curse and triggers a message, passing the magical fingerprint of the person doing the de-cursing to the recipient. I can't tell who it sends to or where they are, I can just tell that they'll get an instant message letting them know that we're trying to remove the curse and everything about the person doing the removal."

  "The third yer of the curse is the worst, though. It's got its fangs embedded deep into the first and second yers. It's an immotion curse, set up so that once the message completes, it goes activates in a dormant state for thirty seconds, which is just enough time for the removal of the first curse yer to finish. Basically, you'd start to remove the curse, the removal completes, she wakes up, and then boom - she gets incinerated as well as everything within 100 feet of her in a monstrous explosion of demon fire."

  "What kind of sick fuck would set up a trap like that?" Bridgette asked, anger twisting her face. "And what can you do?"

  "I'm not sure," Colin admitted. "Alice? I think we need to pn this through very carefully before we go any further."

  The healer nodded thoughtfully, staring at the unconscious woman sadly. "I need to talk with Fi," she said. "But we have to do something to help her. I have to believe it's possible, even if I don't know how right now."

  The four of them left the bedroom, walking to the now abandoned central room of the tavern, sitting down at a table. Dan had started crying again once Colin began expining the yered curses and set his head down on the table, grief and exhaustion taking its toll on him. The wizard awkwardly patted the inconsoble man on the back, gncing at the two women, concerned about how to proceed.

  "First step," Alice began, "is I need to talk to Fi. Give me a few minutes." She bowed her head and began to pray, pink light surrounding her and a faint wind rustling her clothing and hair. As the minutes ticked on, her hair began to take on a pink sheen, beginning at the roots and flowing down to the tips, gaining luster and eventually solidifying as the woman opened her eyes, pupils dyed a simir pink. "Second step, is I need to go have sex Bridgette. Removing this curse is going to require a lot of stored energy and the sooner we can begin, the sooner I'll have enough to begin the curse removal. I'm just going to warn you, it may take two or three days before we're ready, though."

  Bridgette blinked, startled. "Wait, we need to have sex for three days? Nonstop?" Alice gave her lover a lecherous smile, pink eyes shining in the dim light of the tavern. Bridgette blushed, suddenly unsure of the role reversal. She was always the more forward, outspokenly lewd and aggressive partner, but suddenly Alice was taking the lead. Also, three days? Nonstop?

  "That's not a problem for your stamina, is it babe?" She asked, teasing the barbarian, who shook her head in the negative, refusing to back down from a challenge.

  Colin awkwardly cleared his throat. "What can I do in the meantime?"

  Alice sighed, gncing back over at Dan. "Honestly? Keep him alive and away from us and Jenni. Give him something to do, even if it's more bcksmithing. Get him to eat, take a shower, and pray. And you'll need to also study up on curse magic. I think when the time comes, I'll probably need you assisting at least in part."

  "If you can save her, I'll build an entire fucking shrine to whomever you want," Dan promised.

  "No need for a shrine, but she says thank you. Aphrodite will be pleased by just having everyone say prayers to her while engaging in carnal retions. The more people having sex, the more energy there will be in the area, and that will help me channel her divinity to remove the curse from Jenni."

  "You're gonna turn this whole town into an orgy, aren't you?" Colin said with a sigh.

  "Not necessarily, although she wouldn't be opposed to witnessing some rger-scale fun. We just need people with whomever their preferred partners are to get busy. Anyway ... Colin, if you and Dan wouldn't mind leaving, I think Bridgette and I need to get started. We'll come fetch you in a few days when we have the required energy gathered for removing the curse."