The adventure

Back in Arnika they got another rumour from Myles; the bank was robbed a week ago, and a precious diamond nabbed by some hoodlums. They should find and return the thing, he suggested. His concern for the bank would have been touching, were it not for their looting of its most secure vault only a day or two ago.
The friends stopped in on He'Li, who told them to keep Fuzzfas' potions, since she had so few customers nowadays, and then set out for the monastery once again, to loot the tomb for which they now had the wheel key.
On the Arnika road they met a group of highwaymen, who, now that the friends had learnt a bit more about mediaeval fighting and magic, were little challenge. The higwaymen realised this too, and ran away, leading the friends into a pack of brigands. The brigands were tougher, but seemed beatable too. However, during the fight Karen managed to miss her opponent entirely nine times in a row. He took the opportunity, as she flailed wildly, to stab Shu Ting in the back. Shu Ting collapsed in a heap under his smug face, which Karen finally managed to smash apart, just a tad too late. Once they'd cleared up the men, Quentin used the last of the dust from the monastery on Shu Ting, and they healed themselves slightly before meeting four more brigands; perhaps a scouting party of the main group. They were quickly dispatched, with no silly mistakes this time.
The met some crimson poppies, living plants again, which sent the whole party to sleep, except Salva. His quiet voice wasn't enough to disturb the friends from rest, and Margreet only awoke when she had almost been killed by a vicious lashing from one of the poppies. When Vi awoke they killed the plants quickly.
"I'm all for trying new things, but that's too much!" Margreet exclaimed
"You should have told me when I still had the bullwhip." Quentin regretfully replied.
9 ants and 6 highwaymen later they arrived at the monastery, which was as empty as a tomb... the tomb, on the other hand, when they opened it, had two screaming heads inside. Their magic was no longer frightening, and when they'd been returned to death the friends looted the tomb, finding a superb bow and sword, called Demonsting and Demonsbane respectively. Shu Ting swapped her tired enchanted Katana for Demonsbane, and took the 'sting too, since Karen eschewed ranged combat for Bloodlust. Quentin kept for himself an artefact he identified as an amulet of healing, a wonderful item that combined protective magic with gradual magical healing.

Outside the monastery they headed north, further away from Arnika, to explore the northern wilderness and perhaps find Mt. Gigas and the camp of the race of creatures called the Umpani, who had also landed on Dominus recently. On the way they passed a cave, whose inhabitants, once dead, proved to have been guarding a little hoard of weaponry, perhaps from lesser victims. They stashed the stuff away and walked on to the wilds.
Another cave was guarded by a battering hogar, which decided to chase Salva down. His bullfighting heritage showed strong, and he rather bemusedly sidestepped out of its every charge whilst the others sliced the thing as it ignored them, until eventually it collapsed. Karen dealt it the killing blow, and another few besides, until she realised that the splashing blood was already congealing.
The hogar had been guarding little of interest: there was a spellbook that they couldn't identify, and a magical instrument whose magic, again, left them in the dark.

Crossing the wilderness they found two emerald slimes, which blended into the background enough not to be noticed, and avoided. The first they killed easily, although a spray of its noxious goo made Karen sick. The second repeated this feat on Vi and ST, before paralysing Margreet, leaving the boys to sort the thing out. Quentin scored the kill, and used his magic to soothe their nausea. When Margreet's paralysis wore off they looted the items sitting at the bottom of the pond that the slimes must have been using as their home. There was another spellbook, but the spell, Quentin said after reading it, was barely worth learning.

They saw a little smoke in the distance, and, closing on it, ambushed some bandits, whose leader, they found, had a very large diamond. They stashed it away before moving towards a large metal bridge over the gorge that bounded the wilderness. This led them to the Umpani base camp, where they met Private Panrack, on guard duty.
"STOP right there!" he bellowed, unnecessarily. "I'll have to ask you a few questions before I can let you in."
"Have you any flammable materials? Have you ever been convicted of a crime, on any IUF planet or elsewhere in the galaxy? Do you have, or do you have plans to have, ties to the T'Rang empire?"