Romance and it's Downfall

Team Leader Adelaide sent Vance away on a long away mission during a rocky bit of their long relationship. She was angry with him for continually being a self-sacrificing git and he thought she was overreacting (and responded like the stubborn bitch he is) since it's not like he actually died this time, come on Addy. They decided to take a break from their relationship while he was away. He thought that meant a cool down period to get his emotions together without having to think about how she'd feel and decided whether or not he'd like to stay with her for the rest of his life. She thought that meant shopping around and seeing what else was on the market, and that turned out to be Chad, Vance's childhood friend and the third member of their team. Chad initially questioned her advances, but she was eventually able to convince him that this was what Vance meant by break.

By the time Vance's mission is over he's calmed down and misses the hell out of her and has decided that the second he gets back he's going have a serious discussion about respecting her ability to defend herself and not always taking the hit for her, because he just wants to be with her and he's willing to change. By the time he's due to return, Adelaide and Chad have been sleeping together for a while, and she's decided that they need to tell him together in person when Vance gets back. Unfortunately, a particularly gossipy superior that Vance had to immediately report to lets slip that Adelaide have been sleeping together and for a while assuming he already knew.

They get into a screaming argument, Vance is DISTRAUGHT, Chad is feeling guilty, Adelaide is unapologetic trying to explain, but Vance isn't listening.

He runs off into the nearby monster-infested swamp, an incredibly dangerous area where few enter and even fewer exit, leaving angry trails of literal scorched earth behind him, nearly setting fire to the less-damp woods on the bog's edge. It wasn't until the next day that anyone realized that he wasn't coming back and longer still before anyone thought to search for him, but once they did it was obvious where he had gone. Adelaide and Chad immediately geared up to head into the swamp after him, but were stopped by a superior, stating that it was far too dangerous, to which Adelaide spat that by that logic then it was too dangerous for Vance to be in there alone. Chad backed her up, "If your orders are to abandon one of the best of us in his hour of need then this is not the organization I agreed to partner with."

The superior paused and smiled sadly. "I thought you'd say that. And I can't really fault you, but SWEAR to me that you'll not go in alone. Find someone, anyone mad enough to go in with you and Promise me you'll come out alive, you and whatever unfortunate souls you rope into this mess."

Chad nodded, " I promise." "and I swear to give proper funeral rites to them if they die." Adelaide calls out flippantly over her shoulder.

Thus, they gather a party in the nearby village, offering some of the gold pieces from Vance's last mission to those who would head into the swamp to look for him. They all fight valiantly, the ranger nearly dies, and they slay a swamp drake before they come across something glinting in the mud. The party's rogue picks it up, rubs the mud from it and quickly comments on her disappointment with its poor value. Adelaide snatched from the Rogues hand, recognizing it from a year of it hanging around Vance's neck. The locket with the photo of his baby sister, she remembered the one time that he had shown her, "It's so I always remember... I do it for her." She flipped it open, worried the picture inside was ruined from the mud, but instead, she found two undamaged photos inside. His sister on the right half, where she'd always been, but on the left... Was their team photo. Her and Vance holding hands and smiling with Chad wrapping them in a bear hug around the shoulders behind them.