This version of the synopsis is much better, I feel:
After a disastrously failed quest leaves them unemployed, four professional heroes team up with an elvish refugee to stop dreamborn monsters from giving birth to an ancient creature of nightmares. If they succeed, they might just get their jobs back.
This is a fantasy tale that focuses on the characters as much as on the high adventure. A series of five episodes focus each on one of our protagonists – Allar, a half-elf warrior with no purpose in life, who adventures because he’s an outcast everywhere but the road; David Waryeye, a Jispin gnome mage and old friend of Allar’s who just wants to give up on heroism and go home; Lacy Ursdail, a scholar of monsters and myths who uses her growing love for Allar as a crutch against her self-doubt; Babb, a fierce Geidon minotaur who has never had to care for anyone but himself; and Tri’ni Gren’eys, an elf girl from the caves of the Great Below, on the run from the dream creatures called the Trillith, who are pursuing her for a secret held by her dead father.
The core four – Allar, David, Lacy, and Babb – trap themselves in caves beneath the earth after they release an ancient immortal evil from a tomb they were hired to rob. They press into unknown tunnels, and when they find the elf girl Tri’ni beset by monsters, they rescue her. Tri’ni’s presence reminds Allar of a time when he was more violent and cruel, and he turns his worries to anger against her. His companions, however, accept Tri’ni’s help to guide them to the surface. But the way is blocked by a Trillith that twists Allar’s confusion into rage, and it is only the unlikely intervention of the immortal evil they freed from the tomb that lets them slay the Trillith and reach the surface. To redeem himself, Allar agrees to let Tri’ni come with them, so he can protect her and redeem himself.
So begins their long journey to Lyceum, the homeland of adventurers. Along the way, unwanted adventures keep finding them, and each new challenge makes them doubt more the value of slaying monsters for glory: David becomes bitter when he is unable to convince Allar to abandon adventuring; Babb feels guilt for not protecting Tri’ni after a strange wanderer named Seekan steals her memories of her father; and Lacy loses faith in herself and her friends after she is kidnapped and tortured by a mage in league with two Trillith. Allar begins to fall for Lacy after he rescues her, but her recent trauma makes her distant. Though Tri’ni begins to adore the romantic life of an adventurer, the others grow weary of the danger, and by the time they reach Lyceum they want nothing more than to be rewarded with a hero’s welcome. Instead, they find out their employer is broke, and they’re out of a job.
Despondent and uncertain, the group dumps Tri’ni in a boarding school and are about to part ways for good when they are offered a new job – henchmen of the famous Sir Nicholas Dragonsbane as he travels the world to slay a dozen famous monsters. Hoping for a bit more time to plan what to do with their lives now, they accept, though David only agrees when he learns the tour will pass near his and Allar’s homeland of Tundarasne.
The tour is a steadily worsening failure as mythic monsters end up being merely myths, but in Tundarasne, as Sir Nicholas pits himself against the spirit dragon of Tundarasne, the group encounters Trillith seeking to steal the spirit dragon’s soul. Lacy slays one and the rest are driven off, and David’s concern for his homeland motivates him to investigate what the Trillith were up to. With magic, he contacts Tri’ni in Lyceum and has her help him research, in exchange for a promise to teach her battle magic.
Meanwhile, Lacy finds that she has gained mind-reading powers from the Trillith she killed, which she desperately tries to keep secret from her companions. Allar, thinking she is sad and hoping to win her heart, lies to Sir Nicholas and convinces him there is a monster to slay near Lacy’s home town. Lacy’s homecoming only drives her further away, though, as she hears the disapproving thoughts of those she grew up around. She breaks down and flees into the wilderness, but Allar follows her. Forced to spend the night together huddled for warmth, they finally act upon their desire and love for each other, and Allar convinces Lacy to come back and reveal her secret.
This proves a key clue in David’s research about the Trillith, and Tri’ni uncovers a legend about a great monster called the Mother of Dreams. Someone has been observing her research, though, and Babb wants to go back right away to protect her, but Allar is still uncomfortable around Tri’ni, and the final leg of Sir Nicholas’s tour will take them to the ruined library of Yen-Ching, where David thinks he can find more about this ‘Mother of Dreams.’
At Yen-Ching, however, they are ambushed by Trillith, taken captive, and abandoned by Nicholas, only to be freed by Crassus, an ally they thought was killed by the immortal they released from the tomb. Crassus tells them that the immortal creature is helping the Trillith release the Mother of Dreams, and Seekan (the creature who stole Tri’ni’s memories) has been stalking the girl in Lyceum. The Trillith dispatch a warrior to kill Tri’ni, and the four heroes escape and rush to save her. Unaware of the danger, Tri’ni is attending a theatrical performance when she is attacked. A climactic fight breaks out during the play, and the heroes manage to slay the Trillith assassin and capture Seekan. He tells them that he is trying to stop the Trillith, and that they must follow him to learn the full truth, and soon thereafter he escapes mysteriously.
Word of the dramatic battle spreads quickly, and countless nobles seek to hire the group. As the novel closes, the characters have all grown into heroes in their own right, and together in a nervous bond of friendship they set out on their first true quest, down to Tri’ni’s homeland, down to the Great Below.
