AMBITION

The Ambassador's Conquest

Prologue

“It's self-evident: passion begets passion. Emotion is intoxicating- it beckons that we drink from the goblet which pride, hatred, and avarice are fueled from. That fuel ends up not dissolving in the bloodstream, but bleeding through lips against that goblet's bladed rim.”

“Thirst quenches thirst, then?”

“So it is that the cup is ever overflowing. So it is that there will always be a need to partake- otherwise, our passion just stains the dirt beneath our feet. The dirt doesn't deserve us, Kallista. So it is… that others will always see what drips down your chin, and decry it as waste- and it is waste. But thirsty eyes hardly understand addiction- the two are too similar to be mistaken as the same.”

“Nexim… do you think you have free will?”

Lysic year 1381

The sky here was never blue enough to incite imagery of ice or sapphires, but once, it was blue. Now, all is polluted and blurred with the grey filth of smoke and dust. Smoldering fires stretched as tall as the gargantuan stone towers that had once stood; now naught more than rubble and coffins for sons and daughters- some of whom will decompose before they are discovered.

The fighting in the capitol city of Graycove has stopped, for the most part. The wicked invaders were either driven off, or retreated of their own accord. Their surviving victims mourn the brave soldiers who defended them, and the friends and strangers whom they could not.

For most of the city, it is quiet. The crackling of flames that will one day be smothered now serve as a hum, a backdrop beneath the quiet weeping of these people. None dare let themselves scream their misery, lest the demons who wrought this take vigor from it, and summon a second wind.

But in the northern quadrant of the city, as the crumbled walls and mutilated corpses grow in number, an unfamiliar sound can be heard. Unidentifiable, unless one had the poor sense to step past the rubble, past the warning smell of burning flesh, and breach the now worthless defenses of the castle proper.

There, though faint as it is, one could identify a voice; strained and tired, screaming with energy its host does not have to give. Trek even closer, and one's ears might twitch at the stimulating rip of thin steel tearing through flesh- over and over again, just barely off a measured tempo, like the ticking of a half-broken clock.

Damien Styx knelt atop the corpse of the Archdemon, having moments ago extinguished its life, but not yet satisfied to leave its husk alone. His hands gripped tightly on the handle of the gilded, glowing dagger above his head. His right, wrapped directly on the pommel, a bruised yet youthful canvas of callous brown flesh- the left, wrapped around the right, a withered chain-link of dry, ashen bone. It was anyone’s guess if this one was more flesh or folly.

A litany of seven glowing objects, matching the luster and beauty of the dagger in Damien's hands, scattered along the dusty floor. His every instinct prevented him from looking at them; he even refused to let his gaze meet the dagger he held as he plunged it into his enemy's chest. He focused only on the body beneath his breast.

"Peri!" Damien screamed. For every plunge of the blade into flesh, another- "Peri! Peri! Peri! Peri! Peri!"

Tears welled in his good eye, and spilt over to the skin on his cheek, flowing messily until its foundation of flesh ended, where it would fall off a cliff of bone and stain the cloth around Damien's neck. His hood was off; the shame of his half withered body was bare for any to see- but none did.

He was not humiliated; humiliation is a luxury of those who share the world. For when all that makes you flawed, when all wretched that you are is laid bare, truly then, you are alone.

Damien's voice cracked as his repetitious commands slurred to a scream of formless emotion. He poured every color of his soul into that scream: hatred, betrayal, confusion, pride, denial, love, regret… Damien was an orchestra of cracked steel, a painting dripped down the edge of a bloody knife.

But he sang to no one. Seven mistakes, and a body that had nothing left to give him. Eyes with no vision to validate his hurt. Damien was art with no audience, intent with no interpret.

Damien breathed in… in to a chest without lungs… and he sighed. He closed his good eye, but did not wipe away the tears on his cheek. He did not need to breathe, and his left eye could not close- could not keep from seeing- and yet, he did try.

He stood up, the weight on his feet little more than a static to him now. He lingered there and smelled the smog of death all around him. He bathed in stillness and silence, and dropped the dagger. Its messy clatter of steel bouncing on stone, an alarm, a blessing- finally, a sound that was not his own.

Damien looked to his left, through a mess of rock that suggested it used to be a wall. Out, past the fire and smoke and visionless bodies, was a field. And beyond it, a horizon. Did something stand between the two? Did some obstacle, some devil called distance separate them? Does it matter?

He took his first step to the left, and lazily turned his chest to match his gaze. His purple robes, dirtied and torn and defiled with cherished blood, dragged ever so slightly against the ground, and carried specks of the castle along its messy fringes.

Damien stepped over a brick, and with one more, his boot met dirt. He carried on. The throne room was behind him, but still the fire stood in front of him. Then the field. Then the horizon.

Fire. That frightened him once. Structureless passion, lashing about and swallowing its neighbors whole, only so that it could grow. Once, but no more. Damien was too familiar with fire.

That creature left the castle behind, and quietly disappeared into the distance. Minutes passed, and the castle remained still. None in the surrounding districts dared explore these ruins yet, so in ruin they remained, lonely and patient.

Then, a gust of wind- a flapping of wings from so, so far away. A small, blue winged creature swooped around the circumference of the throne room, and landed with a puff behind one of the few standing walls. Seconds passed, and once the dust settled back to the floor, a young girl stepped out into the fray, gently planting her bare feet beside the bent throne.

She cocked her head, and stared at the scene center the room with curious eyes. Her gaze brushed the corpse of the Archdemon, with all its unbefitting wounds, and the girl frowned- sad, but not surprised.

Her eyes panned over to the eight objects lining the floor. Many of them weapons, but not all. One in particular had the girl transfixed: a harp, somehow looking simple in the company of its intricately decorated neighbors.

The girl looked at this harp, just a few feet away from her fingers, and hardened her visage. Innocence and passivity left this room for perhaps the last time ever as they fled from this child's soul.

“Harmony and security sing such pretty melodies… but they are sirens. Both, remarkable ones; we might even need them to keep the crowd's ear. Their ears, rivers to their hearts and hands.”

“I think we'd all find harmony, when we embrace the best in ourselves. It's sad to think, but it might be our flaws that make us unique.”

“Careful, Kallista. In harmony, we'll always dance with conformity. A common line- our feet all flirt with it from equal distance; only our direction is our own. That common line, unsung as it ironically may be, holds such beautiful secrets, haha!”

“I'll never understand you, Akelli. What beauty could you possibly see in opportunity?”

“Hm… opportunity is a messy, and impassioned dancer. It's the bane of conformity. Of harmony- that's how it performs best. One must only bear the will to play a different tune.”

I

A Young Heart, an Old Soul

Lunar Year 2724

Alikath Navarre stepped out of the rickety, horse-drawn carriage with a yawn and a palm to the back of his neck. He lazily curved around to the front of the vehicle, nestled a gold coin between the tip of his thumb and the curve of his index, and flipped it into the air toward the carriage driver. Himari, a Half-Orc, used to his annoying habit of payment, reflexively swung her hand to catch the coin, but couldn't stop it from bouncing off her palm and onto her shoes.

"She should be just around here. Meet you back in an hour?" Alikath asked, already backing away from the carriage.

"Mhm," Himari grunted. "See you then."

Alikath clicked his tongue, and flashed her an 'ok' symbol with his hand before turning around and leaving. Facing the city proper, he breathed in, and basked in the salty air of Fortaleza del Valor Eterno- or as anyone who valued their tongue called it, Valor.

It was a city Alikath had been to many times by now; it was the nearest city to his home that wasn't guarded by twenty-foot-tall barricades, so the novelty of the port town had long since worn off to him. Despite that, he never stopped appreciating the impatient chatter of its import traders and sailors, the cyan gleam of the sunlight bouncing off the well-kept buildings, or the ever-stirring sea salt blowing around the cheery air.

It was a good bit more organized than his hometown of Servus- a good bit better off financially too, you could tell that at a glance. Inarguably, much of that was due to the potent meddling of Lyveria, the Kingdom beneath the ocean's waves. But Alikath didn't let that little detail taint his love for his neighbor. It was a port town, Aquatic occupation was inevitable. And as far as Aquatics go, they could certainly be worse for the local economy in other stretches of the Land District. If there was any city where land dwellers had a shot at standing up for themselves against Lyveria's Merchant's Guild, you could do worse than Valor.

Alikath strolled down the main road, kicking a little rock that had chipped off the cobblestone along with him. Built atop wide, gradual hills, Valor's neat stone roads bobbed playfully up and down at a slow, gentle rhythm, like the wading of a happy ocean. Alikath had to keep an eye on his pebble as it rolled down the hilly declines, and juggle it with his heels up the ascents. Eventually he reached the door of Crossroads, the busiest inn the city boasted. He sent the rock swiftly on its way, and spun around to push the door open.

Walking in, he was hit with a wave of invigorating tingles that spun his nerves. Like someone lighting a bonfire in front of him, his whole body was smacked with pleasant vivacity at once. It caught him a little off guard, but a quick look at the elevated stage and the crowd of half-drunken dancers revealed the bard playing a quick-tempoed song, infusing the room with energizing magic. Alikath chuckled, and resisted the sudden and unexplainable urge he was having to locate the bard's tip jar. He knew that temptation wasn't his own, not that any bard worth their coin would admit to such a harmless use of Suggestion magic.

Crossroads wasn't a particularly expensive in, by Valorian standards. But it was made special by a frugal attitude toward style; every piece of furniture and plank of wood was purchased with purpose. What's more, if the owner was to be believed, over half of the furnishing was local. An impressive feat, but an almost comically unlikely one for a port city.

The inn held three stories: the bar on the ground floor, the bedrooms kept on the second, and a large, cozy foyer on the third that was usually rented out by aristocrats, or parties splurging on festivity. The bar was the most abundantly decorated for obvious reasons; tables and booths of various sized littered the floor, kept company by the occasional sculpture or loveseat. A bronze statue of a mermaid leaned against the end of the bar, a golden sheen on her lips betraying the hundreds of lucky drunkards she'd kissed.

Paintings hung over every booth, depicting scenes of historical moments from all three of Solevi's nations, with a recurring theme of cooperation. A small army of Aarakocra wrestling a mighty bronze dragon to the floor, the three founding lords of Faelyon feasting with the monks of Raam, and a recent addition: a young Princess Genevieve of Lyveria passing judgment over the Raving Regent Rafael, while Soldier Prince Men Za-Hel defends her from his own father, Head General Rey.

He walked up to the bar, and leaned on the closest open spot to the mermaid. As soon as he did, he felt the nervous gazes of the seven or so patrons he was standing next to, as they fixated on his red skin and beige horns. The Tiefling kept his gaze fixed on his bronze neighbor, and tried not to acknowledge them- heavens know they might burst into flames if he dared to make eye contact with them.

Alikath's eyes flicked down to the mermaid's chest, a bad habit that Alikath did little to train himself out of, and he noticed that the golden sheen was not exclusive to her lips.

He chuckled, and poked the mermaid on the nose. "I admire a woman who gets around, but a shirt would save you a lot of headache, you know."

The mermaid coldly ignored him. He held his hands up in surrender, and turned away. "Alright then- excuse me for criticizing a professional."

The bartender; an older, scruffy Firbolg man with his race's notoriously bushy hair on display along his head, arms, and chest, poured a drink on the other end of the bar. He caught sight of Alikath out of the corner of his eye, and quickly served the elf in front of him- then the elf next to him, and then the dwarf next to him, before greeting Alikath.

"Ali!" The bartender smiled. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for an Aquatic woman, her name's Rosellia. You seen her?"

The bartender thought for a moment, and shrugged. "Sorry. I haven't seen an Aquatic in weeks. Don't serve 'em."

The two customers immediately next to Alikath chuckled; both were Aquatics. He rolled his eyes.

"Funny. She's a cleric- uh, church of Peisus, I think? Probably wearing white robes, does that help?"

"Mm… no, doesn't ring a bell."

"Really? Damn," he snapped. "I figured she'd beat me here. Alright, thanks anyway."

Alikath pushed himself away from the bar, and turned to leave. But as soon as he did, the bartender piped back up.

"Hang on, aren't you buying something? It's First Moon, got a special going."

Alikath hung one hand on his hip. "Alcohol? You wanna get me buzzed to meet a woman of the cloth?"

Alikath turned around, and looked the bartender in the eye. Without waiting for an answer, the bartender started filling a mug.

"Yeah," Alikath sighed. "Probably a good idea."

Alikath sat his ass back down, and started tapping his fingers to the beat of the bard's song.

Alikath stepped out into the street, a pleasant buzz in his head. He yawned, and looked around the vicinity. Crossroads' hanging sign creaked as it swung in the wind. Something about its rhythm sounded like a metronome, giving direction to the overlapping melodies of strangers boots clicking against the curvy cobble roads. Alikath figured the bard's magic must still be messing with his head.

"Not outside either." He fiddled with the sapphire ring on his left hand and shook his head. "You're big on first impressions, Rosellia."

Not wanting to leave Himari waiting, he elected to walk around and look for this stranger himself. He picked a direction, stuck his hands in his pockets, and let his feet carry him wherever they would.

Alikath was a handsome young man, pushing his mid-twenties, a sort of rugged boyishness making him look a little younger than he is. His black hair parted down the middle, hanging off his horns like drapes, and curved roundly about his head, flowing down the sides and back until it spilled out unevenly over the bright red skin on his neck and shoulders.

Some who had heard tales of his adventures and reputation might recognize him by his piercing, slanted eyes, or the sharp, toothy grin he flashed when he got underneath someone's skin. Those unfamiliar with him, but familiar with the organization he belonged to, would recognize his outfit: the asymmetrical leather breastplate strapped over the green shirt, above the plain white sleeves and pants, and boots that seemed perpetually two good miles away from falling apart.

Two miles he was intent on reaching, as he stumbled downtown and followed the trail of congregating passersby and whispering voices. A smile crept up Alikath's lips as he spotted a small crowd circling ahead, and a booming feminine voice coming from within it.

He snuck between the idle bodies, and caught a peek at the source of the commotion. There, sitting on her knees against the cobblestone path was a young Aquatic woman with long, flowing grey hair. Directly in front of her, an Elven boy laid out on his back, with one leg bent at a clearly unnatural angle.

The Aquatic had one hand gently holding the boy's head up, the other lingering above his torso. Alikath noticed the massive hole in the roof of the building immediately to their right, as well as the ladder collapsed on its side just off the road, and put the situation together in his head. By the ladder's legs, he also spotted a rose; recently crushed and hanging sadly from a crack in the cobblestone. He frowned, and listened to the Aquatic's speech.

She gave him a warm smile and stared vaguely at his forehead. "The gods have smiled upon you this day, Luca. For in his great wisdom, Sun God Peisus forsaw this misfortune befalling you, and sent me here to play your savior!"

The Aquatic looked up to face the crowd, swirling her hand around, stirring the air. "Fine people of Fortaleza del Valor Eterno, it is my great honor to bless you all on this fine day. Gather round and wait in bated breath, you are about to witness a divine healing!"

Alikath crossed his arms, and waited for this woman to get to the point. That poor kid- looked like it hurt.

The Aquatic turned back to Luca. "Now, Luca, put your hand in mine."

Luca shakily lifted his hand, which the Aquatic eagerly squeezed. "Now, my child, we're going to recite a hymn together. I need you to repeat after me."

Luca's brow furrowed. "I don't think we need t-"

"We're going to channel Peisus' energy as one!" The Aquatic interrupted. "Now repeat after me: 'En luz santa, mi carne se forje-'"

"Can we do this in common?" Luca begged.

The Aquatic pouted, and rolled her eyes, but nodded. "Okay, Luca. 'In holy light, my flesh be wrought. That my soul be pure and want for naught.'"

"In holy light… my flesh be- gh… be not…"

It was obvious Luca was barely listening, let alone repeating properly, but the Aquatic didn't seem to notice. She finished the latter half of her verse, and just like that, a gentle stream of golden light flowed from the Aquatic's aura and bent around Luca's body, like sunlight bending in water. Soon enough, Luca started twitching, and his leg twisted back into place. Luca bit his finger and squeezed his eyes shut to mute his screaming nerves. Painful- but it looked good as new. Alikath raised his eyebrows; the spell worked surprisingly quickly, if you don't count how long she took to start it.

The Aquatic let go of Luca's hand. "Now walk, child."

Luca hesitated, but pressed his palms to the ground, and sat up. He looked at his leg, bobbed it around a little, then bent his knees, and effortlessly got on his feet. Enthused, the Aquatic stood up beside him.

Luca tapped his heel. "Feels great! Thanks, miss."

"Of course, my love!" The Aquatic beamed, and held one hand high in the air, the other on her chest. "Such is only the majesty one can expect in the company of Lady Roselle!"

There it was. Alikath was right, this was the cleric he was looking for. He took a quick glance at the crowd, who had gone from confusedly whispering amongst themselves to quietly laughing at the scene 'Lady Roselle' was causing.

"Right," Luca began, "Well, I gotta get back to work, so…"

Luca walked away and picked his ladder back up. Clearly stuck in her own world, Rosellia went on.

"Spread the word to all along the western continent: Rosellia de Lusitania, Peisus' paragon of virtue and nobility, has arrived to spread health and prosperity to all in her path! Make merry, and rejoice! Your woes have met their vanquisher!"

The crowd started breaking up; now that the healing was over, people were bored. Alikath strutted up past Rosellia and stood close to her back, wondering how long she'd keep talking with her eyes closed.

"I ask not for coin nor service in return- all I ask, my humble brothers and sisters, is that you hold noble aspirations close to your heart, and spread them to the needy in the name- OH!"

Rosellia finally noticed the young man standing inches away from her, and jumped higher than should be possible- Alikath could practically see her precious soul leave her body when she took flight.

Sticking the landing, Rosellia took a step back from Alikath, and shouted. "What is wrong with you!? Mind your distance, Pox- you scared me half to death!"

He raised his eyebrows at 'Pox.' "Ouch. Not very clerical of you, miss. Does that word show up in your scripture?"

Rosellia cocked her head, not sure what he meant at first, but she quickly realized. "Oh. Yes, repeatedly. Who are you?"

Alikath bowed, and grinned. "My name is Alikath Navarre."

There was a cadence to how he pronounced his name; Ah-Lee-Kahth Navarr-uh. Such a syllabic emphasis was commonplace for infernal names, but could hardly be conveyed when written out in common letters.

"I had a rendezvous scheduled with a cleric matching your profile." He continued, "And that would make you-"

"Alikath!?" She gasped, pronouncing the name closer to how it is written.

"That would be me."

"Uh- yes-" Rosellia stammered. "I'm sorry, I just wasn't expecting to meet you yet! A million pardons, I was just on my way to Crossroads when I watched this poor boy fall off a roof, and I really wanted to be presentable to meet you, but I couldn't leave him there- even when time is sensitive one knows a noble never leaves a commoner in need. So I dirtied my dress, and I hadn't time to fix my hair- and now my energy isn't at it's most and heavens forbid I let myself yawn in front of a new acquaintance, but-"

Rosellia finally caught herself rambling, and corrected her posture, puffing out her chest and tilting her chin up. "My name is Rosellia de Lusitania, Lady of Thyme."

"It's nice to finally meet you, Rosellia. I've heard my share stories about you- and from what I've seen, none of them were exaggerated."

"Yes, well…" Rosellia looked around, noticing that the crowd had all but fully dispersed already. "Honestly, I was expecting more fanfare from the common folk- do they not care much for magic here?"

"Mm, it's not that," he shrugged. "Healing Magic just isn't as big of a deal on the western continent. The monks from Broker's Hold go on a lot of missions around these stretches, but don't cross the Matria very often. That's all."

"Hm. I wish I'd have learnt that before wasting a speech on these people."

"Oh, they'll remember you." He laughed. "C'mon, follow me, I still owe you a drink."

Rosellia smiled, and walked past Alikath in the direction of Crossroads. He started walking with her, but stopped and turned around, to look at a rose growing in a crack between cobblestone, standing tall in full bloom.

Once inside and at a table, Rosellia let her eyes wander. "This is the hotspot of Fortaleza del-?"

"Valor is fine," Alikath interrupted, already feeling a headache coming on. "Please."

Rosellia smiled. "It's cute. Reminds me of home."

"Really?" He asked, sipping his ale. "This place doesn't scream 'Thyme' to me, but I guess."

"No, Lyveria," she corrected. "Divitae, specifically."

"Oh, that's right."

Alikath got a good look at Rosellia. She wasn't wearing clerical robes- or at least, not white robes. Her dress, which hung down to her feet, was colored in the pinks and deep blues typical of Lyverian formalwear; a perfect match for her skin, with its light pink and eggshell white hues, but it was cut a little differently than what you'd find in the Kingdom.

He supposed that made sense, Lyveria was on the ocean floor, and their dress was tailored to be practical for that environment. It was only natural that an immigrant like Rosellia would wear something more tailored to life on land, with all its inconvenient gravity and whatnot. Still, Rosellia was from the Water District, and clearly wasn't afraid to show it.

Aquatics were, as far as non-fey creatures went, perhaps more similar to Elves than any other race in Solevi. They didn't have the pointy ears- they traded those for gills on the sides of their neck, and webbed feet- and their facial features were a good bit softer. But with a little bit of makeup, it was absolutely plausible that an Aquatic could pass for a convincing Elf. Strange, given that Humans, the genetic ancestor that Aquatics evolved from, supposedly had no recorded common ancestor with the Elf.

Rosellia was beautiful; every inch of her stout body was well-kept and maintained to an almost picturesque degree. Her face rested on a confident smile and determined eyes. Her hair, long and flowing as it was, didn't have a string or braid out of place all the way down to her chest, and her skin didn't have so much as a blemish or speck anywhere he could see. It actually unsettled Alikath a little, he compulsively studied the poor woman in hopes of finding a flaw he could relate to, or use to convince himself he wasn't talking to a painting.

It was in that search that he noticed her eyes again. They were golden- which wasn't that unusual, Alikath himself had yellow eyes- but there was a sort of glitter to them. It looked like grainy little rocks were reflecting light back out from behind her irises. That could hardly be considered a flaw, but it was something.

"How long have you been living in Thyme, anyway?" Alikath asked. "Why leave home?"

Rosellia shrugged, and stared at the bar. "Oh, nothing special- what anyone moves out to accomplish. I came here to fraternize, to sightsee- and to conquer."

Alikath chuckled. "Really."

"Really." Rosellia rolled her eyes, and leaned back in her chair. "No, but that's a brash way to put it. I am a noblewoman, as we've established."

"I'd forgotten."

"Right. Well, nobility in Lyveria is very… said and done," she explained. "You have your elite, and then you have their friends, and their employees… and it all sort of makes this… impenetrable circle. You either have to be born into it, or know whose boots to lick to buy yourself a ticket to the lowest seat in the house."

"Mhm. That makes sense," he nodded.

"Well, I do not lick boots, Alikath," Rosellia smirked. "I don't want the house's lowest seat. So I'm doing what all the world's greatest noblewomen did: I'm seizing an opportunity."

"What kind of opportunity?"

"Simple. I won't build my empire from within Lyveria's system. I left Lyveria to establish my name in a land full of common folk in need of my help. That led me to Thyme. A city where, if you weren't a snake oil scammer, or an apothecary preying on the sickly, it would cost you a lifetime just to put a roof over your head."

"I used my impeccable skills for trade-" Rosellia shrugged, "-and a small parting gift from the church, to purchase a plot of land within the city's downtown. From there, I emptied whatever rotting buildings surrounded me, and turned them into spacious, vacant homes that even the lowest in Thyme could afford to rent.

"I did as all nobles should," she went on. "I sheltered the needy, I healed the sick, and I built a community that has every reason to love me. And therein, Alikath, lies power. Power I will one day use to return to Lyveria, and claim my spot- right at the top of the house."

Alikath processed her words for a moment, working through his speechlessness. "I… suppose that is what nobility does. Any sort of stability ought to be welcomed up here, gods know homelessness is anything but rare."

"Good deeds build kingdoms." Rosellia twirled her wrist. "When your missive arrived, I was all but begged to volunteer."

"Good deeds," He muttered. "I hope so…"

"Hm?" Rosellia cocked her head.

"Joining the Ambassadors will make you a powerful woman indeed… But you understand, that comes with responsibility, too. If you're gonna stay here, your loyalty has to remain with the Land District. Not your treasury, and certainly not Lyveria."

"Oh, that won't be a problem." Rosellia waved him off, and grabbed her mug of ale. "Lyveria is our adversary now. That is just fine with me."

"Hm," He laid his cheek in his palm. "Good."

"I should thank you again for meeting me here, by the way," Alikath remembered. "You didn't have to leave Thyme, but it'll make rounding up others much, uh…"

His words trailed off as he watched Rosellia lift the mug above her head, and chug her alcohol down without taking a breath between gulps.

He continued, still distracted. "It'll make picking everyone else up easier on us. We'll still have to cross the river to meet Artemis, and…"

Rosellia kept going. Alikath was dumbfounded as the ale steadily disappeared, and the woman barely even moved.

"...We're going to Clearbrooke next," he finished.

Rosellia slammed the mug on the table.

"The forest?" She smiled. "Beautiful, I've never been. How many are we meeting there?"

"Two." Alikath waved the barkeep over, and placed two silver coins on the table. Rosellia noticed this, shook her head, and took out her own coin purse.

"Please," she scoffed. "I'll take care of it."

"Oh, it's fine, I said I'd treat you," he shook his head.

"No, really." Rosellia fished for the right coins. "Let it be a welcoming gift, a thank-you for letting me by your side. It's just a drink."

"Rosellia," Alikath held her hand to stop her, getting her to look him in the eyes. "You aren't going to be getting any rent until we visit Thyme again, right?"

Rosellia blinked.

"Well, I-... we, get a payload from both Heavenfell and Lyveria every month. And I carry that money. Let the taxes buy our drinks."

Rosellia looked at Alikath's coins, and huffed. "Alright, you win. This time." She pulled her hand back, and put away her purse.

"Perfect. Now c'mon, we need to get moving."

Alikath stood up, as Rosellia did shortly after. But before they left the bar, Rosellia looked back down at the table, and noticed Alikath's mug, still half full.

"Are you going to finish that?" She asked.

"Hm? Oh, no, I'm not."

Without another word, Rosellia picked up the mug for herself.

He scoffed. "You certainly like your drink."

"I wouldn't be much of an Aquatic if I didn't, would I?" Rosellia smirked. "It keeps my gills from getting stiff.

"Besides," she shrugged, spinning the ale around the mug. "The liver is evil. It must be punished."