Brin took a bite of the creamy stew and all his worries melted away. Spicy enough to wake him up and get his pulse going, it created a warmth that started in his stomach and spread out to fill his body with a comfortable glow. They called it Gaelach here, but more than anything, it reminded him of curry. It wasn't seasoned with anything he recognized on earth, but the result was the same. The biggest difference was that it was poured over a bed of noodles. Rice would have been better, but that was his only complaint.

He loved Prinnashian food. It was nostalgic, somehow, even though it was all still new to him. Perhaps due to the faint remaining traces of Aberthol? The kid went through a lot, but he was pretty sure that Cadwy had fed him. Even that uncomfortable idea wasn't enough to ruin his enjoyment of the meal.

"Sorry for making you wait!" Sion said, and sat down across from him at the restaurant table, though he hadn't ordered anything.

Brin used [Wyrdic Inspect] on Sion, just to see if anything was new, but other than showing that he was now at level 35, his status screen looked a lot like the last time Brin had seen it, with [Find the Deal] being the best Skill. That meant that he was hiding his newest Skills, which was honestly fair enough.Brin was more interested in what the Wyrd had to say. His feel for the Wyrd through the clash of magic had sometimes been hard to pick apart, but now that he was receiving knowledge through [Wyrdic Inspect], the floodgates were open.

The Wyrd told Brin exactly what he’d already known, which was that he was heavily in Sion’s debt. Sion had saved his life, saved his Lance, and enabled him to save Canibri. He’d also served some of his own ends doing that, but that didn’t change the weight of obligation he was due. But rather than a burden on his back, or a chain around his neck, the Wyrd manifested as a bond between them. Sion didn’t think Brin owed him anything and he didn’t want to be paid back; they were friends, after all.

Since he'd just gotten a new Class, Brin was overanalyzing all his emotions. He'd been a little worried that the Wyrd would show that Sion secretly resented him, or saw him as inferior, or possibly only an asset that could be used, but that wasn't it at all. To his relief, Sion was just happy to see a friend again.

Brin had to sniff and bury his face in his bowl to cover a sudden swell of emotion. Sion didn’t want to be repaid, but that didn’t mean Brin wasn’t going to try. When he was ready, he asked, "Have you eaten yet?"

It was after the middle of the night. Sion had probably eaten supper, but that would've been long enough again to get hungry again.

Sion put a hand to his stomach. "Oh no, I couldn't."

"You're really not going to let me buy you dinner? It's the least I could do," said Brin.

Rather than argue, though, Sion just grinned. He looked positively smug.

"What?"

"You're not going to pay. And neither am I, for that matter." Sion leaned close. "I own this restaurant."

"Damn you!" Brin said in mock outrage, and slammed the table with his fist. Though, he couldn't help but glance around to give it a second look. The building they were in had stone walls and was decorated with plush draperies and potted plants, and if he didn't know better, he would've said this restaurant had been operating for a decade. In reality, it couldn't be more than a day old. The civilian section of the war camp was already becoming a small city, and while the military side all used tents, the civilians had hastily thrown up buildings of wood and stone. Brin got the idea that this establishment catered to nobles and officers, which is why he'd chosen it.

Brin sighed. "Well, no matter. I'm prepared to suffer small losses on the road to greater victory."

Sion's smug grin didn't slip. "You gave me time to prepare the field and entrench myself. You'll find no victory here. By the way, have you talked to Davi yet?”

Brin recognized the abrupt conversation change for what it was, but the sentence was so surprising that he couldn’t help but take the bait. “Wait, Davi is here? Why? How?”

“I'm not sure. I thought he planned to return home. But then he turned up here,” said Sion.

“Who’s Davi?” asked Cid.

"A close friend from Hammon's Bog. Haven't I told you about him? He, Zilly, our other friend Myra, and Sion here defended the beach from a monster horde while Hogg and I went down into the water to kill Aberfa," said Brin.

"Why are you leaving Lurilan out of this story? It's so funny, because he did all of the work. I barely participated," said Sion.

"Sion drank one of those same potions he gave Hedrek and then destroyed a legion of sea monsters single-handedly. It was legendary," said Brin.

"He flatters me," Sion said.

"Forgive me, but I tend to doubt that," said Cid.

"See? I'm only a humble [Merchant] after all," said Sion.

"No, I mean that I doubt Brin is exaggerating. I could list the sundry ways in which my Second enjoys bending the truth, but this isn't one of them," said Cid.

Sion chuckled. "Regardless, anything I did was eclipsed by the heroes surrounding me. Davi earned the [Skald] Class for his efforts, and it's awarded him no small amount of interest here in the war. You'll find him in the commanders' camp, though I confess I haven't spoken to him yet. For some reason they don't let random commoners wander around in that section of the camps." Sion said it in a sort of self-deprecating way, like he wasn't really bothered, but Brin couldn't help but detect a hint of real frustration.

"They don't let you inside? Why not?"

Sion waved it away. "Operational security. What business would I have there? No, no, there's plenty of money to be made in the civilian section. I’m better suited here."

Hm. That was a lie. For whatever reason, Sion wanted contact with the military leadership. Brin tucked that little nugget away.

"I doubt they'd let me wander in there, either," said Brin. He would still try, though. "But they have to let Davi stretch his legs some time. You'll let me know if he ever makes it out here? I'd love to catch up."

"I'll do that," said Sion.

Brin turned back to his Gaelach, but found that he suddenly didn't have much of an appetite. More than anything, he was tired. He took a bite anyway and forced himself to chew methodically. Why was he suddenly so tired? He knew why. Davi. The thought of seeing Davi again exhausted him. Did that mean [Delusionist] Class had bent his personality after all? No, this was something else.

It was stupid. He was stupid. That didn't change how he felt, though. He was still mad about the conscription day duel.

He shoved those thoughts aside, and put a smile on his face. "Oh, and what about Zilly?"

Sion winced. "I'm afraid I don't know much. She was here until just a week ago, but then suddenly got assigned to the Prinnashian assault force. She'll be marching east from Fortmouth by now."

Brin rubbed his hands through his hair. "That's ridiculous. We were just there! Well, we went by Talra, at least."

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Sion sobered at the mention of the doomed village. "It was a terrible thing. I'm lucky that I was in the Order's fort on business, but I almost wish I had been there. Maybe there was something I could've done..."

"Don't be sorry," said Cid. "The only thing you could have done was die with them. Were you able to recover your things? If I recall, you had a good deal of inventory stored there."

"Nothing that can't be replaced," Sion said quickly. "Cati Breckon also survived. Do you remember her?"

"I do. I'm glad. And I'm glad you survived, too. I saw... I saw Awsta," said Brin.

"You saw her? Was she..? I mean to say, how did she die? No, never mind," said Sion.

"I didn't look too closely. After all the bloodshed at Canibri, I wasn't ready for it," said Brin. He'd done a flyover with some Invisible Eyes, but even the glimpses he'd gotten from up high had been enough to give a man nightmares. He'd quickly switched over to assigning Directed Threads to look over the town and write down the names of anyone they'd recognized. Then he'd cancelled them without letting them return so that he wouldn't get all their memories. Awsta was the only name they'd given him. The list had been full of 'man you don't recognize' and 'person mutilated beyond recognition', which meant that he hadn't known for sure that Sion was still alive until today.

"Yes, Canibri. I heard that was quite a sticky situation," said Sion.

Cid wiped his mouth with a napkin and then stood. "On that note..."

Seeming a bit confused, Sion stood as well.

Cid held out a hand, "Master Wogan, I offer my most sincere gratitude for your generous and timely aid. You saved the lives of me and my men, and I won't forget it. Call on me in your hour of need, and I will come."

Sion met Cid's eyes and shook his hand, but didn't speak. He nodded. Cid nodded back, and then they both sat again.

"See, Brin? That's how you deliver a proper 'thank-you'. You could learn something from your Prime," said Sion.

"I could learn a lot of things from my Prime," Brin said with a shrug. "But Sion, seriously, I hope you know–"

Sion help up a hand. "No. Gratitude not accepted. I had nothing to do with anything, and even if I did, there's no counting favors between friends."

"But you let Cid–"

"That was that, and this is this," said Sion. “You don’t owe me anything.”

Brin pursed his lips and stared, but Sion was completely serious and he could tell the young [Merchant] wouldn't budge on this.

He leaned back and said, "Well, if that's how it is, then that's how it is. Rather than try to pay you back, what if I asked you for another favor?"

Sion leaned forward, smiling in a way that made Brin think of a shark. "Name it, and it's done."

"I was hoping you could help me find some consumables. I have money to spend."

Sion's shark-like grin grew even wider.

Brin had some ideas on things he wanted, and Sion had ideas of his own, and they had a fun conversation about all the creative violence that money could buy. The only difficult spot was when Brin insisted that Sion would be paid a finder's fee for everything he helped Brin purchase. Sion tried to argue, but Brin made it clear that if he couldn't work with Sion without screwing him over, then he'd go through someone else.

The night ended with Brin yawning three times in the middle of a sentence and Sion ordering him to go get some sleep. Brin accepted, but it had still been Sion who left first. Even at this late hour, he was moving like he had another meeting to get to.

"I'm surprised you let it go that easily," said Cid. "I was certain you were going to insist on paying him back with all the money [Archmage] Lumina sent for your armor."

"No, Sion would disown me if I tried something like that. He wasn't lying when he said I don't owe him anything; that's actually what he thinks. He saved our lives, but his family gained quite a bit of political influence with that stunt I pulled."

"I still think the scales are leaning in his direction," said Cid.

"I agree. Make no mistake, I haven't let anything go. I intend to pay him back tenfold."

"Then count me in," said Cid. "What is the plan? What could we even do for someone like that? His family is wealthier than the both of ours combined."

Brin looked both ways, but the dining room was nearly empty. He threw up a sound barrier anyway. "Two things. First, Sion is really bothered that he can't enter the commanders' camp. I bet he wants to be involved with the planning and logistics side of things. If he could help guide decisions about purchasing supplies, he could make his family a stupid amount of money."

"Interesting. Alright. I'll do what I can," said Cid.

It took his tired brain a second to catch up, but he eventually realized that Cid saying he’d do what he could wasn’t an idle remark. Cid had a leadership Class now. It always took him by surprise when someone else could solve one of his problems instead of doing it all himself, but Cid was well positioned to take on this mission. Due to his family and his Class, he would be invited to all sorts of boring meetings. It was lucky, because Brin wouldn’t even know where to start.

"Then I'll leave that one to you and focus on the other thing he needs. He was really quick to skip past talking about all the stuff he left behind in Talra, which means he's heartbroken about it. That was his personal stash, the stuff he didn't want to leave out of his sight. There's no way it was 'nothing that can't be replaced.' We need to get it back," said Brin.

"Then we'll need to counter that curse somehow," said Cid.

Brin had a lever for the Wyrd now. It wasn't perfect for removing a curse, but with time and practice he should be able to use [Delusionist] to counter whatever Arcaena had done to Talra. "Leave it to me."

"Very well," said Cid. He yawned, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. "This day is really catching up with me. I think it's time to retire for the night."

"There's really nothing I want more. But I think there's one last thing we have to do."

He stood and then walked to the back door that led to the kitchen. A waiter tried to stop him, but he didn't try very hard. Knights-at-arms could do what they wanted.

He found the kitchen was fairly low-key. A pot was warming in the fireplace, but the two cooks and one [Cook's Apprentice] were sitting idle. It was natural that they wouldn't be too busy at this time of night.

Cati stood when she saw them. "No way!" She smiled, but he could see the way it crossed new lines of sorrow.

"Cati!" Brin said with a grin.

"Brin? And who's this? And does that mean Rhun is here, too?" Cati asked.

Brin rolled his eyes. "Of course it's always Rhun.”

She laughed, then hiccuped and stopped. "You gotta live while you're alive, you know?"

"I can't believe you made it out of Talra. We assumed the worst," said Brin. If he'd sent an Invisible Eye in here the moment he'd walked in the door, he would've known before Sion had said anything. Maybe he should start doing that. It was suddenly very strange to him that he didn't already have a habit of supervising the people who made his food. Or was that just the [Delusionist] talking?

"Not everyone was so lucky," said Cati.

"I heard about Awsta," said Brin.

Cati nodded. "She... I was doing odd jobs for Sion. There wasn't enough work for me in Talra or in the Order, so he sent me on errands sometimes. We were both in the fortress when it happened. But Awsta, she..."

"I know," said Brin.

Cati sniffed and stood there silently with watery eyes, as if trying with sheer willpower to force the tears to suck back into her head.

Brin... didn't feel much. He was emotionally burnt out from the day, and tired, and a little annoyed that quickly dropping in to say hello was now turning into a big ordeal. The worst part was that he didn't even think he could blame this on [Delusionist]. Mark had been the same way; compassion was a slow-burning emotion for him, not something that would spike the first second that tears came out.

Cati rubbed her face. "Sorry, I–"

Brin stepped forward and hugged her. "Shhh. No, don't be sorry." Just because he wasn't feeling it, didn't give him an excuse not to act.

She sobbed, clutching his shirt, shaking, while he held her in place and patted her back. He was conscious of Cid's awkwardness and of the eyes of the other cooks. Thank Solia, they were doing their best to pretend the whole thing wasn't happening, but he saw impatience rather than pity in their faces, which meant that Cat really had no friends here. He shut it all out, and gave her the time she needed.

"I'm so sorry, and I still don't know your friend," she said after the shaking stopped.

"Don't worry about Cid. He's like, my mascot," said Brin, because he doubted that Cati wanted to know that she'd broken down in front of a [Knight Captain] with noble blood.

"Do I even have the right to call myself your mascot?" replied Cid with his usual deadpan.

They ended up staying awake for another hour and twenty minutes. Brin really wanted to go home and get some sleep, but he’d already come this far and would just be a jerk if he left now, so he stayed while Cati found a bottle of wine.

The three of them sat at a table in the near-empty restaurant and talked about Awsta. Cati had a dozen stories about her. Simple things, like the song she always hummed when she worked or the way she always smelled like pipe smoke even though no one had ever caught her with one. Once, she'd nailed a stray dog with her shoe for stealing an egg off her table at breakfast. Cati had only heard her yell a single time, at a boy who "accidentally" kept bumping into her when she worked. She had been leveling quickly, according to Cati, for someone with such a basic Class, while Cati claimed that for herself she always got half the experience for twice the work.

Cid fell asleep fifteen minutes in, leaning forward and nodding off, probably unintentionally. Brin sat and listened alone while Cati talked. She polished off the bottle of wine almost completely by herself and the whole time Brin was fighting with himself to stay awake and keep acting interested. She obviously needed this; if she was opening up like this to him it probably meant she had no one else.

Brin didn't notice at first when she stopped talking. He sat in silence for probably five minutes before his weary mind finally remembered what he was doing. He looked over and found that she'd also fallen asleep.

Brin went back into the kitchen to make sure that someone would take her home, then woke Cid up and half-carried him out of the restaurant. They went back to their camp, to the Order of the Long Sleep, to his tent, and to a sleep that wouldn't be long at all.