"Why? Like, they in fact know you aren't usually around, so..."

"Yes, but it hasn't caused any embarrassment or inspired any kids to bad examples yet, and -" Shrug. "Maybe I could tell them all about it and it'd go fine."

"I mean, I wasn't suggesting you tell them the unvarnished truth, just, like, claim you had an adventure on the moon, claim you've been spying for the crown in Qadira, claim you spent the last six months transformed into your snake and your snake into you and she was hiding under your bed and why didn't any of them try speak with animals on you huh, claim you've been palling around with drow, claim you were apprenticed to a pearl diver."

Snort. "I could try that."

"Unless you're already run ragged coming up with funny stories for me and Fazil and Mahdi. Speaking of, you've been so quiet, I think I want one right now."

"Well, I hear you're in charge down here. Once upon a time, Fy and I were offered a secret mission by an elderly man, deeply paranoid, stalked (he told us) by enemies who would notice his work unless all our communications happened via Fy. So I booked a room nearby and Fy would head over to speak to him in the window of his home. He offered us thirty thousand gold to steal the immortality serum produced by the city-states of Thuvia We protested, of course, that Thuvia does not actually produce any immortality serum and that that's a silly old myth, but our client was very determined and very insistent that the myth was cover for a genuine immortality-serum operation. So I got work as caravan security and made my way on over there to the site where, my client claimed, the immortality serum was brewed. It was a brothel. We had magic mirrors; I communicated this. He agreed that it made sense that they would have a brothel to cover their underground serum operation. We paid for an evening with each lady on the ground floor and looked for trapdoors. There was one; it led to the wine cellar, which had dust and three rats. Fy ate them.

At this point our client's mirror was seized and we lost contact. It was in the possession of his wife, who told us that he was not allowed to spend more money on this and didn't even have thirty thousand gold and she was very sorry and we should please come home. 

A year later I got a note from Axis. He said that there had too been an immortality serum and should've been another trap door under the rats, but I admit I haven't checked."

"I didn't know Axis had mail service."

"They can send things back with the tourists."

"I guess that makes sense! Why doesn't one hear more about it?"

"Conspiracy of gnomes."

"Those darn gnomes."

"At least they're having fun."

"Is that why they do it."

"That's the only good reason to do anything, you know."

"Maybe in funny story land."

"Or for gnomes, wherever they live."

"I've never hung out with gnomes much. I guess none of them have been hard up enough for entertainment to try me even though I'm fascinating."

"They're missing out."

"I know, right, I have a tragic backstory and an ambitious quest and a funny sidekick who carries my stuff." She elbows him.

"I've tried making casters carry their own gear, they get encumbered two hours in and move like snails the whole rest of the way."

"I'm carrying my gear! I'm just not carrying the bolt of silk or the leftover mushrooms from breakfast. I figure I'll pass those out as free samples to your brother and all his church buddies."

"They'll love it. Or at least pretend to."

"You don't like the mushrooms? I think I was imagining they'd go over fine if you weren't having them three times a day for a century."

"I like them! But princes, you know, they're very spoiled. Adventurers will eat lots of things."

"Maybe they will want the fancy mushrooms. The ruffly ones that look orange in light, or the skinny pale ones. Still cheaper down here than a similar amount of oatmeal."