"I really don't want to. I mean, I'd probably have to stick close and keep renewing it. Or risk my spellcubes but I don't really want to do that either."

"So... find some Silver Spear out on the town and tail them from the rooftops until they lead me somewhere interesting?"

"Wait, couldn't you teach Ame the spell? She's got wizardry Skills and insane language potential."

"There's a mental component and a visualization component that takes practice, I mean, I guess we could try that. Otherwise, that sounds like the closest thing we have to a plan."

Wait, when did he start thinking in 'we'?

"I'm up for trying to learn the spell. Gimme."

He walks her through two different illusion-spells while Abyssia paces in the small room. Each takes about twenty seconds to say, and sticks until dispelled with a command word set during the casting sequence. One for hair, one for skin. Oh, and they'll snap if the caster gets too far away from the subject - about 50 feet per Skill level of Wizardry: Illusion - or the subject rejects the magic with a Skill.

The mana drain isn't bad, though it looks kind of CGI-uncanny if you don't focus well enough on the look you want.

Good CGI though. Ame has a natural eye for visual composition and detail, apparently. She practices for a while, starting by altering her own skin tone and then working one using her own skin tone as a reference to change Bys', then on just changing Bys' without copying herself.

After about twenty minutes, she suddenly gets much better, a Skill clicking into place, and she can change Bys' skin and hair at the same time and make both look convincingly real. It takes another twenty minutes after that before she can do it reliably, while paying attention to something else.

"Alright, I think we can do this. Should I also disguise myself though."

"...Not sure. It's probably not critical, you look sort of Ilsos. Though I wonder if we should, uh, try to find Elizabeth and let her know what we're doing. Miscommunication could be... Bad."

"Yeah, I wasn't imagining that we'd do this tonight, unless the whispers are suddenly that urgent? Also, if I'm disguising myself I'm going to need something less distinctive and memorable to wear. I can probably throw something together from what we have on hand if another new outfit's not in the budget though."

"...I don't think tonight versus tomorrow will ruin things. Honestly, maybe I need to find work of some sort. We're running kind of thin on budget thanks to your new sword, probably should have kept more of it liquid instead of buying so many miscellaneous supplies. Not that the sword isn't worth it. And there's always things to buy, like armor. Maybe some things from the, uh, place we found would sell well? It's a day there and back at a sprint, near as I can figure."

"And there is almost certainly someone in town rich and willing to pay for healing. Maybe we should just spend the rest of today just looking around for that kind of thing. We can get the," Ame makes an uncertain gesture, "local view of the Silver Spears while we're at it."

"Sounds like a plan, I guess. The two of us, or? Uh..." She frowns thoughtfully and looks at the entrance to the other inn room, where Theo has wandered back off to. "...Think he's going to be alright? Longer term, I mean."

"Might be too soon to tell," Ame murmurs, "but I think he's coping."

Ame leans into Bys, setting her chin on Bys' shoulder.

"Probably best if we go without him. He can tell Liz where we went when she gets back."

She leans back to Ame, one hand around her waist.

"It sucks. He- I don't really- I do blame him, you know. I asked around, and he, his undead minions, killed a few people. So I do blame him on some level. There's redemption to consider but... It just stinks, life is unfair sometimes. But now is maybe not the time for this heavy conversation, I guess..."

"Mm," Ame agrees.

Unhug.

And they can head back out into the city to wander around and look for Opportunity.

Interesting things in the city include:

People who will gossip about the Silver Spears when asked. Apparently they're some sort of knightly order, officially sponsored by the King of these parts. (He rules very lightly.) They have a sorta complicated history with Lions; Both are sort of 'protectors' of the land, and apparently there's politics about it that occasionally threatens to boil over into fighting on a scale bigger than one pissed off Lion issuing a duel.

Narrow side-streets where kids are playing in the street, people are hanging out and shouting gossip to their neighbors on other balconies, and things are generally quiet aside from the occasional buff person leaning on a wall and eyeing passers-by.

Quite a number of different hospices, clinics, and so on. There's no centralized hospital where she could cleanly sell healing.

A fancier district where the streets are lined with mosaics and fountains, guards patrol regularly, and buskers and street stall operators in neatly tailored clothes provide local color.

A small quarter of the city all but entirely dedicated to Adventurer Parties! At least half of the street population is wearing armor or adventurer-coded fashion like robes or battlesuits. Aside from the Guild branch (where things are much more relaxed than the other Guild branches they've seen), the business there is all super-expensive equipment shops, nice pubs and restaurants, flashy shows, and marginally-discreet brothels (theaters, massage parlors, and the like). Possible Opportunity of the fun-for-Ame kind there. Or the more boring kind- A few are going around visibly injured, and Adventurers tend to be rich.

Ame considers her options. They need to make enough money tonight that they won't be distracted by monetary concerns tomorrow. Offering healing to random adventurers can be the fallback plan, but first...

She looks around in the adventurer-heavy spaces for bounty boards or other job postings of a quest-like nature, for anything that involves healing residents of the city.

There is a bounty board! One by the Guild and a few unofficial ones scattered around. Most of the requests are asking for some specific materials or items, many of the rest are escort or courier jobs. But there are a few listings for healers. The ones listed here mostly seem to be for particularly grievous injuries or difficult-to-cure maladies.

Abyssia tells her, "The Guild board's quests are vetted and insured, they pay out if you register that you're doing it and you make a good attempt, or if the requester lied or anything, but the Guild takes a cut. The other boards are kind of anything goes."

"All else being equal, we'll grab a Guild-vetted one, but let's check that all else is equal."

What are the listing(s) for the most grievous or difficult-to-cure maladies? What listing(s) have the highest payout?

A lot of the maladies are named strangely enough that it's difficult to tell what, exactly, they even are, but the more exotic ones include a magic autoimmune disorder, possession by ice spirits, and someone who wants a healer on hand when they cut off their arm to remove a cursed gauntlet. The most grievous cases, with what brief quest decisions display at least, all appear to be extremely tough people who have been beaten to within an inch of their life in a dungeon nonetheless. Crushed, cut, missing limbs, burned, dissolved, poisoned, etc.

The highest paying ones are those for grievous injuries on Adventurers; The more exotic maladies pay less or are on the sketchy boards.

Ame makes a face at that. She kind of wanted to do something only she could do.

Alas, she instead grabs the three largest payouts from the more standard fare. "These?"

"Sure, let's do it."

All three are Guild-bonded quests. The clerk seems dubious when they take them, but Abyssia rolls her eyes and stabs herself, hard, in the arm, then holds a hand out to Ame, and that clears things up nicely. No, she explains, she doesn't think Ame would like to add her new healing Skill to her official report. You have to keep some details to yourself, you know.

...They can heal the first one, a man who has registered his preference for whatever gets him on his feet again as fast as possible, regardless of risk. He's in a room with a party member, who is dubious and then nods respectfully after it's done. (Such intense injuries do manage to stretch the skill some, but they quickly bow to her healing touch.) After him, she can do the other two as well, also accompanied by Party members. One of them hits on Ame. None of them especially react to Abyssia beyond a bit of 'huh, strange'. It's ultimately simple work, if a bit tense. And then the party is 5 gold, 4 silver richer.

"Though a bit of it should be outright yours, I reckon. We're doing the group fund thing but, yeah."

"I'll keep an eye out for something to treat myself with, how about."

Later, though. For now, they'll head back to the hotel and update Liz.

She's discussing magic with Theo in the front room; The differences between enchanting sorcery-style and wizard-style.

"...So I hear we figured out what our mission here is."

"We have some idea, anyway. So apparently about a month ago something called the 'Diamond Bell' went missing from this city, and since then a creepy ominous fog has been growing down the coast from the north. An order of warriors called the Silver Spear is investigating the theft, and presumably the fog, on behalf of the city."

Ame leans against the wall and nods at Bys.

"Bys got pretty clear confirmation that this fog and whatever's causing it are why we're here. In the morning, we were planning to go try to talk to some of these Silver Spears, see if we can find out what they're after, maybe get a hint about what we're after."