Eefina hands over her badge.

He pockets the badge.

"If it's any consolation, the ability to purge dhar will do you very well in the long term, if you manage to avoid the massive amounts of Trouble such a rare ability will attract. Feel free to go, though I suggest you try to stay out of trouble for a bit."

And then he deactivates the privacy device and steps away.

Eefina goes back to the Academy and heads to her dorm room to go flop.

Gossip on the street as she's coming back is about the dungeon lashing out! Everyone stock up on sea-dungeon consumables now before the prices spike!

Nothing and nobody bothers her once she's back in her room, though.

Then she will sleep like the dead, wake up very hungry, and then take her Harmonic Convergence book with her to read while she eats breakfast.

She sees a new species of person wandering the hall looking for something on the way down. A sort of scaly lizard-person, yellow-scaled, with a tail and little horns and spikes on their head and back. They look very timid and anxious but don't say anything to her.

Breakfast is high quality but not outright gourmet! It's not very crowded this early.

Spellbooks for azyr spells apparently read like a really weird combination of poetry/prose, astronomy/calculus, and cryptography.

Eefina finds this combination of weirdness quite absorbing. She really likes azyr.

She has only the barest of first guesses for how to actually cast the spell, after just reading the book for the first time, but she can feel her Skill-granted knowledge, a vast pool of intuition that wasn't there yesterday. Harmonic Convergence is really complicated but she can see the the basic shape of its logic: she feels like she might be able to get somewhere if she puts in the time.

After breakfast, she cleans up, puts her book away, and... how does one get expensive enchanted armor repaired around here?

According to Tret's advice yesterday, one takes it back to the place they bought it from - or to an independent crafter with a good reputation if they want it done cheap.

Eefina heads out into the city and finds the place she bought the armor from, to ask what a full repair will cost her.

After taking it to someone specific who peers at it a bit, "Ah... The enchantment as a whole is holding up just fine. We can have it done by evening two days from now for two silver pieces, or as a rush job in one hour for three silver."

"...rush job," Eefina decides after a moment.

They're happy to do that once paid! She can get care and maintenance instructions too, free of charge.

Oh by the way, as an adventurer she should be advised that the Seashore Dungeon is closed, probably for the next few days at least.

She... is aware, yes...

She is going to be wincing a lot in the coming days, isn't she.

She waits while her armor is repaired, then heads back to the Academy.

A few people are holding up protest signs on the main quad - A-rank monsters are people too! - Loot drops are murder! - If an adventurer broke into your home you'd attack her too!

Everyone hurries past them, they don't seem very popular.

Well that's a disturbing thought.

It can't actually be right, though, right? Dungeons deliberately play a structured game with delvers, as long as those delvers follow the rules. On the other hand... it wouldn't actually surprise her if some Dungeons use unwilling sapient slaves. But most dungeon monsters obviously aren't that.

She also ignores them and heads to her dorm room.

The short scaly-spiky person she saw wandering the halls this morning is in her room! Her belongings are spread out on the bed Eefina wasn't using. She eeps and retreats to the corner, by the desk.

"H-Hello. I was assigned this room. Are you angry?"

"Oh! Hello. I'm definitely not angry. I'm Eefina Selvarn. It's nice to meet you."

"Mimi Sokan."

She stares a bit, standing very still.

"...Sorry?"

Eefina does her best to smile reassuringly. "Hi, Mimi. I guess we're roommates now."

She goes to her side of the room and starts sorting her books. New roommate or no, her next course of action is obvious. She has two important leads to follow, both pointing the same way: the lands of the Kellans. She needs to figure out what she's packing up and what she's leaving behind.

"Excited about classes?" she asks politely.

"I guess we are. Sorry. They told me you had the room to yourself but then I needed a cheap room and now you don't... Ah, yes! Very nervous, though! I have to do my best for everyone..."

"I was a little nervous too. But so far my classes have been really interesting and I've been learning a lot. And I'm actually planning a short trip, so you'll get to have the room to yourself for a few days while you settle in."

"I'm used to sharing space. Our tribe moved as one big group and I don't really know what to do with my free time here, since I don't know anyone to hang out with."

"You can hang out with me, when I get back," Eefina promises.

She goes about arranging her stuff in piles on her bed.

"That's in a few days, though! I'm lonely now. Can I help with that or would I get in the way?"

"I'm mostly planning, not lacking for hands," Eefina says, apologetic. "Thanks though."

The spellbook for Harmonic Convergence is obviously coming with her, but she also puts a couple of her other, lighter books on that stack. And she's bringing the divinatory-crime case-study book, definitely.

For the rest, she figures she can afford to stay at inns, but should still bring some of the camping supplies just in case.

She puts the stuff she's leaving away and starts loading up her travel bag.