"Oh. Well. Yes. Mostly."

She follows him over to the fruit section, offloading a handful of apples.

"Okay so actually on my very first quest I had a little bit of a friendly fire incident and I'm really not that bad about that anymore I promise you saw today right I only bruised a couple shins but first impressions stick around no matter what you do so groups tend to not pick me for extra fire-power even when I'd fit their needs."

"We have a very good healer and I personally would not find friendly fire to be much of a concern." He glances back at Sky and Coventina. "What do you guys think?"

Eelesia had not until this moment realized that she was sort of joining this party! Yay?

"I like her. She seems fun." And totally your type. "And I am, in fact, a very good healer."

Sky nods shyly.

"She would round out a standard party composition for us... and she seems nice."

"I agree! Welcome to the team, Eelesia! If that's all right with you."

"Oh gosh, sure!"

She nearly drops her sack of cabbages before getting them onto the right table.

"What'd you all want to do next?"

With their loot sold off, they've earned a considerable amount of money. The cabbages totalled over 50,000 Lake and the grapes were apparently very rare in this region, considered a delicacy, so the several gallons that fit into Sky's modified skirt put them up by over 300,000 Lake.

"Oh, excellent! We should really look into more secure ways of storing our money. And figure out what our next quest should be. And maybe all sit down and look over each other's adventure cards—oh, and I should actually start cheating at mundane fitness training and not just announcing every few hours that it would be a really good idea—and I had the thought right as the battle was starting that it would be useful if we all went around covered by Coventina's healing effects most of the time which I suppose brings us back to looking over each other's adventure cards—oh, do you suppose anyone needs to level after that fight, I wasn't tracking even the vaguest estimate of experience points—"

"Oh yes we should check but there's probably going to be a line for that actually since the battle was so big and is there a reason not to go around in Coventina's healing oh is that like the goddess or are you actually with Axiom or actually I just thought of a place there's a training ring on the west side of town you've probably seen it if you've been exploring at all and."

Eelesia puts in a token effort to curtail her babbling, smiling sheepishly.

"And, yes, here you go. My card."

EELESIA RUSTINESS
Level 3

CLASS: "Mage"
Class Bonus: Sanity - Your sanity stat increases your casting speed.
Class Bonus: Ardor - Your ardor stat increases your spell potency.

Stat Points: 0

Fitness - 12
Ardor - 10
Grace - 17
Moxie - 12
Sanity - 23
Allure - 12

Skill Points: 0

"Forked Lightning" (Instant, Directional Area)
A fan of lightning strikes at all targets in a cone.

"Sleetblade" (Instant, Touch)
A hailstorm at your fingertips, razor-sharp ice projected in a cutting slash.

"Greater Solar Bolt" (Instant, Single-Target)
Launch a sliver of the sun as a projectile.

"Ruinous Ray" (Channeled, Single-Target)
Project a beam of deleterious force that damages and pushes back all it strikes.

"Greater Mystic Eye" (Passive)
Active mana is visible to you even when it is not radiating visible light.

ELEMENTS: Storm - 46% Affinity | Light - 66% Affinity | Force - 77% Affinity | Resonance - 39% Affinity

"Yes, like the goddess, no I'm not with the church. Axiomites don't even have a habit of naming their kids after m-the goddess."

"I like your spell choices!" he says, reading them over. "Especially that Mystic Eye, goodness, I wonder if that would make me even better at spotting skills, I bet it would. Next after Stormheart, maybe. Though I'm not sure precisely how seeing passive skills works so I don't know if I've had a chance to Observe it properly yet. If the fact that it's so subtle means I can't pick it up I am going to have complaints."

"Oh, I know!"

Eelesia glances around until she spots someone using a spell. She squints, getting a good look, muttering, "Sta~aa~are..." out loud as she does.

"Did it work?"

"I think so..."

He scrolls through his spell list.

"Yes, looks like. Thank you. A training ring, you said? I don't remember seeing it but I haven't been paying much attention to the layout of town yet beyond the guild hall and our hotel—oh, and the reason we don't go around covered by Coventina's healing all the time is that it would require drinking her milk all day on a half-hourly basis—Coventina, does your milk allow people to sustainably skip sleep indefinitely, by the way, I don't know if you've said—I'd be very tempted to do that if I had the option. I could fit so much fitness training into our off hours."

"It'll stave off the physical effects of sleep deprivation but if you keep it up for a week or two you'll still go insane."

At the nerdy noble girl's blatantly curious look, Coventina shows her her adventurer card.

Blink blink blink.

"Oh! Okay, I see. I've never heard of Nectar of Sin before that's oh is that why your outfit is like that it's very pretty I thought maybe it'd be worth wearing just for that if you don't mind the attention but it's practical too that's so cool!"

"It is practical! All right, I'll confine myself to one or two all-nighters a week. Probably. I hope. On second thought, limiting my all-nighters may turn out to be difficult."

Eelesia makes a sound of agreement, staring at Coventina's bare breasts with a very conflicted expression.

Giggle.

Yeah, they're going to get along great.

"So... this is actually the first time you haven't limped home with a fallen comrade, isn't it, Laurent. After you get bored of exercising, you wanna celebrate somehow?"

"Did you have a celebration in mind?"

"Several, but I think I'd rather let you pick something you'd actually be comfortable with."

"That's fair. Hmm. ...do you have a place to stay besides our hotel, Sky, I never managed to ask—and Eelesia, same question—I'm wondering if we should all be arranging to live closer together, but my and Coventina's current room is a little small for four. Sorry, that wasn't a celebration idea at all, I think perhaps I might not be very good at celebrating."

"I... have a place to sleep if you don't want to keep me with you."

Sky does not sound enthused about this in the slightest, though.

"I'm renting a room at the Highest Lair," she points, the grand gilded mansion being visible across the through-way from the guild hall's cul-de-sac, "it's got more space than I know what to do with and it was the smallest suite they had. If yours is even smaller you can come stay with me instead if you want."