“Well, I’m glad someone’s enjoying themselves,” a stern voice called as I shoved my head in the cup again. When I withdrew it after several more sips, I found Lizzie standing over us. “Aren’t you supposed to be resting?”

Raina ran a nervous hand through her hair. “I…uh…I’m feeling much better?”

Lizzie raised an eyebrow and put her hands on her hips. For a brief moment, I thought she might turn us in, call up Lord Erik or the Matron and have us escorted back to the temple, but she did something even more curious. She shrugged.

“I’ve been in this business long enough to know that my squabbling gaggle of adventurers can’t sit still long enough for a simple lecture, let alone for several days of recovery,” she said. “But, I’d like it if one of your party was with you in case you keel over in the street.”

“Malzy was with me the whole time!” Raina protested.

“Malzy is a cat, love,” Lizzie answered. “Magic or no, I don’t trust him to catch you before you crack your head on the cobblestones.”

“Bet I could,” I answered to Raina alone. “If I weren’t carrying your shopping bag, anyway.”

Energy was filling my muscles and I needed to use it. I don’t know what Raina did to that potion, but it was potent. I just…needed to…run! Anywhere! Do anything!

I jumped to the top of the mantle before running along it and then jumping down onto a table. Racing along the length of the wood with record speed, and leaping over the plates of several adventurers, I was like the wind! I just needed speed!

And what better way to do that, then call upon magic to speed me even more? Mana surged as the Speed spell activated, filling my muscles with even more potential to zoom around the room. And zoom I did. I streaked back and forth around the large tavern. The adventurers cheered and laughed, reaching out to scratch my ears before I zoomed past, but none of them had a chance. I stopped only for the bard upon the stage, a handsome level 16 adventurer who’s name I had completely forgotten, but who was always quick to praise my handsome visage and immaculate coat.

Once the urge to run had left me, I padded back over to where Raina and Lizzie were waiting. They stared at me in surprise as I trotted up and laid on my side on the fire-warmed hearthstones.

“I think that’s the last coffee you’re getting,” Raina said through a barely contained laugh.

“Nonsense, you promised more for my studying,” I responded. If she thought that I was settling for just the one taste, then she was sorely mistaken. I was fully prepared to keep her awake at night until she had no other choice but to brew more. No doubt she would consider it a means of distracting me by giving me the means to study longer, but that’s exactly what I wanted her to think.

In that moment, Lizzie’s sharp eye caught a glimpse of Terrowin’s minty hair enter the building alongside Cithrael’s ginger. She whistled and beckoned them over.

“Well, now that I have most of you here, I have a rather important topic we need to discuss, and soon,” she began. “I think I saw Aelisra duck into one of the training rooms. I’ll fetch her. Meet us in the back meeting room, please.”

The boys looked at one another in surprise. Meanwhile, Raina just gestured to her cauldron.

“Coffee anyone?”

* * *

Terrowin set the steaming cauldron down on the floor next to the long conference table the guild used for more private meetings. In his other hand, he held his own cup of the liquid.

“You’ve got good taste, my witchy friend,” he praised after taking a sip. “It reminds me of home.” I purred at the praise for my witch and sat down on the table next to her.

“Teralyn coffee beans probably won’t be available for much longer, so drink up while you can.” Raina sighed. “My mother loved coffee. This is her favorite brew, a recipe passed down for generations in her family.”

“Raina,” Terrowin began. “If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly happened to your mother? I heard she passed, but I haven’t heard of a sickness passing through the area or anything, and it seems as if she passed recently.”

“Only a few weeks before I met you, actually,” she said. “Though, that’s when they declared her dead. Her body returned to the earth in accordance with the Old Ways, which is why the guard never found her.” She looked down into her own cup of coffee. “But, if she were still alive, but missing, her wards would have still been in place and the ravens wouldn’t have left our home.” There was silence around the table, but Raina soon looked up and smiled, clearly trying to mask her sorrow. “But, she left me with her best coffee brew and the knowledge of enough spellwork to join this party, so it’s not all bad.”

“I’m glad she did.” Terrowin raised his mug. “She had good taste.”

Footsteps in the hall heralded Lizzie and Aelisra’s approach. They entered, and Lizzie closed and locked the door behind them before taking a gray box from Aelisra and setting it carefully on the table.

“Alright, my New Bloods,” she began. “Now that everyone is here and alive and mostly uninjured after your trials, I think it’s time we discuss this.” She pointed to the box. “In that box is the dungeon core you retrieved from Shaleheart Spring. You need to decide what to do with it.”

“Lord Erik did offer to pay us for it,” Aelisra said cheerfully. “No doubt he’d put it to use as a defense for the town.”

Lizzie nodded. “He has already put in a formal offer of three hundred gold for each of you, but that’s but one of three possible avenues I see for you.” Each member sat in rapt silence as she raised a hand to list off the options. “First, as mentioned, you could sell it to Lord Erik. He will purchase it on behalf of the crown, and likely use it to defend the town against Qelona until the threat is gone. The second option I see is to sell it to one of the merchants travelling through. I can put you in contact with a few who might be interested, and you can try to get the best price for the core. I will say Erik is paying you what he can, but there is likely more to be gained if you play your cards right. Finally, you could keep it and use it for yourselves. A core like this could make several pieces of cored equipment if you find a coresmith to create them.”

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“Well, that seems like an easy decision,” Aelisra concluded.

Terrowin frowned at the paladin. “How do you figure that?”

“Because only one of those options is going towards helping the people,” Aelisra explained. “Lord Erik is a Paladin of Valencia. He’ll use it well.”

“And when it’s taken out of his hands?” the knight countered. He crossed his arms and glared at Aelisra. “It’s then in the King’s hands, not Lord Erik’s.”

“But the King is a good man, too!”

Terrowin snorted. “King Jinal? He’s a greedy bastard who never helps those in need. All he cares about is continuing to be the big fish in a very small pond, and he will do anything from burying his head in the sand to lashing out at even the mildest of perceived threats in order to keep it that way.”

“Oh? And where did you get that idea?”

“The Ketinrani massacre of Foresthollow.” Terrowin’s expression was dark as he recounted the tale. “Fifteen years ago, a skirmish between Teralys and Ketinran got out of hand. When the Teralyn king of the time begged for aid from King Jinal, he pretended that the letters arrived too late to be of assistance. Teralys had to seek aid from their other allies instead of the ones geographically closest to the problem. By the time Teralys got to Foresthollow, there was nothing left to save. And that’s not mentioning the dozens of little skirmishes along the border that Jinal has claimed were acts of war that he ‘generously’ decided not to follow through on. He’s a craven pig with no love of anyone but himself.”

Aelisra leapt to her feet. “Maybe that’s because it wasn’t Senelar’s problem! We have our own issues and people to feed! A hero who has issues at home will only come home to a knife in the back. We can’t help others until we are secure in our own home.”

“Oh, he’s secure, alright.”

“Enough!” Lizzie barked. Terrowin and Aelisra continued to glare at each other, even if the argument was at a close for now. “Regardless of political opinions, you have to come to a decision together.” I pulled out my chalk to ask a question.

What is cored equipment?

“Excellent question, Malzy,” the barkeeper praised, relaxing at the change in subject. “As you know, magic items are all over. I gave a whispearl to Cithrael the night of the attack. Items like these are commonplace, and just require a smith to be skilled at infusing mana into an object. It’s like placing a command within an object so that it can be used without the original caster. However, items made this way eventually run out of mana and need to be replaced.

“Contrarily, cored equipment is made with a dungeon core. All the most powerful weapons and armor are cored, as they generate their own mana over time, rather than being infused once. They also never decay like normal magic items do.”

Aelisra was right, this was an easy decision. Only, where she mistakenly believed that Lord Erik was the correct answer, I knew the real solution. Consider a world where my four henchmen had epic weapons of destruction at their disposal! We could take on bigger jobs, handle more threatening dungeons, gain more levels, and fight more powerful monsters in the name of sating Amsiii’s bloodlust! The decision was obvious! Lord Erik was a nice guy, but this was just not a bargain he could compete with.

“We could use items like those to protect the town,” Raina mused, “thus, fulfilling Aelisra’s requirement, and also keeping Terrowin’s concerns in mind.”

“But, how long would it take to get weapons made?” Aelisra pointed out. “I know no coresmith in Aldar.”

Lizzie nodded. “I know of only one coresmith who might take your job for a reasonable fee. We did a job for him once before he retired in Faloria. If you left within the week, you could make it through the mountains before the first snowfall blocks Howl’s Pass.”

“We’re talking a two-month journey just to get there, let alone get back,” the paladin complained. “By then, Qelona could have killed over a hundred merchants and farmers! We need more immediate solutions.”

Immediate solutions breed long-term problems.

“People’s lives are at stake!”

“Why don’t we take a few moments to breathe and think on this,” Raina offered. “I might be feeling better, but I’m not in any condition to travel on the road, should we choose that option. Why don’t we all take some time to think on the problem and come back with clear heads.” Grudgingly, Aelisra nodded. Before anyone could walk away, Raina continued. “Listen, I don’t really want to go back to the temple. It’s stuffy. Would you guys mind helping me get home? It’s outside town.”

I chirped in surprise. We’d been living pretty much exclusively at the guild or in the wilderness since the last time we were there. The place was still a mess from the break-in. I didn’t see how we could spend the night comfortably with a field of broken glass covering the floor.

Cithrael was the first to agree. “I’m more comfortable outside of town, anyway.”

“I’d rather not cause any trouble,” Terrowin said with a sad look. “I’m still convinced some of those shadows were after me that night. I really should leave town once the core situation is settled.”

“You’re welcome to stay the night, even if it’s kind of a mess.” Raina looked down and grimaced at the memory of the work that would go into making the place livable. “It would put you farther off the beaten path, so they don’t find you again.”

“True enough.” Terrowin took a deep breath before forcing a smile to his face. “Very well. One night can’t hurt.”

“Then let’s all go!” Aelisra put a warm hand on Raina’s shoulder. “Party bonding before we decide and potentially lose Terrowin.”

Like an excited litter of kittens, they all rushed from the room, leaving me and Lizzie alone. She sighed and leaned on the table.

“I worry for them.”

Any reason in particular?

“A good party has many different opinions, but everyone has to be willing to listen to other perspectives,” she explained. “I’m worried that this might not end the way we might hope.”

She wasn’t wrong. It probably didn’t help that Raina and I were keeping a pretty big secret from Aelisra. Terrowin and Cithrael had been all but told that secret after what they’d seen at the attack, but Aelisra…if she knew about Raina’s affinity for so-called unholy magic, she’d go ballistic. I didn’t want Raina caught in the crossfire when that finally happened.

What would you do, if you were us?

“If it were my party? Well, Erik would have advocated the same way as Aelisra,” Lizzie said. “But I would recommend the cored equipment.” Then she shrugged. “But what do I know? I’m only a retired adventurer who dealt with these exact situations when I was younger.”

I chittered in amusement at her exasperated tone. In the end, I was glad she agreed with me. It only reaffirmed my position as the wisest of those presented. All that remained now would be to convince the others that it really was the right choice.

For a small blessing, Raina had already succeeded in providing a multi-faceted opportunity. We could both smooth things over with Terrowin and Aelisra, and also convince the latter to join us in making the decision where we had the most to gain.

The idea took root and blossomed in my mind as one of my most devious yet.

As I jumped off the table, I wondered to myself: would Terrowin get lost while carrying broken glass from one side of Raina’s cottage to the other, and did Aelisra have any experience with a hammer and nails?