Thanks to the power of magic, Adra and Rai looked quite well by the time Sigmir knocked on the door, washed up and ready to head down to breakfast. She was rather amused when I opened the door for her, especially when I narrated the scene I had witnessed earlier. Adra, on the other hand, was less amused, even if I could sense that she normally would be, if it wasn’t at her expense.

Taking the time, while Rai was in the bathroom, I decided to finally get to the bottom of the situation between Adra and Fillippos, the innkeeper. When I had asked before, the answer given was a little unsatisfying, leaving me curious.

“Now, Adra, yesterday you seemed to have fun dancing to that Satyr’s tune. Care to explain what was going on when we checked in?” I asked, raising an eyebrow, not missing the opportunity to poke a little more fun at her.

“Racial Animosity, as I told you yesterday.” she grumbled in response, only this time, I merely kept my eyebrow up, looking at her with an expectant expression. After a moment, she let out a sigh and started to explain.

“I told you before, that Dryads don’t come with biological sexes, like many animals do, right?” she asked, causing me to nod as it, indeed, was something we had talked about before. Dryads were, appearance wise, very much female and I remembered that I had wondered why that was, given that there was no need for such features. In simple terms, why did a creature that wasn’t even close to a mammal, not even in the same kingdom, have tits? Or any of the other sexual characteristics associated with live birth, or any birth for that matter.

“New dryads come into existence thanks to an elder dryad bonding with a tree, now, guess why we dislike being referred to as ‘treehuggers’?” she asked, her eyebrow raised. While I didn’t really understand, I could see that there would be a certain distaste to have a label applied to you that reduced you to your reproductive function. I would certainly dislike being referred to as some sort of breeder, or something along those lines.

“Then ‘goatfucker’?” I asked, both anticipating and slightly dreading the response. If Adra had used it to respond to a slur aimed at her race’s reproduction, did that mean what I thought it might mean?

“Satyrs, too, are a single-sex race that reproduces sexually. Only that they don’t have the advantage of a bond with a tree…” Adra explained, a gleeful look of amusement on her face. She took pleasure in the horrified look of understanding that must have shown on my face. What, for the love of civilization, did come over Pantheon to add such a race and mechanic to their game?!

“Harpies are quite similar, you know? Only they are all female and need large birds, like those wind raptors we’ve seen a while back, for their needs.” Adra continued, the look of glee on her face getting stronger.

“Now that I think of it, they look very much like you in that other form you used when Sigmir was injured. Should we try to find you a nice feathered friend? Maybe that spirit-raven we saw in the mountains?” she asked, outright laughing when I began to sputter in disbelief. Similarly, I could feel Lenore’s disdain welling up within my mind, the idea as abhorrent to her, as it was to me.

“She’s all mine, no need for anyone else, feathered or otherwise.” Sigmir interjected, putting her arms around me.

“And I don’t want anyone else, thank you very much.” I finally retorted, giving Adra a glare, causing her to laugh even harder.

“Is everything alright?” Rai asked, stepping out of the bathroom, looking a lot better than he had earlier. He must have noticed that there was something strange going on, given that Adra was still laughing while I was glaring at her, from Sigmir’s embrace.

“Oh, we were just discussing Morgana’s romantic prospects for the future.” Adra replied, before quickly retreating past him, into the bathroom, still laughing as she went. Rai, wisely, didn’t comment, instead he apparently decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

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To get rid of the weirdness that was magical biology, I focused on Rai and asked him about his latest magical training. By this point, the student-teacher relationship had mostly dissolved, his class-abilities helping him find his own path, with relatively little guidance from my side. Instinct, even bestowed from his class, helped him to navigate the shadows in a way that I had a hard time to comprehend. On the other side, discussing his experience with me seemed to help him make sense of what his instincts told him, allowing him to make more of it. It was the best kind of lesson, one where both the nominal teacher and the nominal student learned a great deal.

By the time Adra was all washed up and refreshed, there were a number of shadows in the room, coalesced into dense clouds by both Rai and me, as we compared and contrasted our methods to form shadow-decoys. For a moment, I noticed her stiffen at the sight, before letting go of her caution and relaxing.

“By the way, how did you get in here anyway?” she asked, sounding a little annoyed. “I know that I didn’t give you a key and I somehow doubt that the innkeeper would simply give one to you.”

Raising my hand, I quickly drew a triangle of runes and, using my Ice-Magic, formed the resulting Ice into a simple key, not one that would fit any lock I knew of but the message was quite obvious.

“Crappy, cheap locks.” Adra muttered in disdain, before speaking louder. “Just pay attention, if I hadn’t been a little drunk last night, I’d have added an alarm to the door, maybe even some sort of trap.” she warned, causing Lenore to caw in amusement, deep within my mind.

“She won’t forget in the future, of that you can be sure.” My feathered friend told me, only to laugh even harder when I suggested ways to break such magical measures, given that the element of Darkness contained runes relating to magic and the disruption of it. That, alone, might be the greatest advantage of Sorcerers, compared to all the other classes, that they were only limited by their imagination, affinities and ability. Sure, I had to make all my class-abilities myself but that allowed me to make class-abilities myself.

Still looking at Adra, I focused a little more, pulling some shadows around the key of Ice I was holding, letting them play around the Ice in a manner that hopefully made the key seem more magical and a little ominous.

“Let’s get some breakfast?” Sigmir interrupted the two of us, with a reasonable and sensible suggestion, especially given that my stomach had made a few noises here and there.

We all trooped out of the room, heading downstairs. Maybe I should have expected it, given that the events had likely been something regular, but nothing remained of the exuberant party of the night before, the inn looking as calm and steady as a rock.

The room was mostly empty, with a cleanly dressed dwarven woman sitting at one of the tables, while on two of the other tables, two of last night’s revellers were passed out. When we entered, the dwarven woman looked up, greeting us with a warm smile.

“Good morning. My husband told me we had new guests staying upstairs.” she told us, causing me to pause for a moment.

“Delmar, you met him yesterday, he’s the chef.” she added, probably noticing the general confusion. Not that her words really helped, while I could now put a name to the chef and had an idea who she was referring to, it didn’t help my understanding of the situation. For a second, I considered whether I wanted to ask but for once, my curiosity wasn’t roused. Maybe it was all the earlier talk about reproduction with livestock that I didn’t want to get any additional information regarding the relationship between two dwarves and a satyr or maybe it was some sort of common, societal sense manifesting, keeping me from putting my foot into my mouth. Unlikely, but not impossible.

“Why don’t you settle down and I'll get you some breakfast? It’s easy on the stomach, given what happens most nights.” she explained with a smile, while walking towards the kitchen. After an exchange of shrugs, we decided to follow the suggestion, settling down around an empty table and making ourselves comfortable.

Just a minute or three later, the woman was back, carrying an assortment of breakfast-items, quickly setting the table for us. A bowl of a creamy, white substance caught my attention, making me think of yoghurt, something that would go quite well with some fruits and maybe bread on the side. As I reached for it, Adra leaned over to whisper into my ear.

“That’s probably made from goat’s milk.” she told me, her voice suggestive. For a moment, I hesitated before deciding that maybe, just some of the fruits were a better idea. The images springing to mind, regarding the inn using goat’s milk, were not conducive to my appetite.