Day Four in Qeth starts out as a big, hungover mess of nothingness.

I wake up well into the morning with a pounding headache and a deep wish that I had anything remotely resembling a pain killer in my bag. Alas, I do not. So I have to address my deep unhappiness by dressing (in a new outfit, though, win!) and going downstairs to beg Nyssa for more water, which she offers with nothing even remotely close to sympathy. I eat something greasy from the kitchen, drink a skin and a half of water (finding myself suddenly very aware that my waterskin is actually a skin), and I somehow manage to keep it all down.

I spend one bell sitting on the stool, picking at the remains of my greasy breakfast and sipping water before I realize that my party hasn’t shown up yet. I’m used to them coming to me, and while I could probably find myself back to the Emporium (eventually), I'm not entirely sure of that.

Resolving that they’ll come get me if we’re doing anything today, I climb the stairs and go back to bed. It’s probably past midday by the time a light knock wakes me up, and I am glad I fell into bed with my clothes still on. Smoothing my hair, I expect to see Flynt, but again I am surprised by someone else.

“Hiya, Keira,” Jonas says. He’s looking perfectly bright-eyed and happy to be living, as if I expected anything else. “Oh, you don’t look so good.”

“Thanks, Jonas,” I mutter. “It’s the best I could manage.”

“This is why you know a healer.” He rotates one wrist, muttering under his breath and then boops me on the nose. I instantly feel better and am fiercely jealous as the fog lifts and that uneasy feeling in my stomach disappears. “Good?”

“A lot better. Wait. I thought you couldn’t cure a hangover.”

He shrugs. “I thought about what you said about the poison thing and figured I’d give it a try. It’s a little bit of a variation on the spell, but it seems to work! Everyone is getting on okay with it, anyway. Speaking of. We’re all at the Emporium and thought we might see if you’d be up for joining us.”

“If you had asked me two seconds ago, I’d have said no, but yeah, absolutely.” I grab my bag and sling it over my shoulder. “I want to talk to everyone anyway.”

“Wouldn’t happen to be about something like this?” he asks, taking a folded letter out from the inside pocket of his heavy wool coat.

I heave a sigh of relief. “You got one too.”

“We all did. Mine and Meg’s were waiting for us when we got into our boarding house room last night. Guess Flynt and Tyrus found theirs this morning slid under the Emporium’s front door. Or, Flynt’s Da did, anyway.”

“I forgot Tyrus stayed there last night.”

I look back at my room and sigh softly. I should probably think about moving on from this place, though I’ve kind of grown to like it. It’s not that expensive, and I get my meals cooked for me and sheets cleaned. Yes, I share the privy and tub with strangers, but there’re worse things. And I know a good healer, just in case.

“How cold is it out there? Is it cultists-invading-the-city cold, or is frost-giant-nearly-squishing-us cold?”

It clearly takes Jonas a moment to decipher my meaning, but then he grins and chuckles. “Somewhere in between. Ice-spider-cave cold.”

“Fair.” I don my cloak and wrap the soft scarf around my neck before pulling up my hood. “Lead on.”

“You have no idea where the Emporium is, do you?”

“I do. Just not a very good one.”

We exit the Wide Sky Tavern, pausing briefly at the bar for me to fill up my waterskin again, and also to pay Nyssa for breakfast and last night. I guess I will eventually check out and stay with the others back at the Emporium, but I think I want to figure a few things out first, and frankly, it feels good to have a little separation from the team. Though who knows what they get up to when I’m not there.

Outside, the snow is slowly melting, turning into slush in what is probably just above freezing temperatures. It reminds me of early spring in New England, the beautiful pristine white turning dirty and gray by the side of the road, piled up against buildings and in the gutters along the sidewalks. It’s not as beautiful a walk as it was last night, the magic of the district not quite as pronounced without the bright lights against a cold, crisp evening.

No longer having the buzz of success probably hampers it a bit, too, as do the crowds. The place is bustling, and I realize that I’ve never actually seen the city in the middle of the day—I’ve either been out on missions from the notice board, or I’ve been unconscious.

We dodge through groups of people and past carts pulled by those weird donkey-cats and step over puddles on our way through the main merchant’s district; our walk generally conversation-free. And while Jonas is his usual (so far as I can tell) happy self, there’s a thoughtfulness to his body language.

“What is everyone’s mood? About the letter, I mean.”

“Hm. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Flynt seems to be considering it. Meg is hard to read, as usual.”

“Really? I typically find her pretty straight-forward.”

He shakes his head. “That’s mostly an act. She’s nowhere near as gruff and down to business as she’d have you all believe. Trust me. The Meg of last night is closer to real Meg than the taciturn adventurer you’ve seen the last couple of days. But. She does play things low to the table so to speak.”

“I guess that’s good to know,” I murmur. “What would you guess her feeling are?”

“I’m a little disturbed by the fact she’s not more excited. This is what she’s been talking about, isn’t it? Myself, I’m a little hesitant, I’ll admit, but we probably shouldn’t discuss it too much without the others. I know they want to have a group chat. It’s why I came out to get you.”

“Not that I’m not glad to see you, but why did you come?”

He shrugs. “I volunteered first. Wanted the fresh air. Plus, we assumed you’d feel about as shitty as the rest of us did when we woke up, and I have the magic touch.” He rubs his fingers together with a grin.

“It’s good to know I wasn’t the only one.”

“Far from. I think Meg was probably the worst, though she always hurts after a night of drinking.”

“How long have the two of you known each other?”

“About three years now,” he says. “She used to tend bar at the local pub in my hometown—this was back when she was just starting out and I was the apprentice healer who probably spent a little too much time in there. We got to know each other fairly well, then started doing the odd job here and there to start getting experience, see how we worked together. It went pretty well, so she started teaching me more and more about adventuring, and we went from there until we got to the point where we needed a bigger team if we were going to do anything meaningful.”

“Which is how you ended up here.”

“More or less. Mornrise is a nice town, but it’s very much a town. There weren’t many adventurers that would come through the area, much less any just starting out. We figured we needed to get to a bigger city to find anyone. Oosal was a little closer than Ruska, so here we are.”

“She said something about having morals making it hard to find teammates. Did you try others before us?”

“A couple,” Jonas says with a wince. “They didn’t turn out well. Take Tyrus at his worst and then multiply that. We took out a feshrel camp on a creek down by the eastern road, and they just enjoyed it way too much. We didn’t come away from it feeling particularly good.”

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“Feshrel?”

“Yeah, those creepy land fish things? Have the fins under their chins?” He uses one hand to gesture. “What do you call them where you’re from?”

“Oh. Uh. Land fish, honestly,” I reply, having absolutely no idea what he’s talking about but am strangely curious to find out.

“Creative.”

“Oh, and feshrel is? What does that even mean?”

“It’s dwarven.” He pauses a moment and makes a face. “For land fish. Okay, point taken.” He laughs as we come up on the Emporium’s arcade, which is also bustling with activity, a dull roar echoing up off the high stone ceiling and all the shop windows lit up. “Just so you’re prepared: Flynt’s father is there running the shop right now.”

“Okay… how should I prepare myself?”

“No specific way. He might have questions. He did for all of us anyway.”

“Ah. Over-engaged parent figure. That’s my specialty. Parents love me.”

“I have no doubt. Still. The whole elf thing may throw him off a little bit.”

“But... he’s an elf.”

“Right.”

“I really don’t understand what the big deal is,” I mutter, shaking my head. “They’re just ears.”

“Ears, hundreds of years’ worth of experiences, and big egos.”

“I don’t have a big ego. Neither does Flynt, and he’s partially elven.”

“You’re unique cases. And Flynt wasn’t raised especially elven.”

Neither was I, I want to say, but figure that now really isn’t the right time.

The Emporium is open and there’s several people shopping inside. We stomp the slush off our boots before we enter, and Jonas grins, raising a hand to a tall, slender, later middle-aged looking man behind the counter. He has a pale complexion with sharp green eyes that seem a little too big for his face: not like, anime big or uncanny valley big, but notably round. His dark hair is streaked with salt and pepper, and he looks like he’s probably in his late fifties—though that could easily be late five-hundreds given how long everyone hints that elves seem to live here.

He returns Jonas’s gesture with a raised hand, then his eyes fall on me as I pull back my hood and wow do they immediately darken. With that chill, I almost feel like I’m back in the forest with the frost giant.

“Geez,” I murmur, wincing as Jonas leads me up to the counter.

“Mr. Stoutbrooke, this is Keira,” Jonas introduces me.

I try to smile and offer a slight wave. “Hi, Sir.” I’ve literally never formally sir-ed anyone in my life, but it felt like the thing to do.

“My son has mentioned you,” he says. “His description was poorly done.”

“Oh,” I reply, really not sure how else to respond to that. I glance at Jonas for help, and he seems as taken off guard as I am. “It is… nice to meet you. I… should probably go find Flynt.”

“Are they still in the upstairs common room?” Jonas asks.

Mr. Stoutbrooke nods, then pulls his gaze off me to turn his attention to a customer and her book selection. One of them definitely looks like one of the bodice rippers we were making fun of last night.

“That was devastating to watch,” Jonas whispers to me as we head up the stairs.

“So it wasn’t just me?”

“No. Whatever Flynt has said, it cannot have been taken in the spirit it was meant. That man really didn’t like you.”

“But I’m likable, aren’t I?”

“Haven’t we been over this? I’m feeling that you have a lot of self-doubt.”

“It’s hard not to after a reception like that.”

“Well. That’s difficult to argue.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“I’m agreeing with you, isn’t that what you want?”

“I’m not even sure, to be honest.”

Jonas chuckles and holds open the side door marked PRIVATE in careful stylized lettering. It leads to a hallway that runs through the Stoutbrooke living quarters, which are really quite large. The ground floor is primarily storage area and the kitchen, while this level has a privy, a massive sitting room, and the bedroom Flynt uses. The next level, off of where the gear is, has four extra bedrooms; each are done up nicely, if I remember right from our drunken tour last night. They’re not huge, but are serviceable.

Flynt, Meg and Tyrus are sprawled in various sitting options across the room—Flynt at a desk, writing in some book, while Meg reads on a sofa, and Tyrus sits in an overstuffed armchair by the fireplace, staring into the flames.

“Found her,” Jonas says as Meg sits up and closes her book. Flynt does the same. Tyrus just waves at me. “She got one too.”

“Great,” Flynt says, taking his letter off the desk and moving to sit at a round card table in the opposite corner. Without preamble or so much as a hello, he tosses the letter down in the center of the table as if it’s a winning hand of poker. “What do we think?”

The rest of us gather there, too, and we each cautiously follow Flynt's lead, taking a seat and tossing our carefully folded letters onto the polished table top. Jonas’s is more crumpled than folded, and he tries to smooth it out before it joins the others.

Tyrus folds his arms. “I think it’s a good offer.”

“What were you offered?” Jonas asks.

“Enough to make it enticing. Why. What were you offered?”

“Similar,” he softly admits, some of the pep from earlier dissolving into seriousness.

“My letter called it ‘the thing I desire most that they are able to give’,” I say.

Flynt cocks his head slightly. “What was that for you?”

“What was it for you?”

His cheeks flush that darker shade of green, evident even in the flickering firelight from the hearth.

“Should we tell each other?” Jonas pointedly looks at each of us in turn. “Is that something a true party would do?”

Meg frowns. “Probably, but I’d really rather not. At least, not right now.”

Tyrus shrugs. “I don’t care who knows mine.”

“It’s a lot of money, isn’t it?” Meg asks, dryly.

“It is. But not like how you’re thinking.” He actually sounds a little hurt by the implication. “It’s enough to help my family, make it so my parents won’t need to work anymore. Make sure my sister can leave her place in the Hearthstone house.”

I fold my arms and sit back in my chair. “Mine is a way home.”

“You just got here,” Flynt says.

“I know. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to go home, at least eventually.”

“And you need help to do that?” Meg raises an eyebrow. “You have enough money in your little bag right now to buy an airship ticket anywhere in the world.”

I hesitate a moment because airship, but then I shrug a shoulder. “That may be true. Doesn’t mean it’s that easy for me.”

Jonas shakes an index finger at me. “One of these days you’re going to feel comfortable telling us the story of your quick escape, and I’ll tell you now, I’ve been filling in the blanks, and if the real story doesn’t live up to my imagination, I’m going to be a little disappointed.”

“You might need to get used to disappointment,” Meg says.

Flynt’s gaze is downcast toward the pile of letters in the middle of the table, his brow knit. “I guess the question now is—do we do it?”

Tyrus nods. “Yes.”

“I don’t know,” Meg replies. “On the one hand, there are stories of wealthy patrons funding adventurers. On the other, we don’t know who or what this Z is. I don’t want to end up beholden to one of the Families.”

“You think it’s like the Kartesians?” I ask.

“No, not that type of family—one of the Big Four. I’d sooner die than work for one of them. There’s a reason Tyrus wants to get his sister out of one of their homes.”

“We should definitely get more information,” Tyrus agrees, “but I think we should keep an open mind. No, we shouldn’t go around being mercenaries for hire or quest minions for the Terravins or whomever. But some wealthy Oosalian wants to fund us for a vanity project, I don’t see the harm.”

Flynt looks up. “What if it isn’t a vanity project? What if it’s bigger than that?”

Meg frowns, studying him. “What have you heard?”

“Things here and there from some of the adventurers who come in the shop. Nothing specific, nothing about a Z, but about someone approaching adventurers to help save Qeth.”

“Save Qeth?” I ask. “From what?”

“From itself, I’d imagine,” Tyrus mutters. “We’ve told you before, it looks shiny and clean on the outside, but you look deeper and there’re cracks in the foundation.”

I look at him, then to Flynt, and to Meg. Jonas looks as confused as I feel, and he’s been uncharacteristically quiet through the debate. That makes me worry a little for some reason.

“How would we do that?”

Meg draws a slow, deep breath. “Carefully. I think we should show up and get more information. We don’t know enough to go by right now, and we shouldn’t make any decisions based on a few paragraphs. We go, we listen to what they have to say, learn a little more about this Z character, and then decide as a team. All or nothing.”

Tyrus shakes his head. “I don’t know that I can promise that. The all or nothing part. It’s a very tempting offer.”

“So, what, you’d work with whomever you got paired with?” I ask. “Strangers?”

“I hate to break it to you, Keira, but we’re all basically strangers. Aside from Meg and Jonas, the rest of us have known each other a matter of days. I like all of you, and I think we have potential to work really well together, but if it comes down to working with you all on notice boards or working with these people on something that’s going to get me what is promised in that letter? I’m going to take the way marked Z. I don’t mean that as anything other than the truth.”

Flynt nods. “I think we can appreciate that.” His voice is low, thoughtful. His jaw is tight. “It’s a tempting offer. Difficult to say no to.”

“See, now I’m really curious what yours is.” But Jonas’s tone suggests his heart isn’t in it.

“I think we all are,” I agree.

Flynt smiles slightly. “It’s nothing.”

“Then why won’t you tell us?” Meg asks.

“Why won’t you? In the end, I don’t think it matters what our deepest wish is. I think what matters is whether we’re willing to go into it together. It may not be an all or nothing deal to each of us but, reading between the lines, it may be for Z. All of us or none of us. And we all need to decide where we stand.”

“I agree with Meg.” I look to our tank. “We show up, have a nice dinner, wait until they reveal themselves, and we get our questions answered. If we’re at least intrigued by those answers, we give it a try. Especially if there’s some kind of escape clause. If we can walk away should things get sketchy, then I don’t see the harm. And if they are one of the Four Families, then we definitely nope on out and continue to work the notice board until something else comes along.”

“That’s very confident for someone who just stepped in-harbor three days ago,” Meg says.

“Four, thank you." I grin. “I like our group. I like you all. I want to see what we can do. And ultimately, I’d hate for these stupid letters to get in the way of finding out.”

We all look at one another for a long beat and we each nod in silent agreement.

“We hear them out, then take a vote,” Flynt says. “All or nothing.” His eyes settle on Tyrus. “We’ll find a way to get your sister out of her contract, even if we don’t go with this offer.”

Tyrus looks skeptical. “Can you promise that?”

“Absolutely,” Meg agrees. The rest of us nod.

Tyrus smiles slightly. “Alright. All or nothing, then. We’ll figure it out.”

“Okay.” Jonas claps his hands together once—though he still seems pretty distracted. “Can we talk for a moment about the cold-as-ice greeting Keira got from someone’s beloved Da?”