Grandmother was sitting in the selkie common room thinking about dishes. Todd, Alex and Kai were all in the back talking to the brewer.

The display of items the potter set before her left her thinking she was once again missing something. Most of the items were shockingly familiar. Almost like Control took a look in the Speedwell’s dining room supply closet. There were others that Grandmother was certain she never saw before. The fact that the potter made so many of them in only twenty minutes, even if they were still unfired, proved they were very low tier. They also must have come almost directly from patterns. The speed of the production, and the potters seemingly lack of knowledge of what they were for both supported that. They must be something like the junk contents of wildspace.

The jeweler sat down, shaking Grandmother from her thoughts. He cast muffle, blur and something Grandmother did not recognize. It popped up on her display of spells that were active on her. She did not recognize the icon, but the border was white. That meant she could dismiss it at any time if it became a problem. She decided to play along and try to figure out what it did.

“What gave me away?” the jeweler asked. Ah, Grandmother thought, Ellen did or said something that made him realize she knew he wasn’t a selkie. He spoke now in a low octave in Grandmother’s language. It was odd to hear that voice come from a selkie.

“You made a lot of mistakes,” Grandmother responded.

“Did Amilia send you?” he asked.

“No,” Grandmother responded, surprised at the very human sounding name.

“Will you tell the King?” he demanded.

“No,” Grandmother responded, “I can’t.” She added. She watched the jeweler’s reaction. He seemed to believe her. She was starting to suspect the extra spell was a truth spell.

“Why not?” the not-selkie asked.

“You’ve made another mistake,” Grandmother told him. She decided to take advantage of his spell. She could tell him things now he might not believe without his truth spell proof.

“What?” he said, sitting upright.

“You’ve assumed I am one of you. I am not. I am exactly what I appear to be. A human tier six,” she told him.

“No,” he responded. “That’s impossible.” He shifted slightly with a painful grimace.

“You claim you are old, but selkies don’t get old. Even Enchanter, who is the oldest among them, doesn't show any real signs of aging. If anything, she is just depressed. Among your own kind you may be old, but I actually think you are injured. Something that can’t be readily healed. Something that complex must have been done to you on purpose to limit you.” Grandmother smiled.

“I am young,” Grandmother declared, “not yet a century old. Imagine what I will be in another hundred years, in a thousand.” She dismissed the spell off of her. The jeweler cringed as he saw his spell fail. A tremble ran down his form. “I won’t tell your King you are here because I don’t know where your King is. I don’t know what you really are. We all have secrets and you are entitled to yours.”

“Why did you send me your apprentice,” he asked, “if not to spy on me?”

“She is more dear to me than a daughter, but she is not my apprentice. She is yours,” Grandmother told him. “She wishes to learn. I sent her to learn from you.”

“Crafting?” he asked.

“Crafting, spying, thieving, how to navigate the dangers of a foreign court, she is younger than I, but I expect her to travel far,” Grandmother responded.

“Is she your heir?” he asked.

“One of them, but not my primary,” Grandmother answered, wondering where this conversation was going. She had a feeling ‘heir’ had a lot more meaning in his culture than it did in hers.

“I remember you,” the not-selkie said suddenly, “from Redfalls.”

“I was younger then,” Irene responded, “and made mistakes. I learned from them. Doubtless I have more mistakes to make, hopefully I will learn from them too. You don’t want to become one of my mistakes.”

“Grandmother,” Todd said abruptly. He was standing at the end of their rock table, one hand on his spear and the other on his knife. He couldn’t hear them because of the muffle. The blur allowed him to see their rough figures, but not their specific actions. Grandmother could hear the concern in his voice. She flicked away the jeweler’s spells, dismissing them as easily as she did the truth spell. The not-selkie flinched again.

“Todd,” Grandmother said warmly. “This is Do-Fa-Ti, the jeweler. Do-Fa-Ti, this is Todd, my primary heir.”

“Do-Fa-Ti,” Todd said to the not-selkie. “It is an honor.” Todd moved his hand off his knife. The jeweler nodded his head at Todd, acknowledging him in a totally not-selkie manner.

“I will consider this,” Do-Fa-Ti said in his selkie voice. He rose to his feet. “I have an apprentice to train.”

“What was that about?” Todd asked after the jeweler left. He sat down on the stone chair the jeweler abandoned.

“Ellen said something that made him realize I knew his secret,” Grandmother responded. “He was under the mistaken impression that I shared that secret.”

“What?” Todd said, with a confused look. Grandmother glanced around the room and cast her own muffle. It annoyed her to have to do that, but this wasn’t her inn and it wasn’t her secret.

“He thought I wasn’t human but whatever race he is. He was under the impression that I was sent to catch him, so we can put him down as a fugitive, not an active spy or retired thief,” Grandmother commented.

“Did you get a better feel for his tier?” Todd asked.

“Five,” Grandmother responded. “I was able to dismiss his spells. He admitted to me that he was at Redfalls. Obviously there were no selkie there. I will have to think about who he might have been.”

Redfalls was a well known battle in the wizard’s war. At the end of last season Grandmother mentioned that the love of her life died at Redfalls. The battle was named for the hidden square it was fought at. Todd thought Grandmother’s reference this time was to the square not the battle. Todd wanted to ask her about it. He didn’t understand how a square could be hidden, but something about her tone when she said the word stopped him.

“Will he be a problem?” Todd asked instead.

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“No,” Grandmother responded. “Since he is in hiding he won’t want to draw attention. He will flee if he decides we are a threat.”

“How did I get promoted to primary heir?” Todd queried.

“It seemed an important position to Do-Fa-Ti,” Grandmother admitted. “I couldn’t tell him I didn’t have one. I can always change my mind later.”

“I am honored,” the warrior said seriously. “I will strive to be worthy of the honor.”

“You are already worthy of it,” Grandmother declared. She dismissed her muffle spell. “Get me a beer,” she told her primary heir. “Something mild. I feel the need to keep my wits about me.” Todd returned with two tankards of beer. He sat with one and gave the other to Grandmother.

“It’s Brewer’s version of Londontown Stout,” Todd warned. He said Brewer with the musical tones of the selkie’s name overlaid on it. It made the word a little smeared, since all Selkie names were three notes, while the word only had two syllables.

“I thought I said mild,” Grandmother responded, giving the brew a cautious look.

“That is mild for here,” was Todd’s response. With a sigh, Grandmother took a sip. She could feel her lips go numb for just a second, before her nanobots kicked in and cleaned the poison from her blood. She took another small sip and rolled it around her tongue for a second, waiting for the numbness to wear off before swallowing. Actually the arrowhead root had a nice flavor.

“I came out to tell you the Brewer has received a gift from the true god,” Todd explained to Grandmother. “I thought it might help with our upgraded rest problem.”

“The rest?” Grandmother queried. “What was this gift?”

“A brewing room. Brewer said she came in one morning and found a new door behind the beer tanks. It leads to a stair down to a room below us that is the size of the kitchen. It is fully outfitted for making beer, including heat and water sources,” Todd reported. Grandmother could hear the envy in Todd’s voice. He wanted one.

“Does she know what triggered it?” Grandmother asked.

“No,” Todd responded. “She thinks the quality of her beer pleased Control.”

“Hmm..” Grandmother thought. “And this is a recent development?”

“Yes,” Todd responded. “It showed up sometime during the maintenance cycle, so it wasn’t us.” Grandmother thought some more.

“Maybe it was us, just in a delayed manner. I remember when we last visited, Brewer had a new beer she wanted you to taste. Did she make any more while we were away?” Grandmother asked.

“She did,” Todd replied. “She was excited to share it with us. It is very tart.”

“How many types of beer do we sell in Home Square?”

“Two,” Todd responded, “Stout and the regular.”

“How many beers does Brewer sell?” Grandmother queried.

“Six,” Todd stated.

“A magic number,” Grandmother commented.

“Indeed,” Todd replied.

Do-Fa-Ti dismissed Ellen past midday, telling her he was too hungry to deal with her youth any longer. Ellen happily took her leave, excited by all the things the jeweler taught her today. She didn’t even notice the water in the central pond as she crossed over to the selkie inn. She found Todd, Alex, Kai and Grandmother drinking beer in the common room.

Ellen was surprised to find Grandmother drinking beer, especially this early in the day. Grandmother almost always drank tea. Ellen thought maybe tea was not available in this inn. Companion held a true abhorrence to the idea of hot drinks, that might be a universal selkie trait. Ellen tried to remember what Grandmother drank on previous trips. Ellen couldn’t remember anything.

Thinking about how strong the beer was, she took a second look at Kai. With some relief she noted that the tier two’s tankard was filled with water.

“Did you have a good day?” Todd asked.

“Yes,” Ellen responded. “Do-Fa-Ti showed me a bunch of stuff. It will take me weeks to learn all the spells.” Ellen turned to Grandmother. “I asked him if there is an amulet to help find ‘holy places’. He said they can’t be crafted, but sometimes Control hands them out as rewards. Usually they are specific and will only locate one type of holy place.”

This question was related to their upgraded rest project. The two galleries the group owned included inventory access stations and simplified food vendors. They wanted to know if there was a method to add that kind of asset to the rest. Enchanter told Companion about a totem her mother possessed that could call an inventory access. According to her, the totem only worked in ‘holy places’. Ellen forgot to ask the jeweler on their last visit to Seagrass at the end of the last season.

“Did he say what types of holy places there were?” Todd asked.

“No,” Ellen responded. “He pretended he couldn’t understand me. I think he doesn’t know.”

“I got an amulet from the Coliseum,” Grandmother admitted. She was holding her staff in a vertical position and was spinning it as she thought.

“You did?” Ellen said, surprised. “I don’t remember seeing it in the loot.”

“I don’t remember what I did with it,” Grandmother confessed. “I remember thinking it was small and easy to lose…” she trailed off as she considered. “I think I put it in a pocket or my lunch bag.”

“Did you bring your leathers?” Ellen asked. Grandmother hated the purple color her magic stained integrated items with. As a result she almost never wore integrated clothing. Instead she wore a set of hand made leathers. Among the selkie she switched to cloth armor. The dark color of the fabric warned the selkie that she was high tier.

“No,” Grandmother confessed. “I left them in Home Square. My lunch bag is there too. I’ll have to check them when we get back. This reminds me that we need to tell Me-So-Ray that Harry is organizing a Challenge day.”

“I’ll ask the innkeeper,” Alex volunteered. “He may know where we can find Me-So-Ray this time of day.” Alex rose from his rock and went to speak to the innkeeper. He came back quickly reporting that the innkeeper insisted on notifying the portal keeper. Grandmother noticed that Alex’s beer was refilled. Grandmother was still nursing her first Stout.

The portal keeper arrived shortly. To Grandmother’s surprise he was in the company of Enchanter, Companion and Sarah.

“Hallo,” Enchanter said proudly to Grandmother, in her high voice. “Goop Pay po you.”

“Good Day to you, Enchanter,” Grandmother responded. Obviously d’s and t’s were hard for the selkie. “Did the books help you?” she asked.

“Very mup,” Enchanter replied. “Your language is very hard to pronounce,” the selkie continued in her own language. “I am bepper ap hearing ip,” she said, switching back to human.

“I feel the same,” Grandmother responded. “I keep trying,” Grandmother tried to say in selkie. She suspected she spoke selkie with the same kind of lisp Enchanter was demonstrating with the human language.

“As will I,” Enchanter agreed. It was good to see Enchanter so far advanced at the spoken language. Companion spoke so little that Irene wasn't certain the selkie could learn it. Harry mentioned that Enchanter visited Home Square several times during the maintenance cycle. Grandmother wondered if someone helped Enchanter with the language. She would have to ask Harry and thank whoever did.

“You wanted to talk to me?” Me-So-Ray, the portal keeper asked.

“Harry is organizing a Challenge day for the Coliseum,” Grandmother explained. “I wanted to make sure you knew so you can pass the word to anyone who is interested.”

“A what now?” the portal keeper asked. Companion spoke up, explaining the concept. Grandmother listened to his description ready to make corrections, but it was unneeded. Companion for all his apparent disinterest during his time in the audience obviously paid attention to what was happening.

“When will the first one of these be?” Me-So-Ray asked.

“It is scheduled for thirty three days from today,” Todd answered, “as long as at least one challenger signs up.”

“There won’t be a shortage,” Me-So-Ray. “It is an honor to attempt a challenge. Has anyone succeeded yet?”

“Yes,” Grandmother replied. “All the challengers have been human, so I am not certain what a selkie will win.” In packing for this trip, Grandmother looked over her pile of glass armor and considered how most of it wouldn’t fit a selkies anatomy. She thought the loot would alter for a selkie challenger. If it didn’t they would still be able to sell the armor on.

Grandmother turned her pack where it rested on the floor and slipped her hand into the bottom gathering bag. She grabbed the edge of the glass helmet she brought along for example. As she pulled it out of the bag, it swelled up to its original size. Enchanter gave Grandmother’s bag a liquid stare, but Me-So-Ray’s gaze was locked on the armor. Grandmother set it on the stone table. As soon as she let go of it, the dark, nearly black, violet color of it began to fade.

“The successful challengers have all been given glass armor pieces,” Grandmother explained. “Like this one.”

“What does the selkie coliseum award?” Alex asked.

“Ceramic cloth armor,” Me-So-Ray responded absently, all his attention still on the helmet. “Can I touch it?”

“Go ahead,” Grandmother said. The helmet was almost a clear glass again. When Me-So-Ray’s flipper-hand came in contact with it, it began to stain orange.