“Y’know, when she said wash, I assumed it would be a little more private,” Trenton said, looking around the room, placing his earth orb on the floor, Leo setting the cold plate of food down right next to it. Against the far wall, next to the pool, there looked to be stalls meant for private showers, but they would have no problem bathing together. The water was impossible to see through due to some mix of chemicals in it, and there was plenty of space .

“Close your eyes for a moment, I’m going to hop in,” Trenton said, taking off his shirt.

Leo did so, waiting a couple seconds after the big splash to open them again, Trenton giving him the same courtesy while he slipped into the bath. Around the inside of the pool there were two ledges, one to sit on, one to stand on, and a deeper section in the middle in case you wanted to go under. Trenton took the far edge, sitting down against the wall, Leo sitting a couple feet to his right. The water felt absolutely divine. It was hot at first, a bit scalding, but it quickly settled into a comfortable resting temperature, which soothed his sore muscles.

Leo looked over at Trenton, marveling at his physique while Trenton sat there with his eyes closed, his arms resting behind his head. Leo himself had an impressive build, which had only been growing as they traveled, but he was nothing compared to Trenton. Trenton reminded Leo a lot of Delis, his muscles practically bursting at the seams like he was chiseled from stone, his puffed chest easily mistakable for women’s. Trenton had always had a broader build than Leo, but it always shocked Leo how much more definition he had. Even before they started traveling, Trenton could easily rank himself against the most physically fit in the world, disregarding presence of course. And now, he might even top the charts. Hell, his body was more impressive than even Walibeld’s, who himself was extremely muscular. So not only was Trenton a shining example of the man Leo wished to be, but he had the godly physique Leo had always wanted as well.

Trenton opened his eyes, leaning his head over his shoulder to look at Leo, “How do you feel about the scars?” He asked, studying Leo’s mutilated form.

While Trenton’s body healed itself, leaving no scar tissue behind no matter how grievous the injury, Leo’s body did not. His whole form was adorned with puffy cuts, scars from battles poorly fought. He wasn’t nearly as bad as Walibeld, but it wasn’t a pretty sight.

“I don’t know. Walibeld said that the small ones could be fixed by a proper druid, but some of the larger one’s can’t be fixed,” Leo said, looking down at a massive claw mark stretching from his chest to his naval. He shrugged, “I guess it’s just what happens when you fight enough. We should find a druid if we get the chance. Having one on hand would be pretty handy.”

“Yeah, it would, but I don’t even know how we’d go about that. How do you even recruit people to a party? Put up fliers? Do some interviews? I doubt anyone would want to join us,” Trenton replied.

“Well, how did Delis and Brus meet?”

“There was a big battle in Avar. Delis and Brus were both there fighting for the same side. They met up and started working together. When Delis was leaving, Brus decided to tag along.”

“So, circumstance?”

“Guess so. Not really helpful, though. I can’t imagine Loarch is looking to throw chips our way,” Trenton grew a mischievous grin, “want to bet on it?”

“Bet on it?”

“Yeah, we both say how many companions we think we’ll have by the time we reach the Academy. The count should include anyone that’s traveling with us, and include yourself too.”

Leo thought about it for a moment, “Well, we have 3 people right now…I’ll say 5. We’ll get two more companions somewhere along the way to the Academy.”

“The way I see it, we either get no one or everyone. The middle ground seems a bit too mundane for everything that’s going on right now. You know what I think? Since we have so many groups chasing us, there’s probably a lot more people caught up in this mess than just us. I’m going with 9 people. We’ll find 6 companions along the way.”

“9!? No shot. We’d be tripling our current traveling size. I don’t even know how we’d keep track of everyone. What’s on the line, anyway?”

Trenton leaned back, looking up at the ceiling, “Hmm, how about a favor? We don’t really have money, so it’d have to be something less tangible.”

“Shake on it,” Leo said, holding out his hand, Trenton taking it heartily.

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“Good deal! Start thinking about what you want. It’ll only be another…9 months or so of traveling. Gods, why does Everil have to be so large? We can’t even use horses because of how rocky it is.”

“The northern areas are supposed to be more hilly, less rocky. We should look at getting horses in Wyrm’s perch. We could probably stow them on the ship.”

“I’ll talk to Walibeld about it,” It fell quiet for a second, Trenton seemingly having nothing else on his mind.

“Trenton, I’ve got a couple questions I wanted to ask,” Leo said, looking over at Trenton.

“Shoot,” Trenton replied, holding his relaxed pose.

“Firstly, I remembered hearing once that half-elves were considered genetic freaks, but I couldn’t remember why. Rema looked pretty normal to me.”

“Was she a half-elf?”

“Yeah, pretty sure.”

“Huh. I didn’t notice. I think it’s because of the weird way they age. Elves age to adulthood, some mid 20’s or so, and then they slow down about 15 times from there on. Half-elves, though, don’t age properly. They age their first 10 years normally, then slow down about 10 times from there. So, for the first century of their life, they don’t even reach adulthood. They're kind of like stunted children. If they grow old enough, it’s not noticeable, but if they’re still young, they have a ton of problems. Walibeld talked about it a couple times. Supposedly, in Renland, where most of the elves live, it’s a huge taboo for an elf to…zig zig with a human,” Trenton said, crossing his fingers to indicate sex. “half-elves are considered like a genetic misfit or something. Most places don’t particularly like them, but they’ll practically be stoned to death if they’re found in the streets of Renland.”

“Really? I had no idea,” Leo said, throwing his eyebrows up. “What about humans?”

“Dunno. You’d have to ask Walibeld. Avar has a similar thing, too, taboo for human-dwarf intercourse, but it’s not nearly as big of a deal because the children just pop out one or the other. Brus told me about it once. He knew a guy who lost his job because he did it with a human woman.”

“Hard to believe someone could be stoned to death simply for being born wrong. I feel like Aria was pretty alright by comparison.”

“Yeah well, that’s what happens when you have segregated cities. Aria was so far south that travelers practically never visited. We couldn’t have an outsider problem if we tried,” Trenton said, suddenly turning to face Leo had on, “have you heard about Zerital?”

“Uhh, something, something lizards. No, not really,” Leo responded, shirking away under the sudden pressure.

“Salamanders, actually. The city is split practically down the middle with salamanders and humans. Last I heard, tensions were high. Delis said fighting has started to break out more often in the streets between humans and salamanders. The real kicker is that Arnis, the duke, is doing practically nothing about it. I wonder what goes on in that guy's head.”

“Probably a lot. Running a city can’t be easy.”

“Can’t be that hard. Tiev kept Aria afloat somehow. Although most of that was probably his actually competent advisers. Thank gods he’s dead now. I can’t even imagine what I’d do to the bastard if I got my hands on him.”

“I don’t really want to…I’ve been thinking a lot about it recently. What if we have to kill someone? Monsters are one thing, but a person? That’s tough,” Leo said, shivering at the thought.

“I’ve been trying not to think about it, honestly. Hopefully, if it comes down to it, I’ll have the strength to do what I have to.. For now, though, our hands are clean…mostly,” Trenton said, chuckling as he mimed washing his hands with one of the spouts streams. “There was something else you wanted to ask, right?”

“Yeah, I did. Don’t you find it weird how many strange guys keep showing up? I mean, the guy at The Hanged Man, the attacker at Aria, the 3rd veil, and now some guy named Kesik. That’s 4 separate unknown strangers showing up all around the same time. Isn’t that odd?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence. The Hanged Man guy, Aria attacker, and 3rd veil were all looking for me specifically. That they all happened to find me around the same time is a little odd, but a lot of stuff is going on right now,” Trenton looked over at Leo, using his hands to try and exemplify the idea, “think about it like a game of chess that’s being played in like…a really foggy area. Right now, on the other side of the board, there’s a great mass of pieces we don’t know about and can’t see. They’re all moving around at the same time for different reasons. We just don’t know it. If you think about it, all across the world there’s thousands of different groups vying for some goal or another, all simultaneously. It just so happens that a couple of them are looking in our direction now.”

“That…makes a lot of sense. Still though, what about Kesik? He doesn’t seem to have any stake in what’s going on with us.”

“Maybe, but not necessarily. There’s too many intertangling threads to sort through. Who knows who's doing what for what reasons? All we can do is push forward. Set your eyes on Wyrm's perch. That’s what I’ve been doing.”

Easier said than done. It wasn’t easy to ignore all the weird events that were going on, even if he knew full well that thinking about them wouldn’t get him anywhere. It wasn’t comforting to be in the dark for such a long period of time, but they had no other choice. Leo sighed, noticing he had tensed himself over the last while of conversation. He let his shoulders loosen, the soothing waters easing his weary body.