The next night, the three young otters met on the steps of the ka-pi farum, right beside the riverbank. The silty soil looked barren save for a few small green shoots.

A rotting sign stood lopsided out front, declaring ‘beware of’ in faded paint, the rest unhelpfully cut off where the wood had broken.

They were lingering at the threshold, no one willing to be the first to step inside, when a serving mouse appeared at Sam’s shoulder. Chip placed a hand over his chest, hackles raised at the sudden fright. "We used to have a beast problem," said the mouse, "but then druids like our friend took care of the situation. Follow, please."

The mouse led them up around the deck to the back, which overlooked the mostly-empty farum field. River was there waiting for them, along four steaming mugs of ka-pi.

"I thank you all for coming," River said. "If you have no objections, Chip, I can speak about what I've learned so far."

Chip nodded, breathing in the strong, earthy tones of the ka-pi. Sam and Sela scooted into the booth beside him as the serving mouse vanished again. The deck was relatively quiet, just a few patrons nursing their drinks, unlike the steady chatter coming from inside.

River waited for her audience to be settled in before she began. "There are five judges, as a nod to the races of the Coalition. One fox, one rabbit, one mouse, then one bird and one mole. I did some digging into everyone except for the mole. I'm going to need more time with that one. Moles are a mystery to me."

Sela murmured his agreement.

"The mouse is of course Baron Cornflower, and he is widely known to prefer the sweet to the savory, like most of his race. So I think that you could do a baked treat of some sort, maybe fold in a fish substitute?"

Sam's eyes widened. "He could bake a treat in the shape of a fish-on-a-stick!" she said, “And then... we could make them all like that."

Chip held up a hand.

"If we did that we'd need a mold, which is a lot more work. I don't even know the rules of the competition yet or how to enter. The bird and the fox, do they eat fish?"

Sela pushed Chip's hand down. "I could make you a fish mold," he said. "I've got a friend in the smithy."

River sighed.

"If you ever decide to become a druid, Chip, I hope that he serves you well," River said, raising her mug as if toasting them. "Alright, so we make fish-on-a-stick, and we make a vegetarian version for those other judges. Forgive me for not knowing this, but do moles eat fish? That would simplify things, wouldn’t it?"

Neither Sam nor Sela seemed to have an answer for her, and Chip suspected he had a similarly clueless look on his own face. He sipped from his mug, savoring the silence.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"You think that I’d know this, since I'm on a contract for the moles," Sela said. "But we never really eat around them because they send us off on details like the bazaar, especially now that the harvesting is mostly done for the season."

"One more thing that we don't know, but can find out," Chip said. "Okay, River, who else?"

"Well there's this melange-colored fox, I think – "

"Lord Henry Richards? The red on black?"

"I thought it was black on red," River said.

"Does that matter?" Sam asked. She had yet to take a sip of her own ka-pi, squinting at it suspiciously.

"It matters because he's on our side,” Chip said. “He’s the one who told us about the contest... Oh, Nithe! He's our Lord of Swords. We need to..."

"Are you about to say that we need to woo him?" Sam said, incredulously.

Chip looked to his fellow otters.

"We need... to win him over to our side, is what we need to do," Sela said. "If I'm to be understanding you correctly, I'm right, aren't I?" Chip nodded, and Sela pumped his paw. "Aw, in your raft! I landed it in your raft! Booyah!"

River looked as though she was just beginning to realize what she’d gotten herself into. "I'm sorry, what?"

"It's a colloquial term for ‘I got something right for once,’" Sam said.

"HEY!" Sela puffed out his chest. "I get things right all the time, like lunchtime and dinnertime..."

"Those are just times of the day, Sela, you can't get those wrong."

"You'd be surprised, Sam. You'd be surprised."

"Alright, moving on," River said, "I've got the rabbit judge, he's a savory foodie. Name’s Lord Cobbler, and he's a character. I hear that he dresses up his two adult sons for the society balls and that both are about to enter perhaps their second or third season."

"He dresses up his sons?" Chip said, leaning back in his seat.

"He dresses up his sons! That's adorable!" Sam said.

Chip and Sela exchanged a glance.

"Well, okay. So we've got information about the fox, the mouse and the rabbit," Chip said. "And there’s not a lot of overlap, so now I need to understand how the contest works, because if all three blast furnaces are up for grabs, my uncle Brit’s fishpops have to float to the top like a ship."

"Yeah, I don't think that the baron is going to like fishpops," River sighed.

"But we can make something he will like, we just have to figure out what will satisfy... Lord Cobbler? And Baron Cornflower."

"We could also make a killing betting on this contest," Sela said.

The whole table turned to face him.

"Pardon me, I'm sorry, what?" Sam said.

"If we go to the wagering market... we're working really hard on this. I imagine that one of the otters out there will make a bet on this. How many contestants are there?" Sela said, leaning in. His eyes widened innocently, giving them a hangdog expression that said don’t ruin this for me.

"I think.. fifteen? Correct me if I’m wrong?" After a brief silence, Chip groaned, downing the rest of his coffee. The serving mouse darted out to take the empty mug. "None of you got that important bit of information?"

Sela cleared his throat. "Fish daddy – we uh..."

"It's okay," Chip cut him off, "We've got time. Actually, does anyone know exactly how much time we have?"

Silence all around the table. Chip groaned.

"Seems like we're missing out on a bunch of stuff. Okay, in that case when are we meeting again?" Chip said.

"Two days," River suggested. “Same place, same time.”

Sam and Sela nodded.

"Okay,” Chip said. “Well, I hope that we have something by then.”