Steven reacted instantly, yanking the tavern door closed, the throwing stars lodging themselves into the dense wood.

An instant later, the door flew open again, a blur hurling out and crashing into the would-be murderer’s shoulder, spinning her round. As she stumbled, seeking to find her footing, Steven erupted from the tavern. The instant he passed the still-swinging open tavern door, the stumble turned into almost dancelike footwork, more flashes of silver metal flicking out of her hands towards the guard captain. Steven’s spear came up, the long head intercepting each shuriken with contemptuous ease and stopping them dead in the air, their facets leaving them falling like sparkling rain even as Steven’s foot struck the ground precisely halfway between him and his assassin.

A pair of kunai appeared in her hands from somewhere inside her coat, then she was gone, leaving the coat hanging as though still occupied. Sparks erupted in the air as the combatant’s blades met, and met, and met again.

The tavern door finished its swing, crashing against the wall of the tavern; the attacker’s attention drawn for the briefest moment, all the opening Steven needed. Suddenly there was stillness, Steven’s spear hovering just under her chin; she froze in defeat. Time seemed to resume, the clinking rain of shurikens reaching the ground, followed by the crumpling coat. A breath later, the tavern door slowly swung shut on its rebound from the wall.

Steven bent, speartip seemingly frozen in place at her throat, and picked up the fist-sized stone he’d thrown at the start of the fight, tucking it back under his jacket.

Then he noticed Tear and me, standing off to the side, watching, and gave us a nonchalant wave. I walked over and greeted him.

“Yo Steven, how goes?”

“Ahm ahl gud. Ow’vv yuu bin?”

Tear seemed to process for about half a second before giving up. “What?”

“He said ‘I’m all good. How have you been?’,” I translated after a pause to think.

“Thaa’s ri’,” Steven nodded.

“I’ve been alright. Pretty bored though, not going out due to the rain. Er, your prisoner is escaping...”

The guard captain looked over his shoulder to see her disappear round the corner, then turned back and shrugged. “Ah kno. Eet wer jus’ a lil’ scuf’l. Ah wer jus’ givin’ ‘er a warnin’. She knows no’ ter attack anyun oo’ll atchly geh ‘urt.”

At the end of that, Tear was obviously completely lost, and I was getting the distinct feeling that It Can Talk?!’s translation extended to accents too, though there were apparently limits. Steven was nearing them.

“Er... that’s good I suppose...?” I responded, slightly uncertain, then cleared my throat. “Soo~ is the visiting adventurer group inside?”

“Aye,” Steven nodded, accidentally dropping into the wrong accent, then realising and continuing in the garbled one, to my dismay. “Thay ‘eaded oot ter yoor playce faar thair Ayy rhank test raaht? Thay wer sayin’ it wer reehl impressive.”

After a full five seconds of processing, I finally had what Steven had said deciphered.

“Yes, I think it’s rather impressive too, though that may be a little self-aggrandising. Talking of my Tower, you should come visit at some point. It’s a bit of a trek, and there’re a couple monsters, but I reckon it won’t be too difficult for you judging by that… scuffle.”

Steven agreed to come by at some point, and we made small talk for a few minutes (somewhat complicated by Stevens’s barely comprehensible accent) before I excused myself and we headed into the tavern.

As we entered through the front door, I turned and looked back at Steven. I still had Deceiver of Fools active; Steven’s mana and lifeforce pools and channels were the most powerful and bright out of everyone I’d seen other than myself, but a line of ‘shadow’ went down the left side of his back from shoulder to hip, channels darkened as though by something hovering over them. I’d never seen anything like it, but I wasn’t about to just ask him to strip so I could get a closer look at him. That might give a wrong impression. And looking through his clothes without permission using my depth vision would feel... wrong. Besides, I had just turned on Deceiver of Fools’ active effect; having darkened channels might actually be common. Or it could be an enchantment, or the effect of a piece of equipment, or even just from a tattoo. I had no scope for context.

Stolen story; please report.

I shrugged internally, ducking into the tavern. The inside was exactly what I expected from the outside: a dingy room furnished with battered tables and benches, even the world-weary looking bartender cleaning the bar with a rag. I inhaled slightly, tasting the faint tones of old alcohol and uninspired cooking.

“No, no, ye dinnae wanta go tha’ way,” Thora’s voice cut through the underlying hubbub of a dozen people talking, “tha’ way has too many bandits.”

“It’s half the length,” Vyra pointed out before turning to wave at us.

Liz followed his gaze and also waved as we made our way over to their table and pulled up our own chairs. “Yo, Lyte, Tear, how’re you doing?”

“I’d say we’re both doing fine. I was meaning to ask you the same question. You were all still pretty tired when we headed home. Talking of which, who won the drinking contest?” I had been curious about it for a while.

Stone let out a hissing laugh as his companions’ expressions changed.

“I still say she must’a cheated!” the dwarf complained. “Nobody can drink tha’ much! It was like she had a barrel instead’a stomach; she had tae be usin’ magic!”

I blinked as the dots connected in my mind. “Really? Janet?”

“That’sss right,” Stone nodded. “You ssshould have ssseen the looksss on their facesss as sshe drank ttthem under ttthe table!”

“Hey! She outdrank you too, and you’re twice her size! You have even less of an excuse!” Liz shot back.

To this, Stone silently presented a toast to the fifth person at the table, who’s body language under her hooded cloak suggested extreme embarrassment, then sat back with his tankard in hand, a slight smile on his face.

I raised an eyebrow as I observed the hooded mage, seemingly deepening her embarrassment even though I had no idea how she knew I was looking at her.

Chuckling slightly, I decided to change the topic and release the poor woman. I turned my gaze to the map spread across the table and nodded at it. “

“I heard you were planning to head off soon from Lupia; I see that that she was right.”

“Yeah,” Vyra nodded, “we’ve been staying due to the rain muddying the roads, they’ll be largely impassable to horse or carriage and very messy by foot, but we’ll manage. We need to get back to Durell soon anyway to turn in our paperwork to the Adventurers Guild branch there.”

“We’re plannin’ tae be off tomorrow mornin’,” Thora added, commenting in a mutter, “if we can decide on a route tha’ is.”

I chatted with the group for a while, during which time Tear wandered off, eventually ending up playing some kind of game with the bartender involving tossing small objects into varying sized containers.

After quite some time, I got up and collected Tear, who was being trounced by the bartender who had just revealed he was significantly better at the game than he was pretending, then we both bid farewell to the adventurers, and headed towards the door. I stuck my head outside and immediately get soaked. Back to raining, again.

“Yeah, no,” I said, pulling my head back in and sending a trickle of mana through my armour to dry myself. “Tear, hold this and pour your mana into it.”

Tear took the magic mirror that I’d given her and eyed with habitual scepticism. I sighed internally. “It won’t bite,” I encouraged as gently as I could. She raised an eyebrow.

“Well, now I’m expecting it to,” she muttered grumpily, then vanished in a cloud of pale blue sparkles as the mana flowing down her arm entered the recall item.

As I activated my own recall item, I hummed gently to myself, thinking. Deceiver of Fools’ active effect enabled my Terrarian’s Eyes to easily penetrate the concealed shadow enchantment woven into Janet’s hood and see through the illusory face behind that. Rather than a fairly plain-looking young woman, Janet was very much not human.

The skin under the illusion was a dark blue, shot through with softly curving patterns of azure, two horns jutting almost straight up 10cm out of her forehead, and short pointy ears visible through her black hair. Janet was a demon, unmistakably so. I had the distinct feeling that there was something I’d forgotten, much like the feeling when I tried to remember my previous name.

Oh well, if it was something lost in the reincarnation process, it was pretty unlikely I’d ever get it back. She didn’t seem to be hostile or anything, so I didn’t see any point in asking her why she was pretending to be human. Besides being curious. Which I was, but not enough to expose her secret and potentially casue problems for her. The way I saw it, people were entitled to their secrets unless they threatened me. Gods knew I had enough secrets of my own.