Allana and Seo sat in awkward silence until one of Bors’ serving girls brought a couple more glasses for them. Both were filled with what should’ve been amber liquid, watered down enough that it was more of a golden yellow color. Gloam whiskey was expensive, as it had to be fermented with certain reagents to acquire the magical potency needed to punch through a boosted resilience attribute.

Unfortunately, Allana’s gift of poison meant that the magic alcohol was a necessity if she wanted to get even a buzz, and unlike Geoffrey, she couldn’t afford bottles of it straight. It was a common enough problem for Novices and Apprentices in Lowrun, and Bors had solved it in a way characteristic of the slums. Watering down the liquor retained its magical potency while letting the bartender stretch a single bottle three or four times as far.

It also made it taste like water that had, at some point, sat in a barrel that had once been used to season whiskey, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“I’d be careful with that,” Allana warned Seo as the androgynous young man picked up his own glass. “I’m willing to bet you don’t have a resilience boost, if you’re as fragile as you claim.”

The boy hesitated, staring down at his glass, then shrugged. “Wisdom’s never really been a strong point for me either,” he told her with a wink, before throwing back a swallow of the magically potent alcohol.

Allana took a more conservative sip, her lips cocked into a smirk as she watched the proud little wraith try to contain the gagging cough that immediately shot through him at the burn of the liquor–and fail.

“Blood and feathers!” the boy swore between coughs. “What even was that!?” he finally managed to ask.

Allana took another mellow sip from her glass before explaining, “Gloam whiskey. It’s made for people who need a little more punch in their booze.”

Seo managed to collect himself pretty quickly, though little coughs kept slipping out, and his pale skin had flushed to a brilliant red in his cheeks. “Wait… it’s magic booze?”

“Watered down magic booze,” Allana clarified, her smirk returning to her face. “That you still couldn’t drink.”

Seo frowned down at his glass, then looked at Allana. She could see his pride warring with his common sense. Unsurprisingly, his pride won out, and he took another small sip. She was pretty sure he was trying to match her own pace.

Her eyes dancing, Allana took a much deeper gulp of her own whiskey as a challenge. Seo’s cheeks burned brighter–but he reluctantly put the glass down on the table.

“So, speaking of lacking wisdom,” Allana asked him, “what brings you to Lowrun?”

Seo grimaced. “Uhm… the usual, you know,” he told her. “Opportunity, riches, all that.”

Allana arched a brow at his words. “Uh-huh.” She drew the sound speculatively. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a terrible liar?”

Seo flushed again. Allana couldn’t help but notice the heat of it noticeably spread out to the tips of his delicately pointed ears. He is far too cute for this sort of life. Too bad for him.

Lowrun had a way of beating out that sort of sweetness.

“I ran away from home, okay?” Seo admitted with a groan. “It just sounds so childish when I say it like that.”

“Mhmm. One of the villages, I assume?”

“Yeah. My father was a trader that runs between a few of the towns, making a little profit at a time, essentially just moving supplies around.”

“And you,” Allana guessed, “decided that you knew enough about what he did to take your knowledge to the big city, and earn yourself a cozy mansion up in Highreach, right?”

“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds even more…”

“Naive? Immature? Innocent? Stupid beyond mortal reckoning?” Allana’s voice was as sweet and helpful as she could manage. Seo glared at her, and she laughed at the expression.

“Don’t worry,” she reassured him, her voice returning to its naturally lower tones. “You’re far from the first with a story like that, and you won’t be the last. They all end up in Lowrun eventually.” Allana couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.

“What about you?” Seo asked. “I mean, clearly you’ve been here awhile, right?”

“My whole life.” Allana sighed. “Well, all of it that I can remember, at least. My parents made the same move you did.”

“I assume it didn’t work out for them either?”

“It did not.”

Seo cleared his throat awkwardly, like he didn’t know how to reply.

Allana took another sip of her drink, taking comfort in the familiar burn of it, and ignored the urging of her gift of poison to purge the alcohol’s influence. A little poison was what it took to get through the days, sometimes.

Finally, she threw the boy a lifeline. “So back there, with those two idiots. Was that battle magic you used on them? Invoking or whatever?”

“Evocation,” Seo corrected her smoothly, looking relieved at the change of topic. “Uhm, yeah, it was. I took the Mage’s exam a few weeks back.” He turned to look at the still clear spot on the floor where he had left both thugs sprawled. “That was my first time really trying it out on someone.”

Allana blinked in surprise. “Seriously? Your first time using a new gift, and you took down two Apprentices? Just like that?”

Seo shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “‘Took down’ is a strong phrase. I embarrassed them, that was all.”

Allana snorted in amusement. “Maybe so, but it was quite something. And humility doesn’t suit you nearly as well as arrogance.” She didn’t know what made her add a wink at the end of the sentence, but it noticeably brightened Seo’s demeanor.

“I guess it was, wasn’t it?” he asked thoughtfully. “I really am pretty great!”

Allana huffed a laugh and took another drink. “I’ve seen a couple battle mages use the evoker gift, though. It never looked like that. Was that an augment or something?”

Seo probably hoped Allana wouldn’t notice the way he used a sip of his drink to buy time before he answered his question. If he kept that up, she’d end up having to drag him home.

“Uhm… Kind of. My old man wanted me to go into the family business, right? So I studied up and took the Professional’s exam. I got the gift of mathematics.

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“Math,” Allana repeated flatly. The Professional, like the Mage, gave its gift to any who showed their mastery of certain topics, but rather than schools of magic, the Professional was focused on more mundane studies. Economics, anatomy, and… “You seriously have a gift of mathematics?

Seo shrugged sheepishly at her reaction. “Yeah… I mean, evocation is just manipulation of kinetic energy. Force. So a big part of it is just understanding how energy changes properties and strength. It’s a lot of ratios and complicated formulas. So it lets me make my force spells a lot tidier than they’d be for other people, I guess.”

Allana blinked her eyes slowly at the boy. “So your magic is better… because you know math.”

Seo stared at Allana for a long moment before replying with a shaky, “Yes?”

Allana rolled her eyes at him. “Look, I don’t care what you're hiding. Keep your other gift to yourself, Rogue knows there’s plenty I won’t tell you. Just… just stop lying, okay? You’re terrible at it.”

Seo’s mouth moved silently, as if trying to argue but lacking the words, and finally, he slumped in his chair. “I thought I was doing fine…”

“Ter-ri-ble.” Allana repeated, drawing out each syllable.

“Yeah well… fine. Whatever.”

#

“What about you?” Seo asked her a couple drinks later. He had switched to a weak wine, the already pale white watered down to near transparency, while she was on her third glass of gloam whiskey. Both were significantly more relaxed, and the influence of the alcohol showed as much in Seo’s cheeks as Allana’s slightly fuzzy mind.

“What about me what?” Allana asked, chuckling a little for reasons she wasn’t entirely sure of.

“Your gifts!” Seo clarified. “I showed you mine, now it’s your turn.”

Allana started to respond, then stopped, taking a moment to mull over his phrasing. She tilted her head and arched an eyebrow, trying to gauge if his choice of words was intentional.

Based on the sudden guilty look on Seo’s face, it was indeed intentional, if likely more bold than the slender wraith would’ve managed without the alcohol.

After a moment, Allana let the comment slide. “Well, first of all, you lied to me about one of your gifts, remember?”

“I did n-”

“Yeah, yeah, save it. You’re just sooo bad at lying.” Allana shook her head and took another sip of her drink. “Fortunately, if you tried hard enough, it wouldn’t be too hard for you to find out my gifts, so I guess I can tell you.”

Tenebres arched one eyebrow. “So… are you like… a big deal or something?”

Allana waved a hand, as if batting away an annoying insect. “I guess so. In certain circles.”

Seo nodded slowly, and Allana fancied she could all but hear the wheels turning in his head. “Those two idiots from before. They were bragging about working directly for someone named Telik. You mentioned him too, during the confrom… contont… fight with them.”

Allana nodded a small confirmation, trying to contain the little flare of sullen heat in her chest at the mention of the crimelord. “He’s the big deal. Porg, Vern, and I, we’re more footnotes.”

“He’s… what, your patron or something?”

“Something like that,” Allana replied with a sigh. “We were orphans, and he took us in. Trained us. Bought us our gifts. That’s why they’re not all that hard to figure out.”

Allana didn’t want to think about the man who had been as close to a father as she had ever had. Since she had first met Geoffrey, and been told Telik’s eventual plans for her, she had managed to dodge the crimelord and his men–until that night, at least. With barely a thought, she found her attributes and gifts flickering before her vision.

Allana, the Violet Edge

Level: Apprentice

Gifts:

[Gift of Poison]: +3 to coordination and resilience

[Gift of Stealth]: +3 to coordination and focus

Attributes:

Strength: 5

Resilience: 9 (6 + 3)

Stamina: 5

Coordination: 10 (7 + 3)

Speed: 6

Will: 7

Knowledge: 4

Focus: 8 (5 +3)

Awareness: 6

Charm: 5

Quintessence Pool: 15

[Gift of Poison]

Level: Apprentice

Experience: 57%

Grow your skill with poisons to advance

[Toxic Manifestation] - Active, Conjuration - Create a variety of magical poisons, targeting any single attribute. Three potencies of poison can be created, with lesser, moderate, and major quintessence costs respectively.

[Poison Immunity] - Passive, Triggered, Healing - Quintessence is consumed automatically to negate poisons affecting you. Cost is relative to potency and volume of the poison. Mundane or tier one potency poisons are negated at no cost.

[Master of Poison] - Boon - Major boost to coordination and resilience.

[Gift of Stealth]

Level: Apprentice

Experience: N/A

Absorb an Initiate Stealth ensouled item to advance.

Abilities:

[Obscuring Veil] - Active, Illusion - Manifest an illusion that partially masks you from conventional senses. Veil is most effective in darkness or other obscuring conditions. Minor focus cost recurs as long as the veil is active.

[Sneak Attack] - Active, Attack - Make a special attack with potency increased by two tiers. Can only be used on targets unaware of your location. Lesser stamina cost.

[Ensouled Item Conjuration] - Active, Conjuration - Conjure the ensouled item bound to this gift. No cost. Current conjurations: iron dagger, brass dagger.

[Unseen Form] - Boon - Lesser boost to coordination and focus

Augments:

[Poisoned Conjuration] - Poison, Stealth - Passive, Conjuration - Ensouled items may be conjured already coated in the poison from toxic manifestation. Poisons conjured this way have their quintessence cost reduced by one stage.

“My daggers are ensouled items.” She flicked a hand in the air, and a barely noticeable effort of will conjured her first dagger, a wide, heavy iron blade, with a cruelly hooked tip. “One for Novice level,” she flicked her hand, abjuring the first dagger and conjuring the second, a long, slender blade of glittering brass, “and one for Apprentice.”

Tenebres blinked, befuddled by drink. “Stealth… that can’t be a common one. I don’t even think I’ve ever heard of it.”

“Nope. Telik had to commission them special. Most people prefer the simpler, single attribute gifts for ensouled items, like grace or agility.” Instead, the crimelord had gotten her a gift she’d have a hard time ever finding on her own, making her even more dependent on him. She shook the thought away, trying to stay focused on Seo. “The other is my gift of poison. It’s a Primal gift, lets me make and resist poisons. And yes, it’s a rare one too.”

Seo frowned for a long moment, as if puzzling out her words, before he finally asked, “How exactly does someone buy you a Primal gift?”

“By sneaking poison in my food,” Allana explained. She tossed back the rest of her drink without thinking about it, letting the liquor smother the angry fire in her chest. “A little bit at a time, over months, making me build up a tolerance until he could give me a big enough dosage to count as a Primal trial.”

“Rogue’s shadow…” Seo cursed, shaking his head. “That’s…”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

#

“So what are you gonna do now?” Allana asked Seo. Their steps were wavering a little as they walked down one of the wider open avenues. The two wraiths had drunk enough that they were each boasting their own blushes, Seo’s flushing his tapered ears bright red while Allana’s made her purple cheeks glow indigo.

“What?” the boy asked, even more befuddled by the drink than she was.

“Well, you’re in Lowrun, right?” she waved an arm in a broad gesture, taking in the dirty, dark street around them.

“Yeah… I barely finished the exam before some guards came along and kicked me out.”

“So now whatcha gonna do?” Allana chuckled at her own slurred words. “Like, to work. And sleep. And eat.”

Seo paused in his steps, looking stricken by the thought. “I… I don’t know.” His eyes went wide, and he looked around in abrupt, drunken panic. “I don’t know Allana, I don’t know what to do!”

Allana chuckled more, and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Shhhh, shush shush shush.” She reassured him, going so far as to hold a finger over his mouth. Their eyes met, and her lips turned up in a smile.

“Come on. You can stay at my place for now.”

“Really?”

“Mhmmm…” Allana still held his gaze as her smile turned lecherous. “Buuut there’s only one bed.”

Seo returned the look, and Allana almost shivered at the heat that suddenly flickered in his crimson eyes. “Really?” The word came out entirely different that time, loaded with suggestion.

“Mhm. So… you know…” Allana winked. “I hope you’re okay with the floor.”