„This is the first time in weeks that I am spending more than 24 hours on land“ Lisa remarked with a somewhat flattened voice. „We even felt safe.“ She paused. „ I am not supposed to know some things. But after a few days you talk to the soldiers.“ Ulrike is passing her a cup of tea, which she has switched to herself, too.

U: That was before you had apprentices.

„Way before“ she says and stares into the distance she cannot see, as she is facing towards the counter in the cafeteria. „That is, it started then“ she corrects herself. „Don’t get me wrong they are … were nice fun girls. But they mere unmistakenly girls, not women. The nerdy breed just taken fresh from high school.“ She shakes her head. „That was the right decision“ She continues „They were brilliant. They even started on theorising on how to develop new rituals.“ She almost rises. „I must make sure Ricarda gets the drawings once they are recovered. They saved the text parts on a cloud server.“

D: Don’t. Wizards are important. If you say nothing your stuff will be delivered here, maybe with a bit of a delay. If you request urgent action, they’ll look at the stuff you want returned quickly.

She blinks. „Thank you. You are right.“

P: I wouldn’t have taken you for one adding to the Anarchist Cookbook.

L: If my fascination with guns does not do it, what will?

P: You turning into a dragon, storming the parliament building and writing „down with the government“ with intestines of politicians.

She laughs. Thomas raises an eyebrow and Ulrike gives me a nod.

P: We also have a little secret. We have discovered how to improve essence abilities with meditation.

D: …

U: Don’t …

T: They are married.

L: You still tend to mention the obvious.

L: And congratulations.

Thomas looks like he wants to protest but changes his mind.

L: My escorts were removed at the time I was moved from a gunship to a modified freighter. They figured that putting wizards onto the ships supposed to draw fire is not the best idea, even if they have much more armour. I still have a hard time believing that we are back to building armoured river monitors in the 21st century.

This woman is a serious gun nerd.

U: So you spent the whole emergency safe and sound.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

L: No. I had to fight seriously two times. Let me tell you.

The first time was the first voyage actually. There was a doorway close by but the software said that we could make it past at full speed. That was at a bend of the canal so going backwards would have kept us close to the doorway. The convoy commander risked it. That was before the correction for waterways in the software. We ran into a swarm of demon missile geese.

D: Demon Missile Geese?

Exactly. They are a swarm but the swarm is one monster. You have to kill them all. The geese can turn into steel spikes while they are in the air, which punch a whole into the things they fall onto from a height, at least into our ships. We lost a tanker there before they went for a gunship. I think because our gunfire was annoying. In the spike form they can split through the miidle and those parts turn into full demon geese. I got my Might Essence from that.

U: You stole it?

L: I refuse to say anything more without my lawyer.

P: And the second time?

L: A classic. Deception Plant. It hid as a field of algae, came up and released gas and spores on us. It happened to many ships before they started applying the poison.

D: Poison.

L: Yes, parts of the Lower Rhine are now quite dead, those where the water conditions are right for the plant monsters.

My facial expression must be obvious. I had had family there.

U: We have to keep supplies coming in. You got family there. You were happy to support evacuations hitting somebody else.

P: Had family there. No longer. Yes, I admit it. I am sorry.

I hate spin doctors. Liars are more honest. No, really. If you realize that you need to lie, you acknowledge the power of truth. Truth would destroy your ploy. A spin doctor wants to tell you that everything is a matter of perspective. They deny the existance of objective truth. Am I becoming one?

No, I think I am still a good old liar by omission and that only where practicality absolutely requires it.

P: I am really sorry, I will not mislead or manipulate you. It is just that I love that river. I can see that it is necessary. Now I don’t have children, but it still worry about killing this land. And that was the truth. Conservation is dear to me. I donated to the WWF.

U: You know. Was I that obvious?

T: Yes. We also can sense its aura.

Lisa hugs her and starts to cry.

We are getting more tea and are looking for a way to change the subject.

T: You didn’t get a second Essence. We could tell.

She hesitates.

T: They took it?

L: No. I just don’t want to …

She gets a sturdy plastic bag out of her backpack and uses an actual thick plastic glove stored with it to take an Awakening Stone out of it, placing it quickly but carefully onto the table.

It looks like to the stones is a piece of solidified pus with mould growing on it.

P: I also have to make an admission. I have acquired a device that allows me to identify magical things and people.

L: Your loot is cooler than what rained from the sky for me. But I got two items.

Spin doctors are bad. Don’t use that technique.

P: No … I acquired it earlier.

I made sure only the probe not my hand touched the stone.

P: That is a Stone of Corruption.