I washed the wooden containers off with water from my endless decanter over the void pot, careful to put the colander down over the opening. I’d dropped more than one wooden spoon into the void pot in the past. 

“I can’t believe you gave up that Necklace of Presence.”

“I had no other means to prove the validity of the letter I found. I presumed the necklace would mean something to him.”

“In the game, you only need to give him the letter. He’s just disappointed if the necklace was lost but that’s it. It gives +5 to Poise and a 10% discount at any stores.”

I winced, certain that I would never hold an enchantment likely worth more than a decade’s salary ever again. I hadn’t even considered keeping it, in spite of his testimony at the cell. It wasn’t mine to keep. I just pulled the dishes out of the cold water, and growled, not quite so high pitched and melodious as I tried, “I-... I’m sorry. I couldn’t have known that Justin. My priority was getting you out of that cell by depending on his generosity.”

“I am going to have to raise my Poise stat manually now, sheesh. I almost wish you’d have left me in there until I had a chance to contact a solicitor.”

“Justin, I apologized. Please do not bear down on me regarding this.” I wasn’t all that apologetic, but I also didn’t like thinking about how little extra money I had to spare between now and the next time I paid rent.

He looked at me, bowing my head further with my feathers tucked. He relented. “Yeah. You are right. It would have been hard to sneak into the Palace of Dreams anyway. Normally you have Fenris on your team by then, who has permission.” I wondered how Apprentice Librarian Fenris got dragged into joining a party trying to stop the end of the world, but didn’t say anything. 

I put the dishes on the drying rack, “Even with your skill, sneaking in would have been a challenge. And you were going to be forgotten in that cell until Coronation unless I did something. You tried to sneak into the princess’s chambers, after all.” 

He gave me a look like he was trying to figure out where my simpering had gone, but said, “Look, I don’t know how well people know Princess Talina but I promise she’d rather be interrupted than trapped in coronation planning.” 

“Why do you keep using her first name like that? She’s the Chosen Princess. She’ll be the Crown Princess Dawnbringer the Second, or whatever they call her after we save her Coronation.”

“She’s the third companion you get in the game.”

“So you are telling me that some schmuck from Sanctum happens to join a fighting party with the Chosen Princess during a war with the Drakenguard?” I was worried that Justin might be offended by my word choice, but he was lost in his retelling of the future.

“Well, she is - or would be - in-hiding, as her retinue dies holding off the assassins.”

I wanted to say something but changed my mind, having remembered my resolve to take his knowledge as fact. “So. When was the last shift you slept? Have you been awake since I interrogated you?”

“I-” he paused, yawning again, as he had several times during the conversation, “-might have taken a nap but… even after eight years, my body is so not used to these thirty-four hour days. Probably because I lived in a cave for most of it.”

“Your world has a different number of hours a day, but uses the same measurements of time?”

He frowned, thinking. “We have a twenty four hour day. I think your world uses our measurement for the hour, since we made it. Like, everything also uses standard measurements for distance and volume.”

“The concept that my world is a mere byproduct of yours is very unsettling. Let us rest. You may use my bedding. I will sleep in my desk pile. Then we can go shopping and grab some work in the early morning.”  I gestured to the larger pile of pillows and blankets for him to use. It wasn’t a cot like most Humans preferred, but it was much easier to wash and sensible for my needs. There were a couple cushions and blankets at my desk nearby that would suit me for now.

“I don’t want to put you out or, uh, unsettle you.”

“Do not worry. I will tell you if I get overwhelmed. My apologies if my topic changes are too sudden. I have been accused of being particularly mercurial in the past, even for a Kobold.” My crest of feathers parted left and right, but I gestured my good humor with a wink as well. I was over my annoyance at my career being lost at his arrival. For now at least. Justin seemed like he was really trying. That meant more to me than most anything, even if my world was a fiction come to life for him. 

We rested for five hours, after I explained how the vanishing pot and endless decanter worked. I had oils more suited for Kobold cleanliness, but since we planned to go hunting tomorrow morning, before the evening visit to the governor of the city, I’d already mentally planned a visit to a spa for us both. Apparently there were few modern amenities in Sanctum, and the “game” didn’t have a bathroom simulacrum so he needed to be shown how it was done in Sumar City.

Midnight shopping was accomplished by going to one of the always-open shopping streets nearby. It was more expensive than I cared to spend, but Justin needed to get out of the jail garbs and into something more battle ready. I didn’t crowd him, and he seemed somewhat lost in the glow-orb illuminated racks, looking for something. 

Eventually, I did approach to ask, having found some gloves I thought might fit him, “Are you doing well, Justin?” He jumped and let go of the Daeric style battle skirt he’d been eyeing. “You should try it on. It looks the right length for you.” It also did not look like it would break my meager budget, as long as he didn’t look for a matching spell-hardened leather cuirass.

He did that Human startled thing, like he’d been caught doing something immoral with his eyes and stammered, “What, no I- I don’t wear girly stuff.” I could see the wheels turn as I startled into stillness. “Well I mean. I wouldn’t want to appropriate some sort of Elven customary garb.”

“The Daeric style is a little last season, but it’s been popular for some time now among most of the mammalian folk. The panels are supple but stiff enough to turn a light blow. They are designed to rip from the waist if caught. Its perfectly serviceable for an agility mage.”

“No, not in the culture I am from.”

“Do you know of a way to return to that world?”

“No.” With a second glance towards the skirt, he gestured dismissal. “I don’t know if I want to. To be honest.”

I guided him away from there to the more basic tunics and padded pants, wondering if they would better suit his cultural sensibilities. “Oh?” I could sense a prompt from someone who wanted muse aloud and needed permission. Years of being surrounded by priests and scholars, no doubt. 

“Yeah. The world I’m from isn’t any more peaceable, and the basic problems are so much more complicated. I mean, I left a world where economic politics made people choose between going back to work and risking killing their parents and grandparents with a disease they took home, or staying home and being evicted because they couldn’t pay rent. Society made them go back to work. My sister-” He shook his head, “War between two empires, especially one I have extra knowledge of, seems so much simpler.” 

I didn’t understand the content fully, obviously, but I suspected that some of the expectations Justin had regarding how much ‘simpler’ this world was came from the fact that he’d only experienced it from a controlled perspective. He certainly acted like my world, fictional or not, was simpler. His surprise at my Divine’s Guidance and shock at losing his things after being arrested told me that. He’d already complained at the lack of an “inventory screen”, where in the ‘game’ version would automatically sort based on some grid and a weight allotment.

He settled on a dark red tunic and some rather simple brown pants. He went with the studded gloves I found and simple leather soled slippers. He did grab a staff, but he said it was more so he wouldn’t have to move or touch anything too gross or dangerous by hand. I had my fighting equipment in my saddlebags. 

We went to the nearest community service bulletin, where jobs and requests were posted. Justin wanted to grab the one that was about investigating the wights in the crematorium because he ‘knew the map’ really well, but I reminded him that we didn’t have a means to prevent grave rot if either of us got hurt.

We still grabbed more bounties than I was comfortable with, as I reminded him that if we didn’t fill out all the bounties before noon the next day, we would be fined instead for removing the bounty from the board and not completing it. The access to the undercity meant speaking to a  nearby apothecary shop, and a climb down a ladder meant for mammalians… which I managed, if not gracefully.

Hadassah

Everything I've written in the last two years contains concrete references to COVID-19. I expect everything I write from here on out will as well. I don't like how media already is trying to gloss it over as if its a thing of the past, not affecting daily life.  I stand by that its unconscionable that we've given up on fighting a plague that is killing thousands every day and is the third highest killer of all causes. With vaccines to blunt the lethality. 

Anyway, I decided that the Halcyon Call's universe had 34 hour days. Why? Well, I mean aside from causing trouble for myself (I don't like making timelines at my best moments) I just thought it would be weird and fun. There are four six hour shifts, and two shorter five hour shifts in the work day. (Noon and Midnight mark the middles of the short shift.) This is not imminently important to the story, other than to give context to why they seem to have such long, busy days coming up.