The redhead climbed the stairs back to the second floor and returned to room Twelve, where Anisha was now partly dressed from the waist down, and Azade was still curled up just as she had been when Elaina left.

"Breakfast will be up soon." Elaina said as she sat in one of the chairs near the table, "Chef's a Boggan, nice man."

"You met him?" Anisha asked as she tied her hair up behind her head.

"Yeah, thought I'd let him know about his little spies poking around in the middle of the night."

"I'd be afraid about him spitting in our food for that, but Boggans take too much pride in their work for that. I worked with one in a restaurant I used to work at. Their asses are toast when he gets through with them!" She finished with her hair, before walking over to the wardrobe. There; she retrieved the rest of her clothes, setting the jacket out on the bedpost before putting her bodice on.

"I can't imagine someone with your training doing something so common as working in a kitchen," Elaina said curiously.

"It's actually not unusual in areas where there isn't a consistent demand for potions or reagents. Alchemy translates pretty well over to cooking, so it's a logical choice to earn extra coin when business drops off." Anisha adjusted her bodice's top, her breasts jiggling slightly as she jerked it around a couple of times. Elaina hadn't really thought of the business side of alchemy, but it made sense. Depending on which area of it you were even in, it could be even worse. Medicine was always in demand, but things like lubricants or explosives weren't.

"But you're doing enough business now, working at Mossglade?"

Anisha took her glasses off the vanity sliding them on, regarding Elaina silently for a moment as she seemed to pick her answer, "Sort of. It's less of a piecemeal operation. I'm essentially on retainer there for whatever might be needed in the moment."

Elaina wondered why that answer had required the additional thought that it had. It was possible that even after their wild threesome, the women had to be careful about divulging too much about their home to someone considering the risks it presented. It struck her as a little odd, but not so much that it merited pursuing the matter any further. A knock at the door gave her a convenient exit from the line of questioning she had started.

When she opened the door, a barmaid she hadn't seen before was there with a large platter that held three heaping plates of food. She took it from her thankfully and closed the door behind her. She did her best to fit it onto the table next to the one with the snacks from last night. Anisha reached over to Azade and gave her a gentle poke on her butt, which only earned her another one of those grunts.

"Food's here," Anisha clarified the intention of her poke. This was enough to rouse Azade entirely, getting her to roll out from the blankets with a faint smile on her lips. She brought her arms up over her head in a broad stretch. This drew Elaina's attention as her eyes settled on her elegantly hanging breasts and soft, luscious curves longingly. She was a beautiful woman in so many ways, even with her hair tousled the way it was, in a state that few might consider flattering just getting out of bed the way she was. Elaina was surprised at herself, she'd just had a night of carnal pleasures with the both of them, and already she was fighting the urge to pull her clothes off to lay with Azade again.

When Azade was done stretching, she made her way over to the table to look over what was on offer, "Ohhh!" she exclaimed. Rather pleased with what she found, her red eyes lit up as she took a piece of bacon off of one of the plates and fed it into her mouth.

Azade didn't bother to dress; she simply sat down and began to eat, sparing one hand to push her hair out of her face before digging in. Anisha took one of the plates and sat down as well, and the three of them ate in relative silence, only speaking to comment on the food and how good it was. Elaina was particularly fond of the sausages, which had pulled her out of bed to begin with.

"After we're done eating," Azade started, "I'll get cleaned up and ready to go, and we can go see about the shipment. Do you have anything you need to mix up for the day, Anisha?"

Anisha shook her head, "No, everything I have should still be good, in case we run into any trouble."

Elaina looked between them as she stuffed some of the eggs with cheese into her mouth. When her eyes settled on Anisha, she seemed to read the wordless question on her mind. The half-elf reached down to one of the pouches on her waist and pulled out a small segmented vial, "This."

Elaina squinted at it as Anisha held it out for her to see. It looked mostly like a standard glass vial, but with two chambers inside that were divided by a thin piece of glass. Each end had its own stopper, and the fluids inside were of different colors, one red and one clear.

"You hold each side, twist, and throw. The twist breaks the glass piece in the middle, and the chemicals mix. You only have about five seconds before it explodes."

Elaina swallowed her food and nodded a little, "Wouldn't it be just as effective for it to shatter on whatever you throw it on?"

Anisha shrugged as she put the vial back in her pouch, "Sort of. But that requires accuracy I don't have. This way, I can time it, get it sort of close to where I want it for the same effect, and it has the added bonus of showering someone in little glass slivers as well."

That made sense; she didn't consider the fact that Anisha wore glasses under normal circumstances. The time she'd spent with her up to this point was used with her glasses and clothing off, "That's pretty clever."

"I can't take credit for it." Anisha admitted, "It was something I learned from my first master. His eyes were worse than mine. But he hardly ever had an actual need to use it while living in town. But with us being out away from the towns and traveling, I've used them a few times. Sometimes just putting one up is enough to deter someone who thinks they have us dead to rights but lately, that hasn't been the case."

Azade gave a sound of confirmation before swallowing a mouthful of food, "People have become more bold or desperate. Neither one is good. The war is only supposedly over because the various sides don't have the resources to fight one another; there's no official peace in place or anything."

Elaina thought about that for a moment as it related, not only to this job, but to the continued travels to happen afterward. Moving through Zelmesca was perilous on its own, but adding in roving bands of soldiers who didn't have an active war to fight complicated things even further. Some might turn to banditry, but others still might just be trying desperately to do their jobs and become more paranoid of random armed women passing through. Which reminded her, it was about time to get suited up in her armor if they were about to head out. She finished off the rest of her meal quickly and excused herself to finish getting ready.

Elaina returned to her smaller room, where she gathered up her clothes, rolled them up, and stuffed them into her pack. It would be wise to have everything ready to go at a moment's notice. Once everything was packed back up, she checked herself in the mirror. There was no trace of the doubt and anxiety she'd seen in herself the night before. Also absent was the eyeshadow and colorful lips. She turned her head to one side as she brought her right palm up to the left side of her face as she closed her eyes. After a short breath, Elaina reached out with her will to take hold of the threads of magic she could feel lingering within herself. It wasn't quite like the magic the Wizards or even Sorcerer's used. It wasn't even the magic of clerics and druids. It was something else entirely born of her fae blood and it's lingering connection to the world of the Faen.

The Faen itself was a place of pure magic, malleable by those born of it. Those who had connections to that place could draw down parts of the Faen to superimpose it over this world. For Elaina, it was much more challenging than for a bonafide fairie, but she could use it to practice minor effects and build on other things. The threads moved through her hand, pooling in her palm. They stuck like gossamer to the left side of her face. Slowly she turned her head and brought her hand across her face from left to right, stretching and spreading the sheer magic across it. As she applied the spell, she kept a firm mental image of her own face in mind, not as it was but as she wanted it to be. The fewer alterations and the less extreme the change, the easier the magic was to work. Once her hand reached the right side of her face, the last threads of the magic left her fingertips, and the spell settled into place.

When Elaina opened her eyes, her face in the mirror had been altered. She didn't use it to drastically change her appearance; rather, she used it to reapply the Eyeshadow and the pink hue of lipstick that she preferred. She inspected the effect, turning her head from side to side, and nodded with approval. It was a more efficient and practical way to 'apply makeup' without ever actually using it. It lasted all day, wasn't subject to smearing, faster to apply, and it gave her daily practice with working a little bit of magic...even if it was just a glamer.

It wasn't an idea she had come up on her own. She'd read about it being a beautification method in the faraway land of Orpeva, which had a much more dense concentration of fae and elves than Zelmesca. Most things that seemed to relate to luxury, beauty, and clothing seemed to come out of Orpeva. Other realms would often try to imitate or improve upon those methods, but the craftsmen and artists of Orpeva always seemed to remain on the cutting edge. Eventually, Elaina wanted to visit there in her travels. The whole realm seemed quite romantic and exciting, whether it was the vast countryside or the opulent courts.

Once she was sure the glamer was affixed to her satisfaction, Elaina went about the more complicated task of putting her armor on. She'd done it enough times that she had it down to a relatively quick process, but there was an upper limit of just how fast donning armor could be, especially when doing it alone. When the last piece of her armor was in place and the final strap tightened, she put her sword back on her hip and returned to room twelve.

When she arrived at the door, she reached out to the doorknob but heard the sound of voices through the door as Anisha and Azade conversed.

"-would like her too if she met her," Anisha said, finishing a sentence that Elaina hadn't heard the first half of.

"She would." Azade agreed, shuffling around behind the door, "But more importantly, having another warrior on hand would be a real boon, and one with magical talent no less. You've felt it on her too, right?"

"A bit." Something thumped on the floor and was followed by the sound of buckles.

"It's still mostly bound up in her, but it's there," Azade grunted as if squeezing into something. Elaina's hand remained hovering just over the door handle as she debated whether she should continue to listen or not. Indeed, it was rude, but then the conversation was about her. As she heard footsteps approach the door, she decided not to risk it and turned the knob, announcing her presence with a knock on the door as she opened it.

Just on the other side of the door, Azade was tying her long black hair up to keep it out of her way. She didn't wear a gown the way she had the night before but instead wore a half suit of leather armor, which took Elaina by surprise for some reason. She had imagined her in some other dress, maybe some more rugged traveling clothes, but she had not expected armor.

Elaina couldn't help but notice that the armor while offering some protection, did nothing for her chest, covered only by the thick fabric laid under the rest of the leather. It was likely less of an oversight and only a limitation, as Azade's chest was probably larger than most armorsmiths made proper armor for. Though she could have bound them, it would have been immensely uncomfortable and limited her mobility, which, judging by the unstrung bow Azade had slung, was essential to her in a fight.

The armor was well made, though, well kept and designed with a floral aesthetic in the embossing. Azade had mentioned at dinner the previous night that she was a Phyllomagi, a mage who's specialization is typically plantlife, that the unorthodox design could have had something to do with that as well. As Elaina stepped into the room, she saw Azade paying just as much attention to her armor as Elaina was hers. The two caught each other scrutinizing the designs on one another's pauldrons and exchanged smirks. Elaina's was the crest for the Woodlock family, while Azade's was a large spiraled flower of some kind, perhaps a lotus.

"At last, the fabled armor that doesn't get worn to dinner." Azade joked.

"Did you think perhaps I never had any?" Elaina asked curiously, "That I'd made it up for the sake of embarrassing that guy?"

Azade shook her head as she stepped out of the room and into the hallway, "No, but it would have made it all the funnier, wouldn't it?"

Elaina stepped back out into the hall as Anisha joined them and closed the door behind herself. "All right," the half-elf said with a bit of a sigh, "Let's go get our shipment and get out of here."