B3 C36: That Could Be Fun

Had she been asked only a few short weeks ago, Nadja would have confidently said there wasn’t much that could shock her at this point. With the year she’d had, abnormal was pretty much just par for the course. Kicked out of her home city. Relocated to a dark wasteland. Scouted by a dryad to run a bar. Trained to fight a hulking forest shadow.

It was, then, rather impressive that she’d been proven wrong on at least three separate occasions recently.

The first? Apparently she was now good pals with a queen. A chitinous, ant-like one at that.

Previously, she hadn’t had much of a chance to interact with any of the most recent additions to Emer’Thalis. Unbeknownst to her, however, the kexids were big fans of music, and after her run-in with Ava, they’d taken every opportunity to prove that to her.

Ava had taken her down, deep into the underbelly of Emer’Thalis, each additional second making Nadja more and more sure that she was about to be ritually sacrificed. It was an unexpected turn, then, when her new friend arranged a performance for her. One that still sent chills running through her whenever she thought back to it.

For all that I miss it sometimes, I definitely couldn’t have gotten a performance like that back in Ftheran.

In return, she’d played for them as well to such resounding approval that she’d started making a regular occurrence of it. In fact, the kexids had started to play alongside her, working on ways to incorporate the music of the surface to the music of the depths. Largely, she stuck to her flute, but especially with how much she’d been neglecting her other instruments, she tried to give some time to all of her musical skills.

The entire time, she amicably chatted with Ava who seemed to be the only kexid who had a grasp over the Common language. It had been a struggle at first, but the purple kexid’s language mastery grew in leaps and bounds. Aided by Nadja’s many levels in Conversation, even when the words weren’t quite there, they somehow managed.

And naturally, no one had bothered to tell her she was speaking to a queen until weeks in when Rock had spotted them together. But then, of course she was. That was just how strange Nadja’s life was these days.

And speaking of Rock, he was thankfully notably not dead. In fact, when she’d seen him the day after he collapsed, he’d ended up telling her the second thing that truly shocked her.

Apparently, the wine Nadja had been serving everyone since the bar’s inception was basically just alcoholic dyad’s blood. Because why not? She had a single day where she’d been squeamish about it before choosing to get over it.

It tasted good. It got people drunk. She was pretty sure no one was going to suddenly start sprouting branches or leaves from drinking it. It was fine.

Although, perhaps she would keep that one to herself.

The talk of dryad’s blood led to the third and final shock in the recent weeks, which was about Rock himself. It also had to do with the frankly insane actions that Nadja was currently undertaking.

Holed up within her bar before it opened, Nadja mixed a host of local herbs into a small glass, watering the concoction down and tasting it as she went. When she was satisfied with the taste, she held out her arm, grabbed a knife, and delivered a swift cut before she could second guess herself.

You are bleeding!

“Ah, fuck! How do all those adventurer types talk about getting sliced up by swords all the time if even a little knife feels that bad?” If she ever somehow became an adventurer, she’d only be doing it after she gained a healthy dose of Pain Resistance. Never mind that she didn’t have the stats to gain the skill in the first place -- she’d figure that part out later.

A thin trickle of red streamed down into the herb mixture, and when she deemed she’d spilled enough, she bandaged her arm and gave the glass a good shake. From there, she used one of her newer class skills.

You have used Not-So-Simple Simple Syrup. Your mixture has been distilled into Bloody Herbal Simple Syrup.

Why, exactly, was she turning her blood into a simple syrup? Much like her syrup, the answer was both not-so-simple and simple at once.

The third shock she’d gotten recently was that Rock drank blood now.

Or rather, he should have been drinking blood. She didn’t get the full details, but Rock’s illness had apparently been caused by a brush with some strange blood ritual. The result was that blood did a remarkably good job at mitigating his symptoms, and a few tests had shown it didn’t need to be Elphaea’s either.

The issue was, he was being a baby about it.

“Big scary commander, and he can’t even drink just a little blood. ‘Oh look at me, I’m Rock, I like stabbing people with spears. I think I’m some unnatural abomination just because my diet’s changed a little.’ Pussy.”

Well, no matter. If he wanted to wallow in some existential crisis, then Nadja would take charge instead. All he really needed was to stop thinking about exactly what he was drinking.

Ergo, blood cocktails.

As another recent development, they’d finally put the guy who’d built her the moonshine still into a more official research position, and the results had been promising thus far. Nadja opened up a prototype cask that he’d sent her, a much mellower and lower alcohol content booze. One of its main ingredients was bark off of the darkwood trees, and as such, it had a slightly ominous dark tint to it. It wasn’t quite right yet, but she was eagerly looking forward to having more to serve than just wine and moonshine.

She grabbed a flask and tossed some of the bark liquor in before adding some of the blood syrup and a dash of citrus they’d managed to grow in the forest farms. After hitting the entire mixture with a few applications of her Ice Dilution class skill, she sealed it and gave it a good shake. Thoroughly homogenous now, she opened it up and gave it a sip.

Mixology has reached level 24!

“Oh, damn. I taste kind of good. Maybe Rock is onto something.” It wasn’t perfect, but she didn’t have the Bartender class for nothing. More importantly, there was no way to tell there was blood in it. Of course, she wouldn’t be serving this to anyone but Rock -- gods forbid -- but he would be drinking it. And once he realized how good it tasted, hopefully he’d stop being a damned baby.

She stored the flask away before making a few more variants, all of which would be kept nice and fresh through her class skills. Once she was done, it was just about time to open up.

I really need a barback. And some servers. And maybe just another bartender or two. It had been fine when the bartending had been the only thing she’d had -- in fact, she’d kind of relished throwing herself into her job -- but with her sparring with Rock and her music practice with the kexids, she was finding herself more and more tired these days.

Admittedly, blood loss probably didn’t help much with that.

The bar opened with little fanfare, and as the hours rolled on, it filled more and more until at last it was thoroughly packed. For all that she said she was getting tired, that exhaustion seemed to flee her the moment she really got started, chased away by the liquor, the stories her patrons told her, and the juicy gossip she just happened to overhear. She definitely was not trying to eavesdrop on anyone, and she definitely had not picked up the Bartender’s Ear class skill to listen in on everyone.

By and large, the bargoers were the usuals today, with only a single exception: Midway through the day, Ava decided to visit her with two others. Though the kexid wasn’t keen on drinking herself, she’d started visiting as of late just to talk with Nadja as she worked. The mustached gentleman beside her was familiar by now as well -- Barb, apparently. She knew he was some acquaintance of Tess, but it wasn’t as if she was going to hold that against him -- Rock was too, after all, and presumably Ava would have met the settlement owner as well given that she was the leader of the kexids.

It was the second guest that caught her eye, however. Firstly because Nadja was certain she’d never seen the woman before, which in and of itself was a rarity in Emer’Thalis. Secondly, though, the woman was painfully stunning. Without a doubt, she was in the small club of people who’d passed the first Charisma threshold -- and then some.

More than that, her looks were of a different sort than Nadja’s. She was prim. Proper. Poised. Elegant. With icy white hair, alabaster skin, and frosty blue eyes, the room seemed to drop a few degrees the moment she entered.

Ugh. If she’d come in alone, I could have probably roped her into telling me a story. As it was, Nadja wasn’t going to butt into her conversation, a decision that was only intensified once she heard what the woman was talking about. The first half of the conversation was about books of a… particular nature, which somehow both she and Ava managed to discuss without a single embarrassed bone in their body.

The gentleman, she noted, was struggling a good bit more.

Eventually, having settled on her recommendations, the woman handed over a few books to Ava who then pulled Nadja over and began to talk with her instead. Barb and the icy woman excused themselves to one of the tables, and though she had some difficulty overhearing them, it sounded like they were friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long time. Frequently, they would speak about Barb’s daughter, some mutual acquaintance named “Lady Astorius,” whoever that was.

Eventually, however, the bar began to die down. Ava excused herself and said her farewells, and the duo soon got up to follow her.

Or at least, that’s what she’d assumed they were doing. While Barb left, the mystery woman lingered behind, grabbing one of the seats at the bar. In a monotone that was somehow still electrically gripping, she whispered out.

“You are the bartender Nadja, yes?”

Did Ava talk about me? Obviously, Nadja confirmed that she was, in fact, the bartender Najda.

“I see. I believe I have some business with you, then. My name is Verin, and earlier today, I had cause to give an offering to the honored dryad. She requested that I bring one of the offerings to you to serve in the bar.” Verin pulled out an unmarked bottle, passing it over the table to Nadja. Confused, she grabbed it, opting to place it behind the bar.

“Uh. Thank you, I guess. Want me to pop it open so you can have a cup, or what can I get for you?”

With a cryptic smile, Verin simply shook her head. “I will admit to being quite fond of that bottle, but I would suggest opening it tomorrow instead. Wine will suffice for now.”

Okay? A little weird, but something to look forward to for tomorrow. With how scarce the settlement was in terms of different types of alcohol, even a single new bottle would be a treat.

“You going to tell me why you’re giving Elphaea offerings, then?” She hadn’t heard anyone doing so, and if she had, she’d have guessed it would have been a forest shadow.

“I placed a vacation home in the forest earlier today. It seemed only fitting that I would offer up some gifts in return for doing so, no?” The words came out so matter-of-factly that Nadja had to take a moment to reassure herself that they were nonsensical. As far as she was aware, one did not simply “place a vacation home” somewhere. Nor did she imagine that Emer’Thalis would be most people’s prime vacation spot.

“Ooookay then… We’re going to skip that one, I think.” She finished pouring Verin some wine and grabbed a cup for herself as well. “Why don’t you tell me how your vacation’s going?”

Unfortunately for Nadja and her interest in the mysterious icy stranger, she was still running a bar. Interspersed between a dozen different conversations and drink orders, though, she slowly got more and more info on Verin. She seemed to be dodging certain topics, and Nadja couldn’t tell exactly how she’d found out about the city, but the bartender was hardly one to pry.

Bit by bit, the hours stretched on, and while the other patrons started to filter out, Verin stayed put. Nudged by her own Conversation skill, topics flew by one after the other until she found herself discussing her music and her recent run-in with Ava. At this, Verin perked up.

“A musician favored by a queen. You must be very talented. I’m sure it would be quite a gift to hear you perform. As for myself, I will admit to having dabbled in a number of instruments in my youth, but my interests strayed much more to the visual arts than the auditory. It is perhaps a weakness of mine, but I struggle to go a full day without drawing something.”

Ah, who would have thought there was an artist under that icy exterior? I can work with this, though! It had been some time since she’d met anyone new and exciting, and despite probably being the best known person in the settlement, she was still low on real connections. At this point, she was probably closest with Rock out of anyone, and for all that she enjoyed his company, he wasn’t known for his scintillating conversational skills.

She puffed herself up, doing her best to look high and mighty while imbuing her words with a more comical lilt. “As you might imagine, I’m usually all booked up with my grand and royal performances, but I could possibly arrange a little show for you. As long as you show me some of your art in return.”

Nadja was pretty sure she’d scored the barest shadow of a smile from that. Instead of laughing, however, Verin nodded with mock gravity. “A fitting trade. I accept your terms, then.” Evidently wealthy enough to have a spatial pouch, Verin reached to her side and procured a sketchbook. “My work mainly focuses on people.”

She laid the book out on the bar, starting to flip through the first few pages, and it was all Nadja could do not to gasp. They were good. Good good. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the frigid woman had a higher Drawing skill than she did with her Flute skill.

And then to add one more level to her shock, once the first few pages were through, the remainder of the drawings became a touch more… revealing. As things went, Nadja considered herself to be the opposite of a prude. Still, some of those positions were… wow.

Stunned as she was, Nadja barely heard the artist as she whispered out a question. She had to replay the words through her head before they resolved into a complete sentence: “Have you ever been sketched, Nadja?”

“No. I can’t say that I have.” And certainly not like that.

The cold and mysterious woman across from her lifted a single brow in her direction.

“Would you like to be?”

Nadja took one more look at the various figures splayed out on the pages before her before slowly nodding her head.

“Yeah. That’d be… That could be fun.”