Alric enters the Parting Glass through the back door, arms full of linens. He sets them down to deal with later and heads through the curtains to the main room. Neither Haskel nor Heledd are anywhere to be seen. Where’s all the help? Alric wonders, quickly moving to wait on some customers who need drinks refreshed. When their immediate needs are met, Alric glances back in the kitchen area again, but only Yggy is there. “Where is my waitstaff?” he asks, and Yggy just shrugs. Striding out into the common room, Alric shouts, “Heledd! Haskel!”
Tric hastily knocks over his mug so that Haskel can appear to be working in the alcove. He opens the curtains, and Alric sees Haskel mopping up the mess. Alric looks annoyed but not suspicious, so the ruse likely worked. Before he can be too pleased with himself, though, Tric cringes as an irritating sound fills the bar: bagpipes. He glances over at Mate, but it is not coming from the bird. Tric slides out of the booth and sees a familiar short stocky form, Glammur. The dwarvish bard is warming up their pipes on the stage in the corner. They switch to a festive jig, and Tric accepts that he will not get the stage himself tonight. “I’m going to need another drink, please,” he calls out to Alric.
* * *
Later that evening, Heppa finds Kachen awake and alert in the room, dressed and prepared to head downstairs to dinner. She gives him both the medicine pouch and the map she made for him. The former gets thanks, and the latter gets an eye roll that she does not notice. It is one thing for Hepalonia to ramble at him about what he has been eating when he is half-conscious, but Kachen does not need a nursemaid lecturing him all the time. He has survived well enough on his own these many years. Without the fog of dapper inkcap dulling his emotions now, Kachen finds it actually rather novel to fully experience boredom as Heppa drones on about which plants have the most nutrients. “I’ve got it,” he finally says, taking the “map” and stuffing it into his new satchel. He does not manage to keep all the irritation out of his voice.
As Heppa and Kachen head downstairs, the final strains of a jig come to an end. They emerge into the common room and see Glammur and Tric seated together, sharing stories across a round table. Mate is perched above the bar, messing with the ribbons and flags on display there. Heppa joins the table, and Alric comes over to take her order and pour her some blaand.
Kachen stays back, leaning against the bar and watching the room warily. He feels very exposed in a crowded place like this, but he cannot stay cooped up in the bedroom, not after all those days in a cage. Occasionally he finds his eyes drifting over to Heledd as she waits tables, but that is not safe either. He cannot doom another generation to what he has had to endure.
The door to the Parting Glass opens, and Rhaessa walks in. She has two staffs in hand, her own and the one she has repaired for her elvish visitors. She sees them at a table near the bar and is about to approach with her delivery, when she notices a man leaning on the counter near them. He turns at the sound of her arrival and their eyes meet. Kachen.
Rhaessa.
From their table, Tric and Heppa see the new arrival and note the look of recognition that passes between her and their friend. Neither of the mages looks happy to see the other.