The Krakos: Book Two of The Legend of the Artificer

Chapter 28

"Ah, the conquering heroes!" Belial called loudly as they entered the great hall, lifting her mug of ale in triumph. "With a few days to spare!"

"Hey, Bel," Grim replied with a half wave, the dark circles under his eyes and look of utter defeat on his face utterly apparent. Tibalt internally cringed, but Belial was grinning broadly.

"I heard someone got someone important forcibly evicted," Belial said as she leaned over the table. "Did you really beat an Ultima that badly, Tibalt?"

"His own fault," Tibalt replied in exhaustion. How did the news reach them before they did? They barely stopped at the town over to wait for the troll. "Put his whole neck on the line."

"Well, word has it Jamison went running to his mama in the north with his tail between his legs," Belial said impishly and everyone stared at her in utter defeat. He wasn't even arrested? Typical. "Sounds like Scylla got totally knocked out of the ring for High Mage, too."

"Tragic," Angel drawled. "Where's your mom?"

"Oh, she's meeting with Sophia," Belial replied with a wave of her hand. "Innes is with them in Mom's office."

"Thanks, Bel. We'll be on our way," Angel said and grabbed Tibalt by the sleeve to keep dragging him towards the door at the back. "Get any more interesting and she'll be crawling into your bed. Watch out."

"I heard that, angel face!" Belial called in a singsong voice, and Angel's eye twitched.

"I meant you to!"

Angel pushed open the door to reveal a narrow hall lined with doors and a staircase at the end.

"Okay, let's get our final payment and go drinking!" Elmer said and danced towards the stairs.

"Oh, no, I need to find the kids," Grim said and Elmer gave him a measured look.

"They're grown."

"Not grown enough."

"Guild house is intact, so why worry?"

"That's why I'm worried, dumbass."

"Well, let's find the twins and take them with us!"

"No."

"C'mon, we had a successful first job! And Tibalt didn't die to boot!" Elmer protested. "He's already gotta go take the test at the college, let him live a little! Come with us!"

"Hey, I didn't say I wanted to go drinking," Tibalt pointed out as they mounted the stairs. "I don't really like alcohol."

"Then we can go get dinner! Vengyll's night market is way better than Sorncrest, and we didn't have time to go to the baths last time!"

Oh, shit. Tibalt had forgotten about that. They seemed fine with gender things, but what about sex? He didn't even know what was normal for holkinds. Would they have an issue with him? There were a lot of races in this world which he assumed had a wide variety of biological sexes, but...

"Uh, I've never like, done a communal bath thing," he said with an awkward laugh. "Can we skip that?"

"Really? Never?" Elmer asked in surprise. "Where did you even pop up from? Didn't you have maids give you baths?"

"I wasn't raised... nobility," he said, discomfort clear, but Elmer waved a hand.

"That's fine. No baths, then. What about dinner? There's loads of things to do!"

"I was just thinking about going home..."

"You can't use more teleportation! You'll hurt Tarm's feelings!"