“You look… not devastated,” Syril said to Grom as he came down the stairs the next morning. “Why are you even still here? I thought you packed everything up.”

  Grom sat down across from Syril, unable to suppress the grin across his face.

  “I told her the truth, and she didn’t care,” Grom said.

  “She didn’t?” Syril asked.

  “Nope,” Grom said. “She actually already knew.”

  “She knew you didn’t know her name?! ” Syril asked.

  Grom’s grin disappeared, a look of terror replacing it. He jumped to his feet, looking around the room rapidly, only relaxing when he realized She wasn’t there.

  “Oh, so I take it you didn’t tell her all of the truth,” Syril said.

  “No,” Grom said glumly, good mood now gone. “She knew I wasn’t Revan and was just waiting for me to tell her. I told her about the whole… mystery deity business as well. After that, she said she didn’t care, and I couldn’t bear risk it with the last one.”

  “Wow,” Syril said. “That was very brave, stupid, and cowardly of you, all at once. Impressive.”

  “You’re hardly the beacon of truth and honesty in your relationships” Grom said.

  “And I never claimed to be,” Syril said. “I live in the moment. It’s not a lie if you fully believe it yourself when you tell it. But the difference is, me and my partners both know the score. They aren’t looking to marry me, they just want to say they slept with an adventuring bard, and that at least is true.”

  “What are we talking about?” Ellen asked as she appeared aside their table via a teleport. “Did you get dumped?”

  “No,” Syril answered for Grom, “She apparently already knew and didn’t care.”

  “She did care you didn’t know her name?! ” Ellen asked.

  Grom only looked around the room this time, refraining from jumping up.

  “Not that part,” he said in a forceful whisper. “Just the Revan and cleric thing.”

  “Oh,” Ellen said. “That makes a lot more sense. So, you’re not completely done with the lies then.”

  “No more lies,” Grom said. “That last part is more of an omission, and I’ll figure it out soon enough. I have a plan.”

  Ellen winced, slightly at that.

  “What?” Grom asked.

  “I looked into that… deity thing,” she said, passing him a piece of paper. “I got confirmation this morning that it’s very likely true.”

  Grom reached for the paper tentatively.

  “Don’t read it aloud unless you're ready to get her attention,” Ellen warned.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “If you’re right, I think I already have it,” Grom said.

  “Not necessarily,” Ellen said. “The gods don’t always know when their power is being drawn upon if a person is living out their tenants. This deity has never had a cleric, so odds are pretty good you aren’t some cosmic accident, but you should still be careful.”

  “Aren’t we all just cosmic accidents?” Syril said. “Moving around the spec that is our world looking for purpose while the gods laugh at our fates.”

  “Maybe you were,” Grom said. “I was at that orphanage because my parents died, not because they left me.”

  Syril glared at Grom who was smiling smugly.

  “Yeah,” Ellen added, “I wasn’t an accident either. I was supposed to be a queen, remember? There was a prophecy and everything.”

  “I was an accident,” Linar said, stepping into view at the end of the table unnoticed. “My mother told me all the time. What’s this now about you being a queen?”

  Ellen let out a groan, “I didn’t want you to know that.

  Ellen then began muttering under her breath, flicking her hand at Linar as she cast a spell.

  Linar reacted slow, not expecting an attack from his ally. Too late he jumped to the side as a silvery whisp struck his head.

  “What was that!?” he demanded, patting himself up and down.

  “What was what?” Ellen said innocently.

  “You just cast a spell on me!”

  “Aw,” Ellen said, disappointed. “It didn’t work. You weren’t’ supposed to remember that.”

  “You have a spell that makes people forget things?” Syril asked, intrigued.

  “Yeah, but only the last five or so seconds,” Ellen said.

  Linar, realizing now what happened, stuck up his middle finger at Ellen, the ring of mind shielding having been transferred to it discreetly.

  “Gods, I forgot about that thing,” Ellen said upon seeing it.

  “So,” Linar said, sitting. “What’s the deal with this queen thing?”

  Syril took over, catching Linar up on the details of Ellen’s birth while they waited for Bill to join them. Linar listed attentively, his mind a whirl with schemes and cons.

  “When are we going to visit your ancestral home?” Linar asked once Syril was finished.

  “Never,” Ellen said emphatically, just as the door opened and Bill entered.

  Seeing him she continued to prevent follow up.

  “Great, we’re all here. Let’s go kill some criminals.”

  “Criminals you say?” Linar asked with concern.

  “You probably don’t know these guys,” Syril said. “Or at least, I hope you don’t and if you do, you’re out of the party.”

  “I don’t see why someone would traffic goods that have the ability to run away and tell the authorities where you kept them,” Linar said. “I’ll stick with inanimate objects, thank you very much.”

  “What?” Grom asked. “No rare animals?”

  “We literally just fought off a child that could speak to animals,” Linar said. “I don’t do living plants either. They usually can’t run away, but why risk it.”

  To the side, Syril whispered to Ellen, “Am I losing my mind, or is he making a solid case against trafficking people that completely ignored the morality of it.”

  “He does have principles,” Ellen said.

  ?

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