Rowen:

  “Your Royal Highness! I’m so glad you came to my humble tea party.” Miss Hammerwinkle positively beamed down at Rowen. She, like many dwarvenkind, was blessed with a racial skill that allowed them to control their size. Many lived taller than trees, with the freedom to enlarge or shrink at will.

  Miss Hammerwinkle relished being the tallest at her own tea party, and right she was to enjoy herself. Rowen, of course, was currently shifted into one of their many forms and unrecognizable if they weren’t otherwise announced at the door with invitation in hand.

  Rowen smiled and took the dwarfess’s hand. “The pleasure is all mine, Miss Hammerwinkle. Now, tell me, where would you like me?”

  “I have just the seat.” Miss Hammerwinkle winked and offered Rowen a chair at her own table.

  Her own giant table, the top of which came up just higher than Rowen’s head. The fox eyed the chair and let amusement show on their face, “Excellent, thank you.”

  Rowen leapt gracefully onto a chair as high up as their elbows, and considered their options.

  [You have attempted to use the skill: [Fox Glamour]. You have succeeded.]

  Suddenly, Rowen’s form shifted, growing taller.

  The royal had wrapped themselves in the guise of a beautiful golden locked dwarfess with a braided beard. They’d donned a strikingly vibrant ocean blue dress with plate armor on the shoulders and grieves below the knees.

  Now, they simply made their guise bigger, and used the magic of the guise to lift teacups and pastries with their magically formed dwarven hands.

  Lord Axebottom and Lady Chistlewick also sat at the table. Both excellent company and veritable gossips.

  Excellent.

  “Rowen! So good to see you. Did you hear about Lord Bernhardin’s exploits fighting our last monster surge?” Lord Axebottom was never one to dally, and dove straight into sharing the embarrassing exploits of his sworn enemy. Dwarven feuds ran deep, and Lord Axebottom took great delight explaining how Bernhardin had had his trousers torn and then he’d fallen face first into a pit trap, getting stuck there until the excavation team could extract him.

  “Of course,” Lord Axebottom puffed up. “I had nothing to do with any of it. No proof at all.”

  Rowen shot the dwarf a sidelong look and nodded, “Of course.”

  Lady Chistlewick was momentarily distracted by something behind Rowen that had the fox turning. The dwarfess chuckled, “My, it looks like your retinue is settling in.”

  Bastian and Carter had been dragged away to compete in the tea party war games. The knight commander remained stoic, his gaze frequently scanning the decorated cavern, and the exits, and Rowen. The fox wiggled their fingers at the drakin when next he looked their way, and Bastian let out an almost perceptible sigh.

  That was when a large axe was shoved into Bastians arms by the young dwarfess Miss Cleftwallow. Despite his polite attempt to decline, she physically turned him to face a target.

  Her strength was impressive enough to warrant a single raised eyebrow.

  Surrounded by eager dwarves pressing in on him, Bastian gave in to fate and threw the axe at a target forty feet away. It hit so hard that the target shattered and the axe kept flying. The shocked calm quickly turned into a rousing hurrah at the destruction and Bastian was swarmed again.

  “They do seem to be having fun.” Rowen turned back to their hostess. They took a sip of green tea as they asked, “And what is this year's prize?”

  “Miss Betsy.”

  Rowen simply raised an eyebrow, “Oh?”

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  Miss Hammerwinkle’s eyes twinkled as she thrust a thumb to another corner of the room. Secured by a golden leash, a unigoat stood munching on cabbage and drinking from a large flask of beer.

  “She’s a direct line to Princess Penelope.” Lady Chistlewick added, helpfully. “And as mean as they come.”

  Ah, Rowen thought Miss Betsy’s colouring looked familiar. “And how does one win this magnificent prize? Is there a point system?”

  The axe throwing didn’t look particularly difficult, and almost every participant was happily sinking center shots.

  “Oh no,” Miss Hammerwinkle shook her head. “Miss Betsy will choose the winner.”

  “Majestic creature, isn’t she?” Lord Axebottom eyed the goat. “I’m almost tempted to compete myself."

  Miss Betsy’s tail flicked and then she spat out a mouthful of cabbage. Her eyes narrowed a bit.

  Lady Chistlewick tut-tutted, “Leave the prize to the younger generation Dennis.”

  “I did say almost.” Lord Axebottom sipped his tea. “Besides, I daresay Miss Betsy’s already decided anyway.”

  “Miss Hammerwinkle,” Rowen’s smile turned into an outright grin and the fox’s guise leaned back in the chair elegantly, “I think I must apologize.”

  The hostess was scrutinizing the unigoat but turned back to face Rowen, “Why?”

  Miss Betsy bleated loud and violently, and she easily pulled her chain free from the wall. The hook dragged behind her. With a fierce determination, the unigoat stamped her front two feet and pointed her horn at one individual amongst the crowd of axe throwing participants.

  A certain pale knight commander who wasn’t paying attention to her at all, but had used the momentary silence to scan the cavern for threats… unsuspecting the very being most likely to do harm.

  When Bastian’s eyes finally found the unigoat, Miss Betsy lifted her head high and bleated a second time. Sir Lowdiver chose that moment to slap Bastian on the back and congratulate him for winning the grand prize, and pointing at Miss Betsy.

  Bastian stared at Miss Betsy.

  Miss Betsy stared at Bastian.

  And everyone else stared at the pair.

  Then Bastian shook his head and said as politely as he could, “No, um, I thank you but I don’t need a—”

  Rowen couldn’t tell whether they would chastise their knight commander or praise him for his bravery. Rejecting a pedigree unigoat had consequences.

  As Bastian found out, when Miss Betsy realized her chosen was going to reject her, and acted accordingly - by charging full-tilt towards the crowd of young contestants, overturning two tables and three dwarven nobles on the way. She aimed at Bastian’s chest plate with her now shining spiral horn.

  The blast knocked everyone else off their feet, sending the other contestants sprawling. Rowen noted with amusement a few dwarves who purposefully threw themselves with the rest, happily landing injury with elbows and knees on their peers.

  “Curses.” Miss Hammerwinkle jumped to her feet, already waving for her people to come and help.

  Bastian gripped Miss Betsy by the bridge of her nose, preventing her from thrusting her horn into his chest plate by a mere inch. He tried to calm the unigoat with a soft, “Whoa there! It’s alright–”

  The force of her fury radiated and with an angry goat screech she wrenched her head back and started attacking Bastian in full force.

  Like an expert swordsman with a tiny horn, she swung her head and lunged.

  “She’s gonna blow!” One dwarfess warned loudly, scrambling to get out of the way. Rowen shook their head.

  The warning was too late.

  Miss Betsy’s horn erupted and fire shot out at Bastian, who ducked. The attack landed on Sir Lowdiver, who promptly caught on fire.

  Miss Hammerwinkle had been waiting for the attack to go off so she could charge in and wrestle Miss Betsy to the ground while her horn was recharging. Off to the side, Bastian was using ice magic to put out the fire all while glaring at Carter, who was bent over laughing so hard he needed to use a table to hold himself up.

  “Glorious.” Lord Axebottom stated, looking over the chaos. “Another riveting and successful tea party, if I do say so myself.”

  Lady Chistlewick nodded, “What with Miss Betsy’s display, Griselda will be the talk about town for weeks. Beats getting your soiree upended by Gem-Cutter Ants.”

  “How was the monster surge?” Rowen asked, curious. Across the room, the unigoat had managed to shove Miss Hammerwinkle into another table, sending cake and porcelain flying.

  “The usual.” Lord Axebottom waved off Rowen’s question with his hand. “No one died permanently and we’ve restocked the stores for forging material. Was a good crawl.”

  “If you’ve time, Your Highness, why don’t I show you some of the wares we’ve crafted since?” Lady Chistlewick leaned in conspiratorially. She was a dwarf after Rowen’s own heart.

  “Griselda won’t forgive you if you leave without a proper farewell.” Lord Axebottom chastised. “You remember what happened last time?”

  “Spoilsport,” the dwarfess pouted, but Rowen only smiled. Bastian and Carter were very much distracted and it would be the perfect time to go for a walk.

  “Why don’t I make our goodbyes?” Rowen sent off a wisp to whisper sweet words into their hostess’s ear, all while Miss Hammerwinkle was playing tug-of-war with Miss Betsy’s golden rope.

  Thank you for the most wondrous tea party. It was an absolute delight. The marshberry pie captured my heart, truly. Now if you would please forgive us, Miss Hammerwinkle, I’m going to slip away with Janice for a bit of fun. I’ll leave my two knights to help you clean up the mess.

  And with that, Lady Chistlewick and Their Royal Highness disappeared by spell scroll teleport to the Chistlewick family compound, and Rowen enjoyed a relaxing afternoon of inspecting very sharp and pointy things.

  Ah, travel. So much to do and see!