Gaius may have exaggerated his skills to the dwarves, but only a bit. He did a fine enough job on the axe to impress them. This made the next few weeks of his life a whole lot busier.

  He split his time between making sure no one tried to exorcise the store's imp, enchanting dwarven weapons, and brewing potions.

  Against his own expectations, he actually enjoyed all that busywork. He always did have a knack for the mystical arts. It also helped that he wasn't just doing good honest labor. He had an angle. He needed that angle, a grift that only he knew about. Otherwise, the whole exercise became routine. And escaping routine was exactly what put him on his path in the first place.

  At least the money was starting to trickle in. Gaius' special potions were proving to be quite popular with Siembra's working class. The dwarves were also eager to throw some coin his way to expand their order beyond what mere ale could buy.

  All of that helped keep Gaius' mind off Victor and Alessia's limited success with finding the right mushrooms. The abandoned mines and the upper levels of caverns beneath them have long since been picked clean. Anyone who wanted to find anything worthwhile had to delve deeper. Deeper meant more dangerous. And strong as they were, Gaius' pocket adventurers weren't exactly grizzled veterans. A good chunk of his income went to patching the two of them up every time they missed another trap placed by the deep dwellers or even rival adventurers not overly fond of competition.

  Then, there were the cuts and bruises from actually confronting the creatures that favored the damp dark places, and the assorted rabble that figured that robbing tired adventurers on their way out was much safer than risking your neck down in the tunnels.

  All Gaius had to show for it were a bunch of borderline useless artifacts. There was a metal rod that produced a narrow ray of light. A few bottles that preserved the temperature of the liquids you poured inside. At one point, Victor even managed to haul out a pair of chairs that were seemingly created by bending solid sheets of light metal.

  And despite the locals' insistence that all of this was somehow a gift from their goddesses, none of them bought any of that junk.

  Thanks to his other money-making ventures, Gaius wasn't fretting too much about that. Not getting his mushrooms with but a week left until the next full moon was a much bigger strain on his nerves.

  He was of half a mind to go down the tunnels himself when Victor busted into the store with a bloodied nose, a small pouch in front of him, and a wide grin on his face.

  Slightly behind him, Alessia confirmed with a nod that the pouch was indeed what Gaius thought it was. His fate was once again in his own hands. It was a pleasant feeling.

  Just to be on the safe side, Gaius waited past nightfall before heading out. With him, he had his axe, the mushrooms, and whatever reagents he thought his little act of sabotage might call for.

  Prior to that day, Gaius had splurged on a hooded cape. His face was becoming too recognizable in Siembra.

  Wearing that cape reminded him of the town's unnaturally warm weather. The locals explained it as a blessing from their precious goddesses. But truth be told, there were few things that Caladonians didn't consider to be a gift from Nova, Mallia, or both.

  Whatever the actual explanation for Siembra's climate was, it still left Gaius sweating in thick clothes on a warm night. This discomfort dulled his senses to the point where he was a good dozen of steps away from the store before he recognized that something was off.

  It wasn't anything tangible, just a general sense of unease. One snuffed out street light too many, a complete absence of foot traffic, the still and way too silent air. All of his experience as a thief was warning him of a burglary in progress. And given his recent interactions with the local underworld, it was past time they paid him a visit.

  Gaius' natural reaction was to ignore his senses and keep walking. He didn't have any sentimental attachment to the store or the goods inside it. He had bigger problems to deal with.

  Despite that, he found himself turning around. At first, he thought that Vasily's curse might have been pulling him back to prevent anything bad from happening to the store. After digging through his memory for what he knew about curses, he discarded that idea.

  He considered a simpler explanation. If his place got torched, he would have nowhere to stay for almost a year. And then, it hit him. The tablets, his main reason for even being in Caladonia, not to mention Siembra, were sitting in a hidden compartment he carved into the desk in his room.

  If the intruders discovered his stash or indeed burned the store down, his retirement ticket would be gone. He couldn't allow that.

  With this newfound clarity guiding him, Gaius had no trouble spotting the five tough guys lying in wait behind the stable. Their simplistic laborer attires betrayed them as Alejo's men.

  "Did you guys seriously have to come today of all days?" Gaius asked, letting his presence be known.

  His sudden appearance and vague cloaked outline momentarily turned these grimy ruffians into kids caught stealing cookies.

  If Gaius knew his street thugs, this startled silence wouldn't last. It would soon turn into savage aggression to compensate for the moment of weakness.

  "Money. Do you like money?" Gaius started with something sure to draw the thugs' attention.

  It was a rhetorical question. They clearly did. But still, they hesitated.

  One of them said, "We have our orders, merchant. We'll get ours one way or another."

  "Orders? What are you, Alejo's bitches or something?" This got the guys advance towards Gaius.

  He responded by backpedaling away from them. "Look, I'm not asking you to leave me alone and go against your boss. Just postpone this thing until tomorrow. No big deal. Easy money for you."

  The guys stopped.

  "How much are we talking about here?" one of them asked.

  Between everyday expenses, supplying and patching up his adventurers, and buying extra clothes, Gaius wasn't exactly flush with coin.

  He tilted his head, tallying up his available assets.

  "How about a week of what you'd get pretending to do your odd jobs?" he proposed.

  The thugs took that as a funny joke.

  Gaius turned as if to run, simultaneously conjuring a dirty combination of fire and water, covering the area between himself and the thugs with caustic steam. Then came the time to gamble on whether your garden variety thug was smarter than an alef.

  Turned out they weren't. Once the steam dissipated, all five of them chased after the blurry image of Gaius running down the street while dispensing insults and profanities aimed at Alejo, his men, and their mothers.

  Once they got far enough, Gaius got up from behind the nearby fence and dashed inside the store and up the stairs. He barged into Victor's room without knocking, interrupting some alone time between the northerner and his wife.

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  Skipping the usual pleasantries, he informed Alessia she was free to hex him later, and then tossed most of the money he had on him to Victor and asked the northerner to stand guard outside for the night.

  With his giant axe in hand, wearing whatever mismatched pieces of armor he managed to scavenge during his recent expeditions, Victor was imposing enough to make any thug reconsider approaching the store.

  The temple was Gaius' next stop. Alejo and his men were a minor annoyance at best compared to being found out by the Caladonian authorities and breaking his contract with Vasily. Somehow, he had this feeling that even getting executed for his sacrilegious thievery wouldn't wipe his slate clean with the Slavian sorcerer.

  The smooth marble of the temple's walls served as the centerfold for the town of Siembra. Gaius had no issues finding his way there. Even at night, the place was well-lit by plentiful lanterns. Instead of a fence, the structure was surrounded by a loose grove of olive trees.

  And even though the temple's grounds were patrolled by a solid number of guards, the trees provided more than enough cover for Gaius to sneak past them and get into the temple proper.

  An elevated circle of crystal-clear water, the divination pool, was used in place of an altar in the main prayer area. Gaius was never one to do a lot of praying, but even he couldn't deny the majesty of this place. Its walls were lined with carved columns depicting Nova on one side and Mallia on the other, and the roof was constructed in a way that let through and magnified even the faintest moonlight.

  He sure was happy that he was visiting the temple at night, as under the southern Caladonian sun, that very same roof would have turned the place into an oven, likely explaining the Caladonians' belief in all sorts of nonsense. You bake a fellow enough, and he'll buy whatever you're selling without a second thought.

  With the priests shacked up in a modest building further into the temple grounds, Gaius planned to do the deed with the pool, and then deliver the mushrooms to his grace, the bishop, who occupied the largest chamber there.

  A quick in and out, where the only uncertain part was determining the exact enchantment that imbued the pool with its mystical properties and figuring out a way to counteract it.

  That neat plan crumbled on itself as soon as Gaius spotted half a bare back kneeling by the pool. The other half was covered by a white toga.

  Even though Gaius was doing his best to stay perfectly silent, Isabella heard his approach. The Moon's own knight got up and faced Gaius. He had but a few seconds to come up with a good excuse for interrupting her mediation.

  Something like this was exactly why he waited so long to pay the temple a visit. With the mushrooms in his pouch, he had a perfectly good excuse for being there. Now, he had to sell it.

  "Gorgeous place, this temple of yours," Gaius said after he took off his hood.

  Standing in a beam of amplified moonlight, Isabella was a sight to behold. The pendant on her chest dispersed the light into countless specks of color dancing on her clothes and the walls around her with every breath she took.

  "Gaius, was it?" she said, examining her visitor. "What are you doing here at this hour? Have you decided to take me up on my offer?"

  "Oh yeah, that."

  Gaius thought back to their previous interaction. The Caladonian knight was acting in a rather suggestive way towards him. And even though neither her words nor her attire left too much to the imagination, Gaius figured this was another Caladonian thing he just didn't get. Government officials didn't throw themselves at perfect strangers after a quick chat and an even quicker brawl.

  Now, it looked like that was more than a peculiar form of small talk. With how Isabella presented herself in that moonlit temple, Gaius was all but ready to forget all about caution and see where things would take them.

  With a part of his brain that remained rational even at a time like this, he weighed his options. He could easily blow the knight off, tell her he was there merely to see the bishop but got turned around while searching for the man.

  But that was the thing about good covers. They needed layers. A simple merchant looking to sell a package of illicit goods would never admit to it unless his back was firmly pressed against a wall.

  Both his impulsive and rational parts were in accord. Gaius approached Isabella and looked at her with a mix of caution and curiosity.

  "What if I said I did?"

  Isabella returned his gaze. "I would point out that it's been several weeks and this is the middle of the night. How did you even know where to find me?"

  "People talk," Gaius said. "And what with the big opening, I just didn't have the time or energy to think about anything else. The important thing is now I'm here."

  "You probably shouldn't be. The temple isn't open for visitors at this hour."

  "Are we seriously going to be standing here and discuss temple policy, or will you allow me to invite you over for drinks?" Gaius lowered his voice. "I have the best ale in town."

  "What about a license?" Isabella replied in the same hushed voice. "I should throw you in a dungeon, my good man."

  She wasn't serious. At least Gaius hoped she wasn't. "Well, then I'll just bribe the guards with a few mugs of my special ale and get out before supper." Gaius winked at Isabella. For whatever reason, he felt that this suave, bordering on sleazy, merchant was a winker. "And anyway, how do you know I don't have a license? Maybe I'm well-connected."

  "If that was the case, I would've heard of you. And if I did, that would prevent me from accepting your invitation. You know, a knight seducing a man of high social standing, that throws a long shadow over my order."

  Isabella started moving. There, in the temple, with just the two of them and the moon present, she rivaled an elf in grace. She approached Gaius and slowly slid a finger down his chest.

  Whatever you say about all the magical advancements of Mystlund, Gaius was starting to firmly believe that Caladonia had them clearly beat when it came to knights.

  Breathing down Gaius' neck, Isabella said, "Instead we have you, Gaius. A small-time merchant who doesn't even run his own store, but unlike most in your line of work, somehow avoids looking like a half-melted blob of wax. You've got a mouth on you and can almost hold your own in a fight. You're just what I need to make my stay in this town slightly more bearable."

  Gaius thought back to his encounter with alefs. The memory was sufficiently disgusting to allow him to focus on the job he was pulling instead of the warmth of Isabella's body as it washed all over him.

  "You know, if you weren't such a looker, I would take that as an insult," he said.

  Isabella laughed. A hearty laugh completely inappropriate for the tender situation. She moved away and planted herself on the edge of the divining pool.

  "Oh, now I'm a looker. Last time we met, you wanted to chop me with an axe."

  "Guess now I know the struggle lumberjacks must feel all the time." Going full cornball seemed appropriate to Gaius to bring down the heat in the temple and get him back on track.

  Isabella tilted her head at Gaius. "Are you implying I'm a tree, or what's happening here?"

  "Well, like a sexy tree," he stayed the course.

  Instead of telling him to leave and never speak to her again, Isabella rubbed her chin. "And which tree would that be?"

  It was hard for Gaius to believe that this was their conversation now, even though mere moments ago it felt like they were just a few words and a touch away from going horizontal.

  "A birch?" he offered.

  "And now you're calling me a birch. Classy."

  "Oh, come on, tell me you don't see yourself having some birch-like qualities." Gaius was too far gone to try and steer that conversation back to normal.

  "Do I need to remind you that I'm perfectly capable of calling down a lighting from the heavens on you right now?"

  Once again, Gaius was pretty sure Isabella wasn't serious about that.

  "Alright, alright. What about a willow? Willows are pretty sexy."

  Isabella closed her eyes and started to gracefully sway her head from side to side.

  "Fine," she said. "I'll give you that. Willows are alright. Let's go with willow."

  Gaius had no idea what to say after that and Isabella wasn't in a rush to speak either.

  Finally, she got up, walked to one of the columns depicting Mallia, and said, "You can't imagine how I've missed talking nonsense, Gaius. Thank you."

  Gaius moved closer to Isabella and stood by her side without looking up, for the goddess had even fewer clothes on her than the knight.

  "I find it hard to believe you'd have any issues finding someone to talk to," he said.

  "Why do you think I'm spending my off-duty hours here, alone?"

  "I'm not buying," Gaius said. "Far be it from me to pretend that anything about you or your order makes sense to me, but back in Mystlund, where knights are mostly old guys with big mustaches, men would fight each other to the death for the privilege of spending some alone time with you."

  "This isn't Mystlund," Isabella said. "People don't like me here."

  "Bullshit."

  "Gaius. In the weeks I've been here, you're the only person here to talk to me for longer than absolutely necessary."

  "How is that possible? Do they have eyes?"

  "They do. Can't fault them there. They can clearly see a knight on a holy mission. And that makes them uneasy, even when they're not guilty. They want to get from under my gaze as soon as possible. And then there are the adventurers. They don't like me because they think all I want is to claim their loot as holy relics and take it away."

  If she weren't the biggest threat to his safe retirement, Gaius would have felt bad for Isabella. This made it very easy for him to place a hand on her back and stand like that in silence for a while.

  Once that moment passed, Gaius said, "I guess this means your schedule is open for tomorrow. Slightly illegal drinks at my place?"

  "If you think about it," Isabella said, "drinking your ale is in a way the same as confiscating it."

  "I like how you think."

  "I'm in," Isabella said. Putting a few steps between Gaius and herself, she added, "Just drinks, nothing more. I wouldn't want to present myself as immodest."

  "Now you're talking about modesty?"

  "Hey, Sister Moon commands us to enjoy life, not to be an easy lay. We'll start with drinks and then see where that takes us."

  It wasn't too difficult for Gaius to make himself look slightly disappointed.

  "Drinks it is," he said with exaggerated enthusiasm.

  Story Facts - Chapter 13