Birthday

Zelk examines Konrad for a second before she casually reply, "Sure."

The young woman leaves, and Breeze begins to check on the bowl of cider from afar. "Hey... he's there."

Florolf is carefuly approaching the bowl, one step at a time, and then dips his paw into the strange liquid to smell it.
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A few minutes later, she comes out of the bathroom. "So?"

to Fedler - "Do we want to see him drunk?"

Fedler tilts her head. "...Can he get drunk?"

"I hope so!" the fairy says before she drinks cider from her shooter glass with a straw.

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In the hall, Konrad speaks low in a conspiratorial manner, "I imagine you are curious about what I learned from trying to scan the creature, and I want to tell you."

Zelk raises her eyebrows in surprise. "You didn't miss it?"

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"If only. No...no, I missed the fox. When I tried, I sort of agitated something...massive, immeasurably. I disturbed it from some deep slumber, and in retaliation, it drained me of all my magic. The spell too, in fact."

Zelk stands silent for an uncomfortably long moment as she proceeds this information. With some difficulty, she asks Konrad, "It... drained your magic?"

"I'm not sure what will happen. I guess I wanted to see. Maybe I should have given it apple juice instead."

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"Yes. And when I sensed its presence, I... I floundered in a sea of incomprehensible thoughts, each one larger than the Dome. I wouldn't want to make an enemy of this...enigma." I wouldn't want to side with it against its enemies, either. Waxing poetic is usually not Konrad's style, unless he is wooing someone.

Carbuncle hesitantly licks the cider once, lets a few seconds pass, and then licks it again. He seems to have gotten used to the taste since he is now drinking happily from the bowl.

"Wow," Fedler comments. "I'm not sure whether this was a good idea or not..."

"Now that's a party!" Breeze exclaims.
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Zelk is left bewildered by this revelation, and she has some difficulty to wrap her mind around such a concept. "I don't really know what to do about this... Let's- let's just talk about this tomorrow. I need to sleep on this."

She begins to walk back towards the living room, but after just one step, she faces Konrad again and tells him, "Thank you for telling me."

The young black mage then rejoins the others.

Mihai shrugs - "If we want to stop him, now's the time."

Not that he appears particularly inclined to do so.

"I think he likes it," Yen says. "Oh, he's leaving."

The white creature has indeed finished all of the cider and after giving a few good licks at the bowl, it stood up and strolled away into the night. Pleased, Fedler takes a sip from her glass and tells Steve,

"I'm sure we'll see him again sometime."

Steve smiles back. "I hope so. It would be cool to know more about him."

"It's the Melan Team's turn!" Breeze announces. "Oh, let me get some of that cider before we start again..."

There's a huge slurp sound as the fairy drinks from her straw and finishes her glass.

"Okay! Here we go!"
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Because this was everyone's first game of Lords of Firepool, no one really knows who's in the lead, and it's not until the game is over and Breeze has counted the points that the winner is revealed; Steve, the Devil of the Citadel. While his strategies during the game were decent, there are other reasons as to why he won.

First of all, Konrad pretended so well to know how to play the game that Breeze didn't think it was necessary to give him advice, which put him at a huge disadvantage. Second reason, Yen wasn't interested so much in winning as in having fun, and she would often choose a quest depending on how epic the lore description was written instead of how much synergy it had with the Lord she picked. Third and final reason; Zelk and Mihai were just bad at the game.

But it was fun.

Once it became obvious to Zelk that she couldn't win against Steve, she would often steal the quests that Mihai wanted just to amuse herself. Fedler and Yen enjoyed reading out the description of each card put into play, using funny voices when appropriate. And Breeze would happily imagine the most ridiculous ways the Lords would get assassinated at the end of the game (the funniest scenario involved an arena, a barrel full of syrup and a horde of zombie chickens). All of this under the watchful eye of Velstar, who approved of all of this silliness.

Unfortunately for everyone, the game soon came to an end.
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Zelk was in the hallway putting her boots on while Fedler, Yen and Velstar stood a few feet away, ready to say goodbye to the guests.

"Here I come!" Breeze flies into one of Konrad's pockets and makes herself comfortable. "Make sure not to crush me, Wildfire!"

For fooling everyone, Konrad considers himself the real winner.

"I would never!" He picks up his rum, which is still quite full. "Are you warm enough?"

Breeze looks up at Konrad, smiles, and the firmly nods. "Perfect!"

"And try not to wander off?" Fedler says to the fairy. "You've had quite a lot of cider."

"I'm no ditz!" The fairy crosses her arms in objection. "And if we do get lost, it'll be because of one of those streets that move."

"...Let's hope we won't walk into one of those," Zelk adds, wary about this recent phenomenon.

"I have a better idea. Let's always look for one. That way we'll never find it." When people look at him like he is crazy he continues, "The people who always find the moving streets aren't actually looking for them. Therefore, if we try to find them, we'll surely never do so." He nods sagely.

"Someone ought to try to cartograph how they change, see if there's a pattern."

"Oooh!" Breeze is amazed by this idea, and she says, "That's super smart Snowstorm!"

Yen giggles at the fairy's expression. As Zelk puts her coat on, she faces Mihai and Konrad and tells them, "I've heard some mages are looking into the matter. From what I heard, there's no magic involved, which sounds... implausible. It's not creating new streets or anything like that. It's more like if people were immediately transported into another street across town and they didn't even notice how it happened."

The Freeron heir looks into her pockets. "Steve, did you see my hat?"

"Might be worth it to track some people walking the streets and see if they just suddenly blink from one spot to another. Should be possible if you use a few bugs and triangulate their coordinates." - he muses, forgetting himself

"That's weird, I saw you put it in your pocket." He lifts his own hat off the wall rack and places it on his head. He frowns and starts visually searching for the lost hat on the ground.

"I think the mages in charge have done something similar actually," Zelk tells Mihai. "I don't know how successful they've been though."

Zelk searches a pocket on the inside of her coat and finally finds her hat.

"Found it. Why did I put it there?" She puts her trapper hat on, ready to brave the weather outside. "We're good to go. Well, I am."

Fedler approaches the crazy couple and gives them a farewell hug with a kiss on the cheek. "Do come back. And thank you for the gifts."

"It was our pleasure," Zelk replies.

Velstar and Yen approach the departing guests to offer their own hugs.