Into That Wild Blue Yonder

23. What They Don't Know

"Wow, what a view!" Ulan said happily as he sank into the heated water of the balcony tub. Idara lounged across from him, equally happy with the ambiance and a full glass of bourbon.

In the days after acquiring their formal attire, the trio gathered up any gear they expected to need to protect Miss Oswansha. Idara couldn't exactly hide her mace, so she bought herself a pair of expandable batons in case she needed to crack skulls and a set of chainmail for Colm to wear under his suit. Colm added a Flashpop scroll and a Sound Distortion scroll to his inventory to throw off any bad actors' senses, despite Ulan's protest that such scrolls would affect the other guests.

"The moonlight over the lake is beautiful," Idara said, melting into the water. She looked over at Colm, who sat silently by the railing, staring into the sky with a bottle of whiskey in hand. "Don't you think, Colm?"

"It is," Colm replied mindlessly.

"What's on your mind?" Ulan asked, craning his neck around to look at Colm.

"Nothing."

"Like, actually nothing?"

"Yep."

"You men and your empty heads," Idara said, shaking her head. "I really don't know how you do it."

"I never would've guessed," Colm said with a swig of his whiskey.

Colm wasn't really sitting there mindlessly. He couldn't get his last meeting with Dolf out of his head. He was following them; actively following them; everywhere they went. He knew their every move. How? No tracker tag scroll lasts long enough that he could still be on the same one. Even the highest quality scroll only lasts thirty minutes. The only explanation that worked was some sort of enchantment.

"Ah, I got more going through my head in a given moment than you do throughout the day," Idara said with a wave of her hand. "I'm the smart one of this bunch."

"Moon save us," Colm said with another swig from his bottle. "You like jewelry, don't you?"

"Me?" Idara asked.

"Either of you."

"Uh, duh, of course I do!" Idara said with a mocking expression. "It's expressive, it's flashy, it's fancy, it's status... And it's fun."

"I don't love shiny stuff," Ulan said. "It doesn't match my scales. I like matte things, but they aren't very common." Ulan reached up to his ear-type extension on his head. "Like this piercing up here, a nice, brushed titanium band."

"Where'd you find it?" Colm asked.

"I got it from a trader in Baumbergh some years ago," Ulan reminisced. Colm frowned in his seat and kept looking to the sky. "Just a regular jewelry store, but with a few different collections of locally-made stuff."

"I don't understand it."

"You wouldn't," Idara said with a shrug. "Not a guy like you, at least. Or anyone from that monastery, I imagine."

"Probably not."

"But they clearly had an artistic style," Ulan said. "The patterns in that piece Colm brought back are really intricate."

"True," Idara said with a nod. "Colm, you were more of a nerd, right? Not the artsy type?"

"Not really," Colm said. He stood up with a grunt. "Not into much of anything." He started walking inside.