Edited: Sept, 17, 2020

===========

"It's just one of his episodes." Lalina broke the silence, shifting in her seat.

"It's like he goes into mental shock sometimes and plays the role of this imaginary adult figure who scolds Deel or tells him Galag is bad and all sorts of awful things. He's got this medicine, or potion, he has to take to keep his mental distress at bay or, he would scream like that." Lalina paused and her ears twitched. Pinti listened too to the faint sounds of something she couldn't place.

Lalina gave a soft chuckle. "The sound of magick, one could say. Although magick doesn't have a sound, really. Galag's the only one that can give him the potion, but it lasts him a month or so. He does have these pills, but they're for emergency only."

"It's like he's two different Kathula in one body." Pinti recalled the times his eye color and overall demeanor had changed before. Even his voice dropped.

"Galag said he taught Deel how to transform to keep sane. I'd go insane with that. But it seems to help, I guess."

"Doesn't Sorcery cancel out his Kathula magick?" Pinti didn't know a whole lot about Sorcery, but she did once read that different races' magick could cancel each other out.

Lalina shook her head. "I don't know. But I do know that Galag wouldn't do that to him if he knew it would cancel it out." She grinned then. "The illusion is so heckling convincing, isn't it? I've met the other Deel many times and it's really like another Deel. They act so differently and even argue with each other. That boy has got some acting talent, don't you think?"

Pinti gave a faint smile and nodded. Although to her there seemed to be much more to that deep-voiced other Deel she had encountered at the inn in Nuaka. Sorcerer magick couldn't be that convincing, could it?

"So, I know some about the Massacre of the Third Ring," Lalina leaned forward on her elbows, "but what is your story? Why are you here?"

"Well, my father's wish," Pinti mumbled. She didn't feel like opening those wounds again. The negativities would come swarming into the front of her mind. Instead, to avoid that, she asked Lalina, "What about you?"

"Me?" Lalina sat up in her chair. "Well, my parents were killed by Edglings long ago when I just a pup. I saw it happen. The organization my parents belonged to was, apparently, making fun of Edglings and calling them weak because they only suppressed Kathula and never tried to attack other races."

Of course, Edglings had big egos. It didn't do good to provoke Edglings. Pinti pondered for a moment. "So, you're here for revenge?"

"Avenge." Lalina stressed the word. "My parents didn't deserve that kind of death and I know they would want me to at least kill the Edgling that killed them. If I can make that happen with a magical scepter, then I would. Teaming up with Kathula was a good choice because we both want Edglings destroyed. Help each other. Win-win."

Pinti never imagined other races would be after the scepter for the same reason or after the scepter at all. And to think that at one point in history, Kathula, Sorcerers, Halfhumans, and Humans cooperated was mind boggling.

And now they all call Kathula 'blue kitties' and I call Huamanoas idiots. Pinti swished her tail in thought. And I don't trust Sorcerers, but maybe, Lalina and Galag are okay. Still, she decided not to let her guard down all the way. There was the possibility that one of them had hidden motives to harvest her fur or cage her up for circus attraction.

"Hi!" Human-form Deel squeaked as he came skipping into the room. "Just needed my medicine, that's all. Did you worry about me? I'm okay now. I'm not that crazy anymore." As he spoke, his eyebrows twitched, and he flicked out his tongue like a snake. He flung himself on the couch right next to her

Pinti scoffed at him. "You're always crazy."

Deel leaned into her face and whispered, "Guess what? I can be crazier." He pulled away with a giggle. Pinti noticed the chained necklace with the red stone still dangling around his neck. If only she could snatch it off him and change him into Kathula. It irked her that he was willing to disrespect his roots, living as a Human.

Galag returned and soon he, Deel, and Lalina launched into some kind of talk about Ulk Pyne or food or something, but Pinti stopped listening. Her mind was exhausted from feeling all kinds of emotions, getting attacked, and then finding out the scepter was indeed real and that she had a chance at fulfilling her father's wishes. She had another chance to not fail him.

Still the thought of having to find the scepter somehow—which lay in the inhabitable Sixth Ring—made exhaustion weigh on her shoulders. Pinti stifled a yawn and her eyelids felt heavy.

"How about some dinner?" Galag piped up and stood to make his way to the kitchen. Deel followed him in making disgusting slurping sounds.

"I'm famished!" he screamed and jumped up and down. "Famished!"

Lalina rolled her eyes. "There's no need to scream."

"I didn't scream," he retorted, "It was my stomach!"

At the table with Galag at the head, Lalina next to her, and Deel across from her, Pinti enjoyed a simple roasted chicken meal with honey-lemon sauce and some warm bread to dip into melted butter. For drink there was cherry beer—a Sorcerer's favorite alcohol—and warm lavender-scented milk for non-alcoholics like Pinti and Deel. Although Pinti requested water instead because milk would make her go to the bathroom more times than she wanted to if she had it right before bed.

"Why won't you just try some?" Deel handed her his cup which she adamantly refused until Galag poured her some in a smaller glass.

"Just a sip couldn't hurt, and milk relaxes your muscles, or so it's said." Galag handed her the glass and she reasoned a sip couldn't hurt. When she lifted the cup to her lips and let the warm lavender-scented milk spread across her tongue and fill her mouth, she immediately felt the effects. It was sweet, but not too sweet and the pleasant warmth traveled down her throat, easing all tight muscles like a nice warm bath.

"Honey, too." She observed, licking her chops.

"Lavender, honey, and milk, but there's a hint of one more ingredient, Pinti. Can you guess?" Galag smirked with cheeks rosy from cherry beer.

She gave a slow, long sniff, breathing in the milk, the lavender, and the tang of honey. The last scent was familiar to something she once tried in Bairenshire City in the home of a Human.

"F-F..." She sounded out the word. "Fennel? Is that what it's called?"

Galag clapped his hands. "Impressive! Not even Lalina with her Haundai sense of smell could get that one even though she eats fennel cookies every Wintertine." He winked.

"Hecklebees," Lalina swore with a roll of her eyes. At that moment, a paper bird came flying in through the glass window even though it wasn't open. Pinti recognized it as the same sort of thing she saw out the window in the inn in Nuaka.

The bird perched itself on Galag's shoulder and when he reached for it, it unfolded in his hands. Deel was rattling his chair and pressing his lips together like he was trying not to laugh. A squeak escaped from his lips and Galag looked up to give him a warning glare.

"Splendid!" Galag exclaimed and looked up to tell them that he had word from an old friend. "It's from Thereanbold Rygnaemere, an Arch, which is the highest rank a Sorcerer can be."

"You never said you had an Arch friend, Galag!" Lalina leaned back in her chair. "You keep too many things secret."

Galag's eyes crinkled at the corners. "Well, just an acquaintance. We don't really know each other, and we've never met, but I've long known his obsession with the history of the Six-Ringed World. He's lived through a lot himself being over two centuries old."

Pinti widened her eyes. "Two centuries! How long do Sorcerers actually live?"

"The oldest Sorcerer is five-hundred and eighty-six years old." Lalina smirked. "Magick makes us live longer and look younger, longer."

Of course, it was well-known that Sorcerers had extremely long lives, but five hundred was unfathomable.

"Especially Archs live long, don't they, Galag?" Lalina said.

"Eternal!" Deel squealed unable to keep his mouth shut any longer. He fidgeted in his chair and twitched his eyes and head. "I said, eternal, but an exaggeration, you know." He glared at his hand. Despite knowing he was having mental problems, Pinti still saw his actions as strange.

"Former Arch, actually," Galag said as the paper bird evaporated in thin air, "although, see, if you gain the title once, it's stuck on you forever even after you've retired like Thereanbold. He's made himself a home in—"

"—the most absurd place on the planet!" Deel shouted and Galag blinked at him.

"Yes, good guess," He gave a faint smile, "it's the Forest Crup. And he's invited us to come there, and he's inserted a map in magick which I've lodged into my memory just now."

"You and your hidden talents!" Lalina laughed. "You never fail to surprise me. You're the only Sorcerer Professor that does wacky things to this extent. But the Forest Crup will certainly deceive us. It's like a living creature. Like that meat-eating plant, the Venus Fly Trap, that Humans decided to bring from their home planet," She dropped her voice to a whisper, "it eats creatures alive."

"No! We can't go!" Deel jumped up from the table. "I don't want it to eat me!"

Pinti pursed her lips. Instead of being concerned with all their well-being, Deel was only worried about himself being eaten. She doubted any creature would want to eat a thing like him. If she were a creature like that, she would gag at the thought of feasting on that idiot.

The only stories she ever heard about the Forest Crup were that there were strange upside-down places, creatures that didn't have faces, and trees that talked. Because every account was so strange, many thought it was probably all an exaggeration because citizens feared what they couldn't understand.

Just like Kathula. Citizens didn't give them a chance to prove themselves as non-savage, as non-cats, and civilized.

But they should. I'd be fine with that. Pinti was half-listening when someone mentioned her name. She blinked her eyes at Galag who was looking at her expectantly.

"Pinti?" Galag said.

"What?"

"You can sniff out magick too, can't you?" Galag tipped his glass back and finished his beer. "I heard you have a good nose for many things."

She narrowed her eyes at him. He couldn't be serious. "You mean magick as in those without potions?" she said, and he nodded.

"No, because magick without potions doesn't—"

"I can teach you to sniff out non-potion magick." Galag smiled. "It does have a scent if you really search for it. You just need to know what to search for, I believe. How about tomorrow morning I could train you? And then perhaps leave a few days after? It would really help if you could sniff out magick in the Forest Crup. You can warn us when things look dangerous. It would be really great if you could. Even just a tad would do."

She nodded albeit reluctantly because although she liked the idea of being helpful, she wasn't sure it was possible to sniff something that didn't have a scent. It sounded stupid. She could only smell magick when a Sorcerer used potions. Non-potion magick was impossible even though Kathula's sense of smell was three times more than a Human's.

Even if I could, by some heizak miracle, Universal language is limited in the language of scents, so how would he train me? I should be training him. She found it all pointless, but it was settled. She would train under Galag tomorrow.

"Splendid!" Galag clapped his hands together. "Do we all agree? Best plan of action?" He glanced around the table and no one argued. Pinti twitched her whiskers, frustrated that she didn't have any better ideas and all she could do was go along with the stupidity of training to smell scentless things.