While we were staring at Faust in silence, the muscles in his smiling face twitched, especially after his companion coughed audibly at his pompous greeting. He retracted his clenched fist from the chest to his mouth and cleared the throat before saying, "Well, word of mouth spreads rather slowly, is it not? But this is fine, completely fine! I merely need to show how amazing I am rather than tell."
"They do not look very impressed about it, though." said the priest with a smile, then his eyes shifted to me. Upon closer examination of my face, his grin wavered a little, giving up space to observant concern.
"Excuse me." he said and extended his hand towards my forehead. My eyes widened in surprise, and I immediately swatted away his hand, "Do not touch me!"
"Now you made him upset, Riaz! I am sorry, his hands can be rather loose."
The priest whose name I now knew squinted at Faust's remark, "Loose hands, you say? If I remember correctly, you were the one who spent all night in the local brothel. We practically have no funds left!"
"Are you blaming me!? And this bar was not, in fact, a brothel! All I did was treat some beautiful ladies, and even then I did not spend nearly as much as you did on the kilograms of herbal tea!"
"Excuse me! Do not compare the healing properties of good tea to your inability to keep your sword sheathed!"
While the two were bantering right in front of our table, I was ready to leave them be, however, Nila's ear twitched at their words, and she tilted her head in thought. It was irritating to see her interest in these clowns piqued, but once she spoke, I was once again surprised by her attentiveness that she sometimes displayed.
"Are you trying to tell me that you have trouble with money?"
Upon hearing Nila's question, the two immediately stopped bickering. Faust straightened up and cleared his throat, but before he had a chance to speak, Riaz jumped into the conversation with a respectful bow, "That is correct, I believe you already saw through our goal in recruiting you. The elven experience is unmatched after all!" he giggled, but then continued in more serious yet still relaxed demeanour, "I will explain it as it is, we are currently broke and the only available request that would keep us afloat requires the skills of a mage."
"And from whom is this request?" Nila tilted her head once more, to which Riaz smiled, "I will tell you only if you agree to help us out. Of course, we would share the reward, I can swear by the name of Farhen."
Nila shook her head and stood up while looking at me, "You better find another mage, as I am not too strong. Let's go, Dusk."
I raised my brow, but followed her lead and straightened up as well. But Faust did not want to let us go that easily. To my annoyance, he said, "I am not sure about the boy, but you certainly do not look weak."
His keen eye was directed at Nila's right arm, which was wounded in the battle against Manuela. Plenty of time had passed since she received it, but Nila still could not move her hand quite as freely as she used to. Despite that, he noticed something in her hand that I failed to see no matter how hard I looked. It was evident, as Nila also glanced over her hand following his gaze, but then she whispered, "I do not look weak? It seems you have a bad eye for people."
Faust extended his hand to us, showing a confident smile, but was swiftly stopped by Riaz, who caught it. Suddenly, the two stopped our persuasion after exchanging looks, which was to our advantage, since we were finally free to leave. But before we actually departed from this invitation, Riaz ruffled something inside his mantel and took out a small paper bag. It looked suspicious, but after he extended it towards me, my nose took in the floral scent coming from the bag contents. Even though I didn't really want to take it, Riaz basically forced it into my hands, leaving me out of options.
"What is this?"
"Herbal tea, drink it for a few days, and you will get much better." said Riaz while glancing over at Nila. Then, he turned to Faust, who only sighed and faced us with a confident smile, "That's a bummer that we did not reach an agreement, sorry for wasting your time! But who knows, perhaps, our paths will cross once again."
Afterwards, they both turned away and walked to the busy streets of the city of Wohr. Nila bowed as a quiet sign of farewell and peeked at the bag, which I pushed into my pocket.
"Did you really refused their offer because you are weak?" I asked. Her words seemed strange to me, as so far she never showed me any sign of weakness in both her skill and demeanour. She snorted at my question and replied with a sense of pride, "It would be rather problematic to deal with someone who is poor at finance."
"Even though one of them is a priest?"
"...That man being a priest does not negate poor financial skills."
I could only scoff at her words, not really trusting them. Then, we departed from the outside space of the tavern and returned to our main objective, the search for a place to stay. Even though the sun was shining brightly, I managed to lead us back to the place where we stopped at. We strolled around the city for a few more hours before finally finding a house that Nila deemed suitable for our stay. It was located at the corner of the city, where merely a few people walked by the streets. The place looked hostile and poor, a living condition I was long used to. The house itself, as a result, did not look outstanding or dare I say lived, quite the opposite, it looked like an abandoned house that was simply kept in good shape, awaiting the day to be sold. Its appearance did not bother me that much, since I lived in far worse conditions, but I was surprised to see excitement in Nila's eyes, which grew more after the price for the night was announced by the old lady receptionist to us. 10 Cupra, something akin to bronze coins, per night which was the price for a meal that we ate at the tavern, not expensive at all.
The most audacious moment was witnessed by me when Nila attempted to haggle the price further down, which was met with a hostile gaze coming from the old lady. I could help but smile through the weakness in my body, which was noticed by the old woman. At the end, she agreed to lower the price to 9 Cupra per night. I could not really celebrate Nila's success, as my health truly became a sign of concern. I was barely able to scale the stairs up to the second floor, where our room was situated.
Once we stepped into our new room, which had a boring wooden interior with no decorations, Nila put her suitcase on the bed and turned to me, showing a triumphant smile. Alas, her enthusiasm wilted immediately upon seeing me sitting in a tilted position on the neighbouring bed and grabbing my head.
"Are you not feeling well, Dusk?" she asked awkwardly, to which I finally admitted through heavy breaths, "I feel like shit."