Page 70 of Wanted: Rogues and Bards

“So, uh, why is Rain in a tub behind the wheel…?”

Lirion appeared out of nowhere. “Thank fuck! Are we talking about that? I was afraid we weren’t allowed to talk about it.”

“Ah, right,” Fenric muttered to himself, scratching his cheek. “I think we forgot to tell you.”

Granted, seeing his burly looking friend sitting in a tub full of water on a ship, while he steered said ship, was pretty weird unless you knew the reasoning behind it. Well, it was still weird, but it made sense.

“Did anyone mention Rain is half merman?”

Lirion raised a brow like he’d said something nonsensical. Then his eyes lit up with unholy glee as he grinned downright lecherously. “Soooo, which parent was the mer end of the equation?”

“Mother. No one’s surprised by that. Human males will fuck anything and anyone.” Fenric shrugged. “There’s a whole epic love tale behind it, too. In fact, I think his parents are still together.”

“Shut up,” Lirion breathed in growing delight. “They are not.”

“You should get him to tell you the story tonight. He loves telling it, and it’s honestly a sweeping romance that should be made into a play.” Fenric indicated his friend with a jerk of the chin. “Anyway, because he’s half merman, he has this weird problem with his equilibrium while on a ship. He either has to take some kind of potion to prevent nausea or he has to sit in water. Despite being on a ship for years, he’s never found his sea legs. So don’t be surprised to see him living in that tub. He doesn’t like to take the potion constantly throughout the day, as it also affects his appetite, so he only takes one so he can sleep at night.”

Maxie turned to look at Rain again, lips pursed. “It’s a rather innovative solution. I wonder what made him think of it?”

“Sheer desperation, I think.”

Malfas strolled over with a big grin, his club resting on his shoulder. “Puppy! I’ve been doing some reading up on alchemy, and I was thinking since we are quite captive on this ship for a bit and have nothing but time on our hands, we should take advantage of the wonderful opportunity to run another experiment to narrow down exactly when your poison ability kicks in with food and cooking.”

Maxie gave him a bright smile. “Oh, yes! I made some notes from the last experiments we conducted in Pomor, and I’m excited to learn more about my ability.”

Lirion cocked his head to the side. “You’re running experiments? Your poison ability doesn’t kick in when you complete the dish?”

Maxie frowned as he shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. I was making some baked apples and Belstrom ate a slice of apple after I mixed in some sugar and cinnamon with it. He died.”

Lirion’s eyebrows flew up toward his hairline and Fenric had to choke back a laugh. “You can’t even mix ingredients? Clearly, cooking is off the table.”

Maxie nodded. “I scrambled an egg—that was just egg, water or maybe milk, and heat. Oh, there was the fish Rain caught. He prepared and seasoned it. I just cooked it. No good.”

“Wow. Just…wow,” Lirion said.

“Pretty much,” Fenric agreed.

“But there’s no reason to lose hope!” Malfas was quick to interject, resting his empty hand on Maxie’s slumped shoulder. “We just need to see where the poison kicks in. I refuse to believe that if he picks up an apple, it is now a poisoned apple. That’s just insanity. Not to mention, magic comes from an inner mana pool, and Puppy would be exhausting himself if that was all it took to turn food into something poisonous, and we have seen no signs of irregular exhaustion. In fact, after he made breakfast for us, he was incredibly upbeat and vivacious. No signs of magic-related exhaustion at all.”

“Not all magic-workers function like that,” Hapi butted in, shouting from across the ship. “You’re thinking of sorcerers.”

“Bah!” Malfas turned and shook his club at Hapi. “Magical exhaustion can apply to all magic users—even alchemists and artificers—under the right conditions, necromancer!”

“How about we go do the experiment now? That way, we have time to clean up before we need to make lunch,” Fenric suggested, trying to separate Malfas and Hapi before they came to blows. Which was really just Hapi sending his skelebabies to harass Malfas and the warlock using his magic to blast the skeletons apart.

“Can I tag along? I’ve always been a bit curious about alchemy,” Lirion surprised them by saying.

Fenric quirked a brow. “You are? Uh, sure.”

“I’m very curious,” Lirion admitted. “I can’t reconcile this sweet face with poison hands.”

A blush stained Maxie’s olive cheeks and he seemed to find it difficult to look up. “Oh, uh, thanks?”

Lirion patted him on the head, eyes crinkling up. “You’re atrociously cute. I’ll teach you how to seduce people later.”

“He does not need to know how to seduce,” Fenric said. “He’s got too much of an advantage as it is.”

“Nonsense. A little skill never hurt anyone.”’