“Well, that is rather rude…”
The Deathly Soulflame was parked at The Lilac Spark, a tiny Decay Lord pit stop, bar and restaurant, and the locals were giving Litvir funny looks. At first, Litvir just assumed the locals didn’t like Psions, but they all seemed to settle down when he, Retvik and Arkay stepped into the pub and Litvir took his cape off.
The locals though were all even more heavily armoured than the Missing were. They were humanoid but with an odd cat shape and very long, thick tails, and while their armour was black with bits of green, their skin colours were mostly white and purple. Arkay swore they looked like some sort of game the younger Thantir played, but he also quickly realised that the locals were all light telepaths and they definitely seemed to be aware of Arkay’s thoughts.
The reason why the Missing were at this pub wasn’t immediately obvious. They were supposed to have been meeting another Hidden Trio for some sort of Corruption purging mission, but they’d received a message from the other ship saying that they were needed elsewhere and had cancelled. Arkay and Litvir didn’t have a problem with that, but Retvik was definitely annoyed about his time being wasted.
Since they’d been flying for a while though, Litvir suggested that they stop off at this pit stop anyway, so they could stretch their legs and get something to eat. Although considering the looks Litvir had been getting, he was starting to regret that decision.
“We can go somewhere else if you want, Litvir…” Arkay whispered. “But I think they’re only giving you looks because you’re purple and were wearing a cape up until a few minutes ago.”
“Eh, I am fine. I have had people staring at me as long as I have been alive. I just find it weird that my insane telepathic networks are not the source of whatever is bothering these locals…” Litvir suddenly stopped, then glanced behind him, as someone was approaching. Unlike everyone else, this being was much smaller, smaller than Arkay, it wasn’t wearing armour and was pink, not white and purple. It was also floating in mid air and holding some menus.
“Mewmew! How yous? Strange persons! Wants foods?”
The creature was looking at Litvir in particular. While Litvir was known for being rather open, emotionally and romantically, it did bother him a little that he was picking up a lot of very flirty undertones from the creature.
“Yes, please, we are quite hungry!” Retvik took the reigns of the conversation. “May I ask, what beverages do you have? And may we ask your name?”
The creature waved their hand. “Goodgood! Am Rewwy! Am owner! Yous is differents! We has drinks of five! Minerally water, lemony lemonade, fresh poppy pop, moomoo milk and very berry juice!”
“I have no idea what any of those are…” Litvir muttered.
“I think we’re straying into copyright infringement territory…” Arkay muttered back. “You both want the same thing? Just a lemonade?”
Retvik and Litvir both nodded. “Yes, please. Three lemonades would be great. What do you have to eat?”
“Candy!” Rewwy exclaimed. “Red candies, purple candies, yellow candies, rainbow candies!”
The Missing all glanced at each other. Clearly the whole place was a bit weird.
“Rewwy, we can’t decide, would you be able to just bring us whatever you recommend?”
“Yesyes! I shall brings! Back in a seconds!”
The tiny creature disappeared in a puff of purple. After barely a minute, Rewwy reappeared with three large bowls, all filled with candy, plus the three drinks. Rewwy giggled, then floated off to deal with some other customers.
Arkay, Litvir and Retvik all inspected their bowls. The bowls were all filled with different candies, matching the colours of their natural plating, with a handful of rainbow candy mixed in. The candy was hard and translucent, with no obvious scent.
Arkay decided to be adventurous and try one of the yellow candies. He stuck the candy in his mouth, bit down hard then shuddered.
“Is it not tasty?” Retvik asked.
“No…” Arkay chewed painfully. “Pro tip, neither of you try chewing these. It’s like eating shards of lemon-flavoured glass. It’s a damn good thing my teeth are made of metal.”
“Calcium is a metal.”
Arkay eyed Litvir. “You know what I mean. You’d probably shatter your teeth on these.”
Retvik and Livir both heeded Arkay’s warning and decided to suck on their sweets instead of chewing on them. However, Retvik tried to very politely spit his candy out.
“Why is that spicy?” Retvik hissed, downing half his drink to get rid of the taste. “Why is it a pepper-flavoured candy?”
Out of curiosity, Litvir removed the somewhat generic tropical-flavoured candy from his mouth then took one of Retvik’s red ones, only to have the exact same reaction but worse. Arkay discreetly called the waiter over and ordered some moomoo milk, while Retvik and Litvir both pretended that everything was fine. Rewwy seemed oblivious to Litvir’s distress and was still looking at Litvir in a flirty way.
“Thank you!” Arkay weakly smiled.
“Thankies thankies!” Rewwy waved as they disappeared again.
Once the coast was clear, Retvik very hesitantly inspected the rest of his bowl of candy, then decided that he didn’t want to risk the very dark red candy. Arkay gave him and Litvir a couple of yellow ones that he was certain tasted nice.
“Thank you, Arkay…” Retvik muttered. “I was not expecting that at all.”
“None of us were…” Arkay tutted. “I’m going to try the rainbow one.”
“Good luck…”
Arkay did as he said he would, and popped a rainbow candy into his mouth. As he sucked it, he had no idea what he was tasting.
“Is it edible?”
“I guess?”
Both Litvir and Retvik hesitantly took a rainbow candy. Litvir put the whole candy into his mouth, but Retvik chose to hold his in his hand and lick it like a lollipop.
“Huh. Not bad…” Litvir muttered. “Still, I probably would not recommend coming here again…”
“Agreed…” Retvik grunted, his mouth still a little sore. “At least the lemonade is nice though…”