Delarn stood elbow to elbow with Glen, looking at the tubes and pullies consisting of liquid going from one container to the other that was his research. She didn't have to say much to him when she showed up at his door for him to let her in, and she wanted to pretend that it was because he already knew who she was, and though she was already fairly aware of the real reason, she wanted to pretend anyway.
He grinned at her as he said, "The ocean has a high concentration of salt in it."
"I'm acquainted with what kind of water is located in the ocean," she answered plainly, her arms folding. She expected him to be upset with her tone, but he merely chuckled.
"Right, of course!" He replied, grinning dumbly. "Of course, I knew that." Delarn knew that it was unlikely she was ever going to actually be friends with this man.
A chime went through the room, a spell that Glen put on his door that would activate whenever someone knocked. Delarn tensed up a bit, but Glen didn't seem to notice. He went, and there was a young man with a bag of letters. He had curved horns on his head, but Glen didn't seem to notice.
"You're both needed," the boy told them. "One of you is a keeper and the other—we've noticed your change, and we believe it could be helpful to the tower. Please respond immediately." He handed them both a letter, but it didn't seem to say anything. Instead, they just got a strong feeling that something needed to happen.
The moment that the messenger was gone, Glen behaved as if one didn't even appear. Instead, he turned to Delarn and said with a goofy grin, "Why don't we go to lunch together? Out in the town?"
Delarn felt immediately uneasy as she hadn't left the tower since the day she had come here, much less like this, and a part of her was sure there was no longer anything outside these walls.
"Sure," she replied, more because she wanted him to prove to her that there actually was rather than because going on a date with him sounded pleasant to her. "Will you tell me more about your research?"
"Oh, sure," he replied, sounding almost disappointed, and she hoped that what he had already shown her wasn't all that he had to him.
She walked alongside him, aware of the exit thanks to the spell that made it possible to navigate the building, but not believing it until she was actually standing outside. There was a gate around the tower and a bell so that someone not a member of the guild could contact someone within the guild.
She stood, staring blankly until Glen brought her back to the moment. "Delani?"
"Yes, that's me," she replied, and he gave her a funny look. It made her skin crawl, and she huffed and walked ahead of him and beyond the gate.
"Hey, what's that about?" He asked her, his old surliness returning and she was once more comfortably unaware if she was the reason he was annoyed or if he was annoyed all on his own.
"It's nothing. You said something about eating somewhere?" She asked.
"Oh, right! I don't have any money on me right now, but we can drop by the bank and discuss where we want to go," he answered quickly.
"I'm not from around here. Have you been anywhere in town before?" She asked as they walked, looking around and remembering her reception when she first came to town, but she didn't want to mention it. Her beard wasn't nearly as messy now, after all.
"I've been out once or twice, but not too often," he admitted awkwardly as if Delarn hadn't spent all her time in the tower since she got here herself. Not that he knew who she was, she reminded herself, trying not to feel annoyed with him for that.
"We can look around town and find a place that suits us, then," she replied. She considered letting him know explicitly that this wasn't a date of any sort, but she didn't think now was a good time for that. When would be?
"Yeah, sounds like a good idea," he said as they came upon the bank. She could feel someone on the other side of the door about to come out, and it took her a moment longer to realize that Glen didn't realize it as he reached for the door. A moment too late, she convinced herself, and not because she wanted to see him embarrassed.
He reached for the door, and the door opened, and a well-dressed man stepped out and nearly ran into him. Glen stepped back, startled, and the man glared at him as if he was a complete idiot rather than someone that had made an honest mistake. His eyes then settled on Delarn, and he seemed to soften in his demeanor, staring at her as he said, "Ah, you must be adventurers. Would you mind coming back with me to discuss an issue I'm having?"
"What's in it for us?" Glen asked, and the man looked back at him as if he was an insect that didn't exist as long as he wasn't connected to Delarn, and Delarn started to feel defensive of him as someone that was, in fact, connected to her in some way.
"Exactly what my friend said. What's in it for us?" She put in, and he finally seemed to acknowledge them both as a single unit despite how Glen seemed to give her a particular look when she said 'friend.' She decided to choose this as one of those moments when her eyesight wasn't good enough to guess at what his expression meant.
"You'll both be paid well if you can help me," he answered, frowning and looking at Glen now. She almost wanted him to look at her instead, but at least he didn't have the same look on his face when he was looking at him. Not that Delarn didn't consider that just as bad.
There were a couple of hefty guards that had been hidden in the bank when they were talking, and they walked behind them now on the way back to his house, almost as if they were assuring they couldn't escape. The house wasn't quite as big and showy as the Ardougne manors but was plenty rich for Yanille. She considered that if she had intended to kill him, she could have had the perfect chance when they were stuck in the bank, but that was as far as her imaginings went. Her mind wandered for the most part other than when Glen tried to take her hand, and she considered taking his off though she didn't say anything instead and merely walked a few centimeters to the side so he might take the hint or might not realize anything other than how inconveniently far she was.
Delarn felt herself mentally check out further as they walked inside the rich man's house, and she felt a few familiar twangs of what it was like to walk in a noble's home. She tried not to make her disassociation visible as she pretended to stare somewhere past everyone into the void.
Her and Glen were sitting down side by side while the noble talked for a very long time.
The first thing she registered was when a glass was put in front of her, and she reflexively picked it up, and the rich man said, "Ah yes, I see you have a taste for wine. This particular bottle was made from grapes grown in our local vineyards."
"I actually hate to drink," she answered, putting the glass back down, and she registered that Glen was giving her a dirty look and the rich man appeared utterly disgusted with her.
It didn't really touch her all that much as Glen hesitantly put his glass back down and the rich man waved them away. "Go on, then. Take care of my task and return when you have it all figured out."
Delarn stood immediately and turned around and walked out with Glen making a disgruntled groan and following her. He caught up with her not quite halfway between the rich man's home and the wizard's guild. "What was that about?"
"So what is our mission?" She asked. "What do we need to do?"
"You're going to be a spinster, aren't you?" He mumbled under his breath.
"I didn't quite hear that," she answered with the blank and courteous expression of someone that heard everything and cared little about anything. "Is that all?"
"We have to go to Ardougne and-"
Delarn started walking again.
"Are you really that eager to search for that assassin?" He asked her.
"There's an assassin?" She replied, stopping again and looking at him. He had an itching feeling that she thought it was for her.
"So that entire time, you really weren't paying attention? I knew you looked out of your mind, but I thought you were just ignoring his advances. I didn't think-"
"I was ignoring yours as well," Delarn cut in. "Now are you going to tell me or not?"
"There's this guy I met recently. You two are practically twins," he answered stiffly.
"I'm going back to the tower, and you can deal with this on your own," she answered.
"I'm fairly sure this was the mission the tower gave us," Glen countered.
"That's really funny because all I remember is a little-horned hallucination boy giving us a blank piece of paper," she spat.
"There's a wolfman with ginger hair apparently harassing the rich people near Ardougne, and we have to find him," Glen finally told her. "That's all there is to it."
"Fucking cool," Delarn muttered under her breath. "Let's go wander the streets. I'm sure if we both search I'll finally find myself."
"What? Don't be a bitch if you're going to do it too," Glen hissed.
"Let's just go," Delarn said, her voice suddenly becoming sweet. "I came out here to get something to eat with you so let's go get something, shall we? I know this great playhouse in Ardougne that you'll absolutely adore seeing."
His lips thinned, but he took her lead, saying in a similarly sweet, sarcastic voice, "After you, dear!"
Delarn felt strangely annoyed that they were once more walking side by side, but she didn't want to walk ahead of him because she wanted to keep an eye on him and there was no way in the abyss or otherwise that she would let him walk ahead.
The closer they drew to Ardougne, the more Delarn started to feel out of sorts. Her face became paler, and she was visibly shaking. When her breathing began to get harder, Glen stopped and looked at her, his hard demeanor softening. "Hey, Delani?"
"That's not my name," Delarn snapped, glad to have something to put her panic towards, her fists clenching at her side.
"I've been trying to be nice to you, but you're just—"
He stopped when he caught sight of someone approaching. At first, he grew quiet because he didn't want a stranger to see them bickering, but then he noticed more disturbing things about the man. He had a tuft of orange hair and a sunken face. He moved like he was a group of bones gathered into a thin cloth cloak. Worst of all were his eyes. They were a deep, dark blue and appeared empty and devoid of any pupil or sense of life, though they were openly staring at the two of them.
And then he realized something else that was familiar and almost—almost—filled him with indignation, and that was that he wasn't looking at both of them, just at Delarn.
He felt only a morsel of distress as the man hunched down on all fours, and with inhuman speed, sprung upon Delarn.