Spicy, to an abnormal degree. It's said these are wreathed in the fires of hell. Typically, these are used to coat armors to allow one to walk through fire unharmed... I'm not surprised it has such a particularly strong taste.

( Mishka, for his part, is acting quite normal about this. It's a date, of sorts, but it's more an outing with friends (with one new friend and one who's peeved with him, but anyway), which is just fine by him.

He's also taking in the spice like it's regular. He's got other unusual things on his plate besides just the mushrooms, but this is the most interesting one because he recognizes it. )

You enjoy cooking, yes? You can find all sorts of unusual ingredients about the island if you look. I can take you on a mushroom tour, sometime.

Hm, duty as a knight must be quite busy if you rarely had the chance to cook, yes?

( Cooking monster meat, though, is quite practical, and he seems to like the idea of it. Not always doable in Ostoya, but an idea to hold onto later. )

Myself, I'd had access to a limited set of ingredients at home, so my cooking trends toward nutritious and practical, if austere. Still, I've come to relish those things with a strong flavor, here, because of it.

Then we ought enjoy it all together once we return to it. That should be fun.

( He's expecting some kind of spicy and/or horrendous abomination, and he hopes not to be let down! )

Ah, I work with money matters, as happens. Mishka, Chief of Finance.

( Everyone poisons accountants, as we all know. He is not, however, lying; he is actually chief of finance. Just, you know, he also does other stuff, )

The organization I work for is a behemoth in trade; the primary force in the country. As no one understands the flow of trade and coin as acutely as I do in my home country, nor the financial structure of my company, many would benefit from my death or compromise, or a timely betrayal over to their own faction.

( Some attempt bribery, but it's a little hard to top the amount of money he deals with as chief of finance of a trade-slash-criminal organization. )

Of course, I am employed for life, so it is in my best interests to remain permanently loyal. I imagine neither your factions enjoy defectors, either.

( Primordial, hm. It certainly would make it much more difficult to defect to a thing that hardly knows or cares for your existence! )

Some monsters were humans once too, no?

( That sounds philosophical, and maybe it can be, but he means it truly literally. Some monsters really were once human, even if Syrlya's weren't. Etharis can't be the only land whose people and creatures are at times interchangeable. )

But some, too, are only manifestations of the natural way of things. I heard something interesting from a friend of mine who's been around for some centuries by now.

( He takes a sip of his drink, considering the pretty words of an untrustworthy bard, whose every truth lined up with all sources he could find— any of them could find. )

Some thousands of years ago, in my home, there was a beast that would appear, and in its wake, things would end. Where it stepped, the soil was barren; where it was seen, no warmth could grow. People decayed; animals changed. Some things simply ceased to be.

It was very small, once, and now it is larger than one can imagine— or so the stories go. It is said, also, that beyond our one continent, there is no other land in the ocean, though there once used to be. There is now only us, on an endless sea, and a hungry, growing beast.

Perhaps your dragons are not ravenous out of error, but because it is the natural way of things. It is the right of things that live to resist decay, but, still, don't all things end?

( You lecture Miette on ants... smh (jkjk)

In any case, he does express interest when Syrlya speaks of the strange system of magic regulation in his home. An idle thought flits by, wondering if Etharis has some such broken system; Briar seemed to know much, but she was cagey with her knowledge. Understandable, considering to whom she was speaking to, and who their company was.

The mention of void, though, so briefly causes his lips to purse, but he returns to his usual expression quick enough, and he raises an eyebrow slightly at Flynn with some curiosity. )

So you believe that real change can only be brought about by those willing to risk themselves on the impossible? That's certainly how a revolutionary might think.

( Or, you know, a hero, but it's hard for him to think of foolishness as heroic. "Revolutionary" feels apt to him: thousands of them die before there is one single chance of change, and even then, that chance may bear no fruit. It is a miserable path, and not at all pragmatic— the path which Mishka favors most. )

As for our beast... We were on the path to making progress. My land has no sun, ( he mostly says this for Flynn, since he knows Syrlya knows, ) but rather than it not at all existing, or having once been destroyed, we found that it had shattered into thousands of cosmically powerful shards. Magic is near nonexistent where I'm from, but I had in my company a talented few. Our objective was to extract these sparks of sunlight and use them to power a ward around our country that might last some few hundred years; we had made good progress on our collection, before I came here.

( Which sounds both grand, and not grand at all, and Mishka seems to know it. In the grand scheme of things, a few hundred years is nothing— but it is better than nothing at all. With only a few spellcasters at the country's disposal, and fewer that could be trusted (if any at all), and really no advancements in technology, Ostoya could do very little for itself. They faced impossible odds only trying to ward it off.

Yet, Mishka knows also each of them had a selfish reason to pursue this impossible goal, and that Valerie's purpose behind proposing it was not at all noble. They all knew this about each other. They all knew they all planned to skim off the top of this raw solar-magic energy, and that they each intended to use the act of warding for their own ends.

What a pity, that the only group poised to do something about the matter was a group that could least be trusted with it. Mishka is well aware of the irony. )

Still, this "Void"... What is this, in Tyria?