"I hope I get to meet her sometime."

"She should be outside taking care of the garden, I think, madam."

"We can say hello on our way out, then," says Vetareh.

"But I should finish your tour of the inside first!"

"I wouldn't dare cut it short."

She bids Henry a farewell, and then: tour! What a pretty house.

Pretty house has some more pretty rooms and Vetareh will be introduced to them! But eventually Deborah runs out of those.

She wonders if it's too soon or not to ask for a room to turn into an office/workshop. They definitely have enough spare rooms for it, but it seems like it might be moving too quickly. Besides, she's not sure if she is an official resident, or if she's just sleeping here temporarily because she's having sex with James, and it's therefore convenient to just fall asleep here after. That's probably a conversation to have with James later, when they are not in front of his sister. In front of Deborah, she would sort of like to pretend that theirs is a celibate love affair. It won't be very credible, but she can pretend.

Deborah's nice, she likes her well enough so far, in spite of the... less than stellar start. She seems like a sweetheart, and it's probably very hard to be related to someone like James, who runs all over creation and risks his life daily. Vetareh understands how that could cause some emotional turmoil. There's no real reason to hold it against her, and she's glad James has family.

"The house is really lovely," she sighs fondly, when the tour concludes. "Thank you for showing it to me."

"You're welcome! It's always a pleasure to meet James's friends. You still haven't introduced me to Rytlock, by the way."

"He's a busy person!"

"I'm sure you could get around to it if you really wanted to," Deborah says, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, now you've seen the whole house and can be allowed to go back to the Fire Islands to fight an Elder Dragon." She shakes her head. "Little brother, you've made my past few years very surreal."

"Love you too, Debs."

Out they go!

Out they go!

Adventuring in the Fire Islands is briefly detoured again, though. Damn it, Vetareh is going to charm all of James's staff, and that means meeting and charming Clara. She is on a mission, she will not be stopped.

Clara is doing magic to the plants! She seems very good with detail work, there.

Goodness. Yes, that is some excellent detail work. Vetareh picks up on it and distributes appropriate compliments, then limits herself to only asking cursory questions about how it all works. Rather quickly, she decides that she likes Clara. She likes Henry, too, but Clara strikes her as practical and sensible. It's not very hard to be charming at her.

She wraps up the conversation before she's in danger of asking more than cursory questions about the magical detail work or the state of the estate, though. The world needs saving, after all. Primordius and Jormag won't kill themselves. Besides, she doesn't want to deal with having a bored boyfriend and several Elder Dragons to deal with. A bored James sounds like a terrible thing. Clara is bid a friendly goodbye, and then it's off to adventure.

"So, checking in with Taimi first?" she asks, hooking her arm through James's.

"Yes, probably the better idea. I bet she'll have opinions on the samples you collected."

"I bet. Part of me is expecting to get chewed out for not precisely meeting scientific standards. I have perhaps been traumatized by my once-home and its magical community."

—he sporfles. "Oh, my princess, I half-expect her to decide never to ask me to do it again."

"Oh no, the horror. If you never do it again then I'll have to follow you around and collect research samples for you! Woe! Woe and despair!"

"A truly momentous loss to Tyria, it will never again have samples collected by me."

"Do you like collecting samples, James?"

"Certainly not as much as you do."

"True. Maybe Taimi can frame the last sample you collected. It could be worth something, some day. It's clearly a priceless artifact."

They reach the waypoint, and then Rata Sum.

And from Rata Sum to Taimi's lab.

"Commander! Good to have you here today. I got some boxes for you to pack your stuff, you're fired, it was good working with you."

"I am, am I?"