“By the lords, now she’s smoking,” the barkeep mutters to himself, his gaze still fixed in a concerned expression upon a table over in the corner, which draws your eye. Dense curls of smoke almost conceal a figure there. They are dressed in a dark green cloak much like your own with the hood pulled up over the face and a long smoking pipe emerging from the shadows around the mouth. A ugly-looking mastiff gnaws at a bone at their feet.
There’s my man, you think, shouldering your way through the crowd. They had arrived several days before you to investigate the rumours of murder and disappearances in the area, and your orders are to meet and assist. The smoke is acrid and thick - the sort of cheap, strong stuff that only a person with the immortal constitution of a wizard would dare inhale - and it has done an excellent job of clearing an area of empty space around the corner table. A thick cloud of it pours languidly out of the hood as the figure pushes it away from their face.
“P-praepostor Scraif,” you stammer, as the smoke disperses from around the man’s face. All of a sudden, it is like being back in school.
Stefan Scraif’s eyes widen in surprise. “Praepostor… I haven’t been called that in thirty years... I remember you… no, don’t tell me, it’s on the tip of my tongue.”
“I was three years below you. You were my tutor in second year. It was your job to, uh, whip me if I broke house-rules.“
“No hard feelings I hope, old chap” he says, though there is the slight curl to the corner of his mouth that might be a smirk. His mismatched green and yellow eyes dart up and down you, and he snaps his fingers in recollection. “Mead! James Mead. Of course, I never forget a, uh, face.”
“Close enough, sir.” You extend a hand to shake but remembering the formal greeting between wizards, you swing the handshake up into a clumsy salute. “Journeyman Sorcerer Mead, Crimson 4th circle, Golden 3rd circle, Jade 4th circle, Grey 3rd circle, Light 2nd circle, reporting for assignment, sir.”
You wait patiently for him to respond in kind with his own ranks but he merely takes a long pull on his pipe. “If you’ve finished announcing your presence to the entire tavern, why don’t you take a seat.”
“Shit, sorry, sir. I didn’t realise we were undercover.” You quickly park yourself on the seat. You notice he too is perfumed, like the locals - a strongly masculine cologne of leather and sandalwood underneath the overpowering pipesmoke. “Sorry for saying shit just then. I’m just- it’s great to finally be working with another sorcerer, I always looked up to you in college. You were an inspiration.“
“Is that wine?”
“I-t’s a prop. I was trying to blend in. I-I would never drink on duty. Absolutely not.” You instinctively flinch, recalling the sting of the birch after all these years.
Stefan tilts his cup towards yours. “The barkeep won’t serve me. I haven’t had a drink in three days. Nothing stronger than fruit juice at least.” He taps the rim of his cup against yours impatiently.
“Is… is this a test? There was that time in second year you caught me sneaking out after hours to the tavern...”
He scowls. “Yes, I birched your arse red for it, and I’ll do it again if you don’t top me up.”
Half of the wine goes into his cup and shortly after goes down his throat. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and begins to immediately eye the remaining half in your cup. You set it down and push it across the table, and he gulps it down like a man dying of thirst in a desert. He gives a satisfied gurgle in the back of his throat. “Fighting monsters is thirsty work, eh?” he says with a wink. With two fingers in his mouth, he gives a shrill whistle and gestures the barmaid across.
“We’d like to order now,” he barks.
“Of course,” the barmaid smiles sweetly, before turning to you. “What would you like.”
“Bread, soup, wine.”
The barmaid nods, and turns her gaze to Stefan. “And what would your daughter like to eat?”
Age works different for wizards than it does to mortals. As immortals, they do it at their own leisure, some taking centuries to mature to middle-age, others growing straight into silver-haired old men with flowing beards in their teenage years.
Somewhere in his mid-teens, Stefan’s aging had halted, and stayed there for the past thirty years, not aging a day from the last time you saw him.
And he was a Versi.
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