After the transfer was done, Sarah confirmed she had indeed an access, before turning back to Audrey. She had a good idea coming here, but we need to go before the blessing run out and… is that a BEAR!

Sitting on the floor with a whiskey bottle in one paw was a small brown bear, listening intensely to Audrey’s description of her classes. Well, not really small, more smaller than she would expect of a bear. Sarah used a lull in the speech to interject.

“Hm, sorry to interrupt, but we will probably need to get going soon.” And where does that bear come from?! And why is he drinking whiskey at 10 AM? And did he just wave at me?

Indeed, the bear just waved distractedly at her before refocusing on Audrey, who nodded briefly at Sarah before finishing her speech. Since no one seemed to advance explanations, Sarah decided to look into the basket on the table. Probably brought by the bear. Inside were several pastries, and a little box. The box was reminiscent of those used to store rings. Sarah took a croissant, and let the rest untouched. Behind her, Audrey’s story was ending, and she heard heavy steps approaching. Turning around, she met nose to muzzle with the bear. He was indeed quite small, maybe 190cm tall, and leaner than she would have thought for a bear. So, maybe 150kg? The brown eyes were glued on hers, strangely reflecting more worry than anything. She noticed the big paws that were doing a strange dance, up and down, toward her then away and down again…

Wait, is the bear fidgeting?

New skill discovered!

Empathy is now level 1!

+1 PER, +1 WIS, +1 CHA per level.

Cool, new skill. I bet it will help in investigating. I really need to avoid being lied to, even one false lead can throw off my quest, and I don’t know if I would ever be able to backtrack it. To her shame, Sarah was known to be quite naive when things were getting out of her comfort zone. In truth, she was almost unable to reject a statement without at least a sliver of fact to base her refusal on. So when things touched upon fields where she wasn’t proficient, she tended to accept everything as fact. Thought she knew of it, it was something she had trouble to contain. Maybe that skill will help. I think I’m forgetting something…

A slight cough from Audrey made her come back to reality, where the bear facing her was nervously trying to fax himself between a pile of books and herself. Realising she was on the way, she moved out, to the manifest pleasure of the plantigrade, which took a swing of his bottle before grabbing the pastry bag. He let it out before Bob’s feet, who dived in it. The bear then grabbed the small box and carefully opened it in front of Audrey.

Approaching, Sarah saw that it indeed contained a ring. It seemed to be made of a metal, even if the coloration was strange. As Audrey was taking it, and putting it on, Sarah saw it was sculpted in the shape of two wings interlocking, one a deep black bat wing, the other a bright white dove wing. They were ensnaring the finger from both sides, and gradually shifted to a plain ring. The colors were opposed, but there was only one material, as they seemed to flow into each other seamlessly under the finger.

The bear waved happily at everyone, and left. She saw him morphing into a really big eagle and flying away. Well, not as big as the one Thrüd made, but still too big for an eagle. Or was that a condor? Not the point, focus.

She turned back to Audrey, who was nibbling on a chocolate bread and admiring the ring.

“Who was that? What’s that ring? Why was he a bear? WHAT IS HAPPENING?”

It seemed like the stress was finally getting to her, and she tried to calm down her fluttering heart.

“T’was Nick. He’s a druid I think, or something like that. Doesn’t speak much, and even less as a bear it seems. And that, is the ‘Ring of Devilish Angel’s Bride’.”

“The devilish angel’s bride? What’s a devilish angel?”

“Apparently, when my friend got his classes, he managed to get one for becoming an angel, and one for becoming a devil. So he’ll go to the Vatican, so they can sort this out. Apparently, every angel and every devil gains a ring to offer to someone, that marks the person as the others as being someone whose soul is under protection. And since he’s both, he got this ring. And it gave me two titles!”

“But if you took it, aren’t you supposed to be his bride? I thought you weren’t an item, or something like that?”

“He told Bob the ring was named like that, but that it didn’t imply anything else than an interest and a desire to protect the wearer. Like, you could give it to your sister or your brother, it would be ok.”

“And those two titles?”

“They are ‘The Devil’s Bride’ and ‘The Angel’s Bride’. They have almost the same effect, +5 Wisdom and Charisma, makes people from the same faction friendlier. Since I have both factions, I suppose they will all think I’m ok.”

“Any other effects?”

“I don’t know. I only know that because I had windows pop up explaining it, I can’t appraise the ring itself.”

“Right. We should really find how to do that.”

At that moment, Bob came back with a cup of tea, and the pastry basket, now filled with what seemed to be a picnic for two. He handed it to Sarah.

“I thought you had to go?”

Sarah checked, and indeed, the blessing only had around six hours left. She lifted Audrey by pulling her arm, and they went outside.

“Thank you for the help. Later.”

“When you want, just ring me before.”

He came close to her, looked over his shoulder to see Audrey petting Bamboo, and whispered to Sarah.

“Just make sure nothing happens to her.”

Backing a few steps, he added aloud.

“I sent you my Enigma tag, if you need something. Good luck.”

The two girls then took to the sky. And Sarah couldn’t help but feel like Bob’s whisper was as much a request as a warning.