"Are you like a stalker or something?" Alissa asked with a scowl on her face, the memory of Zack's sudden arrival still fresh in her mind as they both walked down the crowded main street. It was the best answer to his appearance she could come up with, considering that he had apparently been waiting outside.

Zack rolled his eyes, "I'm a changeling, stalking people is like our whole thing." He replied with an amused smirk on his face.

Alissa groaned, "Great, so now I'm going on a date with a stalker."

Zack raised an eyebrow, "Date? Who said anything about a date? This is just a friendly little dinner." He said, a grin coming to his face, "Unless...you actually wanted a date?"

Alissa blinked, her face heating up slightly before she forced it back down. She grit her teeth in anger, "You know very well that a date is what you were insinuating."

Zack held up both of his hands in surrender, "Hey I don't know what you're talking about. We're here anyways." He pointed to a building on the side of the road. It appeared to be a little unassuming restaurant, a picture of what looked like a weird sandwich with circular bread instead of the traditional square painted onto the side of it's white walls.

Grumbling as she followed him into the building her nose was immediately greeted with the greatest smell ever, causing her to stop in her tracks. It smelt like cooked chicken but ten times better. The inside was small compared to other restaurants and, rather surprisingly, very clean. The floor had a weird black and white checkered design, and their was only around five tables placed haphazardly around the place, two of which were occupied, one by a pair of people with cloaks shrouding their faces and the other by a single woman with cyan coloured hair tied back.

The two cloaks were staring intensely at the two strange sandwiches that had been placed on plates in front of them, as if the sandwiches were hiding some sort of secret. The woman however was happily biting into her own sandwich, placing her curved sword onto the table.

Zack smiled warmly as he walked up to the counter, a woman with black hair that was cut short leaned over it, an exasperated look coming over her face as she spotted Zack approaching. "What sort of scheme have you cooked up this time Zack?" She asked blandly as the changeling in question stopped in front of her.

Zack chuckled heartily, "I'm afraid the next scheme is scheduled for tomorrow Tess. Today I'm here on business."

The newly named Tess then finally looked at Alissa who stood behind Zack, raising an eyebrow. "Well I'll be damned..." She muttered before a smirk came over her face, "Just go sit anywhere then. Next round of burgers will be coming in a couple of minutes."

Zack nodded in thanks before gesturing for Alissa to once again follow. They made their way to an empty table that was situated between the two cloaks and blue haired lady. Alissa's eyes widened as she properly inspected the table, realising something utterly astounding in the process. It was a metal table, with a red coating over it.

This was something that even she, in her whole 123 years of life she had never seen such a strange thing. From a realistic standpoint it was just a waste of resources, as metal could be used for things of a far greater use. She glanced around the room, taking note of the fact that there seemed to not be a single bit of wood or cobblestone that was so often present in every building. Everything was both smooth and clean. She subconsciously sat down across from Zack, still bewildered at the strange design of the place.

"So." Zack's voice suddenly brought her out of her thoughts, "What do you want to know?" He was leaning back in his chair, arms placed behind his head.

Alissa blinked, "Well that was rather direct." She pointed out, continuing as a slightly confused expression came upon his face, "Honestly in like the ten minutes I've known you I would have thought that you would drag this out to an insufferable length." She explained. A grin came onto his face as she said this.

"Oh? You sound disappointed that didn't happen." He said. Alissa once again felt her face heating up, but before she could get a word out he held a hand to his head, "Alas, it was never meant to be. A changeling and an elf together. How scandalous!" He said dramatically. Alissa blinked. Actually yeah, how would that even work? Would children even be physically possible between. In fact how did changelings reproduce at all? She understood that they had some sort of shapeshifting ability in which they could change their forms. She could definitely think of a few ways to utilize that-

Her face grew beet red. Why was she even considering that! It was never going to happen in the first place! She only did this for the information. Just the information and nothing else. She grumbled to herself before finally managing to banish the blush from her face, all the while Zack's grin only grew further.

"Well first of all, what exactly is Farron?" She finally asked.

A dark look filled Zack's eyes, "Definitely the scummiest place to ever exist." He said, face contorting with rage and catching Alissa off guard, "Last I checked the place was a desolate swamp filled with some of the most dangerous and annoying creatures known to man. You couldn't walk five feet without getting caught in it's corrupting mud."

Alissa's raised her eyebrows as Zack explained. That was the place the Abyss Watcher came from? She leaned back in her chair and stroked her chin. Actually that would sort of explain his class. If this swamp was both filled with dangerous creatures and limited movement than a fighting style that encourages movement and damage would be necessary to survive. From what she had seen during their fight against the Death Knight the Abyss Watcher had done just that. Yet this still brought on another question.

"If it was such a bad place why did the Abyss Watcher stay there?" She inquired.

Zack let out a sigh, "It's not like it was always like that. Of course I only saw it at it's worst but from what I can tell it used to be a pretty normal place without a large amount of monsters. The reason it's so bad nowadays is because it got corrupted by the [Abyss]."

Alissa frowned. [Abyss] was a very rare thing to encounter, and whenever it was your best option was to run away and get either Platinum or Adamantine level warriors to purge it. Tales of the [Abyss] completely overtaking a place were unheard of.

"How did it get corrupted? I mean a name like Abyss Watcher sounds like they live to fight or at least look out for it." She pointed out.

A sad look came upon Zack's face, "They did live to fight it. The problem was, because they fought it so much they eventually ended up getting corrupted themselves. Last time I checked they were actually fighting themselves, ever fulfilling their goal of destroying the [Abyss]." His eyes suddenly gained a flash of curiosity, "Although I'm not sure what's going on with this particular Abyss Watcher."

"...That is...unbelievably sad." Alissa said, slightly shell-shocked despite it being such a short tale. She shook her head, focusing on her next question. "Why is he even here? This Farron place he comes from has to be extremely far away for not even a Carndolan to know about it."

Zack chuckled, "I'm afraid even I'm not sure why that is. As you say though, the place he comes from is an unimaginable distance away. I have a vague idea of how he got here, but not why."

Alissa nodded as he finished, so not even Zack knew why, and he had expressed the most knowledge about the Abyss Watcher. She blinked as she remembered something, "Actually, you said he was just an Abyss Watcher. If so then how many of them are their?"

A conflicted look then came upon his face as if debating whether or not to tell her. Before he could answer however Tess walked up in her pristine white uniform, placing down two plates in front of them, each holding the strange sandwich she had seen at the front of the store, presumably being the 'burger' that Tess had told them of.

The waitress in question then leaned down beside Zack and whispered in his ear, his face suddenly flickering to one of alarm then calm neutrality. Nodding once he picked up the the burger in front of him, taking a bite which immediately filled his face with joy.

Tess stood up straight and smiled at Alissa, "Don't be deceived by it's looks, I guarantee you won't find better food this side of the continent." She said before walking back to the counter.

Alissa immediately frowned as she looked upon the burger. Sure enough it appeared to just be a normal sandwich, albeit with slightly higher quality ingredients. Hesitantly she picked it up and inspected. It had what she could only guess was a piece of chicken with some unknown coating surrounding it. A piece of lettuce sat atop it, and the edges of what looked to be tomatoes could be seen peaking out between it and the bread.

"This doesn't really seem like a dinner." She pointed out still closely inspecting it, "It's more of a lunch reall-" She cut off as she looked at Zack, blinking in shock as she noticed something. His burger was already gone, only a few bread crumbs on the plate telling that it had ever existed in the first place. And now, he was staring intensely at Alissa's burger.

Alissa giggled at the absurdity of the scene before her before offering it up, "Do you want this?" She said in a slightly teasing tone.

Surprisingly however Zack held up a single hand, "I cannot rob you of the experience of eating it. Eating one of these should be a human right in of itself." He said, his voice dead serious. Alissa raised an eyebrow before looking back at the burger. It certainly smelled good. Shrugging she took a bite. Might as well go for it.

She looked at her empty hands, blinking in shock. She appeared to blackout for a moment, her tongue feeling like it had been blessed by Celest herself, the greatest explosion of flavours she had ever experienced still lingering on her mind. This time not even the crumbs remained of the burger.

Zack chuckled heartily, "This is the reason I brought us here. It is the best food on the continent by far. Unfortunately it also happens to be one of the only secrets that even changelings can't crack." He explained, pointing to the two cloaks situated behind Alissa who were still staring intensely at the burgers in front of them, "At first we tried to infiltrate this place. Then we tried to bribe the employees. Then we tried to threaten the employees. We basically pulled out all the stops for this single place."

Alissa nodded. If this place could resist even changeling spies than it had to be one of the most secure places in the world. She opened her mouth to ask another question however was halted once again by a raised hand.

"Terribly sorry dear but I'm afraid we are going to have to cut this date of ours short. There is unfortunately some matters that require my immediate attention." He said, a familiar grin coming to his face, "However I would be willing to plan another one of these if you'd be interested." Alissa frowned. He seemed unnaturally serious despite the grin on his face. This didn't last long however as he continued upon noticing Alissa's frown, "Well what do you know, you're actually disappointed that this is ending. Could it be? A forbidden relationship between a changeling and an elf. Ah, how scandalous."

Alissa's face heated up as she grit her teeth, biting back the rather vulgar retort that had almost made it's way to her mouth. She stood up while scowling at the accursed changeling, "I will see you later then. Thank you for the food and information." She said curtly before turning around and walking out the door.

"Don't worry I'll take care of the payment." Zack shouted after her before the door to the establishment closed.

She ground her teeth together as she began walking back towards the guild. That bastard was making a fool of her and enjoying it immensely. She couldn't even tell if he was serious about a relationship between them or whether he was just pulling her leg. She stopped in the middle of the street, face becoming more alike a tomato every second. Why was she even worried about that?

Letting out a cry of frustration she continued to storm towards the guild.

Zack leaned back in his chair, placing his arms once again behind his head which looked up to the ceiling.

"So what exactly did you hope to gain by eavesdropping on us?" He said to the blue haired woman behind him without turning around.

The woman snorted, "Hey I just happened to be near enough to overhear it. It simply peaked my interest when you mentioned the Abyss Watcher." She said, bringing a frown to Zack's face.

"So what sort of [Rifted] are you?" He asked, slightly turning his head to glance at the woman. After all, the only way someone could recognise or take an interest in someone like the Abyss Watcher was if they did not come from this world.

During his time in this world he had discovered that there were different types of [Rifted], and that the different types meant different things. A person that was just [Rifted] was someone that was either immensely powerful or had an insane amount of [Willpower]. [Reincarnated Rifted] were more often then not some poor soul that was either too weak to resist the rift or mortally wounded by something. He had only met two [Transmigrated Rifted], but basically their whole deal was that they were so weak that the [System] couldn't even be bothered to make a new body and instead recycled an old one. Whether that old one was powerful or not was up in the air though. Knowing what type of [Rifted] a person was could be crucial in a battle, as the different types were usually of wildly different strengths.

The woman however, simply chuckled, "Oh please, I've far surpassed those idiots. To even compare me to a rifted is an insult"

Zack tensed up as the woman spoke, a bead of sweat dripping down his face. When she said [Rifted], it didn't sound weird. Even in someone's thoughts it would sound weird, yet when she did it did not sound weird, "So what exactly are you." He said as he fully turned his head to look at the woman, all the while calculating how quick he could reach for his dagger.

The woman smiled and stood up to begin walking to the door, winking as she passed Zack, "I'm just a traveler passing by."