Honestly, I didn't sleep at all. I kept on worrying that someone would try to do something to us while I slept, which kept me up at every little noise I heard. What would have been smart was to swap off sleeping schedules with István and Viktor, something I found out they had been doing in the morning.

So, brilliant job, me.

Weirdly enough, though, I didn't feel that tired. I felt more or less the same as I would around noon. Like yes, I had been up and done stuff, but it wasn't a 'full day' of existing tired. I felt a little better upon realizing this since it meant I that I wasn't going to have to plow my way through the day while ridiculously tired, which would suck considering how much thinking I had to do to act like someone I wasn't.

I was already in enough danger of messing it all up without help, thank you very much.

The sun had been illuminating the room for about an hour when a young lady came in, looking extremely nervous.

"Venerable One," she said, bowing like a million times, "Breakfast is served for you and your retinue."

"Thank you," I replied, without looking away from what I was doing at the time. The girl bowed another billion on her way out the door, before I heard her footsteps trailing away down the hall with a walk so fast I doubted Liam would even be able to catch her.

Was I really that scary?

What I'd been doing at the time was petting Steeve. She'd been playing a game with Liam like hide and seek, but she'd just teleport to a random part of the room and then he'd have to figure out where she was and point at her. Then she'd teleported into my lap and I'd ended it by petting her, at which point she quickly lost interest in continuing.

Liam was disappointed, but Alessa corralled him into doing some sort of finger-tutting contest with her, which caused him to immediately forget about Steeve. Nice save, sis.

I stood up, still holding Steeve, which had kind of become a habit. Her services came in handy and I didn't want to have her too far away should the need arise. I went to the door before realizing that I had no idea where this 'breakfast' even was.

Turning around I was about to ask István about it when the same girl as before burst into the room, nearly running into me in the process.

"My sincerest apologies…" she started, before her gaze moved up and she realized she'd run into me and not someone else. The color completely drained from her face. Luckily, I was able to catch her as she dropped to her knees, before she could to the woodpecker impression that a lot of the people around here liked to do.

"Mistakes happen," I said, trying my best to sound enlightened, "Forgiveness should as well. It is my luck that you came back, as I was just looking for a guide to breakfast."

The poor thing was doing her best not to cry. "That's why I came back, Venerable One," she said, "I was supposed to take you after I told you it was ready, but I was too nervous and I…" came spilling out of her face all in just a second or two. I squeezed her shoulders.

"Well, now that you are here we can both be successful in our goals for the day. Do lead on." I gestured towards the door with my hand, before sticking my hands in my sleeves as I'd seen other people do.

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I'd gotten some new clothes to replace my uh, 'aggressively worn' set from Junior Lǐ the night prior. I had gotten a look at myself in a mirror as we passed and suddenly realized why everyone in the woods had been on tenterhooks around me. At least half my body had some sort of nastiness on it, be it blood from our fight by the house or dirt and who knows what from when we fought everything around the mechanism that sent us here.

It looked like I'd destroyed my way through half an army. On the bright side it worked well with my powerful expert vibe since I said I'd rescued our people from a great cataclysm. Which was as true as up being up and down being down, even if my only job had been to spin wheels and listen to Celistar, who I still hadn't seen or heard from since we got here.

My new set was these gorgeous sky-blue robes with flowing, silken fabric and thin, ornate golden trim work. They even came with some matching bands and jewelry for my hair, and another girl who'd helped me wash and get into the clothing, which was one of the most awkward experiences I'd ever had, as I hadn't bathed together with someone since Alessa and I had done it as a kid, back when Gran had her own house with Grandpa. The new one we were all now living in didn't really have the water pressure (or flow) for two people, and you were probably better off not thinking about what it looked like in quantities high enough to fill a tub.

That said, it was hella relaxing to have someone else scrub your back and clean through all your hair for you, even if she did seem a bit lost at how to address the frizzy red curls I had, as almost everyone here had gorgeous dark hair.

We'll just pretend to ignore the bit where she gasped when I disrobed at how skinny I was. She hadn't stopped ranting about how they ever allowed a Venerable to get to such a state for half the bath. I finally managed to stop the tirade by pointing out that "One should always do what one must, when it is needed, without complaint."

She seemed to take that as some sort of esoteric wisdom and promised me she'd take it to heart, despite it just being literally what had happened combined with a fancy way of saying she should really just shut up about it.

I'd consider it a victory if I didn't manage to destroy the Sect from the inside with my Sacred Arts of the Bull Excrement before this was all over.

The girl I was currently following, who had a lot less fire and a lot more anxiety in her, was leading us through a maze of city blocks, saying nothing at all. I didn't mind, because it meant that I didn't have to come up more invocations of my 'Art' to respond.

The rest of everyone had been given similar options for bathing and clothing, but as far as I knew I was the only one with dedicated help, something I wasn't too happy about. We'd all smelled a lot better after that.

Well, everyone but István, who'd somehow stayed completely spotless. I even caught one of the girls smelling him as she walked past. She scurried away and I later saw her excitedly talking with her friends and pointing his way. He hadn't noticed her at all as he'd been elbow deep in negotiations to persuade Steeve to part with samples of her fur. He had not been successful.

We were taken into a grand hall, inside which there was one long stone table with benches next to it. Further towards the end, there were individual chairs with upholstering, and then at the very end, looking down the whole thing, very ornate chair absolutely festooned with plush looking cushions to the point you could barely see the frame. It was a very impressive seat, one I assumed must be for the head of the Stormwind Circle.

They led us in, and a set of young men just a bit older than Liam filed in and started helping everyone get seated. Still more people began putting dished on the table from the end farthest from the chair first.

I did my best not to stare at the food as they brought it in and set it down. It looked amazing and smelled even better. Liam looked like a squirrel who'd just found a nut the size of a house. Alessa was doing her best to look prim and proper, not doing too well at hiding herself constantly swallowing. Viktor somehow managed not to immediately eat everything. István was István, so no surprise there: he even had a cloth napkin at the ready.

Gran moved her eyebrows up an entire notch.

I was thinking it was going pretty well, and then a very handsome young man with hair longer than mine walked up and had me follow him up towards the head of the table. He pulled back the fancy chair and stood behind it, gesturing for me to sit.

Uh oh.

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