Both because of her payment, and because it had turned out Quincy was not quite as guilty as she had thought.

Had he sent people to their deaths at the maneater’s talons? Yes.

Had he done it with the intention of their deaths? No, if his word was to be believed, and Zel’s gut told her he was telling the truth. There was clearly more nuance to his relationship with the beast, but she wasn’t so curious as to pry into such private matters.

With the money safely in Fog Storage, she decided to make one last use of room four to clean her wounds. The room was empty when she entered, a note written in pencil on the nightstand. It read:

I went to Riverside Remedies.

Turn left when you exit the inn,

turn left again at the street corner,

then walk straight.

- Zef

A smile quirked her lips when she read it, and she stowed the note into Fog Storage for safekeeping. Finally, she stepped into the bathroom to begin washing out her wounds, but… No water came out when she turned the valve.

“What the hell?” a frustrated exclamation slipped out, followed by a long sigh. She’d already stored the half-empty seal-bottle, but this made her seriously consider retrieving it and downing the whole thing. Deep breath in, deep breath out…

The pain was still decidedly there, but was it really intense enough for her to let this ruin her day? No, it wasn’t.

Perhaps the pipes had somehow become clogged, or far more likely, the bath’s source of water was depleted, if it did indeed run on an Aqua crystal like the sink in the transport.

The stench of blood had dulled slightly after it had all dried, and so, she chose to just go to Riverside Remedies and hope it had a functional bath. Off she went, handing her key to Quincy on the way out. She followed the directions on the note, and as it turned out, the corner that Quincy’s inn was on was still rather far from the riverside promenade.

It was a short while before she reached the promenade, finding herself at a crossroads with a busy bridge across the river at the other side of it. She had no reason to go that way, and didn’t have the mind to take in its wondrous architecture, instead hurrying in the supposed direction of Riverside Remedies. She took notice of two things, though - the river was likely not particularly fast considering the lack of noise, and sight of its other side was significantly obscured by the great number of willow trees that grew within the canal.

Riverside Remedies was everything Makhus had hoped and more. It had been left in pristine condition when its owner left to fight in the war, and all they had to do to get it into reopening-worthy condition was some minor cleanup and restocking. About half of the first floor was taken up by the store itself, with a few supplemental rooms in the second half - a secondary storeroom, a supply closet, a toilet.