”She’s pretty lightweight, what if we just get her hammered and try to get the bracelet off while she’s down?” Valimir suggested and peered into the distance. He and Xamiliere were on the city wall, observing their target while she trained with Coquelicot.

“Brilliant! She can’t really be mad at anyone if we trick her into drinking on her own.” Xamiliere agreed. “Tricking her into it is easy, but what should we make her drink? If it’s too strong, she probably won’t like the taste, but mild stuff like mead could take too long and she might cause some damage before passing out.”

“Is there a drink the lass enjoys? We could just mix something into that.” The dwelf asked.

“She loves her coffee.” Xamiliere answered.

“Then I know just the drink!” Valimir said. “Meet me at Rosie’s inn. Get her to brew some fresh coffee.”

The mage snapped his fingers, tapped his knees and jumped off the wall. Normally a fall like that would be fatal to all but the most agile species, but being a utility mage has its advantages. Valimir landed softly and sprinted off to get whatever he needed for the drink. Xamiliere looked at the mage’s stunt and considered jumping off too, but decided against it since she had just grown a new pair of legs and didn’t want to break them. So she just took the stairs down instead.

When Xamiliere got to the inn, she headed to the kitchen despite being barred from there ever since she broke into the storeroom and stole most of the spoons in a drunken venture. They were never recovered and even Xamiliere herself didn’t know where they went or why she needed them in the first place.

“You’re not allowed here, leave.” Rosie immediately demanded.

“In a bit, but right now I need some fresh coffee. We’ve got this plan to get Anna drunk and try and get the bracelet off.” Xamiliere explained. “I know, I know. I’m an idiot and shouldn’t make kids drink but…”

“You should do it. It’s to fix Anna, right? I don’t care what you have to do if you can get her back to normal.” Rosie interrupted her. “I may not know what exactly is going on, but I know you’re our best bet in stopping her if it goes bad.”

“I… what? You trust me? That’s a first.” The spriggan pointed out.

While Rosie prepared the coffee, Xamiliere washed some empty bottles so they could take the drinks with them to Anastacia and didn’t have to get her drunk in the city. Just in case she was an angry drunk.

“Did Coquelicot tell you anything about the bracelet earlier?” Rosie asked when she took the pan off the stove.

“Nothing useful really, but I can tell just by looking that something is possessing her. Though it’s kind of weird, Anna is still there but it’s like there’s two beings melded into one. I’ve seen something similar happen to other spriggans when they’ve used a polluted or cursed branch as the base for a body part, but never with humans. Whoever made the bracelet had great talent.” Xamiliere explained. “Is the priestess here? I’d like to get her to try something as well.”

“She should be upstairs. I can go and get her, but if something happens to her, I’ll use you to heat the stove tomorrow.” The tigress threatened and left to fetch Emilia.

Xamiliere figured that the goddess Emilia served should be able to do something, or if all else fails they could break Anastacia’s hand like the inquisitors had planned and Emilia could heal it before Anastacia wakes up.

“Is the innkeeper not here? I was looking forward to seeing her.” Valimir asked as he entered the kitchen.

“She’ll be back in a bit.” Xamiliere answered.

The dwelf put down a bag full of ingredients on the table and started sorting them out. A bottle of clear alcohol, cream, something that looked like honey but clearly wasn’t, sugar and a small bottle that had a minty aroma. He poured the coffee into the bottles and mixed a ton of sugar into each one of them. When the sugar had dissolved, he poured in the rest of the ingredients and topped it up with cream. In total, he made six bottles.

“I get the rest of the ingredients, but what was that honey-looking stuff?” Xamiliere asked and started shaking the bottles to mix them.

“Don’t worry about it. This is the perfect drink for getting a young lass drunk and comfy.” Valimir grinned.

“You’re so scummy, I love it.” Xamiliere laughed.

When Rosie returned with Emilia, they quickly went through the plan with them and left for Anastacia’s training grounds.

“See? I don’t need you guys to teach me.” Anastacia boasted and displayed her skills.

“Yes yes, you’re great…” Coquelicot halfheartedly praised the young necromancer.

This had been going for a couple of hours now and Coquelicot was at her limit. The rain had stopped but the ground was still muddy, and having to stand around doing nothing but listen to Anastacia was torturous to Coquelicot. While the scale Anastacia worked at was certainly impressive, it was all what any skilled necromancer would call basic stuff. Anastacia had clearly surpassed her in power but everything she did was wasteful and it annoyed the high inquisitor greatly.

“I’ve been thinking; it looks like you’ve got some of the same abilities as I do. There’s a small perimeter around you that no other necromancer has any business being in. I saw you use it to protect yourself against the dragon earlier.” Coquelicot pointed out. “Some necromancers naturally focus more of their power on a small area around them. It makes them extremely hard to deal with but those are also the ones that find it difficult to detect or control things over longer distance.”

“Oh… well that’s totally useless for me to know.” Anastacia answered bluntly.

Coquelicot fought the urge to attack Anastacia and was almost glad to see Xamiliere and the other two in the distance. At least they’d serve as a distraction.

“What are you doing here?” Anastacia asked in disgust and looked at Valimir.

“We came to check out your new skills with magic and such.” Xamiliere said and took a sip of the coffee drink.

“What’s that? It looks good. Give me one!” Anastacia demanded.

“Sorry kiddo, it has alcohol in it. So you can’t have any.” Xamiliere shrugged.

Coquelicot could see through the ruse immediately, but Anastacia was more focused on the fact that someone tried to deny something from her.

“You think you can stop me from just taking it if I want to?” Anastacia threatened. “I can handle undead dragons and inquisitors, I’m pretty sure a drop of that won’t kill me.”

“Fine, just don’t whine to me when you wake up with a hangover.” Xamiliere caved, or at least acted like she did.

Anastacia snagged a bottle from the spriggan and proceeded to drink about half of it at once.

“Huh, it’s sweet.” She said and looked at the bottle. “But as you see, I’m totally fine… and… can handle some… alc… a…” Her speech began to slur and she struggled to stand straight, but still she attempted to take another sip from the bottle.

“Whoa there, slow down.” The spriggan laughed.

The intoxicated necromancer stumbled for a bit and tried to say something before falling into the mud and passed out.

“Think I overdid it…” Valimir admitted and poked Anastacia to see if she was still awake.

“You two are by far the stupidest people I have ever met. I can’t believe that actually worked.” Coquelicot said in disbelief.

“Go ahead and grab one for yourself.” Xamiliere said and offered a bottle to Coquelicot.

The armless inquisitor just stared at the spriggan blankly. She was clearly very tired of the nature spirit’s shenanigans.