I woke up at an unreasonable hour for someone in my dition, which was... about seven in the m. Well, more precisely, I khat it was currently 7:03:28 AM, because as it turns out, the God of Time thought his clerics should all kly what time it was at all times.

  I wondered, briefly, how exactly he determined what the appropriate time was; as someone who had built a w meical clock as a hobby project, I had been forced to learn an absolutely tedious amount about hy and timekeeping, and ohing I'd learhat would always be relevant was the slight differen length between a sor day and a sidereal day, but ahing I'd learned is that, in the Hikaano Imperium, the stru of a traiwork forced the development of standardized time zones. Previously, every town and city simply kept their own local sor time, but now, everyone had to put up with the fact that their clocks were up to a half hour off of the 'real' sor time, which... holy, was not a huge deal.

  I blinked a few times as the instinct telling me precisely what time it was ged, inf me that it was 7:03:56 AM local sor time, and 7:15:56 AM Rosewood Standard Time.

  "Penny for your thoughts?" Emily asked, having noticed I was awake, but still just lying there.

  "Time zones," I said. " you help me up? I'm hungry."

  "Of course," Emily said, sitting upright and moving to help me do the same.

  "Is there a reason you always wear Healer robes?" I asked. "I was told you weren't supposed to do that, or that you're only supposed to wear them while on duty as a Healer."

  "Oh. Um... I'm... I'm always on duty as a Healer," she said weakly.

  "...Is it because the Healer robes are the only clothes you have that aren't unfortable, fanoble Lady outfits?"

  Emily winced.

  "...yes..." she admitted.

  "Alright, well... We'll get you some casualwear that doesn't suck," I said. "Don't sweat it."

  "Thank you," Emily said. "Talia and Faith are already downstairs, so hopefully they've made breakfast."

  "Hopefully Faith made breakfast," I corrected her. "If I put a gun to Talia's head and told her she had to cook something that actually tasted good, she'd tell me I don't have the balls to pull the trigger."

  "Well... Fair enough."

  "Oh my- Talia!" Emily nearly shrieked, c her poor, sdalized eyes. "Clothes!"

  "Oh please, like you don't see tits bigger than these every time you take a shower," Talia said, pnting her hands on her hips.

  In Talia's defense, she wasn't actually naked, but in Emily's defealia was only teically not naked, by virtue of wearing a godawful y apron that was not only offeo the educated eye on the face of it, but dragged my poor, hypoxia-addled brain through an awful of memories that stituted the story of why we even had that stupid thing to begin with.

  "I should've burhat stupid apron," I muttered darkly, before staggering over to the table and sitting down.

  Faith came in with a big pte den with breakfast sandwiches, stuffed with sausage, egg, aed cheese, and smirked at the sight of a fat, curvy elf wearing only an apron.

  "Well I think it looks cute on her," Faith said primly.

  "That's because you 't read High Elven," I said. "Emily , though."

  "It- oh god, it says something, doesn't it?" Emily muttered, still refusing to look at Talia.

  "Sausage for dessert," Talia said, grinning.

  "I hate everyone involved in the creation of this moment," I said dryly.

  "Is that-" Faith began.

  "That is, in fact, a dick joke in High Elven," I said, nodding. "It is teically a family heirloom, but really it's just an eborate practical joke that Grandma Terpsichore pulled on her kids, and which her firstborn son refused to throw away or bury with his mother, and instead, he inflicted it on me when I came of age, along with the realization that, teically, this thing is a family heirloom, and therefore I would feel guilty about throwing it away like the worthless garbage it actually is."

  "Wait, wouldn't that- wouldn't that make this a pre-War elven artifact?" Faith asked.

  "Well, yes, but-"

  "I know, I know, you don't want it, but museums will pay top dolr for this sort of thing," Faith said. "I mean, they don't have to know it's worthless garbage."

  "The st time someoried to put my family's property in a museum, I killed a man ireets over it. The Hikaano pry my heritage out of my cold, dead hands, if I don't mao kill them first."

  That killed the mood food few moments, before Talia gracefully revived it.

  "So, you think this was mage-woven?" Talia asked, looking doulling lightly at the apron that was surprisingly successful at keepiits tained- but then, it had been made by Terpsichore Iro, presumably to fit Terpsichore Iro, and Terpsichore Iro had been shaped like Talia Jones- which is to say, fat and busty.

  "Probably, yeah," I said, shrugging. "People back then were more patient than we are today, sure, but weaving by hand was still a tedious and time-ing process. For an experienced Bard like Terpsichore, learning enough Wizardry to cast a mage-weaving spell would've takeime than weaving all the fabric she o make this apron by hand. And that's assuming she didn't just get the fabri someone else."

  "Wait, mage-woven?" Faith asked. "Do you mean, like, ented?"

  "Nah, just woven by magic," I said, shaking my head. "So- y'know how, these days, pretty much all fabric is woven by maes? Y'know, power looms that gh the simple, repetitive steps of weaving through cloeisms without requiring much human intervention? Well, before those maes, most humans made fabric by hand with non-powered looms, and elves made fabric automatically with ented looms, uhey really, really liked weaving."

  "Huh."

  "It was a on learning milestone for elven Wizards," I added. "I learned how to do it, myself, although Mom didn't drill me on it too hard. Said that it was more for the sake of a cute tradition than because it was actually practical." I hummed quietly. "...Holy, though? I think I should probably just use a mage-weaving spell to make those straw hats I was thinking about, instead of a braiding mae. Straw isn't tinuous fiber, and trying to feed it through a braiding mae sounds like a recipe for frustration."

  "You know," Faith said, leaning ba her chair. "When I read ic books and dime novels, and they portrayed Wizards as these strange people who rambled endlessly about the stra, most esoteric things, I always thought to myself, 'That's not realistic, Wizards 't actually be like that, they're just making things up.' And then I met you."

  "He's not like that because he's a Wizard, he's like that because he's a High Elf," Talia said. "None of us shut the fuck up."

  "Wizardry isn't just a skillset I have, it's the maihrough which I observe the world," I said. "There are so many possible things you do with Wizardry, but Wizardry alone isn't enough to uand most of them. As such, you o be well-educated on a broad variety of subjects, so that you actually do useful magic about them. This is, ially, why most Wizards are specialists who are only well-educated on two subjects, and why an Archmage is su impressive thing."

  "Okay, pretend I wasn't raised by a Wizard, and only know that 'Archmage' means 'really strong Wizard,'" Faith said, ping the bridge of her nose.

  "Well..." I hummed quietly. "...So, like I said, most Wizards are specialists, who only really do a small subset of Are magi Archmage, however, is a Wizard who has learned multiple specialties, which requires either an absolutely tedious amount of education or that the Archmage be a genuine genius who's capable of teag themselves plex subjects in a short timeframe. Now, this is muddled a bit by the fact that both Helen Rosewood and, uh... fuck, what's that guy's name... Right, Mason Orvo, both call themselves The Archmage of the Adventurer's and Mage's Guilds. Which of cets into historical text where Archmage used to mean 'a mage who is in charge of a bunch of es,' but I tell from the look in your eye that I'm starting to lose you."

  "Yeah, let's... Take another swing at that, but shorter," Faith said.

  "An Archmage is a polymath."

  "Don't know that word."

  "...An Archmage is a jack-of-all-trades, except he's just as good at anything as most specialists are."

  "Okay, got it."

  "And Archmage also sometimes just means 'a mage who's in charge of es,' in the same sehat 'master' sometimes means 'someoh an apprentice.'"

  "So, Archmage means two different things, and those two definitions are different," Faith surmised.

  "That is correct, yes," I said, nodding.

  "I think," Faith said, "that if you try to tell me anything else about Are Magic, I'm going to jump over the table and kick you in the face."

  "Please don't," Emily said wearily.

  "I'm just go my breakfast, then," I said, pig up my breakfast sandwid taking a big bite. "...Mmf. This is really good. Faith, I am really gd you actually know how to cook."

  "I had some help, but... Thanks."

  We ate our breakfast without too much more chatter, and then Volex strutted ba from the cab.

  "Good news, everyone," Volex said. "We're making good time, and we'll be at Mount Fate in time for an early lunch. Gods willing, we'll be doh this stupid road trip before the sun goes down."

  A cheer went up, until Faith made an excellent point:

  "Hang on, nothing's gonna ge," Faith said. "We're still gonna be sleeping in a van."

  "Yeah, but now you go outside," I pointed out.

  "...Oh yeah..."

  And just like that, all was right again.

  AnnouAaaaaand we're back.

  As always, if you like Iro and wao keep making it, the best way to do that is to leave a ent, here or on my discord server.