"I… don't remember a restaurant named Benny's."
"Really? I guess it must be new then."
Valerie and Quies stood near the front of a long line that went into a small little breakfast house. Valerie had gotten a recommendation for this restaurant from a colleague, but they didn't anticipate the queue being this long. However, it was moving. After a while more of waiting, they finally entered the breakfast spot and were immediately greeted by a Canor waiter.
"I assume seating for two?"
"Yes."
The waiter scribbled down something on his notepad and gestured for Valerie and Quies to follow. The restaurant was packed. Gossip and chatter filled the air with sound. Glasses clinked, plates were served, forks and knives stabbed into soft and succulent meat. The fragrant smells of a thousand spices lingered in the air, the soft notes of juices and nectars concealed by the aroma of grilled meat.
They passed by packed tables. No seats were empty. Families sat together in wooden chairs crafted from fine wood, children and babies were held in their laps. Friends finally meeting after years of hardship knocked glasses of champagne together, celebrating their reunion. Their footsteps creaked on the wooden floors, tall beige walls adorned with paintings had huge panes of glass that let in the morning light.
"A waiter will be with you two in a moment."
The male canor, having led the two to their tables, promptly left. Valerie adjusted her coat, having adjusted it to make sure people noticed her less. It seemed to have worked with the waiter.
"What are you gonna get?"
"Me? Ah, nothing too large. You said that we'll carry the operation out at midnight?"
"Lower your voice!"
"Sorry."
Quies flipped the paper menu in front of him and scoured through the menu.
'Drinks, food… Wait, should I even be drinking at my age? I guess I'll see what Valerie chooses.'
Surprisingly, the selection of dishes being offered was rather narrow when compared to the street stand at Vigil. However, all of them looked equally appetizing. There also were exotic foods there which Quies had never even heard of. Eventually, a different waiter came to their table to receive drink orders.
"Yeah, could I have just, like, a whole bottle of Void Walker please?"
The waiter looked stunned at her request, but nonetheless wrote it down.
"A-and for you, young man?"
Quies had no idea about any types of alcohol, or even regular drinks.
"I… think I'll just have water."
"Sounds good. I'll be back very soon for your appetizers."
The waiter hurriedly scribbled down his order and went to the kitchen.
"Umm, Valerie, what exactly is Void Walker?"
Valerie sat laid back in her chair, elbows resting on the wooden backing.
"My favorite drink. You can say it gets me going. I actually have an acquaintance who knows the grandson of the man who invented it. For some reason they're all named Johnnie, but finding out why is above my paygrade."
"With how much money you have, I doubt there's anything above your paygrade."
"You'd be surprised."
"Really?"
"Yes, really. You might think that I've been through a lot, and I have, but compared to some of those other black divers, I'm nothing. Partly the reason why I left the faction, but that's a story for after we get done with this, uhh, chore."
The waiter returned to their table, holding a tall glass of whiskey on one hand and a refreshing glass of water in the other.
"Here you go… and what can I get started for you two?"
The waiter put on the standard 'happy' look, however Quies could see the pain in the waiter's eyes begging for Valerie to not order something outrageous. Of course, eye contact was never made between the two.
"I think I'll just go straight to the appetizers, in which case… Ah, do you have any dry aged dread filet?"
The waiter's eyes grew wide for a moment.
"I-I think so? Y-yeah, we just received a fresh batch from some explorers a couple of days ago. Bu-"
"Sounds good. And it comes with that pomar puree and gravy?"
"Yes, it does."
The waiter wrote on a piece of paper, jotting down what Quies inferred to be a surprising order.
"And you?"
"I'll have the marinated lionfish grilled over kyrswood with the side of frites."
"Great choice. Not many people are willing to try something like lionfish."
'What's that supposed to mean?'
The waiter jotted down the order and then took a long look at the paper.
"One of these dishes will take a while to prepare, so expect to wait for a while. In the meantime, could I serve you two some bread?"
"Sure."
"Alright, I'll get that ready for you."
The waiter scurried away once more. Quies had even more questions about what exactly Valerie ordered, and why the waiter was so shocked, however, the two didn't just come here to eat their fill. There were still some details that needed to be discussed before tonight.
"Ideally, our subject would be a plain old Etrean guard. You know, like the ones we passed on the way in. However, if that proves to be a failure, we would need to get lord's palace guards. And I really do not want to go anywhere near that man."
"Right. So how exactly are we going to subjugate some poor guard?"
Valerie paused for a moment.
"It would be at night, which gives us more cover to work with. The easiest thing to do would be to knock the guard out and wait for them to wake up. However, time is of the essence, and doing that would introduce an unknown variable which leaves us less flexibility. I want to get my hands on a fast acting, low potency drug that could make the guard unconscious for a short moment, but that would look suspicious and brewing a proper one would take a while, not to mention testing."
"There's a lot of things we can do, and right now the situation doesn't have enough information to deduce the optimal plan of action. However, once we manage to get the guard in our possession, I can conjure a pseudo illusion of an Etrean guard that would be nearly impossible to distinguish from the real one. However, that puts us on a timer to do our work since my ether pool isn't infinite, which means I need you to do some of the lifting. Are you up for that?"
"Sure… but I feel like I'll need time to prepare. Keep in mind, I just learned my first mantra and don't really know how to control it without expending my… ether, you called it?"
Valerie leaned forward in her chair, her arms now resting on the table.
"My current plan has space for that. Good thing I left empty space…"
She looked off to the side, outside one of the glass windows. An awkward silence hung in the air.
"So that should clear up that part of the plan. To return the guard, we could probably just knock him unconscious. When you were off doing whatever you were doing at Vigil, I had a brewer concoct an amnesiac, which should make the plan much easier. Since one of its side effects is a temporary period of unconsciousness, we should be able to return the guard to wherever we got them from without any issues. That is, if everything goes to plan, which it probably won't. Don't be scared! I have failsafes."
"I don't trust you on that last part, but okay."
A moment later, the waiter came to their table with a plate full of delicious and crispy bread, and two thanked the waiter simultaneously.
Today will be a long day.