"...Ah?"

Aaron came to a halt right outside the doors to the guild as the elf girl that had tagged alongside the group stopped him and... Ominously threatened him.
By name.
Wait. Hold on a second. He hadn't given out his name to anyone here. But then how...?

It took a few moments of digging through his memories to realize it, but once everything clicked, the young man couldn't help but laugh at his friend's predicament. There was a certain level of unluckiness that had been crossed here, and he'd be damned if he let this chance slip by.

"Oh, Akira! You're on a bit of a [i]short[/i] fuse today, huh? Well, really couldn't tell it was you, given the whole elf thing. Or the genderbending. Oh man, this just ain't your day, is is?" Aaron laughed, taking the chance to amuse himself for a moment at Akira's expense before wiping a tear from his eye. "Sorry, sorry, couldn't help it. But seriously, though, this is a heck of a weird situation here. Salty you got changed and I didn't?"

With a smirk on his face as he patted Akira's head (oh god, he was totally going to get it later), Aaron's attention was pulled away by two people, both of whom had come with them to the town earlier.

Well, this was convenient, too.

"Well, first things first, you three might wanna check inside the guild. Don't have a clue about what's in the tavern, but you'll probably be wanting to gra- wait, did you say two? Not three?"

Aaron look at the young man opposite himself before glancing down at Akira again, stifling a laugh.

"Looks like the downgrade in size also gave you an upgrade in presence concealment, huh?" he joked, fully aware of the bear he was (metaphorically) poking--or, at this point, slapping in the face.

Okay, maybe it was time to dial the schadenfreude back a bit.

"...But in any case, uh... Right. Guild. Guild cards. ID. Important. Grab one," he said, showing his own to the group before slipping it back into his robes. "Akira, you in particular might wanna check it out. There's someone inside who wants to speak with you, anyhow."

[hr]
"Of course, madam," the bartender responded, politely taking the coins off the countertop and moving over to hand the merchant his refill and passing on Sophia's comment for her. The man paused for a moment, then took a large swig of his alcohol before getting up from his seat and moving to the one to the left of the woman who had called for his attention.

"Hm? I haven't seen your face around before," he said, glancing at Sophia's face for a moment before shaking his head. "...Well, whatever. What is it that you want to ask? You paid for my drink, so the least I can do is hear you out."

Of course, that didn't necessarily mean he would answer [i]any[/i] question, but... Well, anything within reason would do well enough.