Taking a seat, in the quiet, mid-morning tavern, the odd trio didn't take long to order.

"Sure, I'll try beer. But weren't we looking for food?"

"This place some good fries. Have some of those. And I'll get some...nah, just a beer," Macario said, glancing at Chester before noting, "I'm only buying your first drink."

"He'll have one whole barrel of grog."

"Hey!"

A few minutes later, Chester and Lina were served a couple baskets of fries while Chester got a bottle and Lina and Macario got their mugs of beer. While Macario took a casual sip, Lina was a bit more apprehensive, taking a sip before gagging.

Tears rimming her eyes, she bleched. "Wha? It...it..." Looking up and making sure none of the employees were around, she hissed to Chester and Macario, "Why did I get the sensation of [i]piss[/i]." Cringing, she grabbed some fries and chucked them into her mouth.

Taking another sip, Macario said, "It's just one of those dark facts of life that people accept. War rages, the poor starve, and cheap beer tastes like piss. You'll get used to it. Or find better beer."

Looking back at her mug, Lina turned a bit green, before flashing red with determination, deciding, "Or [i]make[/i] better." Clamping down on her nose, she turned the mug bottom up, doing her best to drain it, managing half before relenting, clearing holding back some retching as Macario chuckled.

As she held firm, as is savoring the bitterness of the taste, she asked, "So, what do the Advocates do?"

Macario lit up a bit as he began, "Well, after the War finally ended, some people looked around to see that we lost a lot of knowledge. Libraries destroyed, you've got stories of all these great inventions that are stupidly hard to find nowadays... The Advocates take on jobs to do heavy research into specific subjects as objectively as possible: history and science, usually. The files we turn up are pretty valuable: national secrets or developments in some scholarly field. We get a lot of money for a job in exchange for a limited non-disclosure agreement before releasing the files, so new stuff is always pretty valuable to other parties. The threat of a country's past on subterfuge being reveal usually leads to them trying to make amends before word really gets out, or they try to take on the Advocates but that's part of why we're so secretive. If we find something that might be a good invention our secrecy on the inner workings can allow someone to try and get a business going off of it."

Looking mildly interested, Lina noted, "Sounds like you like your job..."