Lionel complained about people dying on the streets while the wealthy simply passed them by. Adrianna shuddered a bit at the memory of such sights. More specifically, she remembered when she was still in training with the Church, and she had wanted to use her healing on some of those people. Her supervisor at the time had scolded her for even making the suggestion, calling them degenerates who were just lazy and looking for handouts. If they wanted to improve their lot in life, they could do so through work and service to the Church. She even remembered trying to help them by telling a few people as much. Her words were not well-received, and it took her a few years more to understand why.

He went on to say that Magi didn’t serve any purpose anymore, but Adrianna disagreed. She felt like they were alive for a reason—even though mages were growing weaker, there [i]were[/i] still beasts... and monsters. Perhaps it was just that the monsters they faced did not come from the void anymore. When she said that they should be done away with, Adrianna froze. Did he mean…some sort of extermination? The thought sent a shiver down her spine, and she was left is silent shock as he held up his hand to indicate that the conversation was over. The silence that fell between them was thick with tension, at least for the one in the pair who was not certain that the other was a mage. Did Taliya know? 

She was still silent as he called them rats, though her knuckles whitened as she tightened her grip on her split bo staff. She could pull it out and strike him across the face. Would it solve any problems in the long-term? No. Would it make her feel better immediately? Perhaps.

Before she could, however, they were surrounded by the guards at the gate, and the people they had been escorting made their way around the pair to get inside to ‘safety.’ Lionel began to move off in another direction, and Adrianna made no effort to follow him. Her jaw was set, clenched tightly as she watched him walk away, regretting that she had healed him at all. After all, she was just a rat, scurrying—

“Adrian!” The deep voice broke her from her thoughts, and she turned in the opposite direction to see Malvin, one of the guards, heading towards her. Malvin was an older man, though still quite an accomplished fighter. He was certainly a mage, though Adrianna was under the impression that he did not [i]need[/i] his magic as much as some other men did. She also knew that he had a family at some point, though since he never talked about them, she could only imagine that they were lost.

“What is it?” Adrianna asked, moving over towards him.

“Come over here.” He gestured for her to follow, and walked a roundabout way around the nearby buildings before wrapping around to the complex. Adrianna followed quietly for a while before she spoke up, again asking what was going on. He reiterated that she should follow, and then went into the complex, gesturing for her to follow. Inside of one of the offices, he pulled out a flask and took a swig before handing it off to her.

“What’s this about?” She asked as she cradled the flask.

“You looked like you were going to punch that twat…again. So I figured you needed to cool off a little and have a drink.” He leaned against the desk and pointed at the alcohol in her hands.

He was right, though it annoyed her initially that he had read her so well and made her walk nearly a mile out of the way just to give her a drink. She took a swig, though, and after a few more moments decided that he meant no harm by it. He was just trying to keep her from doing something else stupid. “Taliya’s got some kind of hard-on for Lionel, so I don’t recommend you make an enemy of him.”  He continued.

Adrianna let out a breath and nodded. “Yea, whatever. Just…tell Taliya I’m not chasing him down or helping him out anymore.” She replied. She went ahead and chugged a bit more of the flask’s contents, feeling the burn as it went down her throat, before handing it back to him and opening the door. “That guy is a prick. And I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”

That got a raucous laugh from Malvin, to which he added a simple, “Fair enough” as Adrianna turned and departed from the room.