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The Retriever had gotten a little better at clapping back, for what little that was worth. If wanted to shut Max up, accusing him of being too heavily invested in a leech's well-being was certainly one viable method. Too little, too late, though. He'd already said enough to get everyone else curious; even the most decisive method of ending the discussion there would only veil Varis' involvement at best. Too bad he'd already committed to not playing word games tonight, that was almost tempting enough to bite on.

Oh well, that didn't mean he couldn't put his foot in his mouth just to say something.

He gave Aaron a subdued grin, as if he were politely flattered by the compliment - that was a compliment by talkative footstool standards, right? The other mages were wisely choosing to not get involved and try to divert the conversation from the verbal timebomb waiting to go off, but Max certainly wasn't going to just let [i]that[/i] stand. He had a reputation, damn it. Besides, he could confidently say that he learned absolutely nothing about Eris there that he didn't know already, and the only mended fences between them were the ones that made a fucking vampire of all people more desirable as an ally than Sellout Starag.

[color=8585AD]"Yep, you know us,"[/color] Max muttered humorlessly as he raised a hand and interwound two fingers, [color=8585AD]"Wells and Eric against the world."[/color] He punctuated his statement with a sarcastic chortle. [color=8585AD]"Hardly. [i]Mister Samael[/i] tells me what to do and who to talk to and I do it to shut him up. If there was any proactivity involved I'd probably have tangible information right now instead of a nebulous idea that Her Royal Highness is a lying bitch. By the way, you can unclench your buttcheeks, I haven't been sent on any sketchy errands in a while so I think Eric got over whatever weird tantrum he was having with Count Sinnenodel."[/color] Not technically untrue. He had no idea what Eris' plans were going forward, and the leech certainly hadn't given any indictation recently that he was still mad at the count, but it was a bit of a stretch to think he'd dropped the issue entirely. Probably just focused on the Marivaldis for the time being, or wary of dancing to Ryner's tune too well. She clearly had an angle here in order to fuck up this royally - pun not intended - even if the test was a blatant mistake. Then again, her coverup of the murderer was pretty lazy too, maybe she was just getting complacent in her old age.

[color=8585AD]"Consider that little morsel your payment for the clock,"[/color] The mage finished with a dismissive wave of his hand. Naturally, Aaron's paranoia and desire to please wouldn't let him accept that Eris dropped the issue, but Varis had no way of knowing about the mark. He could sweep every misdeed, every [i]faux pas[/i], every time he accidentally tripped and thought no one was around to see under the rug; they'd still have a lead and the Retriever would look like an idiot for barking up the wrong trees.

As for the life mage's invitation, he wanted to give it a hard pass. Parties around here were always a fucking disaster - case in point - even without hordes of other idiots he didn't know crowding around him and asking prodding questions. At best he'd run into a senior with his affinity whose brain he could pick for ideas, but given the bullshit nature of his magic, he doubted even that would be fruitful. Hell, he'd rather ask Feliks at that point anyway.

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