Explore the city

Tritera has to spend the rest of the afternoon on mirror duty. You are feeling comfortable enough walking around as a woman and have Tritera's permission to explore the city grounds. She gives you a small pendant with a henge that opens up a mirror which you can use to contact her if you get lost and also exchanges one of your silver pieces for a half silver and 500 copper pieces then sets you loose. You walk down the long spiral wooden staircase of the tower that seems rarely traversed given how mirrors would be the obvious choice over ascending or descending a half dozen flights of stairs. You resolve to learn mirror walking as soon as possible but for now you're happy to do it the old fashioned way. At the bottom of the stairs you unlatch a small door and are greeted with a sunny grass covered court yard and nobody in sight. Tritera's tower is on the outer boarder of where the city goes from being fairly dense to more sparsely populated. In one direction it's a quarter mile before the next tower or home and the other way there is only a small fence separating The courtyard from another property and it seems to just get denser from there.

You start padding your way towards the density. You soon come upon a cafe where a pair of sorcerers that looked to be in their fifties are enjoying cups of something brown and steaming. As you approach one of them notices you and waves.

Sorcerer : "Hello! You must be Tritera's new project! Come. Join us for a cup of jav"

If these people knew Tritera they couldn't be that bad, they must be neighbors or colleagues.

Alexis : "Sure, although I don't know what jav is"

Banson : "Jav is the wizard's muse, a day that doesn't start with a cup of Jav and end in a stein of mead has been wasted. I'm Banson Caman and my compatriot here is Bilbert Penman by the way."

Alexis : "I'm Alexis, Alexis Putty. It's nice to meet you Mr. Penman and Mr. Caman"

You're still not used to using the name and you think your speech sounds a little stilted.

Bill : "Please, call me Bill"

He says gesturing to an open seat.

You take the offer and sit down. Banson places a copper coin in an empty mug and taps it with a slender stick he produces from an outside pocket of his robe and the copper disappears as the cup fills with more of the brown liquid.

Banson : "First one is on me, I'm always happy to introduce beautiful young ladies to new experiences"

You blush but Banson's words don't sound sleazy, more patriarchal and jovial than a serious come on. None the less the thought does cross your mind that these men are now both much stronger than you even without their sure supremacy in magic.

You cautiously sniff the liquid, it smells earthy and you're sure there is a richness to it that your philistine nose can't appreciate. You must admit it smells good and the men seem eager to get your impression of the taste so you follow up the smell with a sip. The taste is earthy like the smell with a sweet and creamy aftertaste, it's tasty but you'd hardly call it a muse. You take another sip and then place the mug down.

Alexis : "It's good"

You reassure them. And then the effect hits you. You feel sharp and focused and nearly crackling with energy, if you had a staff on hand you might literally have been crackling with energy.

Alexis : "Woah, I feel kind of weird"

Bill : "That's the jav, even for common folks it is an energy boost but us wizards are all particularly sensitive to it. In the very early days of the guild the main thing that drew wizards together was a focus on securing the cultivation of the jav herb."

You feel amazing, you were going to need to get a steady source of this stuff.