Get a town to the size of Rakkal's Glory, and one commercial district just isn't enough. There's always those industries that it needs, but which nobody wants to be near. The dirty, noisy, smelly jobs. Blacksmiths, Tanners, that two story building I helped install an acid works in...
<Quit it.> Doll sent. <If you have to radiate sadness, don't get it on me.>
<I wasn't... happy... there, but there are memories.>
<Get your sadness off me!> she sent.
<Huh? Oh, sorry.> I said, gathering and refocusing my aura. I could always let my sad out later. Why did looking at one of my successes make me sad?
Doll sent a few invectives, but stayed tucked into Avara's belt, unmoving.
"Here." Avara said. "Just past these gentlemen."
"I don't think..." I tried to say, but she approached them anyway,
"Heh." said one of them.
Originally, this was two chapters, one of a narrowly one battle, blow by blow, but Rhishi wouldn't remember it in that clarity, and then a chapter of boring recovery and travel talk with Garner. But...
Okay, I just hate this trope. The dream sequence, especially when the protagonist isn't aware of it, is just misleading. It's a betrayal of the reader by the author, which may be both why I'm uninspired by this chapter and why it took so long.
But... it is important, for later, to know that Rhishi isn't always in charge of his senses, and doesn't always know when he's not perceiving things accurately. (Yes, he can't lie, even when he's sure of a mistaken truth.)
As always, thank you for your readership! It's what keeps me writing, especially when other parts of life seem more interesting.