RP:Who Is He? And Why Am I Collecting His Groceries?

Part of the Thy Kingdom Come Arc

House of Ara

Kovl approaches the House of Ara and while he has been to Larket a few times before to visit the Academy of Magic, he has never set foot or wing inside Larket's clinic. His eyes dance upon the walkway to Sabrina's home. The pixie cannot keep his normally-emerald, but definitely deep-blue eyes still too long or the walkway would dance on its own. Since Kovl's journey to find the rare hallucinigenic drug colloquially named 'sap', the illusionist has been unable to keep himself off of substance for significant periods of time. What started as a journey to test the effects of drugs on his illusions ended up being an escape from his past and a new unwelcome-and-sometimes-welcome addiction. Kovl makes his way to the door and knocks, working to recall the reason why he is here. Josleen sent him to Sabrina to discuss a need that emerged for his skillset. "Hello?"

Sabrina calls out that the door is open, Elvish but the phrase common enough for those who didn’t speak it fluently could make sense of it. She was cleaning up a mess, the large table in front of her oozing with blood and bits from a successful surgery and lengthy healing that left her weak but fully aware. It was to the limits of her reach to get the whole table but she managed. Without looking up she asks “What can we do for you today?”

Kovl, after a well-practiced manuever to crack open man-sized doors, slips into the House of Ara. His eyes fall on the healer and a light smile crosses his face. "Are you Sabrina? Josleen sent me. I'm Kovl." The illusionist keeps the door to the clinic cracked as he makes his way toward the table. The pixie, out of habitual curiosity, glances down to the blood on the table before meeting Sabrina's eyes once again. Wait, did he see the blood bubble from the table like a lava from a volcano? Kovl flinches and his hand immediately falls to one of the pounces on his belt. No, no. The drugs are messing with him again. The pixie sighs and looks back up to the healer to await her reply.

Sabrina straightens and turns at the mention of the name. She had expected a visit and she was almost pleased until she really laid eyes on him. She arches a tin brow at his mannerisms. “I am. Nice..” he flinches “… to meet you?” She throws a piece of linen over the mess and pushes a strand of sticky trusses from her forehead. “Are you sure you are up to the task?” He didn’t seem well, but the woman behind the counter was one that held the healer’s respect.

Kovl blinks and then chuckles for a moment at Sabrina's reaction to his hallucination. "Yes, nice to meet you. Sorry, I... thought I saw something. I'm fine." The pixie takes a breath as he works to subside the nausea caused by 'sap'. "I don't know what exactly the task is. All I was told is that I'm here to help Hildegarde and my skillset is needed." Kovl is accustomed to being underestimated. The pixie does not mind it, and for him, the underestimation so beautifully fits the illusionists' theme of things not being as they appear. Kovl blinks again as he watches the blanket now covering the table distort into unnatural and fluid shapes. Another smile crosses his face as he reminds himself that his visions are not reality.

Sabrina nods slowly. He says he is fine; he would know better than anyone. She can recognize nausea, but politely she does not make mention of it, hiding illness from a healer is more difficult than most would think. She moves to the desk in the corner and pulls from its drawer a list. There are only seven items on the list but if he read it he would realize that obtaining these items would require his skillset exactly. “How much of this can you carry?” Frostmaw herbs and potions, from Eleenin himself. She pulls a second note from her pocket, sealed with the stamp of Asclepius. “This one is to be delivered to be viewed by his eyes only.” She is reluctant to hand it over. He seems too out of it to be paying full attention.

Kovl watches Sabrina as she digs the papers from her desk. The pixie takes a few more steady breaths as her back is turned to him. When Kovl approached the House of Ara, he was already at the tail end of his high from the sap he took a while back, and it's as he takes these breaths that he realizes he's reaching the end of the drug's affect: sobriety. As Sabrina asks her question and the pixie reads over the list which seems at first like a mix of scrambled lines, Kovl's eyes begin to gradually, and almost unnoticeably, fade to green from blue. "I can carry them all," he answers as he pats the bag at his side. "I'd be lost in the elvish and human world without this bag. Because of it, I can carry anything you can carry." Kovl smiles. "Who is Asclepius? And why am I collecting his groceries?" The pixie says this with a smirk to show he isn't upset; he is just being difficult.

Sabrina does not look amused. Always so serious. “It is the seal of the Healer’s Guild. Can you do this or not?” She recalls the warrior’s questions about enlisting a pixie for this job, this pixie in particular. “Josleen’s medical camp requires it. She is more effective with tools of her own trade and I can’t be everywhere at once.” He seems to become more here than there, and it is a positive she can accept. Her arms cross over her chest, still worried she was making a mistake. “You realize this is very important?”

Kovl keeps his smile as Sabrina vocally casts doubt on whether Kovl can do the job. "Of course I can do this. What's so hard about it anyway? I highly doubt Josleen called upon -me- just to bring her some things." The pixie infuses the last sentence with a small bit of flippant tone. The trickster cannot help but test the healer's patience if it would provide a speck of entertainment. Now in a more serious tone to reassure Sabrina: "Josleen wouldn't have called me here if it weren't important. I know it's important."

Sabrina frowns. “The gates to Frostmaw are closed, that is what makes it so hard.” The Elfess takes a moment in her consideration of his words. “Very well, what is the time frame to completing this task?” She would wait for his response before bringing up the final points. “We haven’t even begun to discuss your fee.” She didn’t fully understand why Josleen didn’t go over any of these points with him.

Kovl, because of his absence from Xalious has been so long, failed to keep up with the politics of Frostmaw. Before Sabrina informs Kovl the gates are closed, Kovl knew only of the civil unrest and witnessed an attempt a couple weeks back of certain frost giants working to usurp Hildegarde. Knowledgeable about the situation or not, the thought of bypassing a guarded and closed gate sends pings of adrenaline and excitement to his body. At Sabrina's question, Kovl puts a hand up to his chin, feeling a bit nauseous again. "I can deliver this within a week." He shrugs. "I don't require a payment if it's to help Hildegarde. Besides, infiltration is more fun than simply flying into Frostmaw. Now where is the medical camp and who do I deliver these items to?"

Sabrina cracks a smile at his enthusiasm. She backs up a little not sure how much a pixie could really hold nor how far they can project their last meal. “The items get delivered to Xalious, you can set that up with Josleen. She is at a shop working for a very seedy male in the center of town. I have a map… somewhere.” She goes back to the desk, without much looking she pulls out a folded piece of parchment that had seen better days. It pays to stay organized. Unfolding it she holds it out to the pixie, he was beginning to look like a floating trash receptacle. “This map only shows the location of Master healers.” She points to a spot on the map that indicates the mark on the seal she had previously given him. “You are here. Eleenin is there.” Her directions take his eyes to the northern part of the map that has a similar mark that bleeds into an older version of the Frostmaw crest.

Kovl tilts his head at Sabrina's comment that Josleen is working with a seedy character. Kovl likes seedy characters. He takes in the location of Eleenin on the map and nods. "Can do." Kovl grabs the corner of the letter Sabrina holds, and with her permission, pulls it toward the messenger bag at his side, causing it to shrink to his proportion before he puts it neatly into his satchel. He does the same with the letter and the map. "No problem. The work will be done." The pixie's thoughts shift to what could possibly be in Eleenin's letter, but he shoves his thoughts aside in the wake of a pounding headache. "Anything else?" Kovl pauses to hear any other bits of advice or instruction and nods. "Thank you, Sabrina." The illusionist slips through the door and pulls it shut behind him.

Sabrina shakes her head and wanders to a shelf with common items in little jars. She takes an item out of one jar and hands it to him. “Nothing else, but chew on this.” Valerian root had many uses, including headaches, and hangovers. “Try to take care of yourself, at least until your mission is seen through.” She had almost a motherly tone when she spoke to him.

Kovl looks to the healer curiously and takes the herb. Bringing the root to his mouth, the pixie gnaws on it as he leaves. "Thank you again."