The tea room was elegant and bright, its windows gracefully arched. In the center of the somewhat empty room, everyone sat around an oval white table. Unfortunately, there was no actual tea to drink.
Ruger tilted his cup slightly and raised an eyebrow at the boiled mushroom water inside. Deep down, he refused to acknowledge this stuff as tea.
"Everyone-"
Barry Danton set down his cup and gently tapped a bent finger against the pristine white tabletop.
He seemed to want to draw the attention of Ruger and his three companions, but it did not appear to work very well.
Only after a slight delay did Ruger straighten the tilted cup in his hand and raise his head. The other three reacted in different ways. Mona still wore a faint smile, polite yet distant, and occasionally took a sip of the mushroom water. She seemed to enjoy this dried Mushroom Tea, though she had begun looking at Ruger more often, apparently still curious about how he had predicted which direction to take to find Barry.
Barry Danton was not annoyed by their reaction. He merely smiled.
"You certainly live up to your reputations as outstanding members of the pillar factions, elite Wizards who will support the underground world in the future. You mastered an oddity so quickly-indeed, one might say you subdued it completely. Compared with those mediocre fellows on the island, you have truly opened my eyes-and you even captured three Bearers unharmed-"
Barry voiced his admiration with a smile.
"They were a greeting gift prepared for you," Ruger replied, smiling as well. "I simply hadn't expected that you might not care for these little gifts. We almost missed you."
As Ruger spoke, he surveyed their surroundings.
The entire spacious tea room was formed from mushrooms that had risen