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Worms

"I'm not sure what to say," Carl said looking at the tiara on Stephanie's head. "Maybe you shouldn't date Purple if you can't handle the stress of being called a worm-lover."

Stephanie gained the eyes of a dead fish. She felt serene and calm, but also calmly-- offended?

"Worms, worms, all in worms~" She sang a few lines imagining the video of maggots crawling all over and felt Carl's palm on her mouth. He didn't look good--

"Stephanie, I can't stand bugs--" he said and Stephanie could tell that it was right. He did look more unsettled than ever.

The illusion of rotting surroundings covered in worms faded with her not adding anything more to it and she felt sorry, but also--

"I do love a certain worm, but I wouldn't be stressed about stupid things like people saying this or that," Stephanie said. "I have this because I also have this--" She lifted her hair on the side to reveal that her other ear now too had something in it - an earring that contained four little soundless, weightless and phantom-like clocks.

"My appraisal is not high enough level to tell what it is," Carl said. "But if a crown of serenity offsets it, then I can guess there might be a berserker curse in place?"

Stephanie nodded.

"You are involved in one heck of a mess, I must say," Carl concluded.

Stephanie nodded. To this-- she had nothing else to say, really.

Since there were no customers, for now, they went to make potions and since Stephanie had picked up a new skill, Carl showed her how to enchant it into concoctions. Turned out you could make a potion that when broken turned into steam and replayed her voice and showed the illusion. It was very brief, though-- some ten something seconds, but looked like these fetched a good price even so.

During lunch-time, Carl asked: "Why Enchanting voice?"

"Long story," Stephanie replied.

But since Carl waited for the story, she did tell that before they started dating, Purple was her one-person audience for music practice. And after a while of that, he had asked her to come and perform at the Boundary Cafe, which she did. They all looked like they loved it and Purple asked what she would practice more if she got the skill-- and Stephanie had calculated that she would end up spending more time on Enchanting voice, so that was her choice.

"It is a far rarer skill than the appraisal," Carl said as he used a purification spell to clean up the dishes.

Different from her expectation he wasn't disappointed one bit.

"But if he asks after another performance, go for Appraisal still," Carl said, heading back to the store area. "My fault for not explaining, but you practice appraisal all the time when you indulge into something - be it food, bath, massage, scents. I keep recommending you food places because that helps with developing it. And knowing how curious you are," he added. "If you do get an epic rank one, that will escalate things a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if you reached a mythical rank in a couple of years."

Eeeh-- that was something new to hear! But if that was the case, then yeah, she would be using it far more than Enchanting voice, even if she didn't regret her choice-- "What rank yours is?" Stephanie asked then.

"Mythical," Carl said. "That's why I can tell what your tiara is, but to correctly evaluate that complex as heck divine artifact in your ear, I'd need a legendary rank."

"I wonder if Purple has that, then," Stephanie noted, not thinking that would be anything secret knowing how long Purple has been around.

"Skill classes don't apply to mythical beast types," Carl said. "He and Tiamat both have something way beyond what a legendary rank appraisal can manage, but the shape is different."