The Innkeeper

When dawn finally arrived, the mercenaries were ready to march out, and a majority of the Inn staff were also ready to move forward. There were just a couple of issues. The first issue was the small matter of a hundred chimeras within the castle dungeons. They couldn’t exactly be made to march out in the open, and while technically they could be left inside the castle while it shrunk to its snow globe form, that would drastically weaken the castle, making it much more likely for the chimeras to escape.

But this was a foreseeable problem that everyone had already been working on resolving even before dawn arrived, so it couldn’t really be called an issue. It was more like an irritating inconvenience.

The second, much more unexpected issue was that Lex was laying in a hot tub, muttering to himself, unwilling to come out. When he had been told that they were ready to leave, he simply requested Kaemon come and visit him first.

This unusual behavior from Lex confused many, but they weren’t too concerned about it either. They simply informed Kaemon, who quickly arrived in the Hot Tub room.

"No lava bath this time?" Kaemon asked as he entered the room and looked at Lex.

"Well, technically, ice can be classified as a rock, in which case water can also be classified as lava," said Lex while staring up at the ceiling. His voice sounded strained, which concerned Kaemon.

"Are you okay?" the Magma Lion asked, ignoring the absolutely absurd claim that water was lava. In that case, couldn’t mineral rich magma just be called a warm electrolyte drink? Wait a minute... as a Magma Lion, he did drink those to help him replenish critical minerals after exerting himself. Could it really be true? No, wait, he was getting distracted.

"Yes, yes, I’m fine," said Lex, waving his hand. "I just have a migraine from staring too long at something I shouldn’t have been looking at. More importantly, I have an update on my research into the space of Abaddon."

"That’s great news," Kaemon exclaimed. "No wait, is it great news? Is the reason you’re in your current state because you discovered something terrible?"

Lex turned and looked at Kaemon with an amused smile.

"No, nothing like that. Who knew you had such an active imagination? What I discovered... Well, there’s a piece of good news, and another piece of news that could be considered either good or bad, depending on one’s point of view. Which do you want to hear first?"