The Tressym's Tearoom is a small cafe located just outside of Elmspire. The Elven Cities are known for using magic to provide all of the necessities of life for those Subjects that live there. The Tressym's Tearoom is a rare restaurant that does not provide food from the magical power of the Magocracy, instead the food and drinks are bought from the Wild Elves and prepared by those who work in the cafe.
The Tressym of the Tearoom is Balthazar, an elderly, near deaf, winged cat who at one time was a powerful archmage's familiar. Balthazar was so beloved by his mistress that she wove spells into his being, most notably being Unseen Servant, which he uses to run the cafe. Balthazar had been left behind by his mistress when she left on a Spelljammer to fight The Night War. Given his situation as an outsider in The Elven Kingdom, tends to employ half-elves, goblinoids, and others who have second class status in The Elven Kingdom.
Notably of these are Sal, the Lizardfolk chef known for their vegan cuisine, and Rickend Noens, who waitered at the tearoom to pay for things other than necessities while he attended Elmspire Academy.
The other thing that Balthazar is known for is his matchmaking. There is nothing that he enjoys more than facilitating first dates at the tearoom or working with members of the Elven Nobility to make matches. He finds the way that humanoids emotionally connect with each other an intellectual challenge, since the only creature that that he has ever emotionally bounded with is his mistress. His senses are almost unparalleled when it comes to detecting the nascent emotional and physical connections, but can come off grumpy and manipulative when getting people together.
One of the most aggressively manipulative he got was when he was dealing with his oblivious waiter, Rickend. Balthazar had noticed that D'arcy Wenn was coming to study at the Tressym's Tearoom daily. She said it was because the real food reminded her of home, which was a partial truth. When her nose wasn't in a book, she was looking over the top of the pages at Rickend. She would often stay a little bit longer than his shift lasted, in order to be a little less obvious about why she was there.
While Rickend never noticed her staring at him, she never noticed his gaze when he was looking out of the kitchen and ignoring Sal who was trying to get out orders. Balthazar found the situation to be infuriating, since not only where they both head over heels for each other and ignoring it, it was starting to effect the operation of the tearoom. Balthazar waited for his chance.
The chance came a few weeks later, when Sal was out of town buying additional supplies. Balthazar asked D'arcy to help Rickend bring up another barrel of black tea leaves from the cold room in the basement, since it was a two-person job. D'arcy did most of the lifting up the stairs only to find that the door jam had been knocked away and the door closed automatically locking the two half-elves in the cold room.
Rickend pounded the door and yelled for Balthazar to let them out, but the half-deaf tressym didn't seem to hear him. D'arcy put her hair up and tried to break through the door but was unable to get through the heavy steel door. Since it was already closing time, and Sal would be returning the next day, they decided to make the most of it. They huddled together under the heavy moving blankets that had originally been between the large boxes of inventory, and Rickend used Druidcraft to warm food and make tea for them to share.
They spent hours huddled together, looking deep into each other's eyes and talking about plans, hopes, and dreams. As the night grew longer, they both were going from enamored to in love, getting closer and closer to each other emotionally, D'arcy realized that they had been set up. The moving blankets were there for them to huddle together, the door jam hadn't been kicked out by accident, it had been removed by Unseen Servant. D'arcy also realized that Rickend was sweet, kind, and a bit naive. He would never figure out that Balthazar had set them up, and he would never realize that she ached to kiss Rickend as much as he ached to kiss her. So she leaned in and kissed him while he was explaining the importance of maintaining a good fungus bed for forest health.
They fell asleep in each other's arms, which is where Sal found them the next morning. The lizardman then made them miss class by making them clean and sanitize the cold room, their reptilian heart not understanding the passions of mammals. D'arcy did not trust Balthazar after that, but Rickend still does.