The day after, right before lunch, The Grandmaster has asked to see Adrian. Not feeling especially worried by this, the soon to be journeyman enters the office. The Grandmaster asks him to take Zach under his wing and help him toughen up. Adrian learned that Zach comes from a small region outside the coast of The Dragon Empire that is about to get integrated, with or without their consent. So Zach has been sent here to learn about the Empires ways and customs.
Returning to lunch, Adrian finds the rest of the team in the Mess hall. While eating, he tries nudging Zach into asking the group if he may join them, but the boy is too scared, so Adrian ends up doing it for him. The girls don't seem thrilled over the idea, but nobody speaks against it. It may primarily be that Irdien is still upset about Jak leaving and Sirona earlier voicing some concerns about Zach in confidence to Adrian. Nevertheless, there isn't any straight-up No, and with Adrian voting yes, Zach is accepted.
As they finish lunch, Adrian shows L the training ground he has organised for the Drakes inside their portal. L is very enthusiastic about the obstacle course and quickly tests out one of the balance challenges. Soon, Sirona has to remind them that class is about to start in an attempt to pry them away from the pocket dimension.
The group arrives at Nicodemus's class three minutes late, something the professor lets them all know before they sit down. The group may have been expecting another condescending self-serving lecture from this man, but to their surprise, Nicodemus seems to be very passionate about the subject. His class is about Monster knowledge, and he guides and inspires them to go from listing the basic definitions into a philosophical debate about what a monster is. Irdien even delivers a long winded statement on the many various ways you can kill a monster using weakness like exposed arteries and the like. Sirona is, as always, very determined and set in her view that a person could never be a monster. After weeks travelling with this notion shoved down the party's throat, they, one by one, start challenging her points. First L, then Adrian and finally Irdien starts asking her tougher and tougher questions that Sirona starts avoiding to answer and regresses to her original stance. Zach is the only one giving her a break since he is too scared to say anything in class without disguising it behind his spells. However, he whispers Ertherin's name when Nicodemus asks Irdien what her weakness might be. The rough sends him a stare that may or may not mean that he won't survive the night.
When the bell finally rings, all of their heads are filled with new thoughts to reflect on, and the group quietly drifts apart to contemplate. However, Sirona doesn't get far before Pearl, daydreaming while strolling the halls, scoops her up. The master asks if Sirona could help her finish Adrian's journeyman test by letting her evaluate his leadership skill from poking into Sirona's shared memories with him. The girl accepts and follows Pearl to her study.
Before Pearl begins, she tells Sirona how thrilled she is to have a fellow immortal in the school. Sirona gets taken off guard, saying that she is ageing like anyone else, but Pearl only pets her on the cheeks as if she's an adorable infant. According to Pearl, the God-Touched are immortal.
The sorceress proceeds to start peering into Sirona's mind to evaluate Adrian's capabilities but quickly and uninvited moves on to also review Sirona's entire life. Not liking what she finds regarding the cult at the mansion, Pearl, without asking, decides to lock some of the more traumatic memories away. She tells Sirona that they will eventually trickle back to her and that she will be in a better position to process them then. Sirona isn't sure what she has forgotten but feels an overbearing tension suddenly slip away as the soothing cold of Morena encases her.
Exiting Master Pearl's chamber, Sirona is finally determined to deal with the drug addiction problems and starts searching the school for her friends. Firstly, she runs into Irdien, reading the recommended funny book. Irdien apologises for how they cornered Sirona during the monster Knowledge lesson, but Sirona hand waves it away, asking her to join her in searching for the others. Irdien starts thinking that something seems amiss with Sirona.
The Aasimar leads the drow to the Journeyman room and finds Adrian. The monster hunter is contemplating giving up his magical bloodletting ring now that his magic is back. Sirona supports this idea. Irdien reminds her that she wanted to tell them something, and Sirona comes clean about the drugs becoming an issue for her. She tells them about a rare white flower named Charotka that Master Jaz advised her to use to help with the rehabilitation. Both Adrian and Irdien says they will help. Adrian reveals that a herbalist in town may have the plant, which pleases Sirona, and she again displays uncharacteristic giddy happiness that makes Adrian suspect that something is up. (ändrad)
After carefully asking if something else has happened, Sirona tells about her visit to Master Pearl for tea and an interview. She tells them that Pearl thinks Aasimars to be immortal. Irdien gets quiet after this reveal and excuses herself saying she has work to do but to come and find her in the dorm when it's time to go.
After being left alone, Sirona asks Adrian if perhaps he would like to share a glass of wine. Adrian hatching a plan to see that Sirona isn't a doppelganger or something, takes her to an off-limits, secluded wine cellar and ask her to catch a silver coin he's flipped. Sirona does, and the monster hunter notes that she doesn't take any damage from the silver. Sirona then proceeds to seduce him in the dark and cold nook.
Meanwhile, the open library is getting crowded as Irdien enters to find Rose. At first, she decides to ignore him but then changes her mind demanding to know why he is being mean to her, bringing up Ertherin wherever she goes. Unfortunately, Rose keeps entangling himself in this spider web of awkward conversation. He redeems himself by offering his diary, where he has written down his meetings with the brother. Rose seems to believe that he must serve Irdien, and the drow can not convince him otherwise. He follows her to her dorm to help go through the books Irdien took from the library and forgot to declare in the check out ledger.
They talk about Ertherin and share some memories of him. Rose reveals that he is his only person friend, and Irdien suggests that maybe they could also become friends. Rose tells her about his home on the Isles. It's a violent place full of might warrior women and him hiding at the Blood Pools where the giant toads, called Slaad, breed. (ändrad)
As they start going through the books, Rose casts a spell to have his ink sprite help, but something goes wrong, and the sprits become mischievous and start ripping and smudging pages. Rose quickly traps them in his glass jar and starts crying. Irdien tries to comfort him while gathering the now ruined stolen library books. Rose says that if Master Pearl is kind, he might get away with only rewriting the damaged books. Irdien, who thinks that she might get expelled, distracts the upset boy by offering to teach him a card game. She takes out the naughty deck they got at the brothel in Shadow port, making Rose suddenly very nervous before he gets told the premises of the game. However, he quickly understands the rules and wins both rounds with a squeal of pure delight at besting an Amora. They talk a bit more about his relationships with Amoras back home, and it becomes clear that Rose has suffered physical abuse as a learning instrument. Before he leaves her room, he gives her a quick hug. Irdien chuckles at him before turning back to try and save the books. (ändrad)
Sirona and Adrian return to the journeyman room with a bottle of white wine to split between the two. Sirona does point out that she is a lightweight with alcohol, and Adrian suggests only one glass so they still can go to the herbalist today. The pair talks about the task before them, and Adrian assures her that she can rely on him. Then, the subject slowly shifts back to master Pearl's revelation about Sirona being potentially immortal. Upon being asked if her family ages, Sirona explains that only she has the Aasimar blessing amongst her family. She then mentions that she is unsure if the immortality is part of what she has forgotten. Adrian asks her to elaborate. Sirona explains that Pearl looked into her mind during the interview and removed something. Adrian asks if it was a tracker like before from the cult, and when Sirona questions the use of the word cult, and Adrian doesn't back down, she gets mad, telling him off for looking down on her education. She storms out, leaving Adrian extremely confused.
Sirona knocks on Irdien's door to ask if she is ready to leave. The Aasimar is angry, so Irdien asks what's the matter. Sirona tells her that Adrian is being a jerk, saying dumb things. Irdien offers to mediate between the two to clear any misunderstandings, and Sirona says she can if she wants, then asks if Irdien broke the books because of Jak. Irdien explains that Zach had a spell go wrong before asking if it's okay for Rose to come with them to Tarkett, and Siona says she doesn't care as long as it doesn't take forever to find him. She has a headache, and Irdien suggests that she rest for a moment. They talked about their past journey and favourite memories before discussing upcoming birthdays. Sirona describes how a birthday back home would be like, and Irdien asks how Lucy got injured. After telling the story, Irdien comforts Sirona and divulges that Irdien's mother can't walk.
Irdien resumes her work with saving the books and asks Sirona about her interview with Pearl. Sirona repeats the process of the Master looking into her mind to see what happened on the trail. She then gets upset about not remembering clearly and says she doesn't want to think about it, increasing her headache. Irdien tells her to take a nap and promises to wake her soon, so they won't miss the opportunity to visit the herbalist.