Lukas counted the objects in his satchel. There were ten sea dragon scales from different species and all of them from previous shedding sessions, so he didn’t need to deal with angry sea dragons. He returned to Calliope’s lair and found Faye, a jellyfish man that dressed in maid dresses and worked as Calliope’s housekeeper. “Monsieur Faye,” called Lukas.
“Hm? Oh! Bonjour, Monsieur Lukas,” greeted Faye. “Were you victorious?”
“I sure was! Where’s Mistress Calliope? I want her to inspect my work.”
“Oh, she’s at her cauldron again, taking on a support call. A sea witch needs to give magic support at times, non?”
“I’ll just head there, then,” said Lukas. “Merci!” He swam to the center of the pit where Calliope was talking to someone’s image in her cauldron. …Or rather, RANTING at the person’s image
“YOU LITTLE-!” she snapped. “I get my hands on you and-! …Bazzy? …Bazzy, you there?” Calliope sighed and ran her hand down her face. She then used one of her tentacles to grab a calling potion and added a drop into her cauldron. “Master Talza, you’d better pick up.”
“Master Talza, Mistress?” asked Lukas. “The martial arts master? What does he have to do with it?”
“He taught Bazzy the Blister how to use his signature energy attack,” replied Calliope.
“HE WHAT?!” yelped Lukas.
“Oh yeah, it’s as bad as you think it is,” confirmed Calliope. “Let me just make sure you can add your two bits to this conversation.” She added a drop of liquid into her cauldron and the image of a sagely-looking elderly merman appeared.
“Madame Calliope?” asked the merman, Master Talza. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?! What’s wrong?!” asked Calliope. “I understand teaching Helen that technique, but…the little pink demon from the Seventh Hell?! Do you know what you did?!”
“…Oh! The pink mergirl in fur!” laughed Talza. “How could I not? She’s got four arms! She can fire two Tsunami Crashers! It’d be impressive if it weren’t so terrifying!”
“Terrifying?” asked Lukas. “Master Talza, I’m one of Calliope’s new customers and I can tell you, you underestimated how dangerous Bazzy the Blister is! She’s a government experiment that went wrong! With that information, do you realize what’s gonna happen?!”
“…Oh…Oh my,” gulped Talza.
“Yeah!” confirmed Calliope.
“…Welp, doesn’t sound like it’s my problem! So long, Calliope!” Calliope’s jaw dropped at that!
“…Talza?! Talza?!” she said. “…I’M NOT CLEANING UP THIS MESS!!!” She gripped her cauldron to steady herself as she breathed deeply. “…Lukas, how fares your hunt?”
“See for yourself, Mistress,” replied Lukas as he showed her the bag. She used magic to inspect the scales.
“Ooh! As we agreed upon! Good! I see you went with already shedded scales.”
“I figured it would be safer for me, Mistress.”
“Safer and smarter. With that, you’re a third of the way there. Good work.”
“Thank you, Mistress.” Lukas turned to swim back to his room.
“Er, Lukas, just a second,” called Calliope.
“Yes, Mistress?” asked Lukas.
“What would be your ideal waist clothing if and when you get your wish granted? Tail stocking? Skirt?”
“…Well, a skirt, yeah,” replied Lukas. “A skirt, ideally, made out of the sea-sheep wool like your sleeves with a huge amount of petticoats, forcing the outer skirt to be horizontal forever, but still able to have the powerful lady I serve grab my butt whenever she wished. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” answered Calliope. “Enjoy your day.”