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For the second time today, you think of your one-time party member Francis Blanchette, who made a hobby of collecting cursed items and trying to overpower or redirect their curses. It had meant the bespectacled humie went through glasses on a near-daily basis from the terrible luck and various debuffs, but the fact that he still lived AND succeeded in his adventures in spite of this attested to his method’s success… For a given value of ‘succeeding’.

“Blanchette?” Veigar looks wistful at the mention of Tips’ old school-chum. “I’m honestly amazed he’s still alive.”

“IF he still is,” you acknowledge. “It’s been a minute.”

“Well, if anyone could min-max his way out of dying to a curse, it’s him,” Veigar chuckles.

“Or you,” you say pointedly. “And by you, I mean—”

“I know who you mean,” Veigar snaps. “HIM. You mean Ezreal. The ‘real’ Tips, right?”

You hesitate, then shrug.

“No offence, but he’s still got Feycraft.”

“He MAY,” Veigar corrects you. “He gave up his elven blood, as -I- understand it.”

You sigh, and nod. It’s a long story, and not one to which you’re wholly privy… But as part of some tripartite pact brokered by Tips between the human-led Northwestern realms, the elven Silverwood confederation, and that lizard-lipped half-brother of yours in Bloodrise ALSO somehow involved him sacrificing the magical moon-berries that he once used to make you a fresh soul, AND Tips giving up his elven heritage to be wholly human. You don’t really know how close he is to his elf mama’s pantheon, anymore.

But well, he’s still gotta be a safer bet than pre-teen Khorine, who grew up in the shadow of a kobold raid that killed both her fairy-following parents, right? She learned the family faith all on her own, which is IMPRESSIVE, but also means she’s definitionally an inexperienced amateur.

“Or there’s Bloodrise.”

You look up at Veigar, dumfounded by what you’re hearing. “Good two-shoes Tips is tellin’ me to deal with ‘The Dragonborn Antipaladin’? SERIOUSLY?”

“You already did, once,” he points out.

That’s not wrong. You’ve only met the lizardman in question twice in your life, but the second time had been after Tip told you of your shared heritage: by means that go a long way to explaining CZ, his demon-possessed Reptilian Infiltrator mom is YOUR biological ‘dad’. Neither you nor ‘Theral, the Copper Dragon King of Bloodrise, Dark Prophet of the Coming Age, Prince of Love and Prince-Consort of Hawksong’ ever met the half-human half-lizard bitch who knocked up Mama Zi, but you’d appealed to the reptile’s inexplicable affinity for family ties to secure the rights to New Goblintown, where you and CZ had spent years resettling and guiding a community of Goblin Waste slaves.