The Maelstrom

Most girls take one look at you and swoon. You've never had to really work for someone's affection or put effort into maintaining it. In many ways, your natural gifts have done you a disservice-- they've stunted your sensitivity and charm! You've never had to develop insight into what will make a girl laugh and come to love you for reasons that aren't handsome or heroic. That's why smees are experts on the subtle arts of courtship and seduction; nothing comes easy to us, but we do understand and live by the Lover's Maxim." "And what on earth is the Lover's Maxim?" asked Maz, feeling very uninformed. The smee cleared his throat. "If you can't be handsome, be rich. If you can't be rich, be strong. If you cant be strong, be witty." "But what if you can't be witty?" Max wondered. "Learn the guitar.

The Lover's Maxim 'If you can'r be handsome, be rich. If you can't be roich, be strong. If you can't be strong, be witty' 'What if you can'r be witty?' 'Learn the guitar.

You have the courage and will to overcome your fear and do what's required.

In the common room, they found Emer dozing in her chair, Lila scratching at the door, and Mine stirring a large pot and peering at its contents with an anxious, irritated expression. With a groan, the Archmage strode across the room and flung open the windows. "It just needs more basil," Mine assured him. "No, it does not," Bram declared. "It needs less garlic. Didn't I tell you to follow a recipe?" "I did follow a recipe!" Shouted Mine, defiantly flinging the rest of the basil into the pot. "Show it to me, then." "I threw it in the fire!" "What have I told you about lying, child?" "To get better at it!

Sorry, Toby," said Max, plucking up the smee by one end. "This will have to do." He unceremoniously dunked the creature into a nearby pitcher of water. "Better?" "Invigorated," groused the smee. "And now I will ask you to kindly put me down and never to grab me by that particular part of my anatomy again." Horrified, Max promptly dropped the smee onto its pillow.