The moss hummed with memory.

Sunlight broke through high branches, touching the moss with warm gold and green light. A circle of moss-covered stones ringed the glade, each older than its shadow. The air smelled of wet bark, honey, and something unbottled.

Zorko stepped into the glade, robes trailing reverently, his phoenix feather held high like an invocation.

"Welcome, brave and bewildered, to the very first episode of Zorko’s Arcane Appraisals. A show where objects refuse to behave, and truth has a habit of licking the wrong person."

He tapped the feather against his palm. "This is no pawn shop of spells. We barter for meaning. We poke destiny with an expensive stick."

He spun dramatically, gesturing to unseen shelves.

"Each week, the orb and I welcome you into our little sanctum of suspicion to meet an object, a guest, and whatever truth survives the encounter. Some are dangerous. Some are misunderstood. Some are... deeply rude."

A hum. The orb flared.

"This week, a visitor brings a vial said to hold the drink of the gods. Rumored to be divine. Maybe citrus."

He leaned into the orb. "Let’s find out what happens... when belief becomes the bottle."

The orb dimmed. Zorko turned solemn.

"Here, in this myth-tangled corner of the Fey, we begin our newest appraisal—not just of an artifact, but of culture. Of ritual. Of legend."

He turned again, robes catching the light with a practiced sweep.

"A bottled mystery. A drink whose bubbles remember joy."

He inhaled. "In mere seconds, we’ll witness the arrival of one of the Fey’s most confounding figures. A ghost-eater. A trickster. A kobold whose name has been whispered in taverns, temples, and hallucinations."

A beat.

"Ghost Eater Trollin of the Fey... enters now."

Silence. Birdsong.

Then: crunch.

Zorko flinched. A rustle to the left. Bioluminescent vines parted.

Trollin strolled into the clearing with a crooked sash, a lazy grin, and a battered crate under one arm. He looked perfectly at home, as if the grove had been built around him.

Zorko blinked. "That’s... a beverage carrier."

Trollin nodded. "It is."

He stepped into the stone circle and set the crate gently down. Inside: six squat bottles with embossed glyphs, glowing in a color that defied naming—somewhere between green and gold, like light filtered through memory.

Zorko leaned in, eyes narrowing as he scanned the glowing glyphs.

Trollin pulled one bottle and placed it atop a mossy pedestal with quiet care.

"You’re presenting it," Zorko said.

"You asked for something powerful," Trollin replied.

"It’s soda."

"It’s Kobold soda."

Zorko turned to the orb. "Ah. So it’s ancient."

Trollin shrugged. "Better. It’s alive."

Zorko squinted. "Is that... green? Or yellow?"

Trollin popped a cap without looking. "They say once you name the color, you understand death."

"That’s horrifying."

"Yep."

A hiss. A curl of mist rose, caught a sunbeam, and vanished.

Zorko leaned in. "Did it just exhale?"

"It does that," Trollin said, sipping.

Zorko crouched beside the pedestal. The bottle gurgled faintly.

"It fizzes," he whispered.

"It communicates," he corrected himself.

He brought his ear near the bottle. Pop. Pop. Pop.Like laughter echoing in a memory.

Zorko jolted upright."That’s not effervescence. That’s... encoded resonance."

"Or just a real good bottle," Trollin offered.

Zorko began pacing around it slowly."The bubbles rise with intention. This isn’t refreshment. It’s reflection."

Trollin opened another. This one fizzed so sharply it sprayed glittering foam. He caught it with his tongue like communion.

"Kobolds drink it before fights. Or after. Or naps. We don’t really separate those."

Zorko stopped pacing."You mean to say this is ritual?"

Trollin shrugged. "If moonlight raves count as ritual, sure."

Zorko approached the pedestal again.

"It smells like... joy. And maybe hayrides?"

He blinked. "I’m remembering a birthday I never had. There were balloons. My name spelled wrong, but lovingly."

Trollin chewed on a root. "That’s the sodium trace bonding to your fourth-level regret centers."

Zorko knelt."This isn’t just soda. This is bottled time. Laughter from before we were born."

The bottle fizzed again. A single bubble rose and hovered at the surface, glowing faintly.

Zorko teared up.

"It does that," Trollin murmured.

He raised his bottle. "To Jasper."

Zorko blinked. "Who?"

"My roommate," Trollin said, with no elaboration.

"A spirit companion? Familiar? Guardian?"

"Something like that."

Zorko stood slowly. "If we’re invoking spirits, I must respect the ritual."

He lifted the bottle.

"I toast... to the hidden, the half-remembered, and the misunderstood roommates of legend."

Trollin nodded, approving.

Zorko popped the cap. A slow hiss. The fizz rose like incense.

He took a sip.

The glade shifted. The edges of trees softened. Moss pulsed faintly. A flower bloomed in reverse, then bloomed again.

Zorko swayed."Oh no."

He looked around."Oh yes."

"The taste... is echoing. I can hear a childhood birthday that never happened. And that mushroom just called me sweetie."

Trollin nodded. "It does that."

Zorko took another sip. "I think the soda just forgave me."

"Yep."

Zorko clutched the bottle. "Is Jasper seeing this?"

"If he’s awake."

Zorko looked upward.

A fizz escaped the bottle like prayer smoke.

Zorko stood in the moss-ring, arms raised, eyes shining.

"This drink," he declared, "was never meant to be consumed. It was meant to be worshipped."

He turned to the orb, eyes wide and wet.

"I see it now. Kobold kings bottling laughter to fight entropy. Every bottle: a memory. Every fizz: a war drum."

Trollin leaned against a tree. "We used to pour it on popcorn."

Zorko raised the bottle high."And now it has found me."

He drew a brass lantern from his robe, twisted the top. Mist hissed upward, forming a face.

Uvlius, the appraisal spirit, looked vaguely disappointed.

Zorko gestured. "Tell me what you see, o cloud of clarity."

Uvlius blinked. "That is Kobold Soda."

Zorko frowned. "Yes, but what is it?"

"A regional beverage. Slightly volatile. Not magical."

"And the visions?"

Uvlius turned to Trollin. "Did you tell him not to chug?"

Another bottle popped open. The forest twitched. A mushroom spun. A melody played from nowhere.

Zorko whispered, "I’m dancing."

"You’ll be fine," Trollin said.

"He’s caught a buzz," Uvlius muttered.

Zorko spun in place. "This is taxonomy of the soul!"

"To Jasper, again," Trollin toasted.

"He forgives me!" Zorko cried.

Uvlius faded. "I’m leaving."

And he did.

Zorko stood in the moss-ring, robes creased, bottle catching faint light.

He raised the half-empty bottle like a relic.

"I have seen memories not mine. I’ve heard the fizz of the Fey. I danced without knowing why. And I’d do it again."

He turned to the orb.

"Final appraisal: thirty-two copper in packaging, zero gold in resale, and infinite in metaphysical disturbance — somewhere between joy and longing in personal value."

Trollin stepped into frame with a fresh crate.

"Here," he said. "You’ll need more than one."

Zorko stared at it like sacred bones.

"For study. For sharing. For... legacy."

"Sure."

Zorko bowed. Robes billowed. Feather flared. A halo of fizzy light crowned him.

"And so concludes another sacred installment of Zorko’s Arcane Appraisals," he intoned."Where the truth may be bottled—but never flat."

He turned, feather in hand, crate in the other, and vanished into the mist.

Trollin cracked a bottle with a hiss.

The orb lingered on the pedestal, where the original soda still stood—uncapped, glowing faintly, and perfectly at peace.

It fizzed one last time, soft and content.

Then silence.