Sagas & Sass covered Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree in April 2024; this is our summary of that book as it was written to introduce that novel in Episode 95.
AHOY! SPOILERS AHEAD!
After more than two decades of fighting with her gang – err, we mean party, Viv the orc has reached her limit of blood and mud and bullshit. So she makes her way to Thune and pulls out a witching rod, which directs her to a somewhat dilapidated former livery.
She finds out from an elderly woman that the building is owned by a tavernkeeper named Ansom and promptly purchases it from him, revealing that she’s planning on opening a coffee shop. Not that he – or anyone else in Thune, apparently – knows what coffee is, but Viv sure is determined to show them!
Viv heads to the shipyards and introduces herself to a hob, Cal, who she wants to hire to make her new building into the coffee shop she desires. He convinces her that she should probably have a kitchen as well – ya know, in case nobody wants her “beans and water” – and after a couple weeks of hard work, the place looks pretty respectable.
Respectable enough, in fact, that Thune’s “Madrigal” (essentially a mob boss) sends her lackeys to inform Viv what their protection costs. Viv turns them down, which Cal doesn’t think is the best idea, but at this point what’s done is done and anyway, Viv is too busy getting ready to open her shop to be too bothered by this encounter…
Not to mention one thing we HAVEN’T mentioned yet – Viv is in possession of the Scalvert’s Stone, which supposedly brings good fortune to its owner. It seems to be doing its job so far, and she even believes that it will lead to just the person she needs responding to the help wanted sign that she posts in the town square.
Aaaand that’s how she meets Tandri, a succubus who doesn’t have any experience in food service but is willing to learn. Everything is truly coming up Viv, so much so that she hangs up her sword, Blackblood, and isn’t even all that concerned about the random thumps she keeps hearing in the night…
When her coffee machine arrives, it comes with a surprise – one of her former party members, a gnome named Roon, is with it! He doesn’t stay long, but their reunion is a positive one, leaving Viv in a good mood as she unpacks and uses her coffee machine for the first time.
However, she’s still short one name for her coffee shop…until Cal shows up with a brand-new sign bearing the moniker “LEGENDS & LATTES”, which Viv and Tandri agree is a perfect and memorable name.
Unfortunately Viv didn’t think to do any advertising, but Tandri says they might as well open anyway. Sure, no one in Thune knows what coffee is, but the succubus has an idea – a grand opening featuring free samples!
After two days of this, they know they need to start charging even though business hasn’t exactly been booming even with the free coffee. The shop does appear to draw all manner of interesting characters, though, including a dire-cat they call Amity – who was surely the source of those aforementioned thumps in the night, and is now apparently the shop mascot.
And then another of Viv’s former party members drops in! Only this one is Fennus, an elf who she doesn’t seem overly fond of…and whose real reasons for visiting seem a bit suspect. But again, who wants to think about that? Not Viv, who is now thinking about offering food and so enlists the help of a rattkin named Thimble who clearly has a penchant for coffee. So much so that he offers his baking services – the first round consisting of cinnamon rolls – in exchange for nothing more than free coffee.
The shop is soon more of a hit than even Viv probably expected, with Thimble regularly cooking up new pastries, a farmhand-turned-wannabe-bard begging to play his apparently terrible music, and a gnome who hangs around playing chess with himself and enjoying the company of the dire-cat.
See? We told you the shop drew all manner of interesting characters!
However, one of those characters is a nosy university student named Hemington who miiiight be sensing the Scalvert Stone and who even asks if he can lay a ward there. Viv isn’t super fond of the idea, but is afraid that if she protests too much that will be even more suspicious.
Meanwhile, the Madrigal is still sending her lackeys around to insist on protection payment, so Viv uses a Blink Stone to call for her old friends – Roon, stabby gnome Gallina, and quiet stone-fey Taivus. And hey, good call, Viv! Turns out that Taivus knows the Madrigal, and while he won’t say anything about how he knows them, or who they are, he helps set up a parley and before long Viv is on her way to meet this mysterious person…
Who, to Viv’s surprise, turns out to be a woman! Oh, and the Madrigal also knows Fennus, who had approached her with his own tales of Viv and what she might be in possession of, but the Madrigal doesn’t cotton to assholes…though thankfully, she admits to feeling a certain kinship for Viv’s type and therefore offers up some sort of deal.
One that Viv agrees to – because the Madrigal is willing to accept payment in the form of Thimble’s cinnamon rolls! Granted, this doesn’t take care of the Fennus problem – Viv knows that’s not quite over yet – but things seem to be coming up Viv again!
In fact, they finally learn a bit more about the chess-playing gnome, Viv’s elderly neighbor Laney continually shows up to buy something, Pendry the bard changes up his tune and becomes more of a draw, Thimble comes up with his best pastry yet, and Hemington even finishes setting up his ward.
Unfortunately, Fennus does show up again – this time in the middle of the night – and it’s only thanks to Amity that Viv isn’t too late in discovering him. After this Tandri actually starts spending the night with Viv, but her presence isn’t enough to keep Fennus from setting the whole dang BUILDING on fire.
Seriously? What. An. Asshole.
Viv is able to save the coffee machine and her lockbox before the building collapses in on itself…but when the embers die and she tries to dig out the Scalvert’s Stone from its resting place, of course it isn’t there…and it seems even her sword has been cracked to the point of being useless.
So Viv wallows in her grief for a bit – until Tandri talks her out of it enough for the two of them to have a little makeout sesh and then get to work on cleaning up the ruins of her shop and from there, rebuilding. And hey! In a not-super-surprising but very cute turn of events, many of the friends Viv met along the way come by to help!
They all work together to build an even better shop, and Tandri even brings Viv a special gift – Blackblood remade! Because it turns out the Scalvert Stone was probably never about general good fortune, but more a magnet that could make places into gathering points that could bring individuals together.
Which is exactly what it did in Legends and Lattes.
