"Good morning brother, heard that you had quite the night," Leo said, the big man beaming at Ryan.

It was so early that Ryan had to rub his eyes, then rub them some more as he didn't expect Leo to be anywhere here — especially as early as it was.

"Carl!!!" Ryan said in mock exasperation.

"What, you know it's true. At least I do. Veron's beards, I'm pretty sure that you don't stay out that late unless something happened," Carl murmured. "Coming into my tavern looking like a love-struck idiot."

"You don't say," Leo mocked, while looking at Ryan.

What was Carl's deal?

Ryan couldn't help the blush that crept up his face at last night's escapade. He could feel himself beginning to zone out, and so he shook himself awake which — wait a minute.

He'd had a lot of tankards of mead yesterday, but he didn't feel a headache; in fact, he barely had any throbbing.

Am I building a tolerance for the mead, or was it the jenkal meat?

Ryan couldn't tell, but he'd happily take whatever he could get. After all, it wasn't every day that he'd have so much alcohol without the repercussions.

Or the early morning regrets.

"If you must know, it's none of your business what I did last night," Ryan said as he pulled up a seat beside Leo.

They clasped hands, each one beaming at the other.

"It might be. I'll be losing one of my most loyal customers if you keep getting drunk elsewhere," Carl mused. "You, young man, should try to support me."

Oh, so that was Carl's deal. The bartender feared that he was losing Ryan as a customer.

"No need to worry about that, Carl. I'm pretty sure this is the only place that I can afford. So we're linked for a while," Ryan said, laughing at the way the bartender's face seemed to light up.

"Now don't you forget it," Carl said while pointing at Ryan. "You rascals need anything this morning?"

As a rule, Ryan didn't drink during the morning hours. Probably because he was already suffering from a hangover at that time of the day.

"Nothing for me. Leo?"

Ryan was still filled with energy from the previous night's... feast. That was probably the only word that could describe what Uro had made Ryan partake of. It might've been normal for the adventurers, but for Ryan, it was a long way from what he usually ate.

"I'm good too," Leo said.

"Alright boys, you need anything, you let me know," Carl said, walking into the back room of the tavern.

Ryan honestly didn't know if it was to sleep or if the bartender was getting ready to start brewing the foul concoction that he called ale.

He had also never seen the man go to bed; he wasn't even sure that the man ever did.

"So what are you doing here?" Ryan asked, turning to Leo.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"I wanted to see my brother, plus I have an off day today so I wanted to spend it with you," the big man said with a chuckle.

Ryan was touched by the gesture. If he had an off day, he'd probably be in bed. Alas, an entrepreneur rarely ever had days off. He'd be in his shop every day, coin to be made and all that.

"Is that why you waited for me downstairs?" Ryan asked.

"Yep, Carl said that you'd had a visitor in your room before. I didn't want to risk it by coming upstairs and disrupting anything."

"Oh, thanks. Carl, on the other hand, needs to learn how to keep my business private," Ryan sighed.

A snort from Leo followed his statement.

"What?" Ryan asked.

"You act as if you don't know the man. Carl thrives on gossip; the entire tavern runs on it," Leo mused. "In fact, weren't we the ones sitting opposite this counter two or three years ago, listening to Carl tell us about other people's lives?"

"He always thought he was slick with how he changed their names sometimes," Ryan scoffed.

"Or how he always embellished his stories a little, always adding little bits to make the story more interesting," Leo laughed.

"It's probably how he makes his potions, adding random bits with hopes that it turns out alright," Ryan said, laughing alongside his friend — no, his brother.

"You think he got married?" Leo asked.

"I don't think so," Ryan mused.

Now that Ryan thought about it, he didn't really know much about Carl's background. The bartender always managed to evade personal questions with finesse.

"The place could certainly use a woman's touch," Leo joked.

Ryan couldn't help but smile at the take, looking around the tavern. Lots of upturned tables and chairs sat untouched after the events of the night.

The tavern was plain, with little or no decoration. In fact, he could tell that the only piece of decoration in the place was a potted plant that stayed at the extreme end of the room.

More like a puke pot, judging by what Ryan had seen patrons unload onto it. The plant was called taslid — one of the few plants in the Eternal Realm that needed minimal care.

The plant only needed a bit of sunlight to survive, something he was sure sat well with Carl. No doubt the bartender was already too busy to keep up with caring for a plant.

Although the taslid was a pretty useful plant to have as it helped to absorb the smells around it, converting them to a much more enticing scent. So in other words, it was a perfume-producing plant.

Something more like a woman's touch, so at least there might've been a story there. He just wasn't sure if Carl would tell him the real one.

"I think that it's definitely a touch of a woman here... that taslid isn't Carl's style, you know," Ryan said.

Leo turned back to look at the plant; the leaves were a sickly brown — which was normal for taslids.

"That ugly thing... yeah, I doubt that," Leo said with a snort.

"Well, it's definitely not something worth looking at, but it serves a purpose. A necessary one when you think about where we are seated, no?" Ryan mused.

Leo seemed to sigh and roll his shoulders at the question. Of course, his shoulders weren't the only thing he rolled as his eyes soon followed.

"Sure, if only Carl could avoid being a miser and actually get an air purifier artifact like normal taverns do," Leo pointed out with a scoff.

"That's one way to look at it, but hey, at least we know that his method works. So there's that," Ryan said with a sigh.

"Pftt, working is high praise. We both know that even twenty taslids scattered around this room wouldn't be as efficient as a single common-grade air purifier artifact," Leo said.

"Yep, but like you said, a single plant is better to look at than an artifact, plus look at where we are. A tavern in the lower districts. I don't think that the people who come here are that interested in a purifier," Ryan said.

At least that was the way he saw it; there was no need for Carl to buy artifacts or pay for enchantments that nobody asked for nor cared about.

It was a classical waste of money. From a business perspective, of course. Ryan himself couldn't imagine buying artifacts like that to use in his own shop. It was a waste of coin as the people who came to the market at the Eastern gate were adventurers low on coin — at least that's how it used to be.

Speaking of his shop, he really needed to get up and out of the tavern. Coin wasn't going to make itself, after all. Plus, he was pretty sure he was out of time, or almost out of time to pay up on his tax fee.

He pulled up his stat screen to have a look at it. A chime rang in his head.

[Name: Ryan Lionheart

Profession: Merchant

Class: Alchemist (journeyman)

Coin: 16 gold, 235 silvers

Debt:

- 35 gold (deadline 12 hours)]

Veron's clangers, I'm down to hours.

Ryan couldn't help but let out a tired sigh.

"Problem?" Leo asked, concern lacing his voice.

"Nah, I just have to get to work," Ryan said as he stood up. "You coming?"