Arwin woke the following morning to Lillia lying on top of him, her tail curled around his leg and her head rested on his chest. She was as warm as ever. It only took him a flicker of an instant to decide that this was probably his favorite way to wake up.

That decision was impacted about a millisecond later when he realized that he had a considerable amount of hair in his mouth that didn’t belong to him. He tried to pull his head to the side to free himself, but Lillia’s hair was just long enough to keep its grip on him.

“What are you doing?” Lillia asked through a yawn as Arwin tried to maneuver his head without moving the rest of his body.

“Trying to get hair out of my mouth without waking you up.”

“Oh.” Lillia sat back, freeing Arwin from his unintended snack, and snickered. “Get hungry?”

“I can assure you that there are a lot of other things I’d choose to eat over hair,” Arwin said, sitting up beside her. “I think your hair just wanted to get eaten. It stuck itself into my mouth on its own.”

Lillia yawned. From the small creak that came from the straw mattress, Arwin suspected that she was stretching as well. He almost jumped in surprise when she leaned forward and rested against Arwin’s chest.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Lillia said a moment later. She pulled away from him and her hand found his, pulling him to his feet. “You’re just comfortable. Does something in your class make you a better pillow?”

“Nothing that I’m aware of,” Arwin said dryly. “Maybe all the magic I eat makes me softer.”

Lillia squeezed his arm and let out a snort. “No. I don’t think that’s it.”

“Don’t flatter me too much. I remember what I used to look like.”

“Yeah. I remember that too.” She made a gagging noise. “Let’s stick to the current look, shall we? You were more muscle than brain. Having a balance is nice.”

“Says the one that had literal wings,” Arwin grumbled. “How come I just got bigger with my advancements? I would have liked wings.”

“You can use mine. They’re just made out of shadows now, so I can stick them on you whenever you want.”

It was a relatively tame promise, but Arwin’s cheeks colored, nonetheless. When they stepped into the light cast by the lantern hanging near the entrance of the kitchen, he noted that Lillia’s cheeks were a shade brighter than normal as well.

“I’m going to finish preparations for the morning,” Lillia said, stopping at the edge of the kitchen. “You’re heading out to the market today, right?”

“Yep. I’ll probably aim to sell about half of them there, then bring people back with the other half. Nothing too fancy. I figure it’ll just be a quick trip in and out.”

“Bring Reya,” Lillia said. “Otherwise you’ll get scammed.”

“What? I will not.”

Lillia tilted her head to the side. “You don’t know the value of money.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because I don’t either,” Lillia said with a small laugh. “And she definitely does. Good luck with the sales. Bring enough people back for me to feed, would you?”

Ah, crud. She’s got a point.

“I’ll do that,” Arwin said with a laugh. He then headed out the door, closing it behind him before turning to his smithy. Reya leaned against its wall, drumming her fingers on the hilt of her dagger. Her eyes lit up when she saw him and she straightened as he walked over.

“Is it time to sell stuff?” Reya asked.

“So it is,” Arwin said. “How long have you been waiting out here and how’d you figure out I was ready?”

“I heard you come home yesterday because the door creaked really late, and it only does that when you’re coming back. And I’ve only been out for a little while. I’ve been trying to get up earlier recently.”

“Why? For your morning runs to stave off the cold?”

“Yep.” Reya’s answer came out just a bit too fast and drew a sidelong glance from Arwin, but he didn’t press the matter.

Arwin made his way over to the cart and dragged it out from behind the tavern. He then unlocked the smithy’s doors and set about taking everything he’d made out and loading it up.

“Have you figured out a name for the smithy yet?” Reya asked.

“No,” Arwin said with a grimace. “Lillia asked me that last night. Is it really that important?”

“Yes,” Reya said. “And good.”

“Good?” Arwin set the chestpiece he’d been carrying down on the cart and tilted his head to the side. “Why is it good?”

“Give me a second and I’ll show you.” Reya jogged off before Arwin could respond, disappearing through the tavern door.

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Arwin craned his neck to follow her, then shook his head and went back to loading the cart up. There was quite a bit he wanted to sell today, and having all the inventory with him would help lure people back to their street when it was time to return.

“That’s a whole lot of shiny shit.”

He nearly jumped out of his skin as a dry voice that most certainly didn’t belong to Reya scraped across his ears. The drunkard stood just a few feet behind Arwin, a half-empty mug hanging from loose fingers.

“You.” Arwin blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “I swear I’ve asked you to stop doing that. Can’t you just announce your presence like a normal person?”

“No. What’s all this shit for?”

“It’s armor,” Arwin said. “And it’s for selling.”

“Why?”

“What kind of question is that?” Arwin’s brow furrowed. “I need money. We need to fix the tavern up. The street too, at some point — and that isn’t even accounting for the expenses of materials. That all takes a lot of gold. I’m going to sell about half of it and bring the rest back to drum up some business. Why do you care?”

The drunkard grunted. “You’re bringing people back?”

“That’s the goal. Is there a problem with it?”

“You’re going to make the street loud,” the drunkard said wearily. He took a drink from his tankard and curled his lip in distaste. “It’s already been too loud as of late.”

“There are different kinds of noise.” Arwin’s features hardened. He was all too aware of what noise the drunkard referred to, considering the man had been the one to deliver Zeke’s warped sword to him. “We’re aiming for the noise of life. Not the alternative.”

The door to the tavern swung open and Arwin’s gaze flicked to Reya as she emerged, a rectangular bundle tucked under her arm. When his eyes moved back to the drunkard, the man was gone. Arwin repressed a curse.

That can’t be normal. How stealthy is that guy?

“Here.” Reya held the bundle out to Arwin with an eager grin. “Take a look!”

Arwin shook the thoughts of the strange drunkard off and took the offered bundle from Reya, unwrapping it. There were two planks of wood within, one slightly smaller than the other. He nearly asked what the purpose of them was before spotted the metal rings at their tops and realized they were upside down. Arwin pulled the rest of the wrapping to the side and flipped the planks over.

“Infernal Armory?” Arwin read, his eyebrows lifting as he looked back to Reya.

She gave him an expectant look. “What do you think? I had them made for you yesterday. Your smith name is Ifrit and you’re with Lillia, so it felt like you kind of had a theme running. I can get them redone if—”

“No, this is perfect.” A smile crossed Arwin’s lips. “Thank you, Reya. It’s lovely. I guess that means we got names for everything, didn’t we? Quite the theme as well. The Devil’s Den Tavern, The Infernal Armory, and the Menagerie guild. We’re definitely going to draw a specific audience.”

“It’s awesome,” Reya said. She lowered her voice. “Nobody will ever actually think it’s serious because of how on the nose it is. Can you think of a better disguise?”

“No,” Arwin said. He glanced around to see if the drunkard was anywhere nearby to have overheard them, but there was no sight of him and Reya hadn’t been speaking loudly. “It’s perfect.”

He took the smaller of the signs and glanced around. His eyes caught on two metal pegs jutting out of the front of the wagon. They hadn’t been there before.

“Your work?”

“Yeah. I got everything set up so we wouldn’t have to wait long.”

Arwin hung the smaller of the signs and took a moment to appreciate it. He smiled and gave Reya a nod, then summoned his armor around himself. It wasn’t Arwin that had to head out to the market, after all. It was Ifrit. “Thank you again, Reya. This is perfect. Now we’re really ready to head out. Shall we go make some money?”

***

They arrived at the market a short while later and quickly set about preparing everything. Arwin hung the greaves and chestpieces from the hooks along the wagon and set the helms down on the counter along its edge.

It was still early in the morning, but the market was already in full swing. The crowds were relatively small but growing steadily with every passing minute. People milled through the streets from merchant to merchant, and the smell of baked goods floated into the air.

There were more than a few adventurers in the crowd, but all of them seemed to be headed somewhere in particular rather than milling about. Arwin glanced up at the sign hanging above his head.

The last time they’d come to the market, people had shown up to his cart pretty quickly. It hadn’t been that long since then, but they weren’t getting any attention at all. For that matter, the adventurers didn’t seem to have the slightest interest in any of the stores.

“Huh. This is odd,” Arwin said. “There’s no way people forgot about me this fast, is there?”

“I don’t think so,” Reya said. “That would be weird. It’s only been a few days. It looks like people are kind of busy, though. Look at all the adventurers.”

“Yeah,” Arwin said with a frown. “Doesn’t it look like they’re headed somewhere?”

Reya nodded. “It does.”

Arwin hopped down from the cart and strode toward the crowd. He raised a hand, cutting off a middle-aged man in leather gear with a sword strapped to his side.

“Excuse me,” Arwin said.

The man’s lips thinned as he came to a halt. “Not interested in buying whatever you’re selling. I have places to be.”

He stepped to the side, but Arwin matched him. “I’m not trying to sell you anything. I just had a quick question. Where’s everyone headed? Is something going on?”

“Have you not heard? There’s a new dungeon near Milten,” the adventurer said, sending Arwin a disbelieving look. “After the Iron Hounds collapsed a few days ago, the Secret Eye found maps in their missing guild leader’s office. They revealed the entrance to the dungeon a little while ago and they’ve been offering great rewards for anyone that can get deep enough into it and report on what the monsters are inside.”

Arwin blinked in surprise. “Oh, seriously? Why run to the middle of town, then? Aren’t you heading in the wrong direction?”

“Because they’re going to be announcing if they’ve found a way into the lower levels of the dungeon,” the adventurer replied irritably. “There’s a key they’re still missing. If you want to hear more, just go listen to them yourself. I’m not a town crier.”

With that, he stepped around Arwin and headed off with the crowd. A small frown creased Arwin’s face and he walked over to rejoin Reya.

“What was that about?” Reya asked.

“Something that might be important. The Secret Eye found something out about a new dungeon near the town,” Arwin said. “Do you think you could watch over the cart for a little?”

“Sure. Who are the Secret Eye, though?”

Arwin almost laughed before he caught himself. It was easy to forget how little Reya actually knew about just about everything guild related.

“They’re basically a group of observers that rank guilds and dungeons. They’re also information brokers,” Arwin said. “And this might be important. I’m going to go hear what it is they’re talking about — and then I’ll see just how many people I can drag back over here once they realize they’re going to need some new armor to handle whatever crap is in that dungeon.”

Reya nodded and Arwin strode off, entering the stream of people heading through the market. As he walked, he couldn’t help but keep his thoughts from drifting to the black badge that Jessen had been carrying in his coin pouch.

Jessen didn’t strike me as the kind of guy to leave something really valuable out of sight. If they’re missing a key that they’re putting this much importance on… I think I might know where it is.