Milo watched Petey walk away. He seemed like a nice guy, and the twins got along with him. Well, except for when they framed him for stealing jelly beans. Having experienced the desire to hit the twins in the head a few times, Milo felt Petey was entirely justified in bending their legs. Maybe he was even helping them get a contortionist skill.

As he headed across the street to the Tower, he saw two young whelps tacking up a notice to an announcement board in the Market area. It was between two stalls and not easily noticed, but the sound of hammering had made him curious. As he got close to it, it seemed to light up and glow, the message on the board becoming personal.

[Welcome to Limburger Hollow]

It takes a village to make the cheese.

[You have earned 412 Contribution Points!]

One Point

One day's normal meals          

Special Cheesy snack! (Approved by Master Bleusnout)

New clothes (per piece, see Mistress Brownfur)

Backpack

Mining pick or other tool (See Master Clawhammer)

Spikeystick (Brutus has a pile of extras)

Trade Token for use in the market.

5 Points

Advanced Class on making cheese with Master Bleusnout.

Advanced Class on Tail and Claw Fighting with Master Gilad.

Advanced Class in Magical Theory with Professor Arlothe

Advanced Class in Mycology or Gathering with Mistress Brownfur

Advanced Project with Master Clawhammer

Advanced Class in Healing or Alchemy with the Old Healer

Party basket!

Special meal for your friends!

Set of spiffy new clothes!

Nourishing cheese!

I'm not sleepy cheese!

Explorers pack with rope, spikes, flint and steel, 3 torches

10 points

Set of leather armor

Stylish cape

Adventurers backpack (-20% weight)

Non-magical weapon of good quality

Shield

Healing Potion

Mana Potion

Battle Cheese    

He was happy to have found the Contribution board. Several people had mentioned it was In the Market, but he was always in a rush when running to and from the tower. It would have been useful to find this earlier. Probably why people had suggested it to him. He would have been taking classes with Master Gilad much earlier.

Pinned to the board were many notices and advertisements. The newest was large and used some vibrant colors to display its message:

[The Cheese Caravan is Coming!

In cooperation with Master Bleusnout, the fine folks of Gouda and Cheddar Hollows have once again sponsored a Cheese Caravan and joined forces with other hollows to bring their wares to their cousins in far-flung enclaves, caverns, and hollows. We'll be arriving soon, bringing Music, Dancing, Entertainment, and best of all: Fine Cheese.]

This sounded like fun to Milo. Bleusnout must have set this up some time ago. It was very sad that the Master of Cheese might not be recovered from his overdose and might miss the event. But Milo wondered if perhaps a visiting Master of Cheese might understand what was wrong with him. He'd mention it to Old Healer. But for right now, he needed to focus on talking with Clan Emerald Wyrm and find out what kind of cheese they had taken to the cellar of the mess hall.

He entered the Tower of Strife and made his way up to the floor where each of the four main clans had their rooms. He knocked on the beautiful green door that showed several dragons rearing on mountains, the world below them. When nothing happened, he knocked again, and a minute later a third time.

Inside, staring through a small spyhole, Brer Cutthroat whispered back to several others of his clan. "It's Professor Tallsqueak, and he's just standing there and knocking."

Brer Moray considered what to do. He was certain that Professor Tallsqueak had heard about tonight’s social activity and was here to shut down their lizard races. Or worse, he'd come to bet on them! Either way, Moray wasn't going to let him inside. They would claim they were hard at work, studying for their weekly exams, with cotton in their ears to block out any noise. He motioned for the other eels to move away from the door, and move back down to the basement where they were about to start the racing. Everyone left. Moray wanted one last silent chuckle as the clueless professor knocked again. This time the sound was different though. Not really a 'knock, knock, knock', this was more the sound of metal on metal, 'ping, ping, ping'.

Moray jumped back, startled as the front door fell into the outer hallway. Professor Tallsqueak was standing there, holding his spanner in one hand, and the pins from the door hinges in the other. He set the pins on a side table, along with the screws from the locking assembly. "Your door was stuck, but I fixed it for you. Strange how the hinges and lock are facing to the hallway, almost as if they were designed to lock students inside. Good to see you again, Moray. You and I need to talk. But can we go somewhere else? I can hear the Lizard Racing starting up, and I'd probably be distracted by them."

Moray stared at the handful of door hardware the Professor was piling on the table. "How did you know about the races?"

Milo smiled. "One of your clan members put a notice about it on the contributions board."

Moray grimaced. "Ah, yes. My clan is not known for subtlety. Perhaps a nice cup of tea in the dining room then, Professor?"

"That sounds fine Moray, lead on."

Moray led Milo down a long hallway. The floor was dark wood with a thick emerald carpet running down the middle. This led to a huge dining room where sixty students could eat at once. The furnishings and carpets indicated the eels were doing very well. It wasn't what he had expected from a group of students in a small hollow. Moray was obviously proud of it. "Welcome to the heart of Clan Emerald Wyrm. We eat together here three times a day, and use it for all our meetings."

Around the walls were various trophies, awards, banners, and the skulls and pelts of large animals. It was so hard for Milo to judge the level of wealth. Squint had had stuff like this, but he thought this might be nicer than the collection of wealth that the gang lord had on display. No one in the habs had anything like this of course.

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"It's very nice. Is your clan old? You seem to have acquired quite a bit of wealth."

Moray smiled at the compliment. "One of the oldest. Hollows come and go. Clans may move from one to another. The wars created chaos. When some of the hollows were overrun, our clan moved to Limburger Hollow, and since many of the remaining members were mages, we chose to become part of the Tower of Strife. We have been a leading clan here ever since."

Milo nodded. There was more to the eels than just some hot-headed duelists. "I need to talk to you about the types of cheese that you took to the cellar of the mess hall. Would you have a list we could go over?"

Moray felt his stomach drop to his toes. Had they found out he'd shorted the count by a few wheels? "Of course, professor, let me run and get that." How had he known?

Milo walked around the room, staring at the various trophies, some of these were quite old. A skull of a cave bear glared at him from on high, its pelt tacked up on the wall beneath it. Milo hoped to never meet one of its descendants. A shield made of bright emerald scales was in a spot behind the head table. A small plaque was below it. 'Shield of Vexanor the Green, gifted by the great wyrm herself to our clan, made from her cast-off scales.' Milo thought it had an odd smell to it. He examined the other trophies, all things any barbarian warlord or king would be proud to display. In the corner was a strange collection of bones that were held together with wire.

The creature stood upright on two legs and had six arms. A skull that looked like it came from a cow made the head. But the bones had nothing in common, they all felt different to him, and came from different skeletons. This wasn't a creature, just something made from the bones of various creatures. Still...there was something odd about it. He ran his hand over each bone, trying to get a feel for it. One of the leg bones was actually a much smaller bone from a larger creature. He could feel residual magic within it and a few runes moving within the mana. They were old runes, similar to those he had learned from Volat-Repax. And he didn't know these runes!

Moray returned to the room and saw Milo looking at the creature. "Hideous, isn't it? It was a project by one of our founders and we've had to pack it all over the place for a couple of centuries. I'd love to have a reason to get rid of it. Frankly, it smells odd."

Milo looked at it. "It is a horrible thing. And because of that, I'd love to put it in the faculty library as a joke. What if I traded you something for it?"

Moray was surprised by the offer. That really would be funny. And he could claim he had 'donated' it to the faculty of the tower and never have to look at it again. "Let's say I'm open to offers."

"Five wheels of aged cheddar cheese? I'll approve of your clan keeping them here, not at the mess hall."

Moray tried to keep his face calm. Cheese! A start at rebuilding the hoard! "As the current head of Clan Emerald Wyrm, I accept!"

Brer Moray's attitude toward Professor Tallsqueak warmed up quite a bit. The two of them went over the list, and the student was very happy to find out that Professor Tallsqueak was simply looking over the types of cheese and the size of containers they were packed into. "We packed everything into many large crates. They were a little heavy and took two of us to move each of them. Bleusnout made this list as we packed in each crate, and Smiley and Rifkin stacked it all up by the back wall. Those crates were heavy by the time we got to the cellar, but Rifkin insisted we put the crates at the other end of the room, so we had to pack it another hundred feet."

"Sounds like a lot of work. This is a lot of cheese. I'm not familiar with some of it. Did any of it use any strange type of molds or strange ways of maturing the cheese?" Milo knew nearly every type of cheese on this list. Nothing seemed that out of the ordinary.

Moray couldn't think of anything like that. "Not that I know of. A lot of those odd names are just different varieties of cheddar. There was a time when every hollow was making up a name for what was just common cheese with berries or spices added. Do you have anything specific you were looking for?"

"Yes. A small bit of Black Mold was found in the cellar, in an odd spot, along with spider mites. Did any of the cheese contain those?"

Moray made a face. "Spider cheese? Ugh. Never. That stuff is insanely gross. I read an article on it once. The mites eat the rind of the cheese and when they die it gives the cheese a distinct flavor. I can't imagine eating it. And I can't think of any cheese that uses a Black Mold. Are they cleaning things up? I'd hate to see any cheese ruined."

"Nothing to worry about. It was a very small crevice and may have come in with a shipment of mushrooms. I'm just being thorough. Like you said, no one wants to see any cheese lost. I'll be by to drop off those rounds of cheddar tomorrow. Just sneak that monstrosity upstairs sometime when Professors Arlothe and Cremona aren't around. I can't wait to see their faces."

Milo took his leave of Moray. Brer Moray raced downstairs to toss some bets on the last couple of Lizard races.

----------------------------------------

Milo heard nothing from the Tea Party and assumed it had ended. He went to the mess hall where he found Rifkin struggling with getting out the food for the evening meal. Milo offered to help, but Rifkin turned him down. "No, I can handle it. I'm sure I can get someone to help serve. It wouldn't look right for our new Master of Scouts to be washing dishes." Milo shrugged, got his food, and sat to eat. His tray had a small piece of cheese on it. He was tempted, but he wasn't eating cheese anymore if Larry wasn't. It took a great effort to do so. This was several days he'd gone without cheese. He wrapped it in a napkin and put it in his pocket.

[What Willpower?! You have denied yourself cheese through sheer stubbornness to give in to a substance your body craves.

Cheese Addiction is now in remission.

You have gained the skill: Master the Cheese at rank 0. This is a WIS-based skill that allows you to go longer without cheese, and to negate some of the bad effects of cheese.

But how long can you last?]

How long could he last? Yes, that was a good question. If it wasn't helping Larry, then he wouldn't even be trying. But maybe for a few days more?

Milo sat in the back of the mess hall, thinking. Things simply weren't adding up correctly. He needed to do some investigations in the cellar, and he needed to do them when Rifkin wasn't around. The mess hall was the territory of the interim Master of Cheese and he couldn't go down to the cellar without Rifkin's permission, and he wasn't going to ask. There were times when Rifkin wasn't here, he just needed to be patient.

He walked outside, thinking of waiting for Larry in his friend's house when he saw Brutus walking quickly towards him.