In the end Sam has to pretty much physically pull me out of bed as the blankets somehow just don’t let me go.

Putting me into my clothes is quite a bit easier.

For Sam, Hilda had chosen a white shirt with light brown pants and some comfortable looking leather boots. And for me she had chosen something similar but with white pants as well. It’s a bit sad that these aren’t really adventuring clothes because they are really comfy.

Now clothed, Sam and I head downstairs towards breakfast. When we enter the dining room my sister and Nikki are already there, discussing something with each other.

“Hey there you two, did you sleep well?” My sister stops the conversation and turns to us.

“Yeah, I was just exhausted, slept like a brick.” Sam smiles and sits down next to Lise.

“What about you, Ami?” Nikki asks.

“I slept really well.” I nod. “I feel like I am in tiptop shape again. What about you two?” I then ask back.

“Pretty good.” My sister replies. “The bed is really comfortable but it might be a bit too soft for my personal preferences.”

“Mhmm.” Nikki nods. “It’s a good bed but I wouldn’t mind a different mattress.”

“Is that what you were discussing when we entered?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, kinda.” Lise nods. “We were talking about what to do first. I think everyone agrees that we should still keep it calm and quiet for today?”

“Mhmm.” Both Sam and I agree.

“Alright. We were just trying to figure out whether we should go to the market first or head to speciality stores. We have plenty of money so we could pimp out our new base of operations a bit more.”

“And get a new mattress.” Nikki adds.

“of course.” My sister smiles.

“What does Hilda think we should do?” I ask.

“What I think, huh?” Hilda enters the room with a smile on her face and a pot in her hands. “I think we should wait until some people have visited us.”

“Visited?” My sister tilts her head. “That’s the first thing I hear about it.”

“We got a letter this morning before you all got up. I wanted to bring it up during breakfast.” She smiles and opens the pot which releases this sweet aroma into the room. “Rice porridge by the way for anyone who wants.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” I immediately shoot up straight off my chair and head over to the pot. There’s already some plates at that end of the table so I don’t need to go and get one.

“Hungry Ami be hungry.” Sam laughs and gets up as well, slowly following to the front of the table behind me.

“So, what does this letter say?” Élise continues.

“It’s just people from the city council who are going to pay us a short visit, presumably to thank us for our deeds and things like that. We’ve not really seen any notables yet so it was to be expected.”

“And when are these people going to come? I’d like to not completely waste today.” Nikki says. She’s right because we really didn’t do much yesterday and time is pretty precious in this world.

“In about an hour or so.” Hilda looks at the big grandfather clock behind her.

“Ah, okay so we can still go around shopping then.” My sister nods happily and then finally decides to get up to get some rice porridge too. I already have an entire plate full and I am making my way back to my seat.

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“Of course. I’d like to go and do some shopping as well.” Hilda nods and afterwards she gets herself a plate too.

The rice porridge was great. Just sweet enough and with that hint of vanilla flavor, it was just amazing. So tasty that I had to lick out my plate to the amusement of the others at the table.

Afterwards we stay in the downstairs lounge so we are ready to receive our guests. They arrive a little bit over an hour after Hilda had first mentioned them. We meet them in the main hall and when Hilda opens the door we are immediately greeted by Ruva.

“Ah, Ruva, how are you?” My sister is clearly happy to see our former companion.

“Great thanks to you people.” Ruva walks in with a smile on her face. “Anyhow, I’m here to accompany the council and to provide a friendly face.” She gives us a wink.

Behind her some six Dwarger people walk in, the youngest of which looks quite a bit older than Ruva herself. “Looks like politics in this world are also dominated by old folks.” Sam whispers into my ear. I have to count to ten in my head so I don’t start laughing.

An older Dwarger woman with gray-whitish hair, and also the one who first entered behind Ruva, takes the word for their entire group.

“I’d like to thank you for allowing us into your home.”

“Thank you for providing us with the home.” Hilda quickly replies and bows slightly.

“I hope it is to your liking?” She continues.

“Very much so. We will have to do a little bit of shopping to completely adapt it to our tastes but that’s to be expected.” My sister also makes a light bow.

The old Dwarger woman smiles. “We will not try to keep you for very long then so you can visit our markets.”

“Thank you.” My sister smiles back.

“Please follow me towards our big lounge.” Hilda bows yet again and then turns around to lead the way for the entire group.

Once there and everyone is seated, the Dwarger lady speaks again. “We are here today to formally thank you for saving our beautiful capital city. Without your party’s help it would surely have been lost.”

“It is very rare for the council to personally express their thanks.” Ruva explains.

The woman nods. “The last time this has happened was before many of us can remember.” She coughs and then continues. “As a further show of gratitude we’d like to offer you a considerable monetary prize.” As if it were practiced and finely orchestrated behind the scenes, on queue two Dwarger soldiers marched in with a pretty sizable coffer. It looked quite similar to how I’d imagined pirate treasure chests to look like.

“Taylor would probably like a bit of that too.” My sister whispers to Nikki, but now silent enough for me not to hear it.

“If you mean Captain Taylor who has helped our coastal settlements, she will get plenty of recompensation.” The Dwarger woman says.

My sister starts coughing and blushing at the same time, she clearly didn’t expect to be heard.

The lady continues without interruption. “In this coffer you will find a monetary reward of forty-thousand Golden Dwargi.”

“That’s a lot of money.” Ruva says.

“I bet… are you really in the position to pay this? Surely the repairs cost a lot of money as well?” Hilda asks. “It’s one thing to give us this mansion but this looks like a sizable portion of your yearly tax money.”

“It’s a big amount of money, this is true, but not something we as a people can not pay for our saviors.”

“Just let them hand the money over, Hilda, if we refuse it they will be very displeased.” My sister reasons with our leader, it’s quite clear that she has no issue receiving that money.

“We’d be incredibly displeased.” The Dwarger lady says with a wide smile, playing along with my sister’s act.

“Alright then, we’ll graciously accept it.” Hilda nods.

The Dwarger lady then turns her attention to me. “We understand that it was you who proved to be the golden cog to solve our issue?”

The sudden attention makes me blush.

“She is.” Sam shields my shy ass.

The counselor nods. “We’d like to offer you a special reward for what you have done.”

One of the other counselors hands her something that’s folded in a purple cloth. The lady counselor then offers it to me.

I take it with both hands. “What is it?”

“Go ahead and take a look.”

I look at Sam and she starts unfolding the cloth so I can keep my two hands underneath to support it. When Sam removes the cloth a big pink jewel, superbly polished and worked into a beautiful silver necklace, stares at us.

“It belonged to one of the four great guardians of our city. When we heard what happened and what you looked like, it was as if prophecy had brought you to us. So we would like to offer her most prized possession to you, as her spiritual successor.”

“Sorry? Great Guardians?” Hilda asks.

“Ah, let me.” Ruva quickly explains the history of the city and how in the history of the Dwarger capital there were four leaders who defended it against hordes of evil. One of them was a Ulusu woman with pink hair who ruled over justice.

“Huh, that’s actually pretty accurate if you think about it.” Nikki nods.

-Oh no… I already see where this is going.-