<~> CHAPTER 72

The inn that my friends liked was raucous and loud when we entered. The entire first floor of the place looked more like a bar than an inn with many tables of drunk patrons downing cups of dark ales. This place was called Fallow for its poor agriculture but you wouldn't think that based on the amount of alcohol people were drinking here. Piper directed me and Luna to an empty table while she headed off to speak with a woman about rooms for the night.

("How did you like the city?") Luna asked me.

("It looks beautiful. I'm surprised there is so much art built into the walls of a city that I had assumed would be more utilitarian. I thought that things would be more plain and functional.")

Luna nodded. ("I can see why you would think that but the dungeon makes everyone in this city a lot of money. Delvers like us go in to harvest and pull things out of it, the hunter's association takes their share of everything we bring up as either coin or shares of our spoils, the city gets its taxes from both the delvers and the association, and a lot of the raw materials are turned into new things by the crafters. A majority of everything that comes out of the dungeon or is crafted by someone here is exported to other places for even more coin. Money really flows freely here. The city spends a lot to make sure the caravans that are importing and exporting goods make it back and forth to Ironcastle safely.")

I gestured over to one of the nearby tables of loud drinkers. ("Is that why these guys can afford to drink so much?")

("Alcohol prices are pretty low because they import it in large volumes from Ironcastle, I've heard. Delvers are known to drink a lot because of our magically enhanced constitutions and the high stress of working in the dungeon, plus Ironcastle usually has rich yields of grain. Delvers drink a lot in Ironcastle too of course, but they grow enough grain and hops there that they can export a lot of it to nearby cities.")

("Enhanced constitutions?") I asked.

Luna smiled. ("When we kill monsters in the dungeon, or even monsters and magical creatures that have mana outside of dungeons, we absorb some of the mana into ourselves. That mana strengthens our bodies, sharpens our focus, deepens our mana pool, and makes us healthier and harder to kill. That goes for poisons and alcohol too. We don't absorb the mana as quickly as you do through eating the monsters, but we do get stronger for every monster that dies near us.")

("I suppose that makes sense,") I said with a shrug.

Piper sat down at our table with three mugs of ale. "You drink, right Helena?"

"Not really," I replied. "I've had some but I only recently turned twenty-one."

Piper raised an eyebrow. "Twenty-one? What does that have anything to do with anything?"

"It was... No one is allowed to drink under the age of twenty-one where I came from."

She laughed. "Not allowed? By who?"

I shrugged. ("The government?") I said through the rings.

Piper scoffed. "What kind of city would ban alcohol under twenty-one? Most people would leave."

Uh... I was starting to see a disconnect here. I switched to talking through the rings so nothing would get lost in translation. ("Piper, are cities independent here? When I said government, I meant all of the cities that belonged to the country I was in.")

Her brows furrowed. "Wait wait, you're saying someone controlled all of the cities in a region and allowed none of them to drink alcohol under twenty-one? That sounds ...."

("Tyrannical") Luna told me through the rings.

"Well... It's a bit more uh, difficult than that."

"Complex I think you mean," Piper corrected.

"Sure. Anyway, alcohol is kind of bad for you, especially for young people. It can have all sorts of bad effects on the head. Regardless, I didn't drink much. I did get really sick on my twenty-first birthday but that was a while ago."

("I'm not a big drinker either, just a mug or two is good enough for me,") Luna said.

I picked up a mug of beer and took a sip. It was warm and pretty bitter. I didn't drink much beer back home, I mostly drank fruity cocktails, so this was kind of... gross.

"I don't get the feeling I'll be much of a beer drinker either," I said before forcing myself to take another sip and setting the mug down.

Piper took a sip of her ale. "You know, that makes you the same age as me, Maxwell is a year older than us and little Luna is a year younger."

Luna's lips pursed and then Piper suddenly laughed.

"No, I will not stop calling you that. You'll always be little Luna to me," Piper proclaimed. "Oh shit, there's Maxwell and Aria. Looks like bad news." She leaned over and waved.

I turned around and saw the two of them coming over. Maxwell looked mostly relaxed but Aria looked down.

Maxwell waved at one of the waitresses. "Five more!" he called out pointing at my mug of ale.

"I don't know if I can drink all that," I told him.

He shrugged. "I'll finish it if you can't."

Piper reached out and grabbed Aria's hand. "You alright?"

Aria took a breath and replied with a shaky voice. "I'm the first of my party to return to the surface... well past our expected return date. It's been two months since we were supposed to return so they marked us as missing, likely dead. That means I can't account for almost three months of time between the last thing I still remember and waking up when you guys saved me."

There was a long silence at the table before she continued. "I... I left a note but I'm going to stick with you guys from now on if... everyone will have me..."

Luna tapped me on the wrist. ("Tell her I'm happy to have her.")

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I nodded. "Luna says she's happy to have you, and I am too."

Piper squeezed her hand. "Of course you're welcome with us."

She sniffled and wiped the tears from her eyes. "I just hope what the dungeon showed me wasn't real..."

"The dungeon lies," Piper snapped. She suddenly looked guilty and quickly cleared her throat. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be so... forceful with that. But it's true, don't trust what the dungeon showed you. That floor intentionally manipulates you so that it can break you down and make you vulnerable. I wouldn't trust anything it showed you as true."

I nodded. "It showed me stuff that I know isn't true to mess with me. Don't let any of that bother you."

She took another deep breath and nodded. "You all are probably right. I'll... try to put it out of my mind."

Maxwell nodded. "If you're joining from here on, then I'll tell you what we told Helena. Even split, five ways now. Chests are distributed to whoever can best use whatever we find, sold for money if no one wants it. If the dungeon favors someone too much we might agree to take it out of your share. Other items are on a case by case basis, we can figure it out if it comes down to it."

Aria sighed. "Sure, sounds standard."

Maxwell paused as a waitress stopped by to drop five more mugs of ale on the table. She smiled but didn't say anything.

"So," Maxwell said. "That brings us to the next thing we need to talk about. I have some good news, some bad news, and some really good news."

"Bad news first," I said instantly.

Piper laughed and Maxwell shook his head. "Fine. Bad news first. After I talked with them about some of the strange things we went through on this delve they're closing the dungeon off to independents. Only the large guilds they work with will be allowed to delve for a while, that means that we will have to go to Ironcastle before our next payment is due."

Sounds like good news to me. I do not want to go into that dungeon anytime soon. I'd really like the opportunity to see a bit more of the world first.

Luna tapped me on the shoulder with a big smile. ("And the good news?")

I smiled. "Luna really wants to know the good news now."

Maxwell nodded. "Good news, we got paid a pretty decent amount for information on the monsters and how to deal with the entrance on floor seventeen, especially with the included pelt of that bear-thing. We got paid a good amount for the umber hound sighting too, with the pelt as proof of that. Less well for the weird monster we fought in the bloody halls since we don't have anything but our word on that one. We also got a lot for the news that the lost halls are... broken, or whatever happened to them."

I smiled wider. "And the really good news?"

Maxwell smiled back, happier than I had ever seen him. "After everything, assuming Helena contributes a bit, we will have enough to pay off the rings if we go straight to Ironcastle and deliver the money in person."

Piper cheered as she and Luna raised their mugs of ale and clinked them together.

I raised my mug as well. "Of course I'll contribute!"

This got another round of cheering, this time with all of us joining in the toast as our mugs crashed into each other.

"How tight will this make us?" Piper asked.

"If Helena contributes about half of what she made, which is about what each of us were already putting towards the goal, we should have plenty left over for good food, some small purchases, the caravan to Ironcastle, and ANOTHER ROUND!" Maxwell called out the last part loudly to the waitress who laughed and waved at him in acknowledgment.

Luna looked happy but I could see some hesitation from her. I tapped her on the knee. ("What's wrong, Luna?")

She turned to me looking a bit sheepish. ("We were also saving for someone to teach me silent casting.")

"What about Luna's magic lessons?" I asked out loud.

Maxwell's face suddenly fell a bit. "Right... those. Since we are so close to the goal of the rings, we might need to put that on hold..."

"Could I make up the difference?" I asked.

Piper shook her head. "Probably not, we were already putting a lot of our funds toward that pool to make earning money easier, but if we're this close to our debt now, we need to prioritize getting rid of it. I'm sure Maxwell was including the amount set aside for that. It will take off a lot of the time pressure we've been under though. It will make it much easier to save for silent casting training after." Piper paused for a few moments while looking at Luna before replying to whatever she had said to her through the rings. "Of course we'll still help you with that, it's not like our group is splitting up the moment the rings are paid off. We're family and we need to stick together."

The earnestness of Piper made me tear up a little. I reached over and grabbed Luna's hand. "I'll help too! We'll make sure to earn it even faster this time!"

Luna hugged me from the side and nuzzled her face into my neck. Her display of affection was so sudden it caught me off guard. And her ears were tickling me. I laughed and wrapped my arms around her before pulling her chin up and giving her a kiss.

"Not in front of the children," Piper joked.

I laughed while letting go of Luna. "There's no children in here."

"There could be! Unlike your backward society, we allow our children to drink! Like civilized people!" Piper said with a laugh.

Maxwell let out a big hearty laugh that I hadn't heard from him before. "Get the children out of here, more for me!" He lifted his mug and started to down the ale in one long draw.

Caught up in the mood I lifted the mug to my lips and tried to match him but I quickly had to give it up because I couldn't handle the taste. This only made everyone laugh when I started to cough and sputter halfway through my mug.

"Careful Luna, your girl doesn't look like she can handle her alcohol," Piper said turning to her.

Luna just stuck her tongue out at Piper before attempting, and failing, to do the same thing just as spectacularly. After a while, even the dour mood that Aria was in had faded and now she and Maxwell were having some sort of drinking contest.

I licked my lips, happy with the pleasant buzz I was feeling halfway through my second cup of ale. I wasn't much of a beer drinker but I was having lots of fun. Good to see that whatever happened to me didn't completely take away my ability to enjoy booze too. Luna slid her chair closer to me and leaned against my arm. She took another sip of her ale and sighed as she relaxed against me.

The five of us had a couple more rounds before Piper eventually pushed us toward our respective rooms. Piper had booked a third room at some point during all of that and she ushered the two of us into one of them alone. I'd like to say that we enjoyed our night together, but the two of us passed out moments after slipping into bed together.