<~> CHAPTER 73

I woke with a start and looked around wildly at the unfamiliar room I was in.

("Helena? Are you okay?") Luna worriedly clutched my side as I began to calm down.

I shook my head and rubbed my face. "Just... I wasn't sure where I was when I woke up. I freaked out a little..."

("It's okay. You're safe here. We're not in the dungeon anymore, you can relax.")

"Right... right..." I pulled her against my chest and took a deep breath. "I need to buy some clothes today. The spare clothes I got from the clockwork floor aren't very comfortable for sleeping in..."

She nuzzled into my side and let out a contented sigh. ("There's a lot of stuff we should pick up if we're planning on heading to Ironcastle next. We should also get you signed up as a hunter at the association, the membership fee will be cheap relative to the amount of money we must have gotten from our last delve. We might want to see if there are any deals on equipment while we're at it too.")

I ran one of my hands up and down her back gently, enjoying just staying close to her. "It might be fun to go shopping, maybe we should go just the two of us and have dinner together afterward," I switched to the rings for the part I didn't know how to say, ("like a proper date.")

The corner of her lips tugged into a smile. ("I think I would like that... we'll have to get our shares of the coin from Maxwell and visit the money changer for that gold we found in the dungeon too. After that, it should be fine for us to spend some time alone together and visit a few shops.")

I leaned in and started kissing her, happy to have the time away from the others. She let out a surprised gasp when I started making out with her but she quickly leaned into it and showed just as much enthusiasm for the kiss as I felt for her. Her hand trailed up the side of my face and cupped my jaw. When I pulled away I felt a bit breathless, I'd never had the chance to make out with someone like that before. It felt so good being this close with Luna.

She smiled as she trailed her fingers along my jaw. ("I liked that,") she whispered through the rings.

"I liked that too," I said before planting another kiss on her forehead.

She rested her head against my chest again and sighed. ("Can we lie together for a while longer? In the dungeon, we never got a chance to just... be together for a while.")

I ran my fingers through her hair and smiled. "Of course. Let's rest a while longer."

***

A few hours later we were coming down the stairs back to the bar on the first floor of the inn. Unlike last night the place was a lot more quiet and reserved. The few guests that were here at midday weren't loud and rowdy, they were just quietly eating and drinking in the relaxed atmosphere. All of us pulled out a chair as we took the same table we had been drinking at last night.

"Right, so first thing's first, the money," Maxwell said as he pulled a bag from his pack and sat it on the table. He gave a quick glance around at the other people in the bar but didn't seem that concerned about it.

"Is it smart to do that here?" I asked.

Maxwell shrugged. "If it were busier here, maybe not. But most people in this town are delvers and it's more profitable to make your money in the dungeon than risk stealing from people on the surface. Anyone who would try to steal from us would be more likely to try and steal from other people in the dungeon instead, where they'd be less likely to get caught."

"I thought you said the dungeon was closed?" I whispered.

"Closed to independents like us, not everyone. Anyone working in a large company or for a business will be delayed, but not barred from the dungeon. Likely only a third of the people in this town are independent like us."

I nodded. "Sure, but why are you independent then?"

Piper sighed. "A few reasons. First, not everyone would be willing to take Luna because she's functionally mute, especially because we would have to insist on staying as a group. Second, a lot of companies end up with downtime between contracts. It ends up being about the same amount of money or better in the long run, but not making enough money before one of our payments was a huge risk we couldn't take. Lastly, while it's harder to find jobs, the ones we do get pay better because we don't have to give a cut to the company we would be working for, we only pay the taxes to the city. Even though contracts with independents tend to pay less, we still make more since we keep everything after taxes, it's a win-win if we can find someone who needs something from the dungeon."

"Were you on a contract this time?" I asked.

Piper shook her head. "No, we were in there to get stronger by fighting goblins and bringing back whatever valuable stuff we could find. We were already close to having what we needed for this payment so we were working on getting stronger and putting away what we could for Luna's magic training." She turned to Maxwell. "Oh, that reminds me. Did you remember to report that guy we took with us as dead?"

Maxwell grimaced. "I did. They weren't happy about that but I explained what happened. They hadn't had any reports of goblins using poison either but with everything else we brought back, they believed me. The dungeon is getting more dangerous across the board, no one knows what's happening to it. The goblins using poison was just another piece of that puzzle. I paid some of our earnings to his sister like we agreed, I'm just happy that I wasn't forced to talk with her in person."

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Piper nodded. "The guy was an idiot but it's never good when someone you fight with dies."

"Helena," Maxwell said focusing on me. "I showed the association the umber hound pelt and bones as proof it was down there, but I kept them for you. I think the pelt would make great armor for you, I'll show you an armor smith that I like if you think it's a good idea. Since it was your kill I took part of your share from the other stuff to cover treating it for tanning, but I didn't want to sell it before I knew what you wanted to do."

Luna tapped me on the arm. ("I agree that you should get it turned into armor. We don't know a lot about how your wolf form functions magically, but armor made from an umber hound could resonate with your magic. It might make your wolf form stronger or even have other effects.")

I nodded. "That sounds good then, what about the armor I found in the dungeon?"

Maxwell shrugged. "It's decent armor but magically enhanced armor from an umber hound would be better. You could sell it as secondhand armor or keep it as a backup."

I tapped the crystal on my hip. "I think I'd also like to have this made into something practical. Even if it is just something like a lantern for me while I'm wearing the blindfold."

Piper nodded. "We should find a jeweler to examine it, see if it's worth anything. Do you have any more of it than that?" she asked while gesturing to the stone.

"I have four shards about this size," I said tracing my palm, "and I have six that are about the size of my fingernail. I thought that it would be neat to have matching jewelry or something made from it."

"Since it's magical, it might be useful for its effects too," Maxwell added.

"Uh, I know of a good jeweler that I could introduce you guys to," Aria interjected. "I've worked with her a few times to run crystals back from the twelfth floor for her."

"Are you independent too, Aria?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yeah... Rodrick was really good at finding us contracts so we never had any reason to join a company." She looked down at the table. "He was such a people person..."

The mood soured and there was a long pause.

Maxwell cleared his throat. "For now, let's divide the money amongst ourselves." He opened the bag and started dividing the money into five groups of coins in neat stacks. He pointed at the largest of the groups first. "This amount here is what we need for the rest of the debt, including Helena's contribution toward it. A little under seven gold wyverns altogether. These four stacks are what we're dividing up between the rest of us."

"Do you have any money, Aria, or are you broke?" I asked her.

"I had some money held at the bank for me... Since you four didn't charge me anything for bringing me back up with you guys, I should have maybe half of one of these splits in total," she said gesturing to one of the groups of coins.

Maxwell gestured to the four groups of coins next. "Each of us will get nine gold tigers, eight silver bears, four silver pumas, and sixteen copper rabbits. The rest of the debt that we owe, including what he had saved, is six wyverns, eight tigers, and four deer." Maxwell looked up at me for a second and realized I was struggling to follow. "That's sixty-eight gold tigers. Tigers are ten to one gold wyvern. Ten deer or five puma to one silver bear, ten bears to a tiger, and twenty copper rabbits to a deer," Maxwell said quickly pointing to the different coins. I might have to write this down for myself...

I pointed at the stack of gold tigers. "That's a lot of money then, isn't it?"

Piper and Aria laughed and Maxwell shook his head in amusement. "Yes and no. It is a lot of money to a villager or someone who isn't a delver. You could get a lot of beer and food for one of these gold tigers, maybe an entire winter's worth for a single villager. But to us, this money can go fast right back into our equipment. If you do decide to get that armor made, half of your tigers will probably go into that, even with the materials you'll be giving them for it. You might be able to make a deal if you let him keep whatever umber hound bones he has left over, but I'd expect it to be expensive."

"And how much is that magic teacher that Luna wants?" I asked.

"Thirty-five tigers is the price we were quoted, could be more could be less depending on who we talk to and how busy they are," Maxwell replied.

I nodded. It did seem that was out of our price range for now. We needed some equipment and clothes and stuff and even if we pooled all of our remaining money we would have around forty tigers. We could do it, but we wouldn't have as much left for anything else.

"What about the money changer?" I asked.

Maxwell nodded, "This doesn't account for any of that. We agreed that you could keep everything in that first chest you found, including the money, but we were going to split the coins from the other two chests. This doesn't include any of that. They have to weigh the gold and silver and then they take a cut before trading them for hunter coins. It takes a while so we should probably do that early in the day."

I glanced at Luna and smiled. "I wanted to spend some time with Luna alone, clothes shopping and having dinner. Can we do that today or are we too busy?"

Piper snickered. "We don't mind letting you have time to yourselves but there's a bit too much to do today. We need to visit the money changer which will take a while, we should look into the armor and crystals, and we still need to sign you up for the hunter's association. We'll have a couple days before we leave for Ironcastle though so you'll have time to spend with each other," she said with a wink.

Maxwell nodded. "We need to take care of the big purchases like your armor first before you spend money on clothes and luxuries."

I frowned. "Having more than one pair of pants outside of my armor doesn't feel like a luxury."

Everyone laughed and giggled as I shook my head.