Maroftis awoke feeling clammy, and he had a splitting headache. He was alone in his room, and he looked out the window to gauge the time. It looked to be late in the afternoon, but he didn’t feel as hungry as he thought he might, given the length of his self-induced coma. He struggled to his feet and went looking for the others. Vanya was the only one still at the inn. He found her in her room, working on her alchemy stuff.

“What are you brewing?” he asked, sitting down on one of the beds in the room. It was much smaller than his own, and given the smell that still lingered, it belonged to Isla.

Vanya looked up from her work; she had been carefully adding a green paste to her present concoction. “It’s a potion of protection from poison.”

Maroftis nodded approvingly and asked, “I could have used that last night. When did you learn how to make that?”

Vanya gave the mixture a quick stir, and then she held her hands under the middle chamber of the three-tiered glass contraption, cupping the glass. It looked to Maroftis as if she had cast a spell, but not much seemed to have changed. When she finished, she looked up and said, “I met a hedge witch yesterday, and she gave me a few recipes. We’re going to trade potions tomorrow. I am able to make these.” She motioned to her alchemy kit, which contained her current project. “I can also make a minor healing potion since I have the materials, recipes, and magic skills to make them. I have both body magic and life magic skills, so these will be more potent than if made by someone who only has one of those skills. Brenda, that’s the hedge mage, is going to make me some frost breath potions to trade for them.”

The frost breath potion seemed interesting, and the ones that she could make would be very useful for the rest of the party. He was unsure if they had run out of the healing ones, but he never needed them anyway. Not only that, but he remembered that he didn’t want to hear her talk about potions at all. He wanted to find out what happened after his blackout, but he knew that it would be better to continue talking about things that Vanya was interested in first to butter her up. She was the best one of the group to get the information from because she wouldn’t give him shit about it—not much, at least. He thought of what to ask that might not result in a lecture. “How long have you been at it?” he asked, feeling that was pretty safe to ask.

“Pretty much all day. I stopped to eat when I ran out of mana. I started to prep the next set of ingredients while I waited for the points to come back. My skills have been increasing, and I’ll be able to make these two potions so long as I have the proper herbs, although Brenda said that several herbs could substitute these, and that my spell casting is the most important thing in the process since it enhances potions of like kind. Picking up the healing touch spell has increased the HP regen of the minor healing potions that I make, and these are now as effective as the normal healing potions that I could make before I learned the spell.”

He felt that he had her reasonably buttered up and decided that it was time to ask the tough question. “So, ahh, um, what happened after you came back to the table with help?”

Vanya raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, if you remember that much, then you should be able to guess what happened next.” She paused, waiting for a reply, but he was not about to give her one, so she continued. “You passed out and nearly broke the table. It took seven of them to get you into bed. Look, the magic here is very potent, and that drink you had was likely fortified with magic of some kind. You really need to be more careful; that regeneration of yours doesn’t make you invincible, so knock it off.”

He imagined being hoisted up the stairs and wondered why so many were needed to bring him to the room and how it was accomplished. Were there two per leg? “Seven?” he asked, looking at her with his head tilted to one side.

Vanya threw up her hands, clearly exasperated. “That is what you focus on? Really?” She folded her arms and shook her head in disgust. “Yes, Ewt, Taloc, Vult, and a Human; I think that his name was Jessop; all grabbed an appendage, and there were three Dwarves that helped; one had your head and the other two were underneath you.”

Well, she hadn’t given him shit about it, but the mothering was worse. He even felt a bit bad about it. Changing the subject, he asked, “So, where is everyone else today?”

Vanya frowned. “We’re done with that, then?” she asked. She shrugged and looked up, thinking. “Isla wanted to see the town. She said something about doing some shopping. I think that your buds wanted to find someone with strong casting ability to ask questions of, or maybe they already had a lead, I don’t know.” She paused to add something to her potion before continuing. “Ewt was vague, but I think that he went exploring again. At any rate, they should all be back before dusk, or I guess, second setting is what they call that here.”

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Maroftis checked his HUD. He still had nearly two hours before that, but they could be back sooner. “Thanks,” he said. “Sorry for being an ass.”

Vanya’s expression softened. “Forget it. Go get something to eat before they get back. You’ll feel better. You look even greener than normal.”

Maroftis nodded reflexively, but he found that he wasn’t hungry, a first for his time in this world. He scratched his head, being careful not to cut himself in the process. “I’m actually not hungry.”

Vanya looked at him, concerned. She stood and walked over to him. She closed her eyes and reached to put a hand on each side of his head. She had to stand on her toes even though he was sitting and she was standing. She stopped short of touching him when she realized what she was about to do. “May I?” She asked. He nodded, and she grasped his head in her hands. Her hands were warm, but he felt no obvious spell working on him. After a minute, she let him go and stepped back. “I can tell that something is off, but I have no idea what the issue is. My life magic skill probably needs to be at a higher level. I would take it easy for a while and, of course, avoid alcohol for at least tonight.”

“Are you kidding?” he said, laughing. “Best way to cure a hangover is to drink.” Vanya didn’t look amused. “Fine, fine, I can take the night off.” She didn’t look placated, but her frown had lessened. “You finish up your potions, and I can get us a table, okay?” She nodded and went back to her work, so he made his way downstairs.

Some of the workers gave Maroftis reproachful looks as he walked through the tavern area of the inn. A Dwarf stopped him before he could go to a table. “You are heavy, ya drunk ass.”

Clearly, this was one of the Dwarves who was underneath him when they carried him to bed. “Were you the head, middle, or bottom?” he asked.

“Bottom, you smelly bastard.”

That was interesting. He fell on his stomach on the table, and he woke up on his stomach. “Were you under my tail or my junk?” he asked with a smirk.

“You green-skinned son of a...”

He decided to cut the little guy off. “It’s okay if you grabbed my package. That’s a great hand hold. If I pissed on you, I’m sorry, man.”

“You did no piss on me!” The Dwarf could barely contain his anger.

“Oooh, was it something else? Was it sticky?”

The Dwarf spit at his feet, turned around, and stalked away. Maroftis had another comment ready, but he thought better of it. He was cool with fighting the little guy, but he didn’t want to have to change inns on day two. Well, mostly he just didn’t want to hear about how he caused them to change inns on day two.

No longer blocked by a raging Dwarf, he went into the common room of the inn. He claimed the same table from the previous night. He sat down in the chair designed for his kind and motioned a server away as she approached since he was neither hungry nor thirsty. He settled in to wait for the others.

Vanya arrived first. She was served a vegetable pie, and Maroftis could tell that it was heavily spiced. Vultressant and Taloc arrived next, arguing about something, but they stopped as they approached the table. Isla was next, and she spun around and flourished a new cloak. It looked nice, but the yellowish color would stand out easily in most settings. He thought about saying as much, but she looked pretty happy with the purchase, and she might not take kindly to the criticism. Maybe if she were drunk?

They had all finished eating by the time that Ewtain sat down. Maroftis could sense that he was emitting an unusual amount of heat, as if he had just run for miles. He might have been training, or he may have just run back to the inn when night came. The only part of Ewtain’s face that Maroftis could see was his chin, because Ewtain had the hood of his cloak pulled all the way forward.

When he sat down, Ewtain ordered a roast chicken and a beer. Taloc nodded to the Night Stalker and said, “Now that we’re all here, I want to fill you guys in. Vult and I found a caster. We heard that he’s a summoning specialist, and we made an appointment to see him tomorrow morning. Does anyone else want to go with us?”

“The guy takes appointments?” Maroftis asked. “Is he a bigwig or something?”

“It’s in a pretty ritzy part of town,” Taloc said, “but I don’t know his actual status.”

“I would love to go,” Vanya said, “but I have to meet Brenda to trade her the healing potions, and a few resist poison potions for some that I lack the magic to make properly.”

“You have any extra healing potions?” Ewtain asked.

“Not right now, but I’ll make some to equip the party with by the time we go out again. Oh, and if you use multiple healing potions over a short period of time, the effects begin to diminish, so try to only use one at a time and try to space them out over several hours.”

“Good to know.” Taloc gave her a thumbs-up and looked to the rest of the group to see if anyone else had an interest in joining them tomorrow.

“I’m trying to gain an audience with the council in charge of this city,” Isla said. “We have some coin, but the word is that they will pay for missions. Hopefully we can get some bonus experience for questing.”

“Sounds good,” Vultressant said. “Just try to make sure that you go for something level-appropriate for us.”

Maroftis had no plans, and he wanted to ask the caster a few questions. “I’ll go,” he said simply.

Taloc looked to Ewtain, who just shook his head. “Then it’s just the three of us,” Taloc said. “We’ll report what we find out tomorrow night. Vult and I visited the foundry again, and we do have enough cobalt to have the magical weapon made using the demon core.” He turned to Ewtain. “Are you still cool with me using the core?”

Ewtain waved him off. “Sure, no problem. You need it more than I do,” he said.

“Thanks, man,” Taloc said.