Chapter 256: Book 4: Chapter 13: Spring Forward, Fall Back

I relaxed into the hot spring, closing my eyes and letting the scent of the mineral water wash over me. I heard some sloshing as the rest of the clan made their way into the water, and then the sound of a splash as Aqua pushed Annie into the deep end.

Then there was some more splashing, some yelling, some burbling, and then blessed silence.

I opened my eyes to see Aqua laying face down in the water as she floated past.

“Is she dead?” I asked.

“No. She can hold her breath for a surprisingly long time.” Annie muttered, coming to sit next to me. Balin sat behind her and began washing her back with a soapstone. They were both wearing nothing more than a beard for modesty. It’d taken time, but I’d gotten used to the dwarven predilection for group nude bathing. It wasn’t common in Canada, but Caroline and I had gone to a few nude bathing places in Germany. This wasn’t much different.

Just a lot hairier.

After a solid two minutes, Aqua finally twitched and emerged from the water with a gasp. She shot Annie a rude gesture and paddled off into the darkness; most of the underground hot spring was still unlit.

“Okay. I’m convinced. Let’s move.” Johnsson said brightly as he floated by on his back. “Our tub at the Goat is nice, but this is amazing, and I can feel the minerals working into my skin. We could charge a fortune to come here. And it has a public and private entrance from the clan area, it’s perfect!”

“Of course it’s perfect, it’s meant for us,” I said. “This whole section is.”

By whole section, I meant the basement of the Cascadian Goat. After the army had cleared the top ten floors, they’d made their way down to the basement, to find a cavernous storage space half-filled with kegs, the hot spring caverns, and a door they couldn’t open. When I’d put my hand on the locked door, there’d been a flare of magic, and then we’d been able to enter.

The space was a rough replica of our living quarters in Kinshasa, even my room and my secret nook. The biggest difference was that it was at least five times larger, stretching through the rock to encompass a space nearly as wide as the inn above. There was also a private kitchen with no food, a library with no books, a working bathroom with no toilet paper, and a hundred hallways with no lights. Which made it right on the ‘no’se for Barck. Nyuck!

The army had eventually decamped, and I’d been sent out to relocate the door to a temporary space in the Kinshasa Goat. We’d sent for solstones, and the Diggers were currently setting them up throughout the space. Then we’d retired to the hot springs, because hot damn we needed a break.@@novelbin@@

Annie groused, “Oh, you think it’s meant for the clan, do you? What tipped you off? Was it the fact that only a recognized clan member can open the door? Was it the Goldstone name on the lintel? Was it the giant painting of me in the dining hall?” Her voice gained an edge at the end there. She’d quite literally fainted dead away when we’d finally gotten lighting set up in the unnecessarily tall dining hall to reveal a nearly ten meter tall painting of her at the head of the hall.

She'd wanted to take it down; we’d all disagreed.

Besides, it was a nice painting! She was all dressed up in armor and carrying a keg over one shoulder and a Whistlemug in the other. And it was painted by a God! It was pretty much a holy relic!

As I found out, Barck – of all the Gods – had a tendency to leave holy relics lying around, so it wasn’t particularly valuable, but it was definitely special.

My only problem with it was – where in tha Nether was the fancy portrait of me!? This was my Ability! Ugh!

All in all, it was a lovely housing space, even if it had its quirks. Barck had clearly put some effort into making sure we’d be comfortable moving right in, and Annie was quickly coming around. Especially after she and I perused some of the kegs. There were at least five kegs of elven wine, and a collection of nearly every major brewery’s Sacred Brew, plus some harder alcohols from the Human Kingdoms, like Gin and Whiskey. There were even several varieties of Mead!

The most important though was the single small cask of the First Brew. The entire clan had come to stare at it, and we’d sworn everyone to secrecy. A cask of the First Brew absolutely could start a war!

I’d just barely stopped everyone from drinking it then and there, and then I’d had an epiphany!

Sure, according to Barck’s letter, these barrels weren’t going to regenerate, but I could just find someone else with [Bottomless Barrel]! Why bother with having it myself when I could hire

someone to do it for me! Haha! I was a genius!

Especially for the elven wine and some of the smaller casks of mead, it would be necessary to ensure we didn’t use them up.

Richter came and sat down next to me with a massive splash. He sighed and stretched out into the water, wiggling his toes. “Marvelous,” he sighed. He pulled a wand out of his beard and sketched some sigils into the air. Soft multicoloured lights flared out of the sigils and began to dance along the natural rock off the ceiling and walls. As it reflected off the water it leant an ethereal air to the entire place. The clan fell silent and just watched, letting the peaceful feeling of the underground take us.

“When do you leave?” Annie asked, eventually.

“A week,” I replied, matter-of-factly. “None of this changes the timelines. Joseph wants ta strike while the iron’s hot, and I think tha Dukes want me out of their beards fer a bit.”

“Bah, he’ll not be gettin’ rid of you that easily.” Balin chuckled. “Now that we’ve got this, it’ll be like you never left home!”

Annie pointed to another location on her back, and Balin got to work on it with his soapstone. She turned to me. “I was going to say that we’ll miss you, but if we move in here, I guess you’ll be able to come visit whenever you want.” ＲＡ𐌽ǑβƐṢ

I nodded. “How long do you think we’ll need to transfer everything over and open officially?”

“At least a month. Especially if we’re going to open up in Kinsahsa and the elf-lands. Where did you say you were headed, again?”

“Tree.”

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Johnsson snorted. “What a daft name. Y’know, at least we’ve never named a city rock.”

“‘Dere’s always tha city of Diamond, and Granite Rock.” Richter corrected him.

“Fine,” Johnsson conceded the point. “It’s still not just rock.”

He and Richter began to quietly bicker about the etymology of city names, while Balin and Annie cooed over each other and rubbed each other's feet.

I slipped deeper into the water and let it close over my head. Its warmth enveloped me in a cocoon, and I floated in the semi-darkness like a child in the womb. It was very relaxing.

Until the womb thought made me realize that I’d almost forgotten something.

I still had to pay Pete Samson’s mother’s debt.

Well, that was tomorrow Pete’s problem. Today Pete’s problem was remembering to come up for air every once in a while.

–

Dwaaaarf, screw yesterday Pete. That guy sucked.

I sighed as I sat in line. Again.

I was a national treasure now, so surely I could get some preferential treatment in city hall?

Nope. I had to wait in line like the rest of them. Even pulling Lordship had its limits.

I’d considered going directly to meet Pete’s mother, but she was probably in the far East and I just didn’t have a way to get there easily.

So it was two hours or so until I finally met someone from genealogy. They were more than happy, after seeing proof of my identity, to give me access to my personal records.

And there it was. The information I’d never bothered, or simply not wanted, to see when I'd first arrived in Erd.

‘Peter Roughtuff: Next of kin

Father: Sam Barrelbow

Wanted

Current Address: Unknown

Mother: Garnite Barrelbow

Current Address: Fourth St. NW. Kikwit.’

Kikwit, as it turned out, was indeed in the far East. Maybe I’d visit one day, when this was all over.

Name in hand I made my way to the bank. In Kinshasa, the central bank was located inside city hall, for many reasons. The first of course was that Crack only had the one central national bank. The locals considered a decentralized banking system a recipe for economic collapse. I… chose to remain neutral on the topic, not having enough economic knowledge to agree or disagree.

The Bank had the proper respect for Lord Roughtuff, Forefather of Brewing, and co-owner of Whistlemop’s Emporium and The Thirsty Goat. I got to skip the entire line and was shuffled off to a VIP section for nobility by the flustered teller, Urist Mcbanker.

Garnite Barrelbow was in debt to the tune of a hundred thousand gold, which was enough to buy a pretty nice house in Kinshasa’s Greywall district. And that was the remaining balance after she and Sam had been paying into it for the past decade. It was a large amount, but not as extreme as I’d feared. The interest would’ve been killer, though. I grumbled and paid off the entire thing, to Mcbanker’s surprised delight.

Good deed for the day done, I was making my way back through City Hall when I ran into an unexpected face.

“Starshine!” I exclaimed, spotting the brightly armoured dwarfess muscling her way through the twisting lines of bored dwarves.

“Oy! Pete!” She waved back. “Are you here ta hear the news?”

My face scrunched up. “What news? Please say it’s not big news. I don’t really need more big news right now.”

“Well, howsabout you come with me, and you can find out!” I couldn’t see her face through her visor, but I was pretty sure she was grinning from ear to ear.

I’d set aside more time than I needed for waiting in line, so I had some to spare. I followed eagerly, peppering her with questions she happily deflected. She brought me straight to Duke Schist’s office and ushered me inside.

The Duke was inside with Mcgofer, and he gave a surprised “Aha!” as I walked through the door. “Pete! You came! Did you hear?”

“Uh. No. Starshine’s been teasing me. What is it?”

“Is she with you? Ah there you are, come in, come in!” Schist called as Starshine entered, pointing to two chairs. “And grab a seat. I was just about to send for you Pete, so this is good timing.”

We sat, and the Duke conferred with Mcgofer, who began searching the paperwork on the table.

“So, Pete, after our little adventure yesterday, we approached Ambassador Stannard. Our main concern was that Awemedinand wouldn’t want you as ‘Beer Ambassador’ anymore. However, we received full approval from their King the other day! In fact, he’s now excited to meet you! They’d love to be able to explore your dungeon and see what new plants are inside. So their only requirement to grant you full entry without even the requirement of a [Statustician] is to allow one of their adventuring companies inside.”

I considered it. It wasn’t a bad deal, and it went a long way towards our plan of mutual cultural exchange. “As long as it’s just a Gold ranked team. I don't really want anybody more powerful waltzing in. Not until we’ve got a bigger clan and more defences set up.”

Schist grunted. “Oh, if an Adamantine ranked team wanted to, there’s not much we could do to stop them other than send the army in. But teams like that don’t do things like that. They have better things to do, and besides, they have certain limitations imposed on them as state adventurers.”

“Do we know the team yet? Is that why Starshine’s here?” I asked, shooting a curious look in her direction.

“We do! It’s team Raptor’s Respite from Tree.” Schist announced with a bit of flair. Starshine clenched her fist and hooted with excitement. Mcgofer looked smug.

I just looked blank. “Who?”

“Ah, of course you wouldn’t know,” Schist sighed. “They’re one of the up-and-coming Gold teams. Much like Team Brightstar. They’re quite close ta Mithril rank, actually.”

I gave Schist a sardonic look. “Someone’s gettin’ a bit full of himself.”

“Pah! Says the Forefather of Brewing.”

“They’re famous for something they call ‘Speed Runs’, where they try to get to a dungeon boss and then defeat them as quickly as possible!” Starshine gushed. “And they’re led by the second prince of Awemedinand!”

I nodded, understanding. “And you’ll get to meet ‘em, since you’ll be explorin’ Cascadia.”

“No, because we’re comin’ with!” Starshine cheered. “Balin gave tha go ahead, since he’ll still get to schmooze with his lady in your fancy dungeon bar! We’re part of your guard contingent!”

“And you leave in a week!” Schist grinned, putting his fist out for a fist-bump. “So, are you ready to make it official? Mr. Ambassador?”

I thrust my fist out. “Aye!”

*Bing!*

Quest Complete: The Ambassador Part 1/3!

Congratulations Mr. Ambassador!

Gained 1 Charisma! Your new Charisma is 22.5!

*Bing!*

New Quest: The Ambassador Part 2/3!

You’re off to meet the King! Unless something unfortunate happens!

Meet the King of Awemedinad: 0/1

Rewards: [Karmic Reversal]

Do you accept?

Yes / No

I hit yes. Onwards, to Awemedinand!

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