The clink of wood against ceramic underpinned the sound of life within the dining room as we ate. Last night, Maggie asked the innkeeper if she’d serve her favorite tonight and the kindly woman delivered. A trio of ribs, slathered in sauce, and place high upon a pile of rice and potatoes went well together with the house’s signature ale.

  Across from me, Ellen laughed at something Nora said. I’d missed the joke, too engrossed in my food. But Mika blushed, and Nora looked at him with a smug grin. When Ellen collected herself, her eyes were wet, and she was slightly out of breath.

  “You guys up for a tavern crawl?” Ellen asked.

  “You got some places in mind?” Mika asked in return.

  “Not really. I figure we can find a couple and go from there. Can’t be too hard to find a place to drink.”

  I’d never been on a tavern crawl before. It was kind of impossible to do in the forest unless you want to travel for days in between stops to go to new villages. I’d read about them, though. They were a common trope in a lot of my favorite adventure stories. The [Heroes] would save the day and celebrate with a crawl, losing themselves in well-earned hedonism.

  “What about you Bran? You up for it?” Nora asked.

  “Yeah, but I’ve never done one before.” I responded.

  “For real?” Ellen asked and leaned forward, elbows on the table.

  “It’s just not really possible back home. We don’t have enough taverns to go on a crawl.”

  “What’s the most you’ve got in one place?”

  “There’s two in Restless Breeze, but usually, the villages only have one big tavern that doubles as the main community space.”

  “I can’t believe we get to be your first.” Mika said with a smirk.

  Ellen tried to cuff him on the ear, but Mika swayed out of the way and shifted that smirk to her.

  “You’ll scare him.” Ellen said, faux chidingly.

  “I asked around some today.” Ellen said as she shifted her attention back to the rest of us. “And I know about a couple of streets where we can go. Do you guys have anything you want to do in particular?”

  Everyone, including Maggie, gave ideas for things we could do, but I kept quiet, content to let them decide.

  ~~~***~~~

  My shoes squeaked against the polished hardwood of the dancefloor, as I swayed together with a woman in her twenties who had grey hair and smiling eyes. Behind us, the tavern’s raised seating area bustled with people in line for drinks.

  Worn rugs lined the floor, their once fine patterns dulled and diminished with age and use. Above the bar, bare threads of fabric the same colors as the rugs hung from the ceiling to dangle above the [Barkeepers].

  I passed my partner off to the person beside me and spun to catch the woman who spun my way as one of the [Bards] sung of easy servings girls and the pleasure of having one on his knee. His partner, an older woman who worked wonders on the fiddle, interjected with various ‘oh yeahs?’ and ‘reallys?’ as the first wove his tale.

  Halfway through the song, as the woman took the lead and sung about the pleasure of teasing easy bartenders, Nora found her way to me. It was a little awkward at first, but eventually we both relaxed and the steps came easier.

  Nora moved with the skill of a trained dancer and I was almost sad when the switch came and I spun her away to dance with her next partner, a woman only a couple years older than me.

  When the last verse came and the [Bards] sung of always coming back to each other, Ellen spun into my arms. She had her eyes closed as she twirled over to me. When I caught her and she opened her eyes, she froze for a second and stiffened.

  Unsure of how to continue, I took the lead and spun her into a dip. Hand on my chest, Ellen had a small smile when I pulled her back up. Both of us loosened up as we continued to dance. Some tension remained, and we lacked the ease that came with dancing with strangers, but neither of us was uncomfortable.

  As we continued to dance and drink, I got looser and somehow the woman with the grey hair found her way back to me more and more. On our second dance together, I learned her name was Melindra. On our fifth dance, I spotted Mika across the dance floor from me with a redhead a couple years older than him. When we caught sight of each other, we both smiled and spun our partners to show off before refocusing on the dance.

  ~~~***~~~

  The tables left wide grooves in the sawdust as we pushed them to the side of the room and revealed a wooden floor that was stained to the Hells and back by any number of mystery fluids. In front of the now open space, a man, mug in hand, hopped up on a table and started to belt out a folk tune.

  Behind him, one of his friends slammed down their near empty mug in rhythm to the song. Flecks of cheap ale flew into the air with each beat and soaked the table. The rest of us in the Golden Wheel gathered before the man and sang along.

  I had no idea what the lyrics to this song were, but after a couple verses, I knew the chorus and I belted it as loud as I could with the others. The sound was raucous and joyous, and terrible on the ears. When the song ended, the man just started again, and we all had no issue in following.

  By the end of the third repetition, the man was dancing on the table, capering and jumping as he sang of little Billy and the long march home.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “The march hoooome!” The man belted and jumped forward.

  He landed on the edge of the table and tipped it. The table crashed into the floor and the man followed shortly behind, his hips thunked into the upturned edge and the crowd groaned as he folded and rolled bonelessly onto the floor, sawdust clumping on his ale-stained shirt.

  We waited in silence to see if the man was okay, the ten or so of us present all pressed near together as we watched the man try to muster himself. Drunkenly, the friend who provided the beat stood to help their friend up. They almost fell and landed on the singer, but collected themselves before that could happen.

  Together the two managed to right themselves and a few weary blinks later, our singer raised his still mostly full mug of ale and cheered his triumph to our uproarious approval.

  ~~~***~~~

  Seated on one of the dozens of high-top stools at one of the tables that stretched the length of the room. I had to focus hard to hear Mika and his story over the din of the people around us.

  “You should have seen the look on her face. We had to escort her out of there like we were [Royal Bodyguards].” Mika laughed.

  “Still got a second date though.” Nora said, smug as she swayed on the stool.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Mika said and swung his arm out to the side where it hit a glass and spilled it on the person beside him.

  Dressed in a pair of work overalls and heavy leather boots, the man cursed and moved to stand; three of his six friends rose to join him.

  “Divines man! Watch what you’re doing!”

  The man Mika spilled the drink over looked to be about our age, with shoulder-length brown hair and too large lips. Before he’d even looked up from the stain on his work clothes, he went to push Mika but stopped when his eyes finally connected with us.

  The man’s eyes had first landed on Ellen and paused, but as he took each one of us in, he shrank farther and farther down until he was mumbling apologies and his friends were corralling him to leave.

  ~~~***~~~

  Half cast in green from the light of the walls, I held Mika’s hair back as he puked against the side of a bar. The rough stone of the wall dug into the flesh of my palm, and the sound of vomiting mixed with the loud chatter as people passed by the alleyway Mika chose for this.

  ”Do you think Ellen saw?” He muttered as he caught his breath.

  “Nah, she was at the bar getting another round.”

  “Thas good, thas good. Thanks for do-“ Mika paused to heave, everything already gone from his stomach. “Thanks for this man. You’re a good dude.”

  I smiled down at the man and patted his back as he continued to heave.

  ~~~***~~~

  “So help me Mika, I swear I’ll spank you if you don’t stop squirming.” Ellen chastised as I shifted Mika across my shoulders.

  Mika slurred something into my shoulder, but I couldn’t hear him over the quiet chatter of the crowd. The sun had finally started to fight against the walls for dominance over the skies and, like a clarion call, people started to leave the bars and taverns in droves.

  Skipping out in front of us, Nora weaved her way through the crowd with all the grace of a dancer while Ellen walked behind me, a hand on Mika’s back to keep him from rolling off me.

  “Thanks for taking care of him.” She said as we walked.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I said. After his second puke and rally, Mika forced a promise from me that I wouldn’t reveal to Ellen how drunk he was.

  We were long past the point of no return on that front, but I gave my word.

  “Yes, you do.” Ellen sounded fond as she said that. “Seriously, thank you. He needed this, and I don’t think he would have let himself be this free if you weren’t here.”

  I said nothing but turned to smile at Ellen, who smiled back.

  Mika was sound asleep by the time we reached our inn. I had to walk through the doorframe sideways to get in, careful not to smack Mika’s head. When I finally got Mika through the door, I noticed someone laughing and turned to see Maggie picking Nora up off the floor with her eyes turned towards us.

  She carried Nora over to us to check in and after we told her we were fine; she left to take Nora to her room while Ellena and I went to get Mika into bed.

  Mika fought to throw his blankets off again, for the fifth time since we put him to bed, thrashing his feet to get the covers off.

  “Gods above and below Mika, just sleep.” Ellen complained and flopped down on top of him.

  We were all pretty drunk at this point and Ellen flopped down over top the smaller Mika with the limp grace you only get when drunk.

  Mika fought back a little harder and mumbled something about getting off of him, but Ellen wasn’t having any of it and fought even harder to stay in place. I left the pair to their drunken flirting after moving the trash can over beside the bed.

  Out in the hallway, I saw Maggie leaving Nora’s room, a small smile on her lips. When she saw me, she waved before she marched up to me and took my arm.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “You hide it well, big guy, but not well enough. Someone’s got to make sure you get to bed nice and safe now don’t they?” Maggie laughed.

  ~~~***~~~

  I had to close my eye against the sunlight in the common room the next morning as I came down the stairs. Maggie and Nora already seated at a table. Somehow Nora looked no worse for wear even though she was drunker than both Ellen and me.

  “Bran! Glad to see you up and about.” Maggie said as I sat down.

  I groaned in response and flopped bonelessly against the table, shielding my eyes from the light and barely avoiding the plate of breakfast they must have ordered from me.

  It took another hour for Mika and Ellen to make an appearance. Both of them looked even worse than I had, and Mika had a permanent wince etched onto his face. I’d recovered somewhat since I first sat down with a lot of water and an intense amount of greasy breakfast food, but I still felt little better than when I’d first sat down.

  Nora watched her friends’ approach with a smile and straightened in her chair, adopting the most formal posture I’ve ever seen from her.

  “If you wish to fly with the owls, one must soar with the eagles.” She pronounced, index finger held high into the air.

  Ellen groaned, but Mika started to laugh, only to cut off a second later with a headache.

  “Speaking of flying with the owls.” Maggie said, testing out the phrase. “What’d you guys end up doing last night?”

  Maggie had come to the first couple bars with us, but never drank and left because she said she had some Guild duties she needed to attend to. Part of me suspected, however, that she’d left purely to give us the space to bond away from the eyes of an authority figure.

  “Normal stuff, dancing, singing, drinking.” Mika answered. “El and Nora tried winning a couple of drinking contests, but Nora was smart enough to stop after her first puke and rally.”

  Mika blushed a little at the end, but mostly passed it off.

  “Won one though.” Ellen murmured into her sleeve, head down on the table.

  “What about you Bran?”

  “Lovebird over here spent most of the night flitting from dance to dance.” Nora said before I could answer.

  She wasn’t wrong. Most of the bars we went to had at least one musician performing, and I’d always loved to dance. Maggie laughed some and eventually the conversation drifted away from the night out to what we planned to do for the rest of the week, though Mika brought it back around a couple of minutes later.

  “Why didn’t you end up going with that girl from last night?” He asked, instantly bringing everyone’s attention back to me.

  “Who?”

  “That tall one, grey hair? I saw her try to pull you away before we left.”

  “That was how Helena was born, trying to avoid having any more for the time being.”

  That was true, but there was more to it. Even though Rebecca and I weren’t betrothed, and likely wouldn’t be. My marriage would eventually be a political one to aid the needs of the Cult. However, Rebecca and I had agreed to act as if we were betrothed and I would not break that promise, even if it wasn’t official.

  “That mean you want more kids someday?” Mika asked.

  “Eventually. Give Helena some brothers and sisters once I’ve made a name for myself. Carve out a reputation of my own, y’know?”

  “I do.”

  I doubt Mika noticed it himself, but the loving gaze he cast at Ellen might as well have painted his feelings on his forehead. Either luckily or unluckily for him, Ellen was too busy with her head buried in the crook of her arm to notice the look.

  This was far from the first time I’d seen the pair exchange loving looks, and this was far from the first time I wondered what held them apart. It was obvious they cared for each other and somehow completely obscure to them. I refrained from asking about it, however. One of them would eventually work up the courage to confess to the other, and I didn’t want to spoil that eventual moment. A moment that, judging by the look Nora gave the pair, was long in the making.

  “Hey, I was wondering if you’d guys would want to go see a play with me tomorrow night.” Nora asked and shifted attention away from Mika’s lovestruck gaze.

  All of us, including Maggie, quickly agreed. Nora smiled and gave us all the details of where we should meet up, before she gave us the dress code and quickly excused herself to go run some errands. The rest of us slowly filtered away from the table after that, and I found my way back up into my room.

  I wanted nothing more than to fall asleep and escape the headache that tried to cave in my skull. That would be a waste of a day, however, so rather than sleep, I focused inwards and activated Beginner’s Shield Art.

  Two hours later I returned to the material plane, and the headache returned in full force, angrier than when I’d entered the skill.

  That was how I spent the day, entering my skill to escape my hangover and only just returning to the material world to feed myself, take care of nature’s calling and regain enough mana to return.

  When I came out of the final session of the night, I had a notification waiting for my arrival.

  Congratulations! Through your efforts you have mastered the class skill Beginner’s Hammer Art! +1 Strength awarded!

  You have one class skill and two general skills available for selection. Would you like to do so now? (Y/N).

  With a painful expression of will, I focused on the no option and closed out the notification, content to save that for another day as I worked my way beneath the blankets of my bed.