Grim awoke with a start, his unfamiliar surroundings the first thing in his mind. He rolled quickly off the bed, daggers almost seeming to appear in his hands without conscious effort as he fell into a low crouch. Some kind of illusion? He looked around, seeing that he was in some large shared bedroom space–save that the only other bed was empty. He heard voices outside the window, happily chatting voices occasionally raised in laughter.

  ? Then the memory came back to him. Evandross. Meeting his ancestor. The dungeon. Veyra officially recruiting him. Ironmarsh. Ironmarsh! He let out a low breath and rose from his crouch, sheathing the daggers. How long had he slept? Looking out the window again, he saw it was still dark. The noise of the mess hall downstairs had faded, at least. Now it sounded as if some party had moved to the outside. All was well.

  ? He could return to bed and sleep through the night, he knew. But he felt well-rested enough, and his curiosity nagged at him to go downstairs and spend more time interacting with his new guildmates. That choice was easy to make.

  ? As he’d expected, the mess hall was nearly empty, and the few people inside were silent, eating food with haggard, tired expressions on their faces, their hair and clothes rumpled from sleep. That made him run a hand through his own hair, making sure he looked presentable. But he wasn’t hungry, so he stepped through the front doors, making his way out and around the large building to the back.

  ? In his previous time here, it had been too dark to make out any details, but he knew that there were stables and a bathhouse nearby. What was more visible now was what seemed like an outdoor eating area, with perhaps a dozen smaller tables. The crowd here wasn’t silent, but they were talking at a normal volume compared to the chaos of the mess hall and dinner.

  ? “Grim!” he looked to the sound of the voice and saw a dark-skinned woman. Meredith, was it? No, Miranda. She gave him a small wave, beckoning him over. “Sorry, did this lot wake you up?”

  ? “Not really,” he said, returning her warm smile with what he was sure was less effect. “I’ve always been a light sleeper. I think my body just got what it needed and nothing more.”

  ? She hummed thoughtfully as he claimed a seat next to her. Remembering their previous interaction and Garf’s comment about her eyes, he did his best to avoid meeting them, instead looking around the space. “Sleeping light is good for when you’re outside the wall, that’s for sure. But you’ll have to learn to sleep a bit heavily if you’re going to stay sane in this guild.”

  ? He could see the good sense in that statement. Still not looking right at her, he forced out a quiet laugh. “Well, if Veyra’s anything to go by, I’m sure I’ll have an interesting time fitting in.”

  ? “Grim!” She playfully smacked his arm with a laugh, forcing him to glance at her. “I’m not going to charm you! You can look at me.”

  ? “Err, sorry,” he said, actually looking at her now. The blue irises were still entrancing, but he felt no strange compulsions. “I’ve never encountered anyone with eyes… with powers like yours.”?

  ? One silvery-blue eyebrow raised on her forehead, and she pointed at his face. “It’s just a bloodline, Grim. You have one too, I can tell.”

  ? Ah, right. He’d somehow forgotten about his eyes. He blinked quickly, as if that would somehow make them less obvious. But if Miranda was interested in learning more, she didn’t say so, only leaning back in her chair. “Besides, I want people to look at me safely, unless they’re an enemy. Unless you think I’m not much to look at?”

  ? She put a finger to her chin and stretched out, displaying her lithe body better in the light. Grim had to admit she was beautiful. But it was in an exotic way, like a bird flashing its colors to display their territory. It felt… dangerous in a way. Not like…

  ? He looked around the space again, trying to see if he could spot Maven. The memory of that woman was lodged firmly in his mind even after his delirium, and he was sure she’d appeared in a dream or two. To his pleased surprise, he saw Maven sitting alone at a table nearby, holding a steaming mug in one hand and a book in the other. She seemed to notice him glancing her way and looked up, favoring him with a small smile.

  ? “Mm. You smell like the road, Grim,” Miranda said, leaning over to take a sniff. He caught the scent of some kind of berry on her breath. “You know, the bathhouses are right there. They’re going to be reheated and refilled in a bit, too. Get in while the getting’s good, you know?”

  ? “Thanks,” he said distractedly, surveying the other people in the outdoor area. He saw Garf sitting on a bench near the rear entrance of the building, busy with a sort of vertical wrestling match with another man. “Looks like Garf is having fun.”

  ? Miranda perked up and looked over as well, then let out a low whistle. “Daaamn. Frankie’s boyfriend? He’s gonna get in trouble for that in the morning.”

  ? So there seemed to be some people in the guild that didn’t favor having multiple partners, as Veyra and Miranda clearly enjoyed. That put him at ease, as he was the same way. Despite only having some small flirtations with past girls in the Starter Guild, he hadn’t cared. He wondered what Maven’s stance was… No. He shook his head to get rid of that thought. He had a goal, and dating would just get in the way.

  ? “Oh, there goes the water boy,” Miranda drew him back to the outside world as she jerked her chin toward the bathhouses. A man was exiting them, a long, wobbling ball of water following in the air behind him. “Love you, Gerald! You’re an invaluable member of the guild!”

  ? The man, Gerald, looked around and locked eyes with Miranda, a smirk on his face. “Test me, Miranda, I dare you. I *will* splash this on you.”

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  ? “As if,” she snorted, but Grim noticed how she looked more wary. “That water’s filthy! You haven’t got the-”

  ? Gerald jerked his arm forward in a throwing motion, and Miranda threw herself to the side with a squeak. Grim did the same, diving off his chair in the opposite direction, preparing himself for the splash of old, dirty water to cascade over him. But nothing came. He heard Miranda’s angry voice. “Gerald, you asshole! I got dirt all over me now! I’m gonna-”

  ? A deluge of water hit the spot where Miranda had stood a split second before. Thankfully, she’d dodged just in time, but quite a lot of it still splashed over her tunic and skirt. Grim fared slightly better, as he hadn’t been the intended target, but he still got quite a lot of it over his boots and breeches.

  ? Laughter rang out as Gerald called over. “Well, I rinsed the dirt off. You may now thank me.”

  ? Miranda leaped to her feet and charged Gerald with surprising speed, tackling the man into the thick bushes around the bathhouse, hissing like a feral cat. Grim wasn’t sure, but he swore he saw ice coating her body before she vanished. Even Garf and his companion broke apart to join in the laughter and look around.

  ? “Gods, she’s too easy,” he heard someone nearby mutter. The companion at their table snickered.

  ? “Yeah, but she’s been trying to charm Gerald for weeks. Think she’s just frustrated.” That spawned more laughter, and even a few wolf whistles. Someone shouted for them to get a room.

  ? Picking himself up off the ground, Grim looked down at his clothes and grimaced. They were rather stained from the road, and his recent tumble onto the damp and soaking with old bathwater had only made it worse. Deciding to take up the advice Miranda had given him, he made his way over to the bathhouse, decidedly ignoring the rustling bushes as Gerald and Miranda wrestled just out of sight. At least, he hoped they were just wrestling. But, to his surprise, Miranda appeared a moment later, her hair tousled and her face locked in a scowl.

  ? “That’ll teach him!” She huffed, stomping forward. Then, seeing Grim standing there, her anger fell away. “Oh, sorry, you startled me. Just teaching that idiot not to throw old bathwater at beautiful women.”

  ? Curiosity got the better of him, and Grim peered through the bushes to see a struggling Gared, buried up to his neck in the dirt and his hair in a frozen tangle–literally. His head wobbled dangerously with the weight of the ice on it. He looked up at Grim’s concern and only grinned. “Worth it.”

  ? Withdrawing and shaking his head, Grim turned for the bathhouse door. He was a few feet inside when he noticed a thick mist obscuring the place. How hot was the water in the baths? Footsteps sounded behind him, and he turned to see Miranda also entering. That was normal enough, as he assumed this was just the first room of the building. But then, to his panic, she started peeling off her tunic.

  ? “Oh, relax,” she said at Grim’s hurried turn. “You couldn’t see anything even if you tried. The mist is an enchantment. Blocks everything from view. Look.”

  ? She moved closer, close enough for him to feel her brush against his shoulder. Against his better judgment, he did glance over at her. She was right. Beyond a vague impression of her face that let him know who it was, he saw.. nothing else. Her entire body was shrouded in that thick mist that somehow didn’t stop him from getting a vague sense of where everything else in the bathhouse was.

  ? “You can choose to let the mist show you if you want. Nobody knows why, but it works. Gerald’s the only one who can properly dispel the mist,” Miranda continued, continuing to strip down. Then, tossing her clothes into a bucket of water lying nearby, she added, “Be careful, though, Veyra *can* see through it. She tried to keep that a secret, but slipped up by commenting on how my ass looked once. I’m onto her now.”

  ? Grim wasn’t sure how to reply to that, so he decided not to try. Miranda seemed to respect his desire for a little privacy, and while the mist provided that, she did keep a respectful distance from him as she explained how the bathhouses worked. The buckets, it seemed, were for cleaning off both clothes and their bodies. The water refilled in them even when the bucket was tossed over their soap-laden bodies, and remained a constant hot but not scalding temperature. Some kind of enchantment, he figured.

  ? Next was the bath itself. He’d expected to find four or five private baths that were taken in turns given the side of the building, but as they left the changing room, he felt his sense of space distorting slightly, and the room into which he moved expanded dramatically. A bath dominated the center of the room with a walking space five meters wide on either end. The bath itself was almost fifty meters long and eighty wide, easily three or four times the size of the building on the outside.

  ? “First time seeing a spatial expansion enchantment?” Miranda asked, smirking as she brushed past him. He nodded numbly, looking around the room. “Love seeing that reaction. It’s also got a bit of time acceleration, too. Two to one ratio, I think.”

  ? The idea hurt Grim’s mind to consider. He knew that, through extreme enchanting skill, spaces could be expanded and altered in many different ways. But making it so that time in a space moved differently from the world outside? That was expensive, and usually only employed in dungeons themselves. It was the reason an eight-hour delve could be squeezed into a one or two-hour time slot.

  ? Miranda took in a deep breath, then sighed in satisfaction. “Cinnamon. Yes! Good call, Gerald! Just for that, I’ll thaw you in two hours instead of eight.”

  ? She turned on the spot and fell backward into the bath, sending a spray of hot water into the air. Grim copied her action, though he got in like a normal person. The water was hot, almost unbearably so, but it dug into his tired muscles and bruised bones, almost battering the lingering effects of the injuries away. It was slightly painful at first, but after a minute or two, all his pains and discomforts faded away, replaced by a blissful calm.

  ? “I wish I could live in here,” he groaned. “This is too good.”

  ? Miranda chuckled from several feet away, leaning back against the edge of the bath. There had been a seat carved at the perfect height along the edges, letting them truly relax and sink up to the neck in the hot, scented water. “I know what you mean. But don’t turn into a Bather on me.”

  ? “A Bather?”

  ? “Yeah. The idiots who spend too much time in the bath. Four hours on average, and that’s in outside time. It’s like they think they can grow stronger in some special way. You’ll know one when you see ‘em. Wrinkly bastards.”

  ? Grim couldn’t worry about that just yet. If he could enjoy even an hour in the bath, he felt like he’d be a brand-new person. With his clothes lying on a bench in the outer room and drying rapidly under a heating rune, he could just relax and let his worries wash away for the time being. He let out a sigh of contentment and sank lower into he water, letting it come up to his chin, and just allowed the water to soak him through.