Last night was a party for the record books. Twice they sent Cain back to Graska to get more whiskey, and the sun was well up in the sky when the party ended.
By unanimous vote, there will be no dungeon run today, but Cain and Kone plan to sneak in an hour or two this afternoon to get her to level 70. Assuming they ever get out of bed, that is. Currently, they're both in Cain's new room, as Kone insisted the Sunnybrook Guild House was too loud last night. The Druid is cuddling the Giant Lynx on the cushions while Cain, Vala and Nemu have taken the bed.
The lack of windows makes time hard to tell, but his stomach tells Cain that it's dinner time. When he gets back from his shower, he finds that the Vala twins have moved to the hot tub with a bottle of wine, and Kone is mostly awake, sprawled out on the cushions.
"Shall we go eat? My stomach says we've missed a couple of meals already." Cain says, and Kone lifts her head from the Lynx.
"Good idea, we should see if everyone else survived too. First, though, I need to be clean." Kone says, heading towards the shower.
Cain is about to grab food when it dawns on him that Vala is in the hot tub. Without armour. "When did you learn to do that? The system still shows your armour equipped." Cain asks, confused.
"Not sure. When I stuck my hand in to check the temperature, it prompted me to hide equipment for bathing. So here I am, with this lovely Elven wine and a hot bath." Vala shrugs.
One less reason to ever need to dismiss her, Cain decides. Not that she sweats anyhow, as far as he can tell, but cleaning her armour while wearing it has to be annoying.
A brunch buffet is being set up in the tavern, with enchanted serving dishes keeping everything at the right temperature. Cain tops off the mana pool for the device and loads up a plate before calling up the stairs to come to the tavern for food.
The Graska residents have all gotten seated around the big central table, and most of the Sunnybrook residents have arrived when the door opens, revealing four unexpected faces. The Dwarven Kings advisor, with a young female Dwarf in royal household uniform holding an armful of notes, and the Mayor of Sunnybrook with his personal assistant.
The Tavern technically isn't open until tomorrow, but Cain is almost certain they're here on official business and not to drink.
Mythryll and Dimnys walk in behind them, with more assistants and clerks from the two cities following and Tanya darts back down to the kitchen, calling for Triss to start more potatoes.
"Welcome to the Darklight Tavern and Guild House. I suspect there's an arrangement already made, but please, help yourself to food and drink." Cain welcomes their visitors, standing up to shake hands with the dignitaries.
"The Mayor came by this morning, wanting us to take on a quest to find allies to keep the Ogres in check, and the King here was agreeable, also concerned about the Ogres coming down. There will be more meetings between other groups today in a bunch of cities, but this was the easiest place to hold the one between Graska and Sunnybrook." Mythryll explains.
"Misha and Cixelcid have gone off to Peaceful River through the Demon Dungeon along with the captain of the guard and a level 80 elite escort team," Lickity adds, pouring honey on spiced potatoes, which is making everyone give her strange looks.
"The Fae Alliance is meeting with the Council from Sunnybrook at the base of the mountain as we speak. They weren't happy about not getting to lead the effort and take every city involved into the alliance under their control, though, so we'll see where that goes." The Mayor of Sunnybrook laughs.
It's the same thing every time, they want to control everything. Maybe the Guild should have sent a mediator to help things get done. Or maybe not. Successful negotiations means having to deal with them more often.
"The Sunnybrook Council also had a valuable bit of information for us. If you have a level 80 group leader, or a Demon leading the Raid party, you have the option to Raid the Demon Dungeon. It becomes much tougher, with a whole new layout." Mythryll grins at Cain.
Candia and Cixelcid don't count as demons, being Vampires, but Lickity is a Succubus. If they can gather the whole guild into a higher level raid, they should be able to gain a bunch of levels in a hurry, which will be a great benefit, as the main Ogre Kings in the Northern Territory have Level 85 and 90 elite troops.
The meeting between officials lasts all day and will continue tomorrow. The Sunnybrook groups have brought crystal balls for communication, so tomorrow, they will try to reconcile all the agreements between various cities to ensure no conflicts.
Cain has arranged for the visitors to be put up in the Guild House tonight, and a few extra hands have been hired from the Orphanage so they can enjoy an evening feast without anyone needing to go home afterwards. But if this is going to become a regular thing, they're going to need either an expansion of the building or a visitors lodge built nearby. Possibly both. There's a vacant property next to the backyard with no street access, so they might be able to create a fortified lodge there for extra visitors.
The Guild has also reached rank two after the awards for killing the Ogre King, which expands their member cap from 20 to 50 members. They're not in a hurry to grow, but if they take in more members, Cain would rather not have both houses packed to the point they can't house visitors.
He runs the idea by Gramps, who shows him on the deed that the vacant property is already part of theirs, just fenced off because the last owner didn't want to develop it. He insists Dwarves can build a perfectly suitable building on the odd-shaped lot, so Cain orders him to make something well secured, with mostly bunk beds in barracks and a half dozen three room suites for dignitaries.
The usual delegation is only a few nobles with their assistants and a dozen guards, it seems, so they can arrange for twice that without issue. The building will also conveniently give them more storage space that they're greatly lacking, with the basements connected through a tunnel for ease of movement and storage rooms dug in the solid stone under the back lawn, except for one corner, where Kone, Ohla and Char have convinced everyone of the need to build a natural pool hidden by tall shrubbery for relaxation.
