"So..." Talia said. "...e here often?"

  "No, I've never been here before in my life," I said, eyes forward, because I was driving.

  This m, at first light- Talia and Faith were not happy about waking up that early- I'd finished loading all my shit into my room, along with Talia's since her house was maybe two hundred feet away, and then headed out to pick up Faith and then Emily, loading their trunks into their rooms.

  An hour ter, the sun had fully risen, and I was very grateful I had the adjustable sun-shades to keep the low m sun out of my eyes. Ba the 'portable house' half of the van, Emily and Faith were both up in their rooms, having immediately gone back to sleep. Talia, however, had retly woken back up and e down to the driver's to be with me.

  "...You bored?" Talia asked.

  "Yeah, more than a little," I said, sighing. "I swear, driving this thing is the worst mix of b and 'needs stant attention.' Fuck me running... And I signed up for four days of this!"

  "You do know you pull over, take a few mio recover, and the going again, right?" Volex pointed out, as she slipped out of her reliquary. sidering how freely she could enter a that thing, I ted myself very lucky that she was reasonable and friendly; a more typical demon on a defective leash would've tried to maul me by now. "I've seen the schedule too, and if you stop for a ten minute break every hour or so, that'll o up ara hour and a half per day- an hour and a half out of a time block that you designated as 'non-essential, use for whatever.'"

  "...Point taken," I said. "Alright, well, this road has stone walls on both sides to keep livesto, so I'll wait until we get to somewhere I pull off the road a myself a drink."

  "Have you eaten breakfast yet?" Talia asked.

  "I ate a travel ration bar this m, but..." I grimaced. "...Well, I think I got the recipe wrong, because that thing was not as filling as it should've been. Or maybe I just got the portions wrong- I'm not sure. It didn't taste great, and I didn't at for it in our actual travel rations, I just figured I'd want somethira that I could eat quickly, and-"

  "How's scrambled eggs sound?" Talia asked.

  " I get some toast with that too?"

  "Sure."

  Talia got out of her seat, and ambled bato the living space.

  "Volex, you go with her, and maybe offer to cook for her?" I asked, ohe door had shut.

  "She's that bad, huh?" Volex asked, smirking.

  "As a Druid, Talia does uand that humanoids are naturally evolved to eat and digest cooked foods," I said. "She is, however, not very good at cooking, because something about the process just disagrees with her brain. As it stands, I repared to do all the cooking on this trip, because I am good at cooking and I like doing it, but..."

  "Got it," Volex said, nodding. "Well, as it so happens, Terpsichore asked me to cook for her a lot, ba the day, so I'd say I'm pretty good at it." She grunted. "Of course, I did learn all the ingredient names in High Elven, so I might need someoo trahe bels on the spice bottles, but..."

  "Oh, I already rebeled all those," I said breezily. "I know it doesn't matter that muans, but as an elf, it just sets my teeth on edge to see things written in anything besides High Elven. How you expeyoo be able to read that in two hundred years' time? But, at the same time..."

  "It's a mass-produced spice bottle," Volex finished. "It's a disposable piece of ephemera. It's barely meant to st more than two years, let alone be legible in two hundred. Anyhow, I'll go interrupt Talia before she does any more damage."

  She left the driver's with a swishing of fabrid the clig of her heels against the textured metal floor of the , leaving me alone in the once again.

  "Four days of this," I said quietly, staring ahead at the wide open ndscape of grassy pins and various farm animals, without even a hint of the vilge we should be ing up on visible on the horizon. "Four fug days of this."

  I huffed miserably. I wonder if I could teae of the others how to drive this thing...

  At around eleven in the m, we arrived in a town called Sandsdale, named after the sandy little gully that a stream flowed through, even in the summer. I checked my map, and after a few moments of muttering to myself to figure out just where the hell we were, I carefully navigated my van through the town's poorly-cobbled streets until I arrived at our first real rest stop: the Sandsdale Traveller's Inn.

  Alongside the Gods of Mages, Padins, Thieves, and h-prestige Hikaano professions, there was the God of Innkeepers, of all fug things. The Innkeeper's Guild wasn't just a professional anization of innkeepers, hotel owners, aauranteurs, it also employed a number of cartographers and copywriters, and operated a publishing house that regurly produced high quality maps, travel guides, and almanacs for the typical traveller.

  Adventurers were, of course, a major source of ine for the Innkeepers, but that didn't mean that prices at a Guild Tavern were eously high- while the food was a little more expehan what you could get from a street vendor, it was still totally possible for two people to walk in with a dolr between them and walk out with full bellies.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I must've misheard you."

  "It's twenty dolrs to park here for an hour, and a hundred for a full day," the valet repeated.

  The operative word in that assertion was walk in. See, Adventurers and aristocrats were the only people who traveled through town in vehicles, and those o go somewhere when they weren't moving. So, in order to milk this wealthy tele for all they were worth, the Innkeeper's Guild absolutely gouged you on parking fees.

  This wasn't the only reason I wao take the train, or even the main one, but the fact that twenty dolrs would've bought a ticket straight to Mount Fate that included meals was definitely one of them.

  "...Alright," I muttered, reag into a pocket and pulling out a twenty-dolr bill. "Here."

  The valet took the bill, and then tore off a ticket from the end of a reel, before tearing it in half and pocketing one of the halves. "You'll have to show this at your departure, sir. Don't lose it."

  "Thanks," I said, instead of yelling at the guy who literally just works here, and probably wouldn't get paid even ten pert of that bill for today's work. It wasn't like he set the prices, after all. "Where do I park it?"

  "Right in this marked spot, sir. Carefully, now."

  "That's highway robbery!" Faith nearly yelled.

  "Please don't yell ihis very lovely tavern," I said, my voice raised a little. I then quieted back down to a normal inside voice. "Look, we're Adventurers now, and what that means is that everyone expects us to be rich assholes, and nobody is going to feel bad about milking us for everything we're worth. Because as far as the an is ed, Adventurers already stole and looted all that money. So, no, we are not going to start a fight or cause a se because the Innkeeper's Guild, a business which has to make moo pay its employees and suppliers, has decided to charge wealthy patrons a premium for services that are legitimately expensive."

  "Legitimately expensive?" Faith asked, her low volume belying her simmering anger. "Joseph, it is ay plot of nd where you park caravans for an hour. How exactly is that expensive?"

  "That's ay plot of nd that could have beeo build a house, pnt a garden, or do all sorts of other productive things," I said. "Ihe town's perimeter walls, where it's so vely close-by. And instead of any of those productive uses, it had to be used for parking. The money you'd gain from turning that into a house or a food garden is, versely, the money you lose by not turning it into a house or a food garden."

  "Well said, young man!" someone said from behind me, promptio turn around.

  Walking up to us was a well-dressed middle-aged man with wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, and a brightly gleami of teeth ihat mouth. His skin was a light-medium brown, the sort that left you unsure of whether it was a tan from w outside, or just what he naturally looked like. His hair was shiny bd curly, with dots of salt beginning to poke through the pepper, especially in his goatee.

  "Yes, indeed," the man tinued, ing to a stop at the end of our table. "The eic principle of which this young man speaks is called opportunity cost, and it is one of the more basid also more important, terms of art for we in the Mert's Guild. Now, young dy, I hope you will five me for the presumption, but- you did not grow up in a wealthy household, did you?"

  "...Not really, no," Faith said. "We weren't poor, Mom and Dad always had food oable, and we never worried about not being able to pay rent aing kicked out, but... I got a single dolr's monthly allowance, growing up. And I khat Mom and Dad couldn't give me more than that- they were stretg just to give that much. So..."

  "So, now that you're part of an adventuring party, you're experieng some culture shock," the man said sagely. "I uand pletely- I had a simir experience when I first joihe Mert's Guild. Oh, I was very good with money when it was just numbers on paper for my exams and coursework, but twenty dolrs? That was as much money as I spent in a whole month on food, rent, and a new pair of socks. But, when you're a mert, dug all these business deals... You deal with huge amounts of money. Mohat perhaps isn't yours, and that you 't spend freely, but that you're still spending. And after a while... Well. When you're cutting a deal worth a million dolrs, spending a hundred dolrs on a good bottle of wio lubricate the iations feels less like aravagance, and more like a hard-nosed business expense."

  "...Hm."

  "What I mean to say is... You'll get used to it, young dy. Just give it time."

  "Thanks, I guess... Mister, uh...?"

  "Oh!" The man smacked his forehead with the heel of his palm. "Where are my manners? Augustus Hernandez, active member of the Mert's Guild. I do apologize for interrupting, young man, but I'm told you are the owner of that steel caravan with the shiny red paint. I don't suppose I could vince you to tell me where you got it, I?"

  Augustus pnted his hand oable, leaning forward a little, and in a little sleight of hand trick, a hundred-dolr bill appeared underh that hand, stig out enough that I could grab it.

  "I built it myself," I said. "And while I don't have the time to build one for you or whoever your t might be..." I hummed quietly. "...Well. That doesn't mean we 't talk business, Mister Hernandez. Go tell the valet we'll be another hour, and I'll grab you a seat."